(edited to add a point on
Aegirocassis and
Parapeytoia)
This week, the Discovery Institute Press put out another book called
Debating Darwin's Doubt. I took one for the team and bought it, in part because a a decent chunk of the book is responding to me. I'm pretty sure I've never been mentioned so much in a book!
Sadly, though, looking through it, almost all of it is material re-hashed from the DI "Evolution News and Views" blog and is no better than it was the first time. There is, however, a new chapter (I think it is new) by Casey Luskin, chapter 9, "Cladistics to the Rescue?" responding to me. If you don't want to buy the book, there is a free podcast at ID the Future (heh), "
Debating Darwin's Doubt: Casey Luskin on Classification of Organisms" that interviews Luskin (although I think he wrote the questions). It has mostly the same material.
Unfortunately, I do not have time at the moment to write the introductory-level-tutorial-from-square-one that would be required to really explain the basics of cladistics and phylogenetics to Luskin et al. I have literally just moved to Australia to start as a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) Fellow in the
Division of Ecology, Evolution, and Genetics, Research School of Biology, at The Australian National University in Canberra. Once I have a bed and a computer in my office I may be in better shape to do things more thoroughly -- I have a bit of a fantasy about writing an R vignette or R package called something like BasicPhylogeneticsForCreationistsEspeciallyLuskin (I'll take suggestions on a better name/acronym).
However, below, I can briefly hit the high points on the small bit of Luskin's chapter that was new.
Except for chapter 9, everything else I've seen pertaining to me in
Debating Darwin's Doubt has already been addressed in previous posts:
Background -- previous posts on the Cambrian/Meyer
Alan Gishlick, Nick Matzke, and Wesley R. Elsberry (2004). "Meyer's Hopeless Monster." Panda's Thumb post, August 24, 2004. http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2004/08/meyers-hopeless-1.html
The "Meyer 2004" Medley - The Panda's Thumb -- the complete history of the Meyer 2004 craziness.
Matzke, Nicholas (2005). Down with phyla! - The Panda's Thumb, which reviewed:
Matzke, Nicholas (2005). Down with phyla! (episode II) - The Panda's Thumb
Matzke, Nicholas (2007). Meet Orthrozanclus (down with phyla!) - The Panda's Thumb
Matzke, Nicholas (2013). "Meyer's Hopeless Monster, Part II." The Panda's Thumb.
Matzke, Nicholas (2013). "Luskin's Hopeless Monster." The Panda's Thumb.
Matzke, Nicholas (2013). "Meyer on Medved: the blind leading the blind." The Panda's Thumb.
Matzke, Nicholas (2013). "A Very Darwinian Halloween." The Panda's Thumb.
Matzke, Nicholas (2014). "Meyer's Hopeless Monster, Part III." The Panda's Thumb.
Here is my main comment responding to Luskin's chapter, "Cladistics to the Rescue?" This is modified from
a comment on Larry Moran's
Sandwalk post.
Key flaws in Luskin's chapter 9, "Cladistics to the rescue?"
(1) Lobopods aren't a natural group. Luskin continues to think of "lobopods" as a coherent group, which results in pointless arguments about e.g. whether lobopods are "closer" to arthropods than anomalocarids. Earth to Luskin: lobopods are a paraphyletic grab-bag. Living arthropods, onychophorans, and tardigrades all descend from lobopods, as do anomalocarids. Phylogenetically speaking, then, all of these groups are *within* the lobopod group.
When Luskin quotes certain authorities (mostly the Erwin et al.
Science paper) calling lobopods a "phylum" (if memory serves, Erwin et al. actually create two phyla out of lobopods, phyla which no one else recognizes IIRC, further illustrating the fundamental conceptual problems with applying ranked Linnaean taxonomy to fossils), he is ignoring what I explained previously about old-fashioned Linnaean taxonomy and the confusions it causes. Some (typically older) authors accept paraphyletic phyla. But it has long been clear that purely phylogenetic classification is taking over. It's already dominant in most areas of biology/paleontology, and it's just taken a bit longer with fossil invertebrates, although that is now clearly the leading edge in the field, even in the Cambrian Explosion research (see the work of Graham Budd, David Legg, etc.) You can't quote authors talking about "phyla" from different taxonomic schools of thought, writing in different decades, etc. without understanding the differences in what they are referring to.
Sometimes it appears that Luskin actually means "onychophorans" or "crown + stem onychophorans" when he says "lobopods". Some of what Luskin says would seem less crazy on that hypothesis. More on taxonomy below.
(2) Panarthropods and the importance of stem/crown terminology. In a similar vein, the new Luskin chapter contains a fair bit of discussion about how different the anomalocarids are from true arthropods, contradicting Meyer/Luskin's previous arguments (repeated in this same book, in other chapters!) about how it was totally OK to lump anomalocarids in as just another thing in the arthropod group! (Another argument for phyla-schmyla! I thought phyla were supposed to be super-duper-distinct!)
Throughout the DI commentary (mostly Meyer/Luskin) discussing arthropods, we see confusion over "arthropods", often evidenced in how Luskin deploys quotes. Sometimes by "arthropods" Luskin means panarthropods, sometimes he means crown-group arthropods, sometimes he means critters sharing "enough" arthropod traits. It is true that all of these usages can be found in the literature over the decades, and it's true that it can be confusing, but THIS IS PRECISELY WHY RIGOROUS PHYLOGENETIC CLASSIFICATION, AND THE STEM/CROWN DISTINCTION, WAS INVENTED IN THE FIRST PLACE. It's meaningless to quote-mine a bunch of quotes with people using slightly different terminology about, say, the position of
Anomalocaris, and to pretend they all mean hugely different things. Typically they are just different ways of saying "on the arthropod stem".
I've taken one position from the beginning, which is that anomalocarids are below the arthropod crown group (exactly how far below can be debated, but these are details), and this means they have transitional morphology. Everything else on the stem (dozens of fossil taxa, at the very least) also has transitional morphology. The transitional morphology is what places them on the stems, instead of inside crown arthropods or crown onychophorans. Thus there are many fossils with transitional morphology between crown-group phyla, and many of these fossils are in the early Cambrian. No, they don't all have to appear in exact chronological order, like a children's-cartoon version of evolution, because fossil sampling is a stochastic process, like taking a phylogenetic tree and sampling it by throwing darts at it, or (for lagerstatten) taking a number of samples at one time-point. There will be an overall correlation between phylogeny and fossil dates, which has been demonstrated in publications in many cases, but it won't be exact. The fact that stem groups are so prevalent compared to crown groups in the early Cambrian is evidence of this time-phylogeny correlation in the Cambrian taxa specifically. But I've said all of this before, not sure why I am saying it again. In
Darwin's Doubt, Meyer missed this crucial transitional fossil data in epic fashion, and all of the subsequent discussion of this point by Meyer, Luskin et al. has been an attempt to avoid the key point: many transitional fossils are known from the early Cambrian.
(3) Anomalocarids and legs. Luskin makes much use of an argument along the lines of "lobopods have arthropod-like legs but no complex head; anomalocarids have an arthropod-like head but no legs (they have swimming flaps); this means the data conflict with the tree and therefore the whole thing is bunk and special creation is a better alternative" (I am paraphrasing, obviously. But that's his argument.) Actually, if that were the data, only one extra change would necessarily need to be postulated, namely loss of legs in the anomalocarids, and adding one character change step to a cladistic reconstruction does no great violence to the data. IDists/creationists, being almost always hopeless amateurs who can't be bothered to get to the library and really learn a topic, basically always think about the evolution of just a few characters, and judge scenarios on that basis. But in real life, cladistic analyses are typically done on hundreds of characters, and cladistic reconstructions will have hundreds or thousands of character steps in the most parsimonious tree. Having a step for leg loss is perfectly justified, if other characters support the tree topology in that region.
As if that weren't enough, we have lots of evidence from all kinds of sources that events like limb loss happen occasionally, undoubtedly much more commonly than limb gain.
But -- this whole discussion is pointless, because the anomalocarid or near-anomalocarid
Parapeytoia had friggin' legs! And it's early Cambrian (530 Ma)! Hello transitional form!
And, on top of that, earlier this year, to international acclaim,
Aegirocassis was published. This guy is Ordovician (480 Ma), and is an anomalocarid, but the specimen is huge (2 meters), and some combination of the preservation and the size allowed the authors to notice that the flaps can actually be separated into dorsal and ventral flaps, and resolve other features of flap anatomy.
The title and the abstract of the
Nature paper tell the story:
Anomalocaridid trunk limb homology revealed by a giant filter-feeder with paired flaps
Exceptionally preserved fossils from the Palaeozoic era provide crucial insights into arthropod evolution, with recent discoveries bringing phylogeny and character homology into sharp focus. Integral to such studies are anomalocaridids, a clade of stem arthropods whose remarkable morphology illuminates early arthropod relationships and Cambrian ecology. Although recent work has focused on the anomalocaridid head, the nature of their trunk has been debated widely. Here we describe new anomalocaridid specimens from the Early Ordovician Fezouata Biota of Morocco, which not only show well-preserved head appendages providing key ecological data, but also elucidate the nature of anomalocaridid trunk flaps, resolving their homology with arthropod trunk limbs. The new material shows that each trunk segment bears a separate dorsal and ventral pair of flaps, with a series of setal blades attached at the base of the dorsal flaps. Comparisons with other stem lineage arthropods indicate that anomalocaridid ventral flaps are homologous with lobopodous walking limbs and the endopod of the euarthropod biramous limb, whereas the dorsal flaps and associated setal blades are homologous with the flaps of gilled lobopodians (for example, Kerygmachela kierkegaardi, Pambdelurion whittingtoni) and exites of the 'Cambrian biramous limb'. This evidence shows that anomalocaridids represent a stage before the fusion of exite and endopod into the 'Cambrian biramous limb', confirming their basal placement in the euarthropod stem, rather than in the arthropod crown or with cycloneuralian worms.
For more commentary, see Edgecomb in
Current Biology last month: "
In a Flap About Flaps." He appears to basically agree with the
Nature authors, although he adds some more considerations about another specimen that may further illustrate the transition.
(4) The Consistency Index (CI) and null distributions Luskin has finally discovered the concept of a null distribution for the Consistency Index (CI)! It's only taken him about 2 years! Now, finally, having learned about it, he can dimly see the problem with his/Meyer's old tactic of squinting at some published CI value and declaring it "high" or "low" without any consideration of what the null distribution is. So, his new argument is that the null hypothesis of random distribution of characters is silly. To that I say -- why? That is precisely what one is claiming if one claims the data have no cladistic tree structure, which is precisely what these turkeys have been telling their readers for years now. (Except Berlinski; he admitted at one point that there is tree structure in the data, which is not made up.)
Luskin then raises the idea that intelligent design could correlate some characters, and this could cause above-null CIs. This is true enough, but such structure in the data, when the designers are humans, is very limited -- all of this was thoroughly discussed years ago by Doug Theobald in his discussion of natural versus artificial hierarchies, in his 29+ Evidences for Common Ancestry FAQ, a resource which Luskin, Meyer et al. still lack the courage to engage with in any detail: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section1.html#nested_hierarchy
If Luskin specified a quantifiable model for ID that specified what parameters are to be learned from the data, and generated distributions of data (or CI or other statistics) from the model, then he'd have some shot at progressing in an anti-frequentist direction. But good luck with that -- IDists rarely say anything specific enough about their designer to be subject to empirical test.
As for going beyond frequentist null-hypothesis rejection, us phylogeneticists got there years ago. Maximum likelihood and Bayesian methods are now dominant in the field (although only just starting in fossil invertebrate studies like the Cambrian; almost the last frontier for this area). For the sake of simplicity, I focused on parsimony/cladistic methods in my critiques of
Darwin's Doubt, and as a result of that, plus the IDists' systematic naivety and amateurism, cladistics is almost all that gets talked about in the IDists' replies. But if they would like tests of common ancestry in a fully likelihoodist or Bayesian framework, where null hypotheses do not have to be assumed at all, we've got that covered. Doug Theobald did that already (also), in his 2010
Nature paper testing common ancestry. We could do it for Cambrian morphology data matrices too, although it would take a couple of weeks of full-time work and thus a grant or a graduate student. Of course, the IDists just summarily rejected that work as well, so I'm not sure what the point would be.
Other loose points:
(5) Character states evolving twice. Luskin seems to think that any character state that evolves twice constitutes a contradiction of evolutionary expectations. So, under his view, under evolution, all character states of any sort, whether complex (wings, eyes) or simple (a bump on a bone, a bend in an exoskeleton plate) have to evolve once and only once, or else common ancestry is wrong and we should just conclude special creation instead. He seems to think that, under evolution, if a character can change states once, there must be some magical force that prevents a similar event from happening elsewhere somewhere else in the tree.
(6) Estimating phylogenies from characters that change more than once. And scotch. Luskin also seems to think that, if characters change states more than once, then the whole enterprise of estimating phylogenetic trees is hopeless and subjective. He ignores a point I made before, which is totally obvious when you think about it, that on any tree that is not tiny, characters that change twice on a tree will still have plenty of phylogenetic signal. In fact, we could easily simulate characters on a tree, give them an evolutionary rate high enough so that the expected amount of change is 2 changes per character on the tree, and then see if we can infer the tree given only the character states at the tips as data. It's not even that interesting to run the experiment, because I know what the result would be: this would be an easy phylogenetic inference problem, given a reasonable number of taxa and reasonable number of characters. I'd even wager a bottle of single-malt scotch on it.
The real puzzle is why Luskin thinks that anyone who actually knows phylogenetics, and knows facts like the above, will take him seriously.
Various things I wish the IDists would get clear in their heads:
(7) Characters versus character states. They don't get that characters can be homologous, even while character states can evolve convergently.
(8) Changing dating of the Cambrian. The dating of the beginning of the Cambrian, and key (although now outdated) subsets like the Tommotian, has been some of the least certain dating in the Phaenerozoic timescale. However, the IDists love to cite dating estimates from the mid-1990s that put the "appearance of 'phyla'" (this whole phrase relies on ignoring the stem/crown distinction) in a particularly narrow time window. They also LOVE to conflate this period with the beginning of the Cambrian, and pretend that the history is basically: unicells, Ediacarans, boom-modern-phyla. This depiction of history is the dominant picture presented in
Darwin's Doubt. But, first, the estimates have broadened in the last two decades; second, relevant stuff was going on before the "appearance of 'phyla'", namely the diversification of the small shellies, still completely inadequately dealt with in
Debating Darwin's Doubt (there is no new material on them in the book); third, the small shellies go back into the late Precambrian, and do not themselves constitute the beginning of the Cambrian; and fourth, if one is phylogenetically rigorous about the crown/stem distinction, many "phyla" originate well after the "Explosion" -- what you have in the Cambrian Explosion is mostly stem groups to the classic phyla, or groups on the stems of classes, etc.
(9) Cladistics isn't the beginning and ending of phylogenetics. It's more the beginning. Many of the limitations of "classic" cladistics (no direct ancestors, no consideration of time, equal weighting of characters etc.) don't apply to statistical phylogenetics.
(10) And, pattern cladistics isn't cladistics, it's an almost-extinct subset of cladistics that was probably always in the minority. Quoting a stale bit of pattern cladistic dogma, whether from an alleged authority or something recycled in a textbook, does not prove anything except one's quote-mining ability. In contrast to pattern cladistics, most modern researchers in phylogenetics think that cladograms and phylograms (and in the best case, chronograms) are an estimate of evolutionary history, not just a description of pattern and not just a method of classification. Most researchers similarly accept that having an estimate of the phylogenetic tree, which automatically includes an estimate of character evolution histories, also tells us many important things about the *processes* involved -- speciation and extinction rates, correlations between characters and these rates, rates of change in character evolution and how those rates change through time (for example, major radiations into empty ecological niches, versus evolution in stable "filled" ecosystems), etc.
(11) It's true that cladistics, or better, phylogenetics, doesn't answer all questions of interest about the Cambrian Explosion, or anything else. BUT, FOR THE LOVE OF THE DESIGNER, THAT IS THE CASE FOR EVERY INVESTIGATIVE METHOD IN SCIENCE. Carbon dating tells you the age of organic material that is less than 50,000 years old, not the age of the Earth. Stratigraphy tells you relative age, not absolute age. Light microscopy can tell you what chromosomes are doing, but not the DNA sequence. Sequencing a genome tells you what the DNA sequence is, but doesn't tell you what is functional, nor how your functional assessment would change if you looked at the highly-different genome sizes in related organisms (take note, ENCODE). Cladistics and phylogenetics, as I have said, give the big picture: in what order did character states change? How did the collection of character states that we now take to mean "phylum" assemble, character-change-by-character change? Other disciplines (evo-devo, molecular biology, population genetics) can then examine how individual characters change. When Luskin et al. whine that "cladistics doesn't explain the origin of
information", the major response is: "No, you moron, molecular biology and population genetics explain the origin of new genetic information, especially gene duplication and modification of duplicates by mutation, drift, and selection."
(Behe and Berlinski have already basically admitted that evolutionary biologists have reasonably and successfully explained the origin of at least some new genes with these processes, fatally sinking much of the Luskin/Meyer's core arguments on this topic. This conflict is unaddressed in
Debating Darwin's Doubt.)
1365 Comments
John Harshman · 22 July 2015
John Harshman · 22 July 2015
Damn you, autocorrect. "The pattern cladists I know..."
Nick Matzke · 22 July 2015
Nick Matzke · 22 July 2015
Joe Felsenstein · 22 July 2015
Nick Matzke · 23 July 2015
James Downard · 23 July 2015
Few things bring a smile to my face faster than a good dissection of anything Luskin (who is, after all, functionally the DI's paleontology department, and represents on his own around 14 percent of the entire Intelligent Design literature, at least based on my TIP project cataloguing, www.tortucan.wordpress.com).
I'll be adding Nick's piece to the TIP reference base, of course. The SSF are certainly vexing for antievolutionists if they stopped long enough to notice. As I summarized (p. 43 of "Three Macroevolutionary Episodes" 3ME at www.tortucan.wordpress.com):
But whatever lived inside those diminutive shells (barely a few millimeters long) they affirmed three things. First, that organisms were going to the trouble of secreting the dead weight of a protective shell suggests the existence of active predators prior to the main Explosion. Indeed, there is evidence that one form of predator was active as far back as the Ediacaran period. Second, that a whole ecology went about its business for millions of years without leaving any trace of what it was that might have been threatening the small shelly fauna (a confirmation of the Lagerstätten problem). And third, antievolutionists have shown no curiosity about any of this.
TomS · 23 July 2015
I believe that the ID-ists have discovered a rhetorical point in making it seem that there is a deep issue worthy of debate among scientists.
eric · 23 July 2015
On an entirely different note, congrats on the new job. Enjoy Australia for all its worth while you are there; as someone who lived there and then came back to the states, let me warn you that once you leave, it is very hard to make it back again just to visit. Time and money conspire against return visits, so see the entire country while you are there. Also, be a smart and rational footie fan; barrack for the Blues. Just sayin'.
John Harshman · 23 July 2015
John Harshman · 23 July 2015
Joe Felsenstein · 23 July 2015
Nick, add me to the list of those congratulating you on the new job. Canberra certainly has a strong group of phylogenetic biologists these days. Please pass on my greetings to Allen Rodrigo. (I did just see Lars Sommer Jermiin last week at the SMBE meetings in Vienna). There are some fine people in Sydney too -- give my regards to Dan Faith in particular.
I was hoping to see you next month when Steve Arnold and I run the Tutorial on Evolutionary Quantitative Genetics in Knoxville. Hard luck for me but great for you.
G'd on-ya, mite!
Michael Fugate · 23 July 2015
Meyer from DD (p.340) âEither life arose as the result of purely undirected material processes or a guiding or designing intelligence played a role. Advocates of Intelligent Design favor the latter option and argue that living organisms look designed because they really were designed.â
As if nature has no designing/creating processes....
Has anyone read a Meyerian tract on his philosophy of science? How does science incorporate an intelligent designer as opposed to an unintelligent one? Robert Bishop in his Biologos review of DD seems to think that it would require the addition of values which in turn would require knowing the designer's mind. Anyone?
Henry J · 23 July 2015
Re "How does science incorporate an intelligent designer as opposed to an unintelligent one?"
I'd think scientists would look for repeatedly observable patterns that would be expected if stuff had been engineered or manufactured.
(Not "designed" - that word is actually an attempt to avoid the areas that would actually produce actual evidence.)
Michael Fugate · 23 July 2015
Seriously - and the difference would be?
Nicholas J. Matzke · 23 July 2015
W. H. Heydt · 23 July 2015
Suggested title and subtitle:
Remedial Cladistics for Creationists
Casey...are you listening? This is for you. There will be a test later.
Michael Fugate · 23 July 2015
Thanks Nick, in searching for Meyer's paper, I found Pennock's rebuttal in Debating Design.
https://msu.edu/~pennock5/research/papers/Pennock_DNAbyDesign.pdf
If anyone is interested. It is as I assumed - knowing the mind of God is important - the DI doesn't know the mind of God. Without that knowledge, Meyer's philosophy is empty.
John Harshman · 23 July 2015
Michael Fugate · 23 July 2015
What I always find interesting is how Meyer and others drag out completely obscure quotes from completely obscure people to justify their dubious claims - heaven forbid one would do research. Plug Frederic Burnham into you favorite search engine and see what pops up. You can find the LA Times quotes from 1992, but that seems to be almost Burnham's entire claim to fame - all the rest is just creationist sites repeating his opinion as a science historian leaving off the theologian part. The philosophical and historical scholarship is so third-rate, but matches up well with Nick's commentary on the science.
Nicholas J. Matzke · 23 July 2015
John Harshman · 23 July 2015
Lewis didn't create his model for the purpose of dealing with ancestors, but for dealing with a problem of Bayesian phylogeny inference. One cause of the well-known inflation of node posteriors is that even if an internal branch is best modeled as a polytomy Mr. Bayes (and I assume other programs) will never propose anything other than a fully resolved tree. He found that by proposing unresolved trees every so often, the inflation problem was lessened. Now that I think of it, I'm not sure he ever published that work. But anyway, what is an ancestor but a terminal taxon on a zero-length branch in a polytomy?
Nick Matzke · 23 July 2015
Nick Matzke · 23 July 2015
Particularly handy figure:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v514/n7522/fig_tab/nature13576_F2.html
Challenge to Luskin and other IDists: please identify the "phyla" in this graphic.
Henry J · 24 July 2015
There's some weird looking critters on that page.
Maybe they're Arthrowormida? Or Annelipod?
DS · 24 July 2015
TomS · 24 July 2015
I am not a scholar of any kind, but it seems to me that if someone publishes a book which has substantial references to a person that it would be a nice idea to send a complementary copy to that person.
Just Bob · 24 July 2015
fnxtr · 24 July 2015
Nick Matzke · 24 July 2015
Heh, well personally I wouldn't expect a copy, such formalities are mostly from a bygone age I think.
But it does occur to me that the one thing Debating Darwin's Doubt DOES show is that my critique "got to them." They claim that Darwin's Doubt has revolutionized science, that scientists are abandoning standard evolutionary theory right and left, that the book caused a huge stir in the scientific community, etc. The reality is the scientific community paid barely any attention. Most people I've talked to in evolutionary biology have not heard about it at all, or only barely.
They also said my critique was written ahead of time, wasn't responding to the book, was just by a graduate student, yadda yadda. And yet they've spent 2 years, twisting themselves in knots, and now a good chunk of a book, trying to get around the points I raised -- points which were totally obvious to anyone knowledgable of phylogenetics and familiar with the Cambrian literature.
If they were serious scholars they would just admit, yes, there is a gradual sequence of increasing complexity from the Ediacarans, to the bilaterian trace fossils (which gradually increase in complexity), to the small shellies (which gradually increase in complexity), to the identifiable "phyla" (which are mostly actually stem groups early on). But if they admitted this, they'd have to admit that they've been misleading people for decades over this issue.
They would also admit that the origin of new genes is no big deal and can occur by standard evolutionary processes -- but again, this would cause fatal problems for their boss's (Stephen Meyer's) key argument about only-intelligence-produces-new-information. So they can't do that either.
So, scholarship goes out the window, and you end up with David Klinghoffer, professional scientist-insulter, pushing the credibility of the ID movement further down the hole.
Robert Byers · 25 July 2015
On Character states evolving once or a lot more.
Luskin has a great point here. If bits and pieces or whole structures can evolve in like manner then how possibly could deduction of these be made in the hypothesized trees??
The mechanism for making like evolved bits would interfere with any connections. You could never be sure or have a clue.
Remember the trees are not proven facts but based on systems of thought of how things came about.
Easy evolving of likeness would stop a easy connection in any tree.
its not just a few details but whole structures. convergent evolution is based on a great deal of like evolvedness. not just a eye.
Its a great point to the thinking public that like evolved parts or creatures stops any sure claim of connecting creatures by a progression of change in parts.
A good point here is being dismissed too quick.
DS · 25 July 2015
DS · 25 July 2015
Just Bob · 25 July 2015
TomS · 25 July 2015
harold · 25 July 2015
John Harshman · 25 July 2015
Michael Fugate · 25 July 2015
re Byers - as if no one has ever considered convergence before? This just shows Casey is even more totally ignorant of phylogenetics than previously imagined. The entire book is one long oped - take one anecdote and try to spin it into the answer you want while ignoring all the contrary evidence.
What one can conclude is that there was no controversy at all; only about 5 scientists commented on the book: Nick, Prothero on Amazon, and a 3 guys at Biologos. The book was a balloon animal that never had any air.
Paul Burnett · 25 July 2015
Paul Burnett · 25 July 2015
Nick Matzke · 25 July 2015
Good article I just came across:
Buratovich, Michael (2015). "Where Are My Genes? Genomic Considerations on Darwinâs Doubt." Reports of the National Center for Science Education, 35(4), 1.1. July-August 2015. http://reports.ncse.com/index.php/rncse/article/download/331/719
Nick Matzke · 25 July 2015
Nick Matzke · 25 July 2015
David MacMillan · 25 July 2015
Nick Matzke · 25 July 2015
Nick Matzke · 25 July 2015
I should add:
The biggest problems arise when the independence assumption is badly wrong, and a whole bunch of character states change convergently, e.g. with a shift in habitat or food type. This is particularly hard to tease out if the starting points were already closely-related and pretty similar (the word for this is more commonly "parallelism"). The solution is much like the solution for e.g. convergent eyes or wings: more detailed study, more characters, etc.. But the "hard" convergence cases are either in
(a) fossils with few characters, or situtations where only 1 or 2 or 3 "key" characters have been used, that someone long ago assumed were diagnostic without cladistically testing this
(b) things that are already close relatives, and so if they phylogeny is wrong about the details of their relationships, the overall error in the phylogenetic tree is pretty limited, since they were already close relatives in the big picture anyway.
Scott F · 25 July 2015
Okay. I'm no scientist, let alone a biologist, let alone a paleontologist. It's amazing that I know I'm reading English (mostly), yet I have to look up one in three words, and most of it still doesn't make sense. Yet, still, the implications are (or should be) obvious even to the layman.
To Byer's point. Sure, it might be difficult to construct a "tree" of life, and reliably place various fossils on the tree. Convergent evolution or repeated evolution of common "characters" might cause additional problems. But I get the impression that Byer's (as our stand-in for Creationists) views the fossil record as a kind of jigsaw puzzle. You have all the fossil pieces laid out on a table, but there is no picture to show how to put them together into a whole story. The "Darwinist" imagines a picture of a tree, and so arranges the pieces in the shape of a tree. The "Creationist" imagines a picture of a forest, and so arranges the pieces in the shapes of a bunch of unrelated trees. Your a priori "belief" colors the picture you see, and you get what you imagined was there all along, and "Creationist" a priori belief is just as "valid" as that of the "Darwinist".
But there is another component to the puzzle that the "Creationist" is ignoring. Nick touched on it with the Canidae, but only in passing, probably because as a practicing Scientist it's just so bloody obvious to him that it's not worth mentioning. Each fossil isn't just sitting on a flat table like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, with no relation to anything else. Each piece also has a place in 4 dimensions: the physical location where it was found, and the time in which the creature lived. Those 4 dimensions place serious constraints on the "picture" that one can imagine for the fossil puzzle pieces. Because of where and when a particular fossil is found means that it can only be placed in (for example) the lower right corner of the picture. The "characters" might look very similar to that other piece in the upper left corner, but if the two fossils were found on different continents (taking plate tectonics into account, of course) in different epoch-related strata, there's no way that the "Darwinist" can place them together.
Of course, the "Creationist" has no such constraints. Since all of the animals originated at a single point on the earth 6,000 years ago in Eden, and again 4,040 years ago on Mount Ararat, the "Creationist" is free to group all the fossils any which way they want, mixing them completely freely. Sure, the picture they come up with does look a bit like the forest that they imagined, but it would be the strangest forest you ever saw.
As an aside, do the "Creationists" every discuss the diversity and geographic distribution of plants? I mean, Noah didn't take seeds of every known "kind" of plant, most plants (even as seeds) could not survive a year at the bottom of the turbulent ocean, and those eucalyptus certainly didn't walk to Australia by themselves. Did God simply repopulate all the plants directly? Another "Garden" perhaps? Maybe Noah asked the koala's to take their favorite trees with them as they swam the Indian Ocean. Maybe good ol' Noah Appleseed spent his waning years wandering the world planting new rain forests for the parrots and (re)planting 1,000 year old bristlecone pine "saplings".
David MacMillan · 25 July 2015
That's actually a really really good analogy.
Except I would add that there are about a dozen different puzzles -- one for morphology, one for DNA, one for RNA, one for mtDNA, one for Y-chromosome DNA, and so forth. Again, the creationist can stuff anything anywhere he wants, or just split one tree into two separate trees whenever he feels like it, but the scientist must make sure all the trees match each other. Which is considerably more difficult.
Michael Fugate · 25 July 2015
James Downard · 25 July 2015
John Harshman · 25 July 2015
David MacMillan · 25 July 2015
James Downard · 25 July 2015
On the issue of phyla and what order, YEC functionally requires everything appeared during the six prescribed creation days, which turns into a mushed abruptness, as reflected in Henry Morris' Scientific Creationism (1985, p. 80) dancing around phyla and classes in a quote I cover in some detail in "3 Macroevolutionary Episodes" (3ME, p. 21) at #TIP (www.tortucan.wordpress.com). The current YEC baraminologists tend to focus at Family level and below (I put a brief appendix on their hijinks in 3ME, and plan to cover the issue moe thoroughly in future #TIP postings), stopping whenever their monobaramins threaten to cover too much for comfort (but driven also by the imperative to keep the number of created kinds down low enough to fit in the specified Ark stall plan). Details, details.
Over in ID land, Jonathan Wells and company tend to parallel YEC for vagueness, suggesting fixed separate designed blocks without getting too clear about what taxonomical level is involved (humans still have to be created separately, remember, never mind our presence in the chordate phylum tracking back to the Cambrian, which leads to its own set of problems as I go into in "Planet of the Apes" also at #TIP).
I go into the coverage of the Cambrian by Phillip Johnson (Darwin on Trial) at length in 3ME, since he exemplifies all the apologetic tactics seen in later redactors, where you can see how he danced around phyla as if they were created kinds, without thinking through what a phylum entails. Very little is different about Wells or Meyer on these topics except they sprinkle more current science citations in.
The upshot is that grassroots antievolutionists may toss around phyla term but tend to conceptualize it as if they were kinds and in turn merely species, and believe any change "from one species to another" is a macroevolutionary jump as if genera or families or phyla were involved. This consistent confusion stems from the ubiquitously vague coverage of speciation in all antievolutionary literature, where figuring out what they think are its limits is hard since they haven't actually worked that part out yet in their own heads.
The best illustration of how far all antievolutionists are from working through their Map of Time issues would be Stephen Meyer's 2003 paper on "The Cambrian Explosion: Biology's Big Bang," which he penned with Paul Chien, Marcus Ross and Paul Nelson. The first two authors think the Cambrian took place some 540 million years ago, while the latter two (being YECers) imagine it to represent the Flood event 4500 years ago. It is revealing that this quartet could present a seemingly unified argument because in the end chronology plays no role whatsoever in any of their thinking. Had any of them tried to piece together a "this happened then this happened" argument their insanely incomptible chronology frames would have tied them into knots (think of NASA's Mars prove Metric vs English scale goof, but magnify by many orders of magnitude).
Do not expect then much in the way of systematic rigor (or temporal resolution) from anyone in the antievolution campaign, now or ever. It's a game they do not play, at all, let alone well enough to compete on the turf of the full data set (which keeps growing and growing and growing as we speak).
Nick Matzke · 25 July 2015
Robert Byers · 25 July 2015
Robert Byers · 25 July 2015
David MacMillan · 25 July 2015
David MacMillan · 25 July 2015
**Deep breaths.**
Convergence is not only expected under the principles of biology, but virtually demanded. The same sort of environmental and ecosystem pressures will reliably produce the same traits and morphologies wherever an open vector exists.
Guess what? If biology and genetics showed that canids were the closest relatives of the thylacine rather than other marsupials, evolution would be falsified. But it didn't.
Ask yourself this, if you're not too worried about stretching your brain. Why does your deity "re-use" traits and morphologies freely, but only "re-use" the underlying genetic code when it happens to involve species which biologists already expected to be closely related? Why didn't he, perhaps, give the same genes for speech to humans and to parrots? If he's so fond of re-using things and all.
Michael Fugate · 25 July 2015
You have never actually looked at a vertebrate skeleton of any kind, have you Robert? Looking at faked pictures in creationist books doesn't count - I am talking real bones, Robert. Either you can't have or you are lying about the similarities - take your pick.
Daniel · 25 July 2015
Daniel · 25 July 2015
John Harshman · 25 July 2015
https://me.yahoo.com/a/hHXYfJpysYHQ3610gllC7ldTYTqv#37db0 · 25 July 2015
https://me.yahoo.com/a/hHXYfJpysYHQ3610gllC7ldTYTqv#37db0 · 26 July 2015
Jon Fleming · 26 July 2015
harold · 26 July 2015
Just Bob · 26 July 2015
Paul Burnett · 26 July 2015
TomS · 26 July 2015
Dave Luckett · 26 July 2015
harold · 26 July 2015
Michael Fugate · 26 July 2015
Really all that matters is that humans didn't evolve, but were created in the image of God. DI has a new "Center on Human Exceptionalism" run by lawyer Wesley J Smith. Casting doubt on evolution as sufficient is just a means to preserve human separateness. God put humans in charge - to run the earth like God runs the universe.
Paul Burnett · 26 July 2015
Paul Burnett · 26 July 2015
harold · 26 July 2015
Michael Fugate · 26 July 2015
harold · 26 July 2015
TomS · 26 July 2015
Does the concentration on the Cambrian Explosion token a further retreat of anti-evolution rhetoric?
It has been a long time since anybody has attempted to describe an account for what might happen, if it didn't involve common descent with modification, so that the world of life exhibits the variety that it does. What is the alternative to evolution?
The rhetoric has been concentrated on there being something that evolution seemed to have a problem with, and that something which can do anything could do it, and hope that no one that that does not provide a solution to anything.
But many evolution-deniers have come to accept what they call "micro-evolution", within "baramins".
What I am wondering whether there has been a further retreat, but one which is not openly acknowledged, from challenging evolution within phyla, and concentrating on the Cambrian Explosion - and origins of life and the Big Bang.
James Downard · 26 July 2015
The superficial character of antievolutionist coverage of the marsupial convergence issue pertains more to the Intelligent Design camp, rather than to the many creationists who donât bother discussing the subject much at all (in that sense Byersâ persistent secondary vagueness is understandable). I touched on the convergence issue in Note 395 (pp. 203-204) of 3 Macroevolutionary Episodes (online at www.tortucan.wordpress.com) which I adapt here (full citation info in the bibliography at #TIP) on the clear taxonomical features by which marsupials and placentals can be told apart (thus rendering Byers assertion that there are âthousandsâ of marsupial/placental convergences utter nonsense):
Futuyma (1982, 46, 48) pointed out that the Tasmanian âwolfâ has the marsupial dental layout of three premolars and four molars, while placental canines have four premolars and only two molars. Simpson (1961b, 91): âin the classical case of Thylacinus and Canis, the resemblances, although many and detailed, are all related to a particular pattern of predatory adaptation, and in characteristics not related to that adaptation the animals are quite different.â Benton (1990, 250-251) also relates such convergences to lifestyle: âeven though a kangaroo looks very different from a deer or antelope, it lives in roughly the same way!â But while antievolutionists Michael Denton (1985, 178), Davis and Kenyon (1993, 117) and Richard Milton (1997, 192-193) all noted the correspondences between the skulls of North American placental wolves and the marsupial Tasmanian thylacines, none mentioned the diagnostic traits that otherwise distinguished them.
Denton was particularly selective as he waxed how âAnyone who had been privileged to handle, as I have, both a marsupial and placental dog skull will attest to the almost eerie degree of convergence between the thylacine and placental dog.â Indeed, âin gross appearance and in skeletal structure, teeth, skull, etc,â they were âso similar in fact that only a skilled zoologist could distinguish them.â Frank Sonleitner found this argument especially glib, forwarding to me a contemporaneous publication from Dentonâs own Australian backyard, Archer and Clayton (1984, 588, 643-647), which noted the many diagnostic features unique to marsupials that separated the two taxa. These ran from the specialized tarsal bone in the foot to a host of distinctive features in their skulls. Besides the obvious dental differences, one item was especially apparent even to yours truly (a certified non-zoologist): the telltale holes in the palate found in all the Australian marsupials but in no placental mammal. It should be noted that Denton is a biochemist, and has shown no proficiency for paleontology or taxonomy in any of his writings
A similar distance from applied taxonomy dogged Cornelius Hunter (2001, 29-31; 2003, 46-48, 123-124) claiming such convergences violate the idea that evolution is unguided and are better explained by special creation. Incidentally, since Hunter (2001, 48, 180n; 2003, 95, 160n) specifically cited Futuyma pages 46 and 48 (for quotes on the implausibility of God having designed living systems with the quirky patterns observed), his omission of the diagnostic aspect may be chalked up to either obtuseness or evasion. The generalizations of antievolutionary criticism may be compared to the level of detail in Rubidge and Sidor (2001) on convergent episodes in therapsid evolution.
James Downard · 26 July 2015
It's important to remember the relative position of ID in the antievolution movement. It is the case now that OEC has functionally shriveled to Hugh Ross and company, with most all active grassroots antievolutionism spearheaded by YEC, enabled by ID apologetics that simply ignores their YEC allies. ID quickly mutated from a "you don't have to believe in YEC to be a skeptic of Darwin" start to a functional "you don't have to give up your YEC to join us in opposing Darwinism" stance. I track the ID evasions on this front in TIP 1.7 at www.tortucan.wordpress.com (the resource is there open access for all, so may as well make use of it).
As for the political side of things (eg climate change skepticism) it should be recalled that most antievolutionism has been among what I dub in #TIP "Kulturkampf" conservative religious believers (the left wing progressive fling of William Jennings Bryan in the 1920s can be seen to be an anomalous blip).
James Downard · 26 July 2015
TomS · 26 July 2015
The lack of an alternative was pointed out in a well-known 1852 [sic] essay of Herbert Spencer The Development Hypothesis. One can find the question as far back as Cicero Academica (Lucullus) 27.87 and De Natura Deorum 1.19.
Michael Fugate · 26 July 2015
Aren't they just hoping that if evolution could be impossible in one instance - whatever that may be - then it could be for humans also? That is all they care about really - a human created in God's image.
Henry J · 26 July 2015
To do that, they'd need to find some way in which the amount of biological difference between humans and their close relatives is somehow greater than the typical amount of difference between a species and its close relatives.
Robert Byers · 26 July 2015
Robert Byers · 26 July 2015
harold · 27 July 2015
DS · 27 July 2015
So once again booby has no explanation whatsoever for the genetic evidence. That makes sense, considering that he has stated that genetics is " atomic and unproven". Despite his obsession with wolves, he still hasn't learned a single thing about grammar, biology or anything else. Time for the bathroom wall booby. You is outed once again.
Michael Fugate · 27 July 2015
Robert so you are saying that changes in reproductive anatomy are much easier to change than anything else? The gain or loss of epipubic bones, the marsupium, changes in birth timing are all evolved in an instant? They are all "minor" changes.
Just Bob · 27 July 2015
TomS · 27 July 2015
TomS · 27 July 2015
Sorry for the mistakes in that.
Michael Fugate · 27 July 2015
Are you saying that God doesn't need to do things like humans do? There goes that analogy out the window....
Just Bob · 27 July 2015
I have asked cdesign proponentsists a number of times here how science would gain or be improved -- what new discoveries or inventions could be made -- if science in general adopted the "intelligent design" viewpoint, which are proving intractable under the current "materialistic" paradigm.
I have never got an answer, and usually the designite leaves quickly.
It's a useless concept, and likely would be harmful if an acceptable answer to why something is the way it is is, "Well, God designed it that way."
Nick Matzke · 27 July 2015
James Downard · 27 July 2015
James Downard · 27 July 2015
Dave Luckett · 27 July 2015
Actually, if you look at the one and only film shot of the living thylacine, you will see that it doesn't move just like a wolf. The gait is different because its pelvis is constructed somewhat differently. Wolves in moderate motion lope; at the same pace this animal moves in a series of slightly differential bounds. I suspect that it would not be efficient as a predator that had to run prey down, but this construction gives it a more explosive initial acceleration.
David MacMillan · 27 July 2015
Robert Byers · 27 July 2015
Robert Byers · 27 July 2015
Robert Byers · 27 July 2015
Michael Fugate · 27 July 2015
Robert, not an explanation - only an assertion on your part. We are using specific characters and genes - while you are using some qualitative holistic gestalt which cannot be measured.
John Harshman · 27 July 2015
Robert Byers · 27 July 2015
Klaus Werner Hellnick · 28 July 2015
Sylvilagus · 28 July 2015
harold · 28 July 2015
eric · 28 July 2015
harold · 28 July 2015
DS · 28 July 2015
Here is what booby claimed:
"As in the issue of how convergence interferes with any confident claim of making these trees its a hood case in point with the placental/marsupial issue. I insist it takes thousands of anatomical traits to evolve to create such likeness in marsupial/placental wolves etc. it only takes dozens etc to make a marsupial group."
And of course it was pointed out to him that he was wrong in much detail:
"Frank Sonleitner found this argument especially glib, forwarding to me a contemporaneous publication from Dentonâs own Australian backyard, Archer and Clayton (1984, 588, 643-647), which noted the many diagnostic features unique to marsupials that separated the two taxa. These ran from the specialized tarsal bone in the foot to a host of distinctive features in their skulls. Besides the obvious dental differences, one item was especially apparent even to yours truly (a certified non-zoologist): the telltale holes in the palate found in all the Australian marsupials but in no placental mammal. "
So what did he do? DId he admit that he was wrong? DId he provide a detailed list of the "thousands " of traits he claimed exist? DId he admit that real experts had examined the problem and that they disagreed with his nonsense? No, he doubled down and repeated his vague and baseless assertions yet again:
"Its not a few. its many and the whole beast. What is your list of the few? My list is the whole anatomy that brings the visual observation without and within this creature that says its the same creatures as elsewhere everywhere on the planet or that it was said to be convergent in evolutionary ideas."
My "list" is the whole "anatomy"! Really? Really? Why don't you look up the definition of the word "list"? You couldn't be any more vague or elusive if you tried. Time to put up or shut up. Either admit you were wrong or provide a list of thousands of characters. You could at least try to match the short list of characters provided that demolish your idea. If you are unwilling or unable to do this, you lose. Period. End of story. STFU already.
And of course he did all of this to try to demonstrate that convergence is a problem for phylogenetic reconstruction. Note to booby: real biologists know that the thylacine and the wolf are not close relatives. It is you who are confused on the matter. Just like real biologists know that whales are not fish and bats are not birds. And of course he still hasn't even mentioned the genetic evidence. He is completely incapable of dealing with it in any meaningful way. He clings to his preconceptions in the desperate hope that he will someday be mistaken for a real biologist. That's not going to happen. Not now, not ever. Give it up already.
Matt has a policy of only one Byers post per thread. SInce he has already repeated the only "point" he has to make and has amply demonstrated his stubborn refusal to ever attempt to learn anything, I would suggest that it is time to dump his smarmy ass to the bathroom wall. He hates that. He is absolutely terrified of having any discussion there. Besides, none of his crap has anything to do with the cambrian.
DS · 28 July 2015
What about that genetic evidence: Here is a paper about Thylacine mitochondrial DNA:
Miller et. al. (2009) The mitochondrial genome sequence of the Tasmanian tiger. Genome Research 19:213-230.
From the abstract:
We report the first two complete mitochondrial genome sequences of the thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus), or so-called Tasmanian tiger, extinct since 1936. The thylacineâs phylogenetic position within australidelphian marsupials has long been debated, and here we provide strong support for the thylacineâs basal position in Dasyuromorphia, aided by mitochondrial genome sequence that we generated from the extant numbat (Myrmecobius fasciatus).
So I guess convergence isn't such an intractable problem after all. Sorry booby, Starkist only wants tuna that knows what it's talking about.
Just Bob · 28 July 2015
Just Bob · 28 July 2015
Oh, and what is there in the YEC worldview that makes you think 'brain problems' are just memory problems? Do YECs think that memories are stored somewhere besides the brain?
Michael Fugate · 28 July 2015
Mind-body dualism or in the case of Robert mind-body duelism.
REW · 28 July 2015
I've always thought that the reason IDers distance themselves from YEC is that while the evidence for evolution is overwhelming, its complex and diffuse and so easy to misrepresent. The evidence for an old earth is much more straightforward so if you advocate for a YE its pretty obvious your primary scientific source is the Old Testament.
A saw a video from an ID conference held in Penn. a year or 2 ago that Meyer attended ( Lennox was also there) During the Q and A from his talk Meyer essentially said that design has been so successful in biology, soon it will be applied to geology. I'd love to see that but I doubt the IDers will ever risk sticking their necks out like that.
Just Bob · 28 July 2015
DS · 28 July 2015
By the way, evolutionary development can also be used to dissect instances of supposed convergence. For example, the bird and mammal inner ear appear superficially similar, but they actually evolved independently after the two lineages split from a common ancestor. The developmental evidence shows that the tympanic membrane forms from the lower jaw in mammals but the upper jaw in modern reptiles and birds.
Kitaza wa et. al. (2015) Nature Communications DOI: 10.1038/ncomms7853
So you see, there is a field that is making rapid progress, based on sound reasoning and adherence to the evidence. It ain't creationism.
TomS · 28 July 2015
REW · 28 July 2015
TomS · 28 July 2015
Just Bob · 28 July 2015
If something is similar, then it's 'common design'. If it's different, even when 'common design' would have been helpful, then it's "God can do anything, and who are we to question him?"
Answers for everything, which provide nothing useful for anything.
James Downard · 28 July 2015
James Downard · 28 July 2015
James Downard · 28 July 2015
Henry J · 28 July 2015
Re "Why do YOU think YEC scientists arenât busily curing âbrain problemsâ? Indeed, why havenât they already?"
My guess: the ones that manage to cure their problems cease being YEC. There seem to be examples of such people around here.
James Downard · 28 July 2015
Henry J · 28 July 2015
James Downard · 28 July 2015
TomS · 28 July 2015
John Harshman · 28 July 2015
John Harshman · 28 July 2015
Just Bob · 28 July 2015
Robert Byers · 28 July 2015
Klaus Werner Hellnick · 29 July 2015
DS · 29 July 2015
harold · 29 July 2015
harold · 29 July 2015
I wonder why YEC Byers is so busy defending Luskin? It's almost as if he gets that Casey is blowing a dog whistle that is intended to heard loud and clear by YEC.
Just Bob · 29 July 2015
harold · 29 July 2015
TomS · 29 July 2015
eric · 29 July 2015
John Harshman · 29 July 2015
What's the singular of "cdesign proponentsists"? Is it "cdesign proponentsist" or "cdesign proponentist"? I can't decide.
gnome de net · 29 July 2015
Disclaimer: I am neither an English major nor a Grammar Nazi.
I prefer "cdesign proponentsist".
James Downard · 29 July 2015
James Downard · 29 July 2015
James Downard · 29 July 2015
DS · 29 July 2015
Meanwhile, over on the moderated thread, booby has already been banished to the bathroom wall. Before he makes another midnight dump, completely ignoring all criticism and all evidence, I will respond to him before the fact, since he is so predictable and repetitious that this can easily be accomplished.
No booby, wrong again. Repeating the same old crap over and over isn't ever going to make it true. And thanks for once again ignoring all of my questions and for once again completely ignoring all of the genetic evidence. Until you can prove that you have read the relevant paper and can provide an explanation for the observed pattern of genetic divergence, your bald assertions will be ignored. Your ignorant personal opinion is worthless. Just admit you were wrong and go away.
There, now I don't have to wait up all night for booby to blubber again.
David MacMillan · 29 July 2015
This is the first I had seen #TIP. Looks really fantastic.
The interplay between YEC and ID is a terribly complicated one, I know. However, I'd say the current belief climate recapitulates (heh, heh) the history of the movements to a pretty consistent degree.
Although the emergence of the modern ID movement can be most directly traced to the failure of YEC, I think it's important to remember that YEC itself postdates the prior antievolutionism common in conservative religion. YEC is recent, very recent; it simply did not exist in any recognizably organized form prior to the publication of Morris & Whitcomb's Genesis Flood. Morris and Whitcomb borrowed from a fringe rock collector's ramblings dating to the turn of the 20th century, which were themselves inspired by the visions of a cult prophetess halfway through the 19th century. No one was arguing for YEC before Morris and Whitcomb, because Morris and Whitcomb created YEC pretty much out of thin air.
However, although YEC did not exist prior to the 60s, antievolutionism did. No Christian groups were proclaiming a recent global flood or 6,000-year-old galaxies, but the vast majority of Christian denominations reserved skepticism, either of common descent itself or of unaided common descent.
This isn't quite so egregious as the ID of today. Before the advent of molecular biology in the late 50s, the evidence for common descent was far less obvious than it is today and the mechanism for the variation required by common descent was largely a mystery. In those days, it was quite easy -- excusably so, almost -- for religious people to assume that the creative activity of God must be hidden somewhere in the gap between Mendelian genetics and the sort of variation required for speciation.
YEC in effect "doubled down" on the climate of skepticism toward origins. It was, in many ways, a shock to the established dogmas of conservative Christianity -- not only could they deny common descent, but they were now able to posit a completely different model for the entirety of geology.
This divided conservative Christianity into two camps -- one which put all their eggs in the basket of YEC and its obvious implications for proving the existence of God, and one which remained skeptical of the whole young-earth business but still affirmed God's creative involvement in the creation of species (either going the progressive creationist route a la Spurgeon and Ross or going with the "God designed it along the way" tack which we see today from Behe and his ilk).
Of course, ID/progressive creationism had already plateaued, while YEC was young and bold and restless. The "old guard" of OECs was content to let YEC gain some momentum for a time. When YEC crashed and burned in McClean vs Arkansas, however, the OECs quietly took up the same mantle of "God was involved somehow" and we got the modern ID movement.
In the intellectual community, support for ID is of course quite sparse. But in the church, it's much more prevalent. For every hard-line AiG-style YEC, you have a dozen or so "soft" YECs who tend toward a YEC position but allow that OEC is a possibility, and a dozen more OECs (many of whom lived through the entire rise and fall of YEC) who don't really give a damn about the age of the Earth but are convinced that biology proves God is the Designer.
For us, it's an odd situation. YEC clearly does the most harm from an educational standpoint. We simply can't have people believing in Dinosaur Derbys and global floods if we're to make any sort of scientific progress. In comparison, ID is far less pernicious...but we can't ignore the fact that YECs routinely use ID material. We also can't ignore that ID makes the fatal flaw of claiming that science proves God's existence...something that Christians and atheists alike ought to take exception to.
John Harshman · 29 July 2015
John Harshman · 29 July 2015
...but you can't argue that he didn't commit explicitly.
Nick Matzke · 29 July 2015
Nick Matzke · 29 July 2015
Nick Matzke · 29 July 2015
Ah, I see your correction John. Still looks like he committed explicitly to a global flood but not to a young earth. Arguably young-earth is included in the rest of the commitments although it always seems like there is a way to fudge that one (gap theory or whatever).
TomS · 29 July 2015
John Harshman · 29 July 2015
Nick Matzke · 29 July 2015
David MacMillan · 29 July 2015
Robert Byers · 30 July 2015
TomS · 30 July 2015
About the history of YEC, see this Exposing the Roots of Yound Earth Creationism recently contributed to the blog "Letters to Creationists".
DS · 30 July 2015
eric · 30 July 2015
eric · 30 July 2015
harold · 30 July 2015
Michael Fugate · 30 July 2015
One strategy is to starve public schools and funnel off money so they collapse driving people to support private schools. Sam Brownback is doing this in Kansas as we speak. Some want to just make easy money off taxpayers like private prisons and defense contractors, but others want to destroy secularism.
Michael Fugate · 30 July 2015
And speaking of convergence in canids - golden jackals are not one species....
http://www.theguardian.com/science/grrlscientist/2015/jul/30/golden-jackal-a-new-wolf-species-hiding-in-plain-sight
harold · 30 July 2015
James Downard · 30 July 2015
James Downard · 30 July 2015
James Downard · 30 July 2015
John Harshman · 30 July 2015
fnxtr · 30 July 2015
In the spirit of "cdesign proponentsists", perhaps Silly Billy is a "creatiopportunist".
eric · 30 July 2015
phhht · 30 July 2015
Dave Luckett · 30 July 2015
If I might intrude a timid quibble: Jesus didn't actually refer to Noah as a real person, according to the words quoted. He said "It shall be as it was in the days of Noah..."
I can say, "It's like Yossarian, discovering that you have to be sane to be certified as mad", or "It's like when Ahab found that his revenge was its own destruction," or "Hamlet took a while, but he grew a backbone at last"...
Stuff like that. Jesus invoked a literary reference. He did not say, "Noah was a real person."
End quibble.
David MacMillan · 30 July 2015
Nick Matzke · 30 July 2015
harold · 31 July 2015
David MacMillan · 31 July 2015
eric · 31 July 2015
eric · 31 July 2015
harold · 31 July 2015
harold · 31 July 2015
David MacMillan · 31 July 2015
TomS · 31 July 2015
What about "pithecophobia" - just plain revulsion at the thought that I am related to "monkeys"? Religion or the Bible or creation are just a defense?
David MacMillan · 31 July 2015
eric · 31 July 2015
harold · 31 July 2015
Michael Fugate · 31 July 2015
Another thing is - if they were interested in science, they wouldn't try to discredit evolution by attacking Darwin's character - atheist, racist, eugenicist, etc.
harold · 31 July 2015
I mean Jesus, people, this website exists because of the run-up to Dover, and Dover existed because of Edwards.
ID and Creation Science were legal, political efforts to force religion-related science denial into public schools.
Almost all people who like ID also claim that there was a global flood, and they almost all deny climate science, they largely deny HIV, vaccine denial has been catching on with them, they love Rush Limbaugh, they love Fox News, they count on those outlets not to directly confront their science denial and to antagonize real scientists, they all support teaching anti-evolution on the taxpayer dime in public schools.
I'll grant you that Biologos has had meager success, which is more than I might have predicted, reaching this demographic, but at the end of the day, they're two different things. Biologos, basically people who follow an evangelical tradition but don't deny evolution, has none of the other associations. They don't deny climate change, they don't deny HIV, they aren't anti-vaccine at all, they aren't 100% tuned in to the Fox/Limbaugh media.
The question was whether ID is "disguised YEC". The reasonable answer is "yes". The reason that's that reasonable answer is that the stated purpose of ID was to attack "materialist" science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_strategy
In addition to Dover, the heyday of the DI was a time of multiple attacks on science in public school curricula that didn't lead directly to a court case.
ID is not some spontaneous output of rarified philosophical thought, it's a crude modification of Creation Science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Pandas_and_People#Pandas_and_.22cdesign_proponentsists.22, created to do the job Creation Science was created to do. And that job is aggressively legal and political. And that's why it matters at all.
James Downard · 31 July 2015
Just Bob · 31 July 2015
David MacMillan · 31 July 2015
phhht · 31 July 2015
Paul Burnett · 31 July 2015
W. H. Heydt · 31 July 2015
Dave Luckett · 31 July 2015
On omniscience, Jesus specifically denied that he had it: Matthew 24:36. I have pointed this out to a fundamentalist, only to have him tell me that Jesus specifically renounced that knowledge, but would have known it anyway.
One of the most remarkable things I find about those who call themselves "Bible-believers" is that they almost invariably freely add to, subtract from, and change the words of scripture, always to fit them into their beliefs, rather than fitting the beliefs to the words.
David MacMillan · 31 July 2015
David MacMillan · 31 July 2015
W. H. Heydt · 31 July 2015
Just Bob · 1 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 1 August 2015
I actually did that, for a science show at school, lo, these very many years ago. I made a static model of the solar system, with the planets and their orbits to scale.
I discovered, after actually calculating the distances of the planets from the sun, that I had to use Mercury as a single grain of sand and Earth became a grain of rice - and in the science block, I could still only get in the orbit of Saturn, while Uranus, Neptune and Pluto had to be placed out on the sports fields.
I see that AiG is saying that Pluto is in "a particularly crowded region of the solar system". A better demonstration of catastrophic ignorance would be difficult to find.
Just Bob · 1 August 2015
David MacMillan · 1 August 2015
FL · 1 August 2015
phhht · 1 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 1 August 2015
More likely that Jesus was just a man like the rest of us. Not even a very exceptional one at that. In today's world, a slacker - preaching a slacker message. Lives at home until 30, never marries, spends a few years mooching off friends crashing on their couches wandering the countryside teaching people to be slackers like him.
Sylvilagus · 1 August 2015
Sylvilagus · 1 August 2015
TomS · 1 August 2015
David MacMillan · 1 August 2015
phhht · 1 August 2015
David MacMillan · 1 August 2015
Just Bob · 1 August 2015
Consider FL's omni-everything fully-god being: bleeding to death on a cross and screaming "My God, why have you forsaken me?" Just think about all the levels on which that situation and cry render all FL's biblical "omni-" claims silly.
phhht · 1 August 2015
Just Bob · 1 August 2015
DM & phhht, I think you're just disagreeing about the definition of 'demigod'.
Greeks were happy to populate their universe with many gods of varying levels of power. Some were even capable of being overcome or dominated by mortals in some situations. And of course demigods: the offspring of gods and humans. But Jews, and later Christians, for dogmatic theological reasons, could not use the term "god" for any but one -- although they (particularly Christians) populated their universe with great numbers and levels of immortal supernatural beings with magical powers: angels, archangels, cherubim, etc.; saints of greater and lesser powers; an evil or opponent god; various levels of demons, evil spirits, etc.
The Greeks of Homer's time would have happily identified all of those as gods, some of which they might even have identified as simply other names for their own gods; or local gods, but no less 'real' than their own Olympians. And they would surely have seen the 'son of God' claims about Jesus as simply claiming him to be a demigod. That's what demigod meant.
But the church fathers had to stamp out all such talk, because "there is only one God," while establishing a polytheism of multiple gods of greater and lesser powers, and at least one demigod.
But you mustn't ever call him that.
Nick Matzke · 1 August 2015
Henry J · 1 August 2015
âa particularly crowded region of the solar systemâ
Of course - after all, nature abhors a vacuum!
David MacMillan · 1 August 2015
Yardbird · 1 August 2015
Just Bob · 1 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 1 August 2015
FL · 1 August 2015
James Downard · 1 August 2015
phhht · 1 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 1 August 2015
Jesus knew what people were thinking. That has to mean that he was God in person, because only God could ever infer a person's thoughts from what was said, the tone of voice, the facial expression, posture, body language, or interpolation from known attitudes.
All Cottrell and FL are demonstrating is a catastrophic tin ear and inability to empathise. We've seen that from FL before, of course. But this is a new, and desperate low, even for him. The oddly truncated cite of John 2:24 is further evidence of this desperation. It says that Jesus knew them all. All of whom? Why, those who saw his miracles and put their trust in him; but he would not trust them. He could himself tell what was in people.
See where it says that only God could do that? See where it says that no human being is a judge of character like that? See where it tells us that only God can know anything about the fickleness of human nature, and the volatility of crowds?
Me, neither.
Peter said Jesus "knew all things", but Peter is often described as wrong in his ideas, in the Gospel. And look at the context: Jesus had asked him three times - an obvious parallel to Peter's three denials - if he loved him, and Peter finally replied, "Lord you know everything", that is, everything about that specific question. Jesus prophesied Peter's death, it says; only he didn't, not in the words quoted.
Now look at what we are supposed to hang from these terribly slight and fragile supposed inferences from forms of words that are never explicit. We are supposed to infer that Jesus was God Himself, very God, the same substance as God the Father. That he wasn't appointed of God, commissioned by God, still less inspired of God or sent into the world by God. No, no! He WAS God.
The words simply cannot bear that weight; certainly not in the face of the far plainer, clearer and more specific denials of the idea in the words of Jesus himself. This is desperate stuff by FL and his sources, descending to mere fraud and farce. I read the material forty years ago, and knew that it didn't say that Jesus was God. It still doesn't.
Michael Fugate · 1 August 2015
It is interesting that FL is challenged to come up with Chapter and Verse that Jesus is God - he can't do it. I can only conclude that it doesn't exist. How did Gospel writers know what Jesus was thinking - lost diaries out there somewhere?
David MacMillan · 1 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 1 August 2015
phhht · 1 August 2015
mattdance18 · 1 August 2015
Uncle Floyd is quite ridiculous, really. There are several key "ideas" -- using thet term with a certain looseness, for reasons that will be clear in a moment -- in traditional Christian thought that just plain DO NOT make any RATIONAL, LOGICALLY CONSISTENT sense. The incarnation (Jesus is fully human yet fully divine) is one. The trinity (three in one) is another. They are "mysteries" to be accepted on faith -- or with deference to institutional and/or charismatic authority.
More progressive iterations of Christianity have been rethinking such "ideas" for a couple centuries now, and reassessing the scriptures upon which they are ostensibly based. Uncle Floyd knows nothing of any such. He just repeats the assertions of his favored authorities. He's already proved his inability to do conceptual theology in discussing concepts like creatio ex nihilo, and he's demonstrated his Biblical blindness in every discussion of slavery he's ever had.
This is all just par for the authoritarian course.
Just Bob · 2 August 2015
FL · 2 August 2015
W. H. Heydt · 2 August 2015
Re: FL...
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence to support them. The existence of one or more gods is an extraordinary claim. Where is your extraordinary evidence? The Bible, Biblical commentary, what some random person thinks the Bible means or says, and wishful thinking do not constitute evidence at all. Show your evidence.
It is not up to everyone else to show how unlikely the existence of a god or gods is. It is up to you to present positive, compelling evidence.
FL · 2 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 2 August 2015
In context, not buying it FL. He is not the Father, but the Father is in him. Never does it say he is God.
grendelsfather · 2 August 2015
Does this whole discussion about the nature of Jesus' divinity remind anyone else of the classic middle school debate about who would win a fight between Batman and Superman?
David MacMillan · 2 August 2015
Just Bob · 2 August 2015
James Downard · 2 August 2015
The comments threads show what is a not unusual progression, the source topic of Luskin and Intelligent Design failures on systematics morphs by stages to a reprise of the last few centuries of Christian apologetics. Precisely what shouldn't be the tack if the object is to stay focused on the methodological inadequacies of design thinking.
Henry J · 2 August 2015
Re "debate about who would win a fight between Batman and Superman?"
I reckon it would depend on whether Batman had time to collect some pretty green rocks before the fight started.
phhht · 2 August 2015
DS · 2 August 2015
Hey Floyd. got any comments about the Cambrian? You know. all that sciency stuff, the actual topic of this thread? No? Didn't think so. Go to the bathroom wall if you want to discuss your religious delusions, they have no place here in reality.
grendelsfather · 2 August 2015
On a more serious note, I have just finished reading Charles Freeman's book "The Closing of the Western Mind - The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason," and I strongly recommend it.
It clearly, if not concisely, lays out the history of the early church (after laying groundwork for the intellectual outlook at the time of Jesus and before.) The main point of the book was that the church abandoned reason early on because it was distinctly unhelpful in matters of theology. Competing heresies ran amok, and they were frequently resolved not on rational or religious grounds, but because the secular leaders gave their support to whichever side could help them the most politically.
Just Bob · 2 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 2 August 2015
FL · 2 August 2015
Keelyn · 3 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 3 August 2015
I rarely concede anything to FL, but it's true. I have willingly gone off on a religious tangent. He perceives this as a triumph, of course.
The last time I assumed a thread would be taken to the BW, I turned out to be wrong. But I'll say anything more I have to say there.
Rolf · 3 August 2015
OMG. I read almost everything up to page 8, the 9th would have choked me.
I need a rest.
Paul Burnett · 3 August 2015
(From my friend Christine Janis, a biology professor at Brown University and co-author of the textbook "Vertebrate Life", http://www.amazon.com/Vertebrate-Life-9th-Harvey-Pough/dp/0321773365/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&;ie=UTF8&;qid=1438597450&;sr=1-1&;keywords=vertebrate+life )
Sorry for the delay (and now I think the conversation has moved way past Byers), but this is my 2 cents worth.
Byers thinks that there are thousands of points of similarity between the thylacine and a wolf (actually a coyote would be a better analog). Yes, there are indeed many external similarities between these two animals:
They both have a distinct head end and bilateral symmetry. That can be
traced back to the common ancestor of the Bilateria: A feature shared by
thylacines, wolves, and lobsters.
They both have a tail. That can be traced back to the common ancestor of
chordates. So, a feature shared by thylacines, wolves, and lancelets. Note
that the tail of the thylacine is very unlike that of a dog --- it is stiff
and bulbous at the base and not fluffy at the end.
They both have a nose and a pair of eyes. That can be traced back to the common ancestor of vertebrates, shared by thylacines, wolves, and lampreys.
They both have four legs, comprised of the same set of proximal bones
(humerus/femur, radius + ulna/tibia + fibula, carpus/tarsus). That can be traced back to tetrapodomorph fishes. So, shared by thylacines, wolves and Tiktaalik (add a distinct neck in here too).
They both have similar lower limb elements: metapodials and phalanges. So that can be traced back to the the earliest tetrapods, a feature shared by thylacines, wolves, and salamanders.
They both have fur. That can be traced back to the common ancestor of
mammals. So, shared by thylacines, wolves and platypuses.
They both have external ears. That can be traced back to the origin of therian mammals. So, shared by thylacines, wolves and armadillos.
So, basically, the great majority of the similarities between thylacines and wolves are not uniquely shared by these animals, but are general features of animals at various levels. What makes the thylacine look rather like a wolf?
Basically two features.
1. The basic body form of a derived, somewhat cursorial (running-adapted) animal, with a digitigrade (standing on tip toe) posture. But here the thylacine is just like a generalized carnivorous marsupial, not like the more derived, running adapted wolf. See this for a picture (which also shows the difference in the tails, and also the more curved back of the thylacine)
http://www.livescience.com/images/i/000/016/393/original/31915.jpg?1304455871
And this for a detailed description of the anatomy of the forelimb
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jmor.20303/abstract
This basic body form can be seen today in many South American rodents, e.g. agoutis.
http://m7.i.pbase.com/o2/54/551654/1/96505947.5rogWIp2._DSC9398.jpg
In the movies of the last surviving thylacines you can see a clip where the animals sits back on its hind legs with the heel on the ground, like a raccoon (canids never do this).
2. A long snout. This is feature of a carnivorous mammal, mainly seen in canids amongst placentals, but also in some other carnivores, such as this Madagascan civet.
https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5502/12266245834_73f896424d_b.jpg
And also in marsupials related to the thylacine, such as quolls.
http://conservationcouncil.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Quoll-Family.jpg
So, basically, there's not one single unique feature shared between
thylacines and wolves. So much for Byers' "thousands of similarities"
To add to the many features that thylacines share with other marsupials, to the exclusion of placentals like wolves, here is one that I've not seen mentioned: in the male, the penis is behind the scrotum rather than in front of it, and is bifurcated at the tip.
DS · 3 August 2015
eric · 3 August 2015
eric · 3 August 2015
Just Bob · 3 August 2015
FL · 3 August 2015
eric · 3 August 2015
DS · 3 August 2015
So that would be a no. Predictably, Floyd has absolutely no intention of ever discussing any science, ever. Time to dump his smarmy ass to the bathroom wall where he can wallow in his own crapulence.
Michael Fugate · 3 August 2015
Given that the DI is a religious organization with a religious agenda and Stephen Meyer wrote both "The Signature in the Cell" and "Darwin's Doubt" as apologetic tracts, then it is pretty obvious the "science" within will be crap. FL is doing the same thing - he believes Jesus is God and therefore looks for evidence that he believes corroborates that belief ignoring any contradictory evidence. Both the DI and FL take certain things as givens which skews everything they do - neither reason from the evidence to a conclusion, but always from a conclusion to the evidence. It will never be science.
Paul Burnett · 3 August 2015
Keelyn · 3 August 2015
FL · 3 August 2015
Joe Felsenstein · 3 August 2015
Keelyn · 3 August 2015
Just Bob · 3 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 3 August 2015
Any number of individuals have pointed out the fallacy of believing that science provides evidence for God and Christianity. Science is not static, its conclusions are liable to change. If you tie your God to science today, your God will be disproved tomorrow. In order to save your God you have to discredit the very science you used to prove your God existed. You end up with no God and no science. The crack intellects at the DI, AiG, and ICR still can't understand this simple point.
FL · 3 August 2015
The following reply/inquiry is offered with NO sarcasm or disrespect at all. It is a sincere question for all of Pandasthumb:
What happens when the "Main Articles" off-topic commentary is INITIATED by the "usual commenters" instead of by a perceived troll?
Do the usual commenters get a free pass on off-topic comments until and unless a perceived troll actually **responds** to their off-topic comments?
FL
FL · 3 August 2015
DS · 3 August 2015
Floyd will stoop to anything to avoid discussing science. It's his kryptonite. It destroys his magic power to lie and evade.
DS · 3 August 2015
By the way Floyd, I [posted two references earlier in this thread. Did you read them? Did you understand them? Care to comment on them? Care to correct Byers in his ignorant insistence that he is right and the published literature is wrong? Didn't think so.
James Downard · 3 August 2015
Joe Felsenstein · 3 August 2015
harold · 4 August 2015
Paul Burnett · 4 August 2015
Joe Felsenstein · 4 August 2015
DS · 4 August 2015
eric · 4 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 4 August 2015
I think one thing common to both is the belief that science and nature prove God exists. That nature alone is inadequate to account for diversity and complexity, ergo God.
DS · 4 August 2015
James rote:
"A case in point: last year I debated conservative law prof Patrick Garry on the then-pending Greece v. Galloway council prayer case (thereâs a link to the debate video at #TIP). Although Garry was a Kulturkampf conservative religionist, he was very vague on the antievolution angle, and afterward I probed with some questions to position him more precisely on the landscape."
If you want to know where a creationist lies, the answer is constantly.
Mike Elzinga · 4 August 2015
harold · 4 August 2015
harold · 4 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 4 August 2015
Maybe assertion is better than belief....
Mike Elzinga · 4 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 4 August 2015
I do find myself repeatedly turning to John Wilkin's The Salem Region: Two Mindsets about Science as an explanation. http://philpapers.org/rec/WILTSR
TomS · 4 August 2015
Henry J · 4 August 2015
Re "What is âIntelligent Designâ?"
Oh, that's where something intelligent manufactured all the predators, parasites, and agricultural pests that we have to deal with on a daily basis. (And we're somehow supposed to like the entity that does that... )
Mike Elzinga · 4 August 2015
harold · 4 August 2015
Just Bob · 4 August 2015
harold · 4 August 2015
It is common for people with an advanced degree in one field to form Dunning Kruger delusions about another field. Therefore, I might predict that among physicians, unlike the general population, it's possible that climate change denial decouples from evolution denial. Caveat - I almost never discuss climate change with my colleagues; it doesn't come up. And I'd bet heavily that physicians deny climate change less than the general population does. But I'd also bet that they are less informed on this topic, and more likely to take a Dunning Kruger type of stance, than on evolution. Things like vaccine denial and HIV denial would be common among climate deniers in the general population but vanishingly rare among licensed, practicing physicians not under any kind of sanction.
I would say -
1) Scientific education increases understanding of and respect for science, and I include applied sciences here.
2) It works best for one's own field of expertise. There is a general effect, though, although it's weaker.
3) There are plenty of exceptions, but they're exceptions.
harold · 4 August 2015
phhht · 4 August 2015
Joe Felsenstein · 4 August 2015
With regard to the question of sanity, let's remember that when people have a powerful need to believe, perfectly sane people can believe crazy things for hundreds of years without being insane. We all know some of the things people believed about astronomy, motion, heat etc.: a geocentric solar system, that objects would slow down if not constantly pushed, that heat was a fluid called the caloric, that heavier objects fell faster. And these persisted among perfectly sane people for hundreds, even thousands of years.
Listening to our creationist friends say repeatedly, as they often do at UD, that "there is no evidence for evolution" gives me the feeling that we've been there before, that people like Galileo and Newton would find the strain of argument familiar.
Michael Fugate · 4 August 2015
Harold, not sure what you are defending and against whom or what.
Mike Elzinga · 4 August 2015
harold · 4 August 2015
harold · 4 August 2015
harold · 4 August 2015
I think it's because medical students are traumatized by the medical school pathology course.
Every doctor thinks the can interpret the radiology. Show them a picture of an H and E slide of something and they freak out.
Mike Elzinga · 4 August 2015
James Downard · 4 August 2015
James Downard · 4 August 2015
W. H. Heydt · 4 August 2015
Robert Byers · 4 August 2015
Robert Byers · 4 August 2015
John Harshman · 4 August 2015
What? The world wars are up to 11 now? I have to read the paper more often.
TomS · 4 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 4 August 2015
Just Bob · 4 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 4 August 2015
"ID folks" have NO "intellectual arguments". Nary a one. "Irreducible complexity" got blown sky-high the day it showed up. "Specified information" was dead as soon as an actual, you know, information theorist stopped laughing long enough to demolish it. Since then the DI has been desperately churning and getting nowhere.
They have now retreated into mumbo-jumbo. "Someone did something, sometime, somewhere, to create life. We don't know what it was, we don't know how it happened, or when, or where, but we don't think it happened without intelligence."
Faced with a "thesis" like that one, the only reasonable retort is, "Yes, something is happening here without intelligence, for sure."
But Byers has stumbled on an effective metaphor. He thinks of it as a war, and he thinks that the enemy of his enemy is his friend. WW2 is an apt figure. The DI plus overtly religious creationists are not going to win, but if they did, exactly the same thing would happen as after WW2, except that the religious cranks would not hesitate to destroy the world in order to save it. Two heartbeats after they achieved the political power they so desperately crave, the various antievolution groups would no longer be useful to each other, and then it would come down to who was the most effective authoritarian. God help us all then.
But, do you know, I'm almost willing to believe that He has, already, because they're not going to win. The Enlightenment can't be revoked now, I think. They'll keep the Big Tent up for a while by blowing hot air, but it isn't so big of a tent any more, and it's getting smaller every year. There'll always be crackpots, freaks and cranks, but it just doesn't much matter any more.
DS · 4 August 2015
phhht · 4 August 2015
https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad · 4 August 2015
FL · 5 August 2015
harold · 5 August 2015
DS · 5 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 5 August 2015
That last by FL is a little gem.
"Irreducible complexity" was stillborn. It died as soon as it was pointed out that evolution eliminates the unnecessary to the point where no further reduction can be made. But see the "argument" that follows? "Almost half the population doubts evolution", quotha! It doesn't even rise to the level of argumentum ad populum. FL thinks half is enough. He'd think that ten percent is. Or five. Or one. Or just himself.
A college level textbook on evolution points out the obvious fallacy of "god of the gaps" arguments, and thus refutes Behe's notion that design by a necessarily supernatural entity must be responsible for complex and parsimonious structures in living organisms. FL wants to think that the refutation is a concession. What would he think if such a refutation didn't appear? Why, he'd crow that IE hadn't been refuted. Same as he does above.
That is, there is nothing whatsoever that can change FL's take on this. It wouldn't matter a hoot how many ways IE has been refuted. Ken Miller blew it away ten years ago. Behe made a complete fool of himself in the witness box in Dover. The TMLC attorney left the courtroom unable to bear to look at him. FL thinks it simply didn't happen.
"Huge challenge"? And the Black Knight will bite off your kneecaps. But he's a joke! And "WE clearly haven't lost!", yet. The windmills are weakening, Sancho Panza!
FL has lost. Catastrophically. Terminally. If the truth mattered to him, he'd know he lost over a hundred years ago. But the truth doesn't matter; or rather, "truth" is whatever passes FL's mental filters - a miserably thin wash with all the reality taken out. And the best testimony to that I have seen so far is the hapless inability to face fact that permeates his last post.
Michael Fugate · 5 August 2015
eric · 5 August 2015
John Harshman · 5 August 2015
phhht · 5 August 2015
ID Supporters Interviewed; Count the Misrepresentations -- Jeffrey Shallit
Mike Elzinga · 5 August 2015
W. H. Heydt · 5 August 2015
phhht · 5 August 2015
James · 5 August 2015
mattdance18 · 5 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 5 August 2015
mattdance18 · 5 August 2015
phhht · 5 August 2015
TomS · 5 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 5 August 2015
Right TomS when has anyone watched a God of any sort make any thing? How do we know a God could do it, let alone want to do it?
eric · 5 August 2015
phhht · 5 August 2015
Robert Byers · 5 August 2015
Robert Byers · 5 August 2015
DS · 5 August 2015
phhht · 5 August 2015
fnxtr · 5 August 2015
phhht · 5 August 2015
W. H. Heydt · 5 August 2015
James Downard · 5 August 2015
James Downard · 5 August 2015
TomS · 5 August 2015
fnxtr · 5 August 2015
DS · 5 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 5 August 2015
Let's see Robert, 150 years ago the evidence already overwhelmed the evidence for creationism/ID (creationism/ID is not new) and that was biogeography, comparative anatomy and embryology, fossil record (you can read all this in books written then). Since that time we can add the common genetic makeup and years of filling in on natural selection in the wild, speciation, fossil record expansion, comparative cellular and molecular anatomy and on and on. Rather than being stagnant like creationism/ID where you know no more about the designer creator now than you did then, evolution has advanced exponentially.
jjm · 5 August 2015
DS · 5 August 2015
phhht · 5 August 2015
Why are Floyd Lee and Robert Byers so stupid?
Are they stupid because they are religious, or are they religious because they are stupid?
Henry J · 5 August 2015
Re "Exactly why is being âatomicâ a bad thing?"
Maybe it decays faster than expected? :p
W. H. Heydt · 5 August 2015
mattdance18 · 6 August 2015
Daniel · 6 August 2015
harold · 6 August 2015
DS · 6 August 2015
Sorry, I think you are being far too generous with the booby troll. He is only here to blubber on and on about his crazy ideas. He is completely dishonest and myopic to the point of insanity. Look, this is the guy who ignored a reference from the scientific literature that completely disproved his pet idea. Then, in the same thread he claimed that there was no evidence that proved him wrong and that evolution was under attack, apparently just because he has a website! In the same sentence he capitalizes "i" one time and not the next. What he lacks in consistency he makes up for in stubbornness. He never contributes anything of any substance to any thread and he has the annoying habit of dumping garbage on unmoderated threads late at night and then ignoring all replies and repeating the same nonsense again the next night. If his goal is to annoy he has succeeded, if it is to convince he has failed. Either way he should just quit an go away. Since he refuses to post on the bathroom wall, that is the perfect solution.
Dave Luckett · 6 August 2015
It's not necessarily the case that they are of below average intelligence. But they do display two characteristics that indicate that they are not playing with a full intellectual deck.
The first is that they are impervious to evidence. That's the salient characteristic of the tortucan mind.
The fact that marsupial tooth-row and palatal voids are diagnostic of marsupials, and are not found in any placental mammal, is evidence that marsupials are more closely related to each other than to placental mammals, which in turn makes it certain that they could not be severally descended from placentals. Thylacines are not modified wolves, koalas are not modified bears. Place this evidence before Byers and he simply ignores it. His is a tortucan mind, impervious to evidence that does not suit his case.
But he and FL and others are also authoritarians, which is the second leg. They want to behave as if truth depended on the authority of the asserter, given that they recognise that authority. FL thinks the 45% or so of Americans who "doubt evolution" in some way is an authority. Byers thinks the same about what he calls "Protestant folks". Both of them invoke whatever they think is authority as if it were definitive. They display the salient features of authoritarianism: black and white thinking; dominance fantasy; attraction to coercion and punishment; rigidity; severe lack of empathy; attempts to invoke personal authority for themsselves.
FL adds lip-service to the authority of the Bible, by which he means whatever he wants the Bible to say, even when it doesn't say it. He displays the aspect of tortucanism of imperviousness to evidence: quote the words of the scripture to demonstrate that it does not say what he wants it to say, and his only response is to ignore it, with a further assertion of what it doesn't say.
Tortucanism. Authoritarianism. Maybe one is an aspect of the other.
Michael Fugate · 6 August 2015
There is also the appeal to "common sense" which is characteristic of intuitive rather than reflective thinking. That is in part what makes Robert say that if it looks like a wolf it is a wolf. So much of science is testing common sense arguments to see if they hold - many don't .
W. H. Heydt · 6 August 2015
mattdance18 · 6 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 6 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 6 August 2015
FL · 6 August 2015
phhht · 6 August 2015
FL · 6 August 2015
And for Mike Elzinga,
Neither me nor the church I attend, "look down on the rest of us (the Pandas) as stiff-necked, rebellious haters of their deity."
Now I've been at PT long enough (and you have too!) to have seen some posts that DO fit the general stiff-neck description. (And don't even get me started about the ATBC page! Heh!).
But that doesn't mean looking down on anybody. Nope.
Indeed, I'd have NO trouble with signing up for whatever STEM classes you teach (as long as the math didn't exceed basic calculus). You sound like a longtime successful professional in that area.
I would take religion classes from Dave Luckett, (he's just that good!), and I would even take atheist classes from Phhht, except I already been-there-done-that on both sides, thanks to he PhD Atheist religion professors at the local university.
So it's not about looking down on anybody. Both Genesis and Gospel are equal opportunity. Same boat. Same problem. Same solution.
FL
phhht · 6 August 2015
harold · 6 August 2015
eric · 6 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 6 August 2015
They don't doubt evolution; they don't know what evolution is. It is only a word that means "something I don't believe in". The scientific literacy of most people in the US is so low that even much more basic knowledge is beyond them. Evolution within populations occurs all the time and has been demonstrated over and over. This knowledge forms the basis of all biology - even if many don't recognize it. If anyone is unwilling to admit this or try to gloss over it as unimportant, then they have no clue. As a matter of fact, I have never read anything by you demonstrating an understanding of the biology at even the most basic level.
prongs · 6 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 6 August 2015
We are on a thread about Luskin's tactics; but all ID/creationists and YECs do the same thing over and over and over. They lie routinely. It has nothing to do with "honest misunderstandings;" they work at getting things wrong.
It is not as though they have no access to the correct scientific concepts and evidence. It is not because the scientific community hasn't corrected them repeatedly over a period of something close to 50 years since the formal inception of the Institute for Creation "Research" by Henry Morris.
All of this information and correction has been easily available to all of the players in the ID/creationist movement for that entire time; yet every single time these characters put out "papers" about science, they get the basics wrong, hijack scientific papers, and proceed to tell their audiences a bunch of bullshit about the papers. This has become a routine practice among the ID/creationist leaders; they lie.
And we know why they do it; we can read their books and "papers." We can listen in on their conversations with each other. It's all about an arrogant, self-righteous sectarian agenda directed at what they believe to be an evil, devil-inspired secular scientific world that is slowly coming to grips with straitening out centuries of prejudice, racism, homophobia, and religious bigotry. And they view that progress as bad and anti-bible.
These are not reasonable people who are capable of living in a cosmopolitan society; they want everything to go back to their rigid, sectarian system in which poor, ignorant people are kept in a state of subservience to authoritarian figures that will punish them for the slightest transgressions of sectarian law; in other words to a mean-spirited theocracy. We see this spelled out in the Wedge Document.
So I don't buy any of our troll's excuses and rationalizations. We have all seen what we have seen of their behaviors in the socio/political realm. We know who the Ken Hams, the Jason Lisles, the William Dembskis, the Ted Cruzes, the Louie Gomerts, the Michelle Bachmans, etc. are talking to; we understand the dog whistles, and it all reeks of sectarian hatred.
FL · 6 August 2015
Just Bob · 6 August 2015
phhht · 6 August 2015
W. H. Heydt · 6 August 2015
https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad · 6 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 6 August 2015
fnxtr · 6 August 2015
phhht · 6 August 2015
eric · 6 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 6 August 2015
The design inference is faulty. That was the one great insight Darwin implied. He proposed and argued for a process that could produce new functionality, and then, having produced it, refine it to the ultimate degree of perfection that the organism could attain, within the physics and chemistry of the materials. That process is completely mechanical, requiring no intervention. It is called, "evolution by natural selection".
But evolution only refines what it has. FL talks about hands. We have the same five digits as every other quadruped which has retained them. We have hands; moles have spades; whales have flippers; bats have wings. Horses have hoofs, apparently one digit only - but the remains of the others are still there, buried in the anatomy and the genes. All based on the same five digits.
There is no creationist explanation for that fact. Why always five? God just likes that number? The basic form is not ideal. If manipular ability were what the human hand were designed for, our fingers would all be mutually opposable and capable of complete flexion - you'd be able to touch the back of the same hand with them. You'd have different digits for fine and for gross manipulation, instead of somewhat different grips with different properties and some deficiencies - ever dropped a small screw you're trying to turn?
It's weird that FL would seize on eyes, too. If ever there was a structure explained by evolution, it's that. Darwin knew they looked designed and he devoted space to explaining why they were not. Since his day every step in the process from detection of light to the complete mammalian eye has been found and ranked in order. A high degree of perfection, indeed; but if our eyes are highly perfect, why do they come with errors built in? How come there are optical illusions? Why are some people colour-blind, or simply blind, from birth? Why do we develop astigmatism, presbyopia, short sight, long sight, macular degeneration, cataracts?
Oh, I know FL's explanation: the Fall. Handy-dandy, one size fits all. God did it. Or did He? Could it be that the material our lens is made from gets less elastic with age and use, and that the muscles that change its shape degenerate? And that these changes are inseparable from the properties of the tissues themselves? That is, the explanation is simply the materials our eyes are made from, and must be made from, because those are what is available to evolution.
As Bugs Bunny remarked, "Ehhh, could be."
And if you are faced with an explanation that relies on nothing more than material cause, or one that rings in an extra set of supernatural assumptions - like a God who created and then cursed us because we disobey Him - which one do you accept? The answer rang in the Enlightenment. You accept material cause, and you investigate further. And if you do, slowly, slowly, you find out.
We found out how our hands and our eyes are made, what they are made from, and that told us why they aren't perfect. We found out. The reason is evolution.
phhht · 6 August 2015
mattdance18 · 6 August 2015
mattdance18 · 6 August 2015
Robert Byers · 6 August 2015
Robert Byers · 6 August 2015
mattdance18 · 6 August 2015
Robert Byers · 6 August 2015
mattdance18 · 6 August 2015
mattdance18 · 6 August 2015
Robert Byers · 6 August 2015
Daniel · 7 August 2015
jjm · 7 August 2015
jjm · 7 August 2015
FL · 7 August 2015
jjm · 7 August 2015
jjm · 7 August 2015
Car manufacturers hotline
Support: Hello, How can i help?
FL: Reverse gear doesn't work in my car
Support: We are aware of the problem, but we have a work around. you'll need to get out of the car and push it backwards.
FL: thanks for your help, that's got the problem fixed.
Friend of FL: How's your new car?
FL: the design is astonishing and brilliant!
Friend of FL: why?
FL: Well, it's has this problem that reverse gear doesn't work, but the design is so clever, you can push it backwards!
Dave Luckett · 7 August 2015
What FL thinks is a "brilliant complex, clever engineering design" is actually better described as a kludge, made necessary by the fact that our retinal cells point their neurons in the direction the light comes from, and those neurons must gather to a point on the forward surface of the retina and then exit to the rear through a hole in it. Why face them that way up? We know that invertebrate eyes are arranged the opposite way up, and their neurons exit directly.
Recent research has demonstrated that the vertebrate retina is more light-sensitive and discriminating than it would otherwise be due to the presence of what are called "glial cells". These help to conduct light to the light-sensitive cells, like little glass fibres. But they wouldn't be useful if the light sensitive cells were the other way up, so this is again a kludge - an extra process that compensates for a deficiency in the basic arrangement. It's true that the glial cells scatter light chromatically, so that the blues are more distributed to the most sensitive light-detecting cells, while the reds and yellows go to cells better capable of colour discrimination. This demonstrates that human vision is evolved to see reds and yellows and to cope with low light without colour discrimination. Why? The creationist doesn't have an answer. Evolution does: our ancestors fed by day and needed to see ripe fruit and high-value leaves, but they also needed to see movement at night. Like the occasional leopard.
To digress: many human designs have to be kludged in that fashion. Consider the machine gun. Hiram Maxim's original idea was to use some of the gas pressure of the initial explosion to power a mechanism that opened the breech, extracted the fired round, loaded another from a feed mechanism (and advanced that mechanism), closed the breech, and recocked the piece. If the trigger were held down, the firing pin would fall again, and the cycle would repeat.
Maxim's original design was reliable and sturdy, but heavy. Obviously anything that could be done to lighten it would improve its utility in the field. Many successors, however, suffered from attaining their own object: the lighter mechanism moved too abruptly, extracting the expended round too abruptly, which often tore the cartridge. That blocked the breach, producing catastrophic jamming when the new cartridge was rammed in. A solution that many of the inventors tried was to oil each cartridge as it went in, thus easing extraction. It usually worked, but it's a kludge: an extra that doesn't add to the system as a whole, and merely compensates for a basic flaw. It means carrying more supplies - lubricating oil - and, worse, that oil picks up grit, which introduces further problems.
All vertebrate retinas are kludged like that. The blind spot is one of the necessary quirks of the system. It is compensated for, but it needn't be there at all, and wouldn't be, if the system were "wired" the other way around.
It's true that nobody knows why the vertebrate phylum developed eyes structured like that. Other phyla did not. Evolution must work with what it has. Some Cambrian basal ancestor's light sensitive cells were arranged in a slightly hollow pit in that orientation, and all its descendants were stuck with the same. They evolved other features to optimise that first basic ability to perceive light direction, but they also had to evolve kludges to compensate for that arrangement.
Well, that's evolution. It's not design.
harold · 7 August 2015
I think the "bad design" argument is a total waste of time, since "good" and "bad" are subjective value judgments. Furthermore, it falls a little flat because it is usually excessively exaggerated. Additionally, it originated as an attempted rebuttal to claims of an easily understood benevolent deity. In isolation it isn't a rebuttal to claims of a deity at all. In fact it boils down to an argument from incredulity grounded in a subjective judgment. I think the appendix is "bad", I can't imaging a "good" god who would "give" us an appendix, therefore no god. I truly think that ink and pixels are wasted on this one.
On the other hand, the objective observation that the anatomic features of the human body are obviously best explained by an evolutionary relationship with the rest of the biosphere is a very strong scientific point.
The evolutionary history of the five digit hand is supported by multiple independent lines of evidence. Molecular enetics, comparative anatomy, and paleontology at a minimum.
It doesn't effing matter whether Buck thinks it's good and Bubba thinks it's bad. For what it's worth, I'm always amazed at how "good" the adaptations that evolution leads to often are. It evolved and the evidence for its evolution is overwhelming.
As a completely non-religious person myself, I note that science does not directly address religion, except when religions bother to make scientifically testable claims. Specific claims about the physical universe can be addressed. Is the anatomy of the human hand best explained by evolution or by instantaneous creation in its present form 6000 years ago? Did the evolution of the human hand require magic? The answers to these questions are clear. Evolution, and we have no current reason to believe that magic was required.
If we go further and attempt to claim that subjectively perceived "flaws" in the "design" or the human hand disprove the existence of the FSM or some such thing, we have gone beyond strong science into weak philosophy.
harold · 7 August 2015
fnxtr · 7 August 2015
mattdance18 · 7 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 7 August 2015
fnxtr, the Book of Job, maybe even that of Ruth, probably qualifies as bronze age campfire stories. The letter of Paul to the Romans does not. It's a half-assed and uneasy melange of Greek-style philosophical argument with proto-rabbinical theology. Jesus is presented transcendentally as Messiah and Son of God, plus there's attempted positioning of the nascent Christian church as no threat to Rome, despite red-hot denunciation of Roman customs. It's part religion, part politics, part apologetics, part revisionism. It's also the most carefully worked out account of Paul's conception of the Christian faith, and although it is written on no authority but his own, he adopts a lofty magisterial style. Clearly, Paul is staking out his own turf - hence the political notes. He appoints himself as an Apostle in the first chapter, carefully not saying how his message differs from that of the original ones.
It's self-serving, full of logical holes, vigorously belligerant, intolerant, regressive and authoritarian. FL loves it, of course. Bronze age, it isn't, and it ain't no story, either. It's quite bad enough without calling it what it isn't.
https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad · 7 August 2015
https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad · 7 August 2015
phhht · 7 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 7 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 7 August 2015
If "PhDs" like Dembski, Abel, Behe, Lisle, Purdom, Meyer, and all the other "hotshots" of the ID/creationist movement get the basics of science wrong, it should be no surprise to anyone to find people like Byers and FL in their audiences. The audiences of the ID/creationist leaders are so woefully ignorant of basic science that they can't even begin to grasp the connections between biology, chemistry, and physics that even a high school student learns about.
In fact, not even the leaders of the ID/creationist movement have demonstrated any ability to grasp those connections. They have mangled science so badly in order to make it fit their sectarian beliefs that all they have left is a hodge-podge of disconnected sciency sound bytes that serve as apologetics but have nothing to do with the real world.
Byers' comments, to the effect that biology has to stand on its own, are pretty typical of the level of understanding of science promulgated by outfits like AiG and the ICR.
Biological processes are temperature dependent; and just that little observation alone is an extremely profound hint about the intimate connections among biology, chemistry, and physics. A reasonably intelligent high school student would get it easily; but it sails way over the heads of all ID/creationists. They have no clue about what it means.
The typical ID/creationist's grasp of science has already fallen apart at the middle school level; and the reason is because of their sectarian beliefs propped up by ID/creationism. It is pointless to argue with them because they don't even have the vocabulary and concepts in place. Nor will they, because of their religion, even dare to reeducate themselves properly.
Michael Fugate · 7 August 2015
FL, can you point to a chapter and verse in the Bible describing from start to finish God's fashioning of a human eye?
Henry J · 7 August 2015
They have to get the basics wrong, cause correct understanding of those basics would blow their claims out of the water.
But trying to claim that different branches of science are independent of each other? While in another sentence admitting that there is "some overlap"?
Of course there is "some" overlap; they're all studying aspects of the same universe, just operating at different scales and emphasis.
Henry J · 7 August 2015
W. H. Heydt · 7 August 2015
TomS · 7 August 2015
phhht · 7 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 7 August 2015
phhht · 7 August 2015
DS · 7 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 7 August 2015
Just Bob · 7 August 2015
Hey, Robert!
If scientists see something in a microscope, is that ruled out as 'pure' biology because it uses the physics of light and optics? Or, oh dear! how about an electron microscope?
If scientists stain tissue samples or bacteria to better differentiate them, is that now chemistry rather than biology?
If scientists kill a living thing and cut it up to study its insides, is that no longer biology (the study of life) because it's now dead? If that would count as biology in your mind, how recently must the thing have been living to count as biology? How about the desiccated remains of people and other things found in Egyptian tombs?
If a living thing is found underground, is that now geology? How about a dead thing that was once living?
You know, it would help us poor confused evolutionists if you would just carefully describe what counts as 'biology' in your mind, and what doesn't. We likely wouldn't agree with your compartmentalization, but at least we would know what the hell you mean by 'biology'.
FL · 7 August 2015
phhht · 7 August 2015
phhht · 7 August 2015
https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad · 7 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 7 August 2015
TomS · 7 August 2015
W. H. Heydt · 7 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 7 August 2015
Now I am wondering does FL's God have hands and a mouth? If so, how many digits on each and what is it's dental formula? Or is that a metaphor?
W. H. Heydt · 7 August 2015
Yardbird · 7 August 2015
TomS · 7 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 7 August 2015
mattdance18 · 7 August 2015
phhht · 7 August 2015
James Downard · 7 August 2015
James Downard · 7 August 2015
James Downard · 7 August 2015
Just Bob · 7 August 2015
James Downard · 7 August 2015
James Downard · 7 August 2015
TomS · 7 August 2015
James Downard · 7 August 2015
James Downard · 7 August 2015
James Downard · 7 August 2015
James Downard · 7 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 7 August 2015
And here's another thing. Both FL's and Byers' theology amounts to: If evolution is true, Christianity is false.
Since evolution is true, then science denial is their only option. But what I am wondering isn't this putting their God to the test and isn't there scripture forbidding one to do just that?
fnxtr · 7 August 2015
phhht · 7 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 7 August 2015
Robert Byers · 7 August 2015
W. H. Heydt · 7 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 7 August 2015
Keelyn · 7 August 2015
Keelyn · 8 August 2015
W. H. Heydt · 8 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 8 August 2015
TomS · 8 August 2015
May I suggest that if is not correct to reference one science in discussing another, then ...
References to thermodynamics, such as conservation of mass and energy, or about entropy, do not tells us anything about the possibility of evolution.
And the beginning of life science would be irrelevant to evolution, and so too Big Bang cosmology to biology, thermodynamics, and astronomy. Don't bring up the age of the Earth when discussing evolution.
Nor would would ethics have anything to do with anything else, such as theology ..
Which puzzles me: why does the Bible mix up all of these topics? Biology, astronomy, geology, history, cosmology, ethics, epistemology, geography, theology, politics, medicine, nutrition, ...?
DS · 8 August 2015
Religion is not biology. So booby has completely demolished his own bullshit.
On the other hand, mitochondrial DNA is biological. So, even according to his own bullshit criteria, booby is once again completely and totally wrong.
Just Bob · 8 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 8 August 2015
Dave Luckett, I thought faith was better than evidence. Why would any if, then statement be appropriate when it comes to God? Why don't they just have faith? By putting all of these restrictions on God, they are engaging in anti-apologetics. Why make it harder on themselves than it already is?
Scott F · 8 August 2015
DS · 8 August 2015
TomS · 8 August 2015
Scott F · 8 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 8 August 2015
https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad · 8 August 2015
Biology is different from the other disciplines. The primary reason for this is evolution, which has no exact counterpart elsewhere.
Evolution is also what integrates biology with physics, chemistry, etc., because it explains what those do not. Biochemistry isn't just organic chemistry, because the limitations of evolution mean that biology doesn't manage to do things that humans can, while evolution also builds complexity that humans are only beginning to understand.
Booby wouldn't understand this, naturally, because it isn't included in the lies that AIG tells.
Glen Davidson
Mike Elzinga · 8 August 2015
James Downard · 8 August 2015
Scott F · 8 August 2015
W. H. Heydt · 8 August 2015
DS · 8 August 2015
TomS · 8 August 2015
Scott F · 8 August 2015
Okay, Robert.
Biology. If "Biology" is the study of anything, it is the study of life, of living things. Do you agree?
Let's narrow that down a bit to vertebrates. Would you agree that "Biology" includes the study of vertebrates?
If so, then "Biology" would include the study of how these vertebrates live, what keeps them alive, what differentiates them from inanimate things. Do you agree?
For vertebrates, one of the essential components of keeping an animal alive is blood. This includes the study of the heart, the lungs, and blood vessels. Do you agree?
"Biology" would then also include the study of how blood keeps the vertebrate alive. After all, if you have the wrong kind of blood, you die. Therefore, the kind of blood is an essential part of the study of "Biology" Do you agree?
So, how does blood keep you alive? Well, among many other things, it transports oxygen to living cells, and carries away waste products. Therefore, "Biology" must of necessity also include the study of how blood transports oxygen.
So, how does blood transport oxygen? Well, a molecule of oxygen binds to a specific site on a specific protein carried by a red blood cell. Therefore, "Biology" must of necessity also include the study of how oxygen binds to proteins. Do you agree?
But isn't that just "Chemistry"?
So, how does oxygen bind to specific proteins, in preference to others? Well, that gets down to the study of how energy bonds form between the oxygen atoms, and how electrons are exchanged between atoms of oxygen and hydrogen and carbon and nitrogen that make up the proteins that the oxygen sticks to. Therefore, "Biology" must of necessity also include the study of atom binding energies. Do you agree?
But isn't that just "Physics"?
So, without atoms colliding and bouncing off each other, exchanging electrons and energy bonds, and sticking to each other (that is, "Physics"), then "Chemistry" would be impossible. If oxygen didn't stick to proteins in certain ways (that is, "Chemistry"), then "Biology" would be impossible. Each of these is a different level of organization. At each level, there are (what are called) "emergent properties" that didn't exist at the lower level(s).
Yet, at its core, "Biology" is just "Chemistry". At its core, "Chemistry" is just "Physics".
So, Robert. Where do you draw the lines? Where do you see the immutable boundaries between these disciplines? Boundaries that no one else can see?
mattdance18 · 8 August 2015
It's all quite stunning. What's missing, "vital forces?!?"
In all honesty, Robert, I am genuinely curious: what is biology, as you see it?
You've said it involves a "higher method." So what is this method, exactly? and in what sense is it higher?
You've said it involves a "higher form of complexity." So what is this form? and again, what makes it higher?
And you reject various kinds of evidence, from fossils to molecules, as not "bio sci evidence." So what exactly is bio sci evidence, for evolution or creation or anything else? What evidence are you wanting? What evidence are we failing to provide? And how does creationism provide it?
Please, by all means, clarify your position. This is your big chance. You haven't been kicked off by the moderators. You have been engaged by your fellow posters. Why don't you take advantage of your opportunity to explain, clearly and thoroughly, where our conceptions of biology itself have failed?
Yes?
mattdance18 · 8 August 2015
Hey, Uncle Floyd! Where'd ya go?
Here's a claim: "Blue-scaled mermaids are really good at canasta." It's not going away. What say you about it?
Come on, "what's da holdup, Apologist?"
Scott F · 8 August 2015
Shorter FL:
God exists. How do we know this?
Because it says so in the Bible, and we know that the Bible is infallible and cannot lie.
The Bible is the inspired Word Of God. How do we know this?
Because it says so in the Bible, and we know that the Bible is infallible and cannot lie.
God is infallible, and cannot lie. How do we know this?
Because it says so in the Bible, and we know that the Bible is infallible and cannot lie.
Because we have now proven that God is infallible and cannot lie, and because we have proven that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, therefore we conclude that the Bible is also infallible and cannot lie.
How do we know this?
By "logic" and "reasoning", of course.
Because the Bible is infallible, and says that God exists, therefore we conclude that God exists.
How do we know this?
By "logic" and "reasoning", of course.
Nope. No circular reasoning there at all. Just a completely hermetically sealed, self consistent environment, totally separated from what normal people call "reality".
Scott F · 8 August 2015
Almost forgot.
We also know that the Bible is the Word of God, because Pastor Billy Bob says so, and he's always right.
Just Bob · 8 August 2015
Scott F · 8 August 2015
TomS · 8 August 2015
How do we know that the Bible says those things? Because true Christians say that it does.
What I don't understand is this:
God can kill anyone, including infants, and we don't call it murder. God can take away anyone's property, and we don't call it theft. Whatever God does, it is not wrong. So, if God would lead us to false belief, why would that be wrong; and what grounds would we have to call that a lie? It might be that for our own good, we ought to believe something which is not true.
Robert Byers · 8 August 2015
Robert Byers · 8 August 2015
Robert Byers · 8 August 2015
Robert Byers · 8 August 2015
Robert Byers · 8 August 2015
W. H. Heydt · 8 August 2015
Keelyn · 8 August 2015
TomS · 9 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 9 August 2015
TomS's challenge is spot-on. Byers is flat dead wrong to say that "the bible says life has a special spark". It doesn't say that anywhere. It's typical of fundamentalists that they make stuff up and add it to the text, and this is yet another example of it.
I have the feeling that Byers is, in his usual muddled fashion, making a reference to the Hebrew expression "nephesh chayyah", which means literally "living breather", but which has a metaphorical meaning from the fact that the ancient writers thought of "the breath of life" as having a supernatural component. Breath meant spirit, something felt but unseen, associated with life itself. It would follow that there were two sorts of living things, those that breathe, as in inhale and exhale, and those that didn't. The former were "nephesh chayyah" and the latter weren't.
Of course this is wrong, but it's about what you'd expect from a culture that knew that goats and grass were both living things, but were different in important ways. What sets living things apart from non-living things is the property of self-replication with variation - which is to say, a specific chemical process. Chemical, Byers. Organic chemistry; biochemistry. Separate branches of that subject. But chemistry all the same.
DS · 9 August 2015
Sorry booby boy, I call bullshit. Mitochondrial DNA is biology. No ifs ands or buts about it. You can squirm an wiggle all you want, but you are just plain wrong if you try to deny it. Mitochondria are alive, they are part of living cells. There is no rational definition of life that can exclude them from biology. None of your posturing is going to change the facts. You don't even have the decency to examine the evidence that condemns you.
And your entire premise is wrong in the first place. When detectives try to solve a crime they use all the evidence, not just the biological evidence. You are literally wrapping yourself up in contradiction after contradiction trying to deny the obvious. The bible isn't going to help you here. Jesus didn't know anything about mitochondrial DNA and apparently neither do you. Just admit you were wrong and give it up already.
Until NIck sees fit to moderate this thread, any further responses by me concerning booby will be on the bathroom wall. I suggest that everyone else do the same. Maybe then he will realize the contempt that all rational people have for him and his bullshit.
TomS · 9 August 2015
mattdance18 · 9 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 9 August 2015
Robert is desperate; the evidence for evolution is overwhelming. He has no other recourse, than to deny, deny deny.
OK, one other.
So, Robert, why not just accept facts and move on? How does your or my origin affect the core message of Christianity? Why tie your whole belief system to something that is easily demonstrated to be false?
TomS · 9 August 2015
Of course, this thing about keeping physics separate from biology is nothing more than a desperate attempt to ignore (some of) the overwhelming evidence for evolutionary biology. Just like artificial distinction between "historical science" and "observational science". The creationists would rather deny vast realms of human knowledge than have to admit that they are physically related to the rest of the world of life.
phhht · 9 August 2015
Scott F · 9 August 2015
Scott F · 9 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 9 August 2015
Scott F · 9 August 2015
Robert, how do I measure "bio-evidence"? How do I count "bio-evidence"? If I were to take a box of stuff into a lab and look for "bio-evidence", what would I look for? What kind of "laboratory" would I need? What color is "bio-evidence"? What does it taste like? What does it sound like? How much does it weigh? What is the electric charge of "bio-evidence"? Do I need a microscope to see "bio-evidence"? How about a camera?
Does a human contain more "bio-evidence" than a dog? Does a dog contain more "bio-evidence" than a petunia? How much "bio-evidence" does an earth worm contain?
Please explain what "bio-evidence" is, and explain how I know if I'm holding a bag of "bio-evidence", or if it's just a bag full of poop that picked up from the back yard.
James Downard · 9 August 2015
James Downard · 9 August 2015
James Downard · 9 August 2015
FL · 9 August 2015
phhht · 9 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 9 August 2015
Henry J · 9 August 2015
Yeah, there could be a spark of interest in the subject!
TomS · 9 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 9 August 2015
FL, so in your opinion Christianity is false because evolution is true.
jjm · 9 August 2015
jjm · 9 August 2015
jjm · 9 August 2015
jjm · 9 August 2015
Daniel · 9 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 9 August 2015
W. H. Heydt · 9 August 2015
Let me try this from a slightly different direction...
Mr. Byers...is a virus alive? Please answer yes or no.
jjm · 9 August 2015
Robert Byers · 10 August 2015
Robert Byers · 10 August 2015
Robert Byers · 10 August 2015
Robert Byers · 10 August 2015
Robert Byers · 10 August 2015
jjm · 10 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 10 August 2015
jjm · 10 August 2015
jjm · 10 August 2015
jjm · 10 August 2015
Daniel · 10 August 2015
Keelyn · 10 August 2015
Keelyn · 10 August 2015
mattdance18 · 10 August 2015
eric · 10 August 2015
TomS · 10 August 2015
FL · 10 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 10 August 2015
phhht · 10 August 2015
Yardbird · 10 August 2015
W. H. Heydt · 10 August 2015
W. H. Heydt · 10 August 2015
TomS · 10 August 2015
eric · 10 August 2015
FL · 10 August 2015
phhht · 10 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 10 August 2015
Floyd, it doesn't say that at all. All you have is a comment saying "Let the earth..." which doesn't preclude abiogenesis. As far as I know the earth is entirely natural and material.
James Downard · 10 August 2015
phhht · 10 August 2015
See, Flawd, nobody needs your gods to explain anything. They are useless and unnecessary. We can and do explain almost everything without them, including the evolution of the eye.
James Downard · 10 August 2015
James Downard · 10 August 2015
TomS · 10 August 2015
James Downard · 10 August 2015
James Downard · 10 August 2015
James Downard · 10 August 2015
James Downard · 10 August 2015
gnome de net · 10 August 2015
Henry J · 10 August 2015
jjm · 10 August 2015
jjm · 10 August 2015
TomS · 10 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 10 August 2015
W. H. Heydt · 10 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 10 August 2015
David MacMillan · 10 August 2015
I'm sure most of you are familiar with Morton's Demon, the tongue-in-cheek but quite-accurate explanation for why creationists stubbornly fail to appreciate evidence and cling only to that which bolsters their presuppositions. It was coined by Glenn Morton, a former YEC Christian who, like me, wrote for YEC publications before getting a degree in physics and recognizing the error of his ways.
Morton holds a "six day creationism" that makes FL's version look even sillier than we already know it is. The explanation given by Morton couldn't be more simple: on the first day, God told the cosmos to separate light from darkness, and it did. On the second day, God told the land masses of Earth to form, and they did, and so forth.
The catch? There's no reason whatsoever to suppose that the "command" and its fulfillment happened at the same time. You are free, if you wish, to believe in a "six day" "creation week" which you may place at any point in history, before or after the fulfillment of the events commanded therein. "God said, 'Let the Earth bring forth living things' and it was so" but not necessarily right then. Simple.
Now, personally, I don't see the text as requiring any actual 144-hour period at all. But doesn't FL's version look even sillier now? FL has no reason whatsoever for believing that the "events" of creation happened on the days in which they were commanded, nor in the order in which they were commanded. The text never says "and on that same day, the Earth brought forth living things". But FL insists that's the only way it can possibly make sense.
Scott F · 10 August 2015
TomS · 10 August 2015
I quite agree with what Dave has said here.
If this were a case of conversation with a serious and informed reader of the Bible, I would go on to point out that the Bible shows signs of accepting the common pre-scientific idea of spontaneous generation. Just read through the description of the confrontation of Moses with Pharaoh - the Egyptian magicians turning sticks into snakes. The various pests being generated anew in the plagues sounds like spontaneous generation. The story of Samson and the bees being generated in the carcass of the lion - that, historically, has been understood as a variation of spontaneous generation called "equivocal generation" (see Wikipedia - this was also a standard interpretation of metamorphosis and the interesting ideas about barnacle geese).
Of course the Bible has nothing to say for, or against, evolution, for that would be anachronistic by something like 2000 years.
But it would be pointless to go into that with someone who insists on finding that, and only that, in the Bible which conforms to his superstitions.
Mike Elzinga · 10 August 2015
phhht · 10 August 2015
TomS · 10 August 2015
Before mid-twentienth century, there were serious people who had serious reservations about evolution.
And, although there were extremely few scientists who didn't accept the general idea of evolution over "deep time", there were some serious problems with the mechanism, and there were difficulties in accounting for time more than several million years. (When did Cecilia Payne-Gasposchkin propose that the Sun was hydrogen and helium - 1925, I just looked it up :; Stuff like that which I grew up taking for granted wasn't always known.)
So when the Modern Synthesis became standard, and nuclear physics was understood, and so much more - it was only then that one had to stop being serious about creationism. And, lo and behold, that is when the YECs showed just how far from serious they could be. They had to retreat to the Bible, whether or not the Bible had anything to say about it.
When friends learn about my interest in creationism, and wonder why, I tell them that I cannot think of an issue which is so clear cut as creationism. If one can believe creationism, one can believe anything.
David MacMillan · 10 August 2015
Yeah, prior to the emergence of modern genetic analysis and genome sequencing, it was at least oddly comforting to suppose that there was some element buried within the cell wherein the Divine Hand was helping things along.
Now not so much.
mattdance18 · 10 August 2015
Just Bob · 10 August 2015
Robert Byers · 10 August 2015
phhht · 10 August 2015
Robert Byers · 10 August 2015
jjm · 10 August 2015
jjm · 10 August 2015
W. H. Heydt · 10 August 2015
jjm · 10 August 2015
mattdance18 · 10 August 2015
jjm · 10 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 10 August 2015
How does informational organization disprove evolution and support supernatural intervention?
Michael Fugate · 10 August 2015
Now that I think some more, Byers' is just the age old assertion against abiogenesis - one of the creationists' last stands as they retreat in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence. The requirements for a replicator in a non-competitive environment would have likely been few - nothing like the cell today 3 billion years on.
mattdance18 · 11 August 2015
Never mind, Robert. You're clearly a lost cause. Goodbye.
http://www.creationconversations.com/m/discussion?id=4344648%3ATopic%3A188239
http://www.creationconversations.com/m/discussion?id=4344648%3ATopic%3A188424
Yardbird · 11 August 2015
gnome de net · 11 August 2015
@ Robert Byers
According to your definition, Evolution by Natural (or Human) Selection has nothing to do with "biology". Evolution merely explains how living things change with time in form (i.e., anatomy or appearance) and function (i.e., behavior). Anatomy, appearance and behavior are among the many things that are not "biology".
If the theory isn't "biological", then why do you demand "biological" evidence to support it?
Just Bob · 11 August 2015
James Downard · 11 August 2015
James Downard · 11 August 2015
James Downard · 11 August 2015
James Downard · 11 August 2015
FL · 11 August 2015
jjm · 11 August 2015
phhht · 11 August 2015
jjm · 11 August 2015
fnxtr · 11 August 2015
phhht · 11 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 11 August 2015
It appears that FL is doing the usual sectarian shtick of groping around for a "suitable" sectarian "translation" of the Christian holy book.
There are literally dozens of self-serving sectarian translations to choose from. Many of them are used to justify a specific set of sectarian beliefs over those of other sectarians.
If a particular verse doesn't have exactly the words a sectarian group likes, just make another "translation" and pick words that have the "correct nuances" and produce the desired exegesis and hermeutical results.
This is a pretty old shtick that goes back centuries.
Mike Elzinga · 11 August 2015
Then there is still that same issue of how a deity can do anything sequentially outside of time. The deity has no clock against which to sequence events. Furthermore, a deity that has an awareness "extending throughout all of time" has no excuse for making stupid decisions that have to be wiped out and restarted.
This is an issue that goes far, FAR, over the heads of fundamentalists attempting to critique science; and it makes them look far more ignorant and silly than they can even imagine.
jjm · 11 August 2015
Henry J · 11 August 2015
The question of where the sergeant got the chair should be kept private. (That's to avoid corporal punishment.)
Michael Fugate · 11 August 2015
JJM - yes my thoughts exactly.
How does "let" mean what Floyd wants it to mean? God seems pretty superfluous in the whole story - except when he used his "hands" (Floyd you never answered whether your God has actual hands) and his "breath" to make Adam. He's pretty "hands off" the rest of it.
Mike Elzinga · 11 August 2015
I suspect that Dave can find more literary examples than I can; but time in the ancient world involved a different connotation than what it has in our use of it today. It connoted more of an evolution of potentiality into actuality.
It wasn't until Isaac Newton that time got singled out as a separate "thing" that "flowed" independently of spatial events; and, as it turned out, Newton was wrong. Time is intricately bound up with the existence of matter and energy; and, given those, and given also loosely-bound, condensed matter systems that have acquired hierarchies of relatively stable states called "memory," the awareness of time sequences becomes possible.
Projecting the "popular" modern-day notions of time onto the ancient writers gets us very little understanding of what they were trying to convey. And there were plenty of other myths that influenced those writers and story tellers as well.
Henry J · 11 August 2015
What if She used tentacles instead of hands?
Just Bob · 11 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 11 August 2015
jjm · 11 August 2015
jjm · 11 August 2015
Here's an idea.
What if god made the the earth and life etc while traveling at relativistic speeds? God could then have done it in six literal days from Gods perspective as required by FL, but in the time frame of the earth, it took billions of years. So FL, is that possible? if not why not?
W. H. Heydt · 11 August 2015
TomS · 11 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 11 August 2015
As I mentioned earlier, I suspect Dave can come up with other literary examples of how the ancients thought about the emergence of actualities.
Events in the ancient world were much more "tied together." The growth of plants, the flooding of the Nile, the breeding seasons of animals; nearly everything was correlated with positions of the stars, moon and planets. The notion of time as a "separate entity" didn't exist.
Even Galileo measured the evolution of events against the number of swings of a pendulum or against the amount of water or grains of sand. One can still pull out mathematical relationships between distances on an inclined plane and grains of sand in an hour glass or the weight of water in a cup under a flowing pipe. There doesn't need to be any notion of an entity called "time" against which to judge the progress or growth of something.
This is still true of many measurements we take for granted. "Weight" doesn't need to be a separate property of something; you merely "balance" the amount of something against something else on a "beam balance." You don't have to know anything about mass or gravity.
The same goes for temperature - i.e., the in-your-faceness of heat. All you need is something that expands approximately linearly with "hotness:" and then you can mark off a scale of "degrees of heat."
Distances can be measured as multiples of some other length or as the number of stones dropped through holes as a geared table with holes in it rotated in proportion to a wheel; or simply by the number of rotations of a wheel itself.
So, in the ancient world, there did not have to be any notion of some "intrinsic" quantity called weight, length, time, or anything else. Measurements were operational and practical; they did not have the abstract connotation with which we view them today. Those abstractions emerged throughout history.
So when ancient texts describe the "actions" of a deity, they are describing the actions of a mighty king, or priest, or powerful human being who is giving permissions or forbidding behaviors and "natural occurrences." These deities are not necessarily ordering the existence of something but permitting or forbidding the emergence of what is already a potential within the things themselves. And those notions about the interrelationships among everything go way back into the prehistorical mists of time; they are still found in a few current near-hunter/gatherer cultures today.
Interestingly, what the ancients were doing in a practical manner is what Einstein realized about time; time is intricately tied up with the existence of matter and energy. Some of those material systems are singled out as "clocks" against which other events are measured.
jjm · 11 August 2015
Just Bob · 11 August 2015
The OT god is not shy at all about saying "Thou shalt!" when he gives a command.
Does he say, "Earth, thou shalt bring forth..."? No, indeed. Instead, he commands the condition to exist that allows the earth to "bring forth." Or he could be commanding whatever is preventing the earth from "bringing forth" to stop preventing that: "Let the earth bring forth...". The command, one assumes, is obeyed instantly: from that moment, earth is free to "bring forth"... any time the earth gets around to it... and at whatever pace the earth can manage.
Ever since that moment, earth has been "bringing forth" continually.
Scott F · 11 August 2015
Scott F · 11 August 2015
FL · 11 August 2015
FL · 12 August 2015
mattdance18 · 12 August 2015
Hey, Floyd! Do you understand the difference between a "remote cause" and a "proximate cause?" This distinction pretty much makes hash of your position First, the Bible depicts God as commanding the earth to produce life, and then the earth producing it. In this scenario, God is the remote cause and the earth is the proximate cause.
Both atheist/naturalist and theistic/religious evolutionists can accept the proximate cause, earth or (taking "earth" as metaphor) nature. Where they differ is on the existence and/or essence of a remote cause underlying all of nature. This disagreement, of course, is no part of science: it's a matter of metaphysical theology and philosophy.
But what you are saying -- in a most unbiblical fashion -- is that because God is the remote cause, evolution can't be the proximate. Indeed, what you are saying -- unbiblically again -- is that God is somehow the proximate cause, directly responsible for the particular causation of particular creatures' existences. This, of course, is part of your total theological misunderstanding of the concept of creatio ex nihilo, as if it were a form of magic appropriate to a fantasy novel or a comic book, rather than remote causation in an ultimate sense. You wind up with a deity that's less originating and sustaining cause of all existence, more cosmic sorcerer -- less transcendent, more pagan, actually.
So as usual, you're wrong about everything. You're wrong about Christian scriptural and conceptual theology, you're wrong about science in general and evolution in particular, and you're still wrong -- appeals to authority aside -- about the necessary incompatibility of evolution and Christianity. Evolution is incompatibile with Christianity as you understand it, but your understanding of Christianity -- your misunderstanding of it, truth be known -- isn't the only option.
P.S. Feel free at any time to explain (1) how a transcendent deity speaks vocally; (2) how said deity's vocalizations cause any sort of natural event to occur or any sort of natural object to exist; and (3) why any such magical nonsense belongs in science classes. That's twice I've asked. Cat gotcher tongue?...
jjm · 12 August 2015
Malcolm · 12 August 2015
mattdance18 · 12 August 2015
jjm · 12 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 12 August 2015
Being ten hours out of synch makes me late for many parties. This is one.
FL has again demonstrated two of the salient characteristics of extreme fundamentalists. One is that he can't read only the meanings that the words actually convey. He has to color them, weight them, bias them - and if that's not enough, make stuff up and put it in.
So for FL the words in the text "Let the earth produce growing things" don't mean that the earth produced growing things. They mean that God produced them miraculously (that's the addition) because he spoke those words. That is, the words mean something that the text doesn't actually say.
But there's a second, further leap. Suppose we concede, argumentum, that the text could mean what FL says it means, even though it does not say that. (To be absolutely explicit, I don't think FL can be right, but let's go with that for the time being.) Even that concession is not enough for FL. He is not saying that the words could mean that. He's saying that they must mean that; no other interpretation is possible, even though that interpretation is not specified, and seems to fly in the face of the plain and ordinary meaning of the words.
I think that I may hold that the words "the earth produced growing things" means that the earth produced growing things, and, further, that I see no words that state that it was done miraculously. FL is certain that the words mean that God produced life by fiat. He knows this, not because any words say that, but because he must be right. No other possibility exists but that FL is right. The display of word-blindness and assumption of perfect knowledge on his part becomes breathtaking, and the overwheening pride behind it is plain to see.
Mike flatters me. So far as I know, whatever might have been the understanding of time by ancient cultures, the Hebrew scribes who assembled and redacted the tales that became Genesis had a common-sense notion of time as past, present, and future. (Interestingly, they thought of the past as what lay ahead - because they could see it - and the future as what was hidden behind.)
Hebrew, like all semitic languages, has a tricky and metaphorical way of indicating the chronicity of an event. The verb has voice rather than tense, indicating an action completed or in progress or (sometimes, but not often in Biblical Hebrew) not yet begun, but does not include shades of meaning like the pluperfect. The assumption is always that the order of narration is the same as the order of events. The writers seem to have tied time to particular events, to the succession of the seasons and the turning of the year: Genesis 8:22. But the appreciation of time as a separate quality in the Newtonian sense - well, they weren't up to the Greek idea of questioning basic concepts by rigorous examination even of axioms, like time itself. For that matter, I doubt that the difference between literal history on the one hand, and myth, legend and folklore on the other, occurred to them, either.
For that lack of examination of implication, consider Job, for example. Neither the implications of God's omnipotence nor the implicit averral that He is not omnibenevolent is considered; they just are. God is to be worshipped, praised and adored because He is God, and his instructions are to be followed for the same reason, and the Euthyphro dilemma simply does not occur.
As I have often remarked before, it is a strange and disorienting experience to be advocating a plain reading of the words of Scripture to one who considers himself a "Bible believer", considering that I actually don't believe a good deal of it. But that's what I find myself doing. In this particular instance, the Scripture happens to be literally correct: it was the earth that produced the first growing things, and no miracle was needed, nor stated, nor implied.
Robert Byers · 12 August 2015
Robert Byers · 12 August 2015
Robert Byers · 12 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 12 August 2015
Byers displays his thought processes for all to see. Biology is "an info org called living life. Process and function."
Classic. The Macgonagall of creationism. He is demonstrating that he hasn't the vaguest notion of what a definition is.
Could he mean: "Biology is the study of the processes and functions of living things while living"?
It's possible, but one mustn't put words into his mouth, for the obvious reason that he will disavow them when they become inconvenient - which they will, because Byers is not capable of formulating a definition of "biology" that excludes evidence for the theory of evolution. In fact, I don't think that such a definition is possible, since evolution underlies all biology, no matter how "biology" is defined.
But the string of unrealated words Byers used is completely incoherent. It's that very fact that frustrates attack. You can't attack anything so void of meaning, so completely obscure. It means nothing to anyone. What it means to Byers is anyone's guess - but the most reasonable reflection is that it doesn't actually mean anything to him, either. The explanation? He can't form a coherent definition because he can't form a coherent thought.
What observation would be evidence for evolution, for Byers? The answer is, of course, none. No evidence could sway him.
Prove me wrong, Byers. Concentrate your powers. Nominate one observation from what you call biology that, if made, could show that evolution is real. Could it be the acquisition of a new ability? Observed. Could it be the emergence of a new species? Observed. Could it be the development of a new structure or feature of a body part? Observed. Could it be a change in life-cycle to suit a new environment? Observed.
It's all been done, Byers. That's not enough for you? Then come up with something that would convince you, or admit that there is nothing that could.
mattdance18 · 12 August 2015
mattdance18 · 12 August 2015
mattdance18 · 12 August 2015
Robert is starting to remind me of Fredo Corleone.
jjm · 12 August 2015
jjm · 12 August 2015
eric · 12 August 2015
eric · 12 August 2015
eric · 12 August 2015
Just Bob · 12 August 2015
Somewhere up there I think FL explained (yet again, with example and references) how we can't read the Bible literally. "Let the earth bring forth," does not really mean let the earth bring forth. Instead it means "God immediately created animals magically."
Damn those stupid translators, anyway.
gnome de net · 12 August 2015
gnome de net · 12 August 2015
If evidence is unrelated to the theory which it is trying to support, why is that evidence so critical?
Would evidence of plate tectonics support the Germ Theory of Disease?
Would evidence of a Paleo-Indian burial mound support the Theory of Gravity?
Would "bio sci" evidence support the "non bio" Theory of Evolution?
Michael Fugate · 12 August 2015
Floyd, hands? He has the whole world in his hands? Literal?
People like you claim that your God's commands are ignored all the time - why do you think they were obeyed in Genesis? Why would the earth need your God's command to do anything?
Michael Fugate · 12 August 2015
Floyd, hands? He has the whole world in his hands? Literal?
People like you claim that your God's commands are ignored all the time - why do you think they were obeyed in Genesis? Why would the earth need your God's command to do anything?
FL · 12 August 2015
mattdance18 · 12 August 2015
Good morning, Uncle Floyd. I assume that you aren't answering my three simple questions here because you answer them in your forthcoming book. Please let me know when it comes out, so I can read those answers, belly laugh for a moment, and then prop up the wobbly cabinet in my garage. Thanks.
W. H. Heydt · 12 August 2015
TomS · 12 August 2015
BTW, the word of God is not biology. Or mathematics, or music, or history, or geology, or football, or genetics, or evolution, or micro-evolution, or engineering, or design.
(Remember when it came to building a replica of Noah's Ark, they didn't rely on following the Biblical instructions, but had to use modern construction materials and methods?)
So, where does one go to find an alternative for evolution? (Is that why there is no alternative?)
FL · 12 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 12 August 2015
Floyd, come on buddy - surely even you can understand that passage, no?
When we become conscious - which in the minds of the ancients would separate us from the other animals - we become aware that we will die. It is that simple. Who would be stupid enough to read it as if there were a literal tree with literal fruit eaten by a literal Adam and Eve?
Dave Luckett · 12 August 2015
This has wandered so far from the original matter as to make further rebuttal pointless. Just Bob says it exactly right. FL argues that "the earth produced growing things" means "God created growing things miraculously, by fiat".
That's what he's arguing. Nothing more needs to be said.
FL can read what it says. He knows that he's not supposed to monkey with the text. But he knows that much with only part of his deeply fragmented mind. For the rest, he can't help himself. He labours under a compulsion so imperative that it overrides even the meaning of the text he calls sacred. So he perverts that meaning, because he must. Miracles he must have, or else life is natural, a product of the order of nature. That can't be. It just can't. Life has to be a procession of miracles, because FL must be a miracle in himself. He just has to be, or he'd have to think of himself as not especially privileged; not the crown of creation, but just an animal with a bigger brain.
No, no! Rather than open the door to that kind of thinking, FL will throw the bible aside completely. The words don't mean what they say, they mean something else, as directed by FL.
With that, I am content.
phhht · 12 August 2015
Yup, poor old Flawd's a loony all right. What a fool.
Michael Fugate · 12 August 2015
mattdance18 · 12 August 2015
mattdance18 · 12 August 2015
Substitute "the earth" for "theatre" in the preceding post. Damnable autocorrect.
eric · 12 August 2015
eric · 12 August 2015
eric · 12 August 2015
gnome de net · 12 August 2015
FL · 12 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 12 August 2015
gnome de net · 12 August 2015
@ FL
Exactly how much shame is there in simply admitting, "Okay, Evolution offers an evidence-based explanation for life, animals and humanity but we just donât agree with it and choose a miraculous non-evolutionary creation instead"?
TomS · 12 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 12 August 2015
Incidentally; the Christian bible doesn't appear to have been influenced in any way by early atomism in Greece, which started somewhere around 500 BCE.
In that respect, the tales in Genesis retain their more primitive form without the speculations about the nature of atoms and the void. They still read like early bronze age and pastoral tales.
The later influences of Aristotle on Christian theology didn't come until much later, after the 12th and 13th centuries.
FL · 12 August 2015
phhht · 12 August 2015
W. H. Heydt · 12 August 2015
W. H. Heydt · 12 August 2015
phhht · 12 August 2015
eric · 12 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 12 August 2015
When studying biology, what the Bible says and especially what Floyd imagines the Bible says are totally irrelevant. No one who wants to understand living systems would pay the slightest attention to either one. What one does is observe nature not read and attempt to interpret ancient texts.
DS · 12 August 2015
FL · 12 August 2015
phhht · 12 August 2015
James Downard · 12 August 2015
James Downard · 12 August 2015
James Downard · 12 August 2015
FL · 12 August 2015
James Downard · 12 August 2015
James Downard · 12 August 2015
phhht · 12 August 2015
James Downard · 12 August 2015
phhht · 12 August 2015
prongs · 12 August 2015
jjm · 12 August 2015
phhht · 12 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 12 August 2015
Even though Floyd flunks reading comprehension, it doesn't matter; evolution is the only explanation for the diversity of living things that actually fits the evidence. An honest study of nature even with intense theological training and a belief in God will always lead one to common descent and an old earth.
jjm · 12 August 2015
Scott F · 12 August 2015
Scott F · 12 August 2015
Robert Byers · 13 August 2015
Robert Byers · 13 August 2015
jjm · 13 August 2015
jjm · 13 August 2015
Robert, as has been explained to you before,
All the science are deeply interrelated. The parts you dismiss are combined together to study the whole. Science works to understand the physic, the chemistry, the zoology, the botany, the geology, the climatology to understand the whole. For example, from chemistry we know the oxygen is not stable in the atmosphere and will disappear over time. From biology we know that bacteria can produce oxygen. From geology and chemistry we know that oxygen became relatively stable in the atmosphere. From this we can deduce roughly when oxygen producing bacteria first appeared. From chemistry and physics we are able to understand how DNA is structured. This leads to an understanding of how genes are passed on. The study of anatomy helps us understand how the body is constructed and functions and on and on and on.
Science lays all thi open for anyone willing to look and what do you. Refuse to detail your definitions, refuse to explain the detail of you position and claim that scientist are scared, when you are the one hiding.
FL · 13 August 2015
mattdance18 · 13 August 2015
Dave Lovell · 13 August 2015
Dave Lovell · 13 August 2015
mattdance18 · 13 August 2015
Good grief, Byers is stupid.
mattdance18 · 13 August 2015
Scott F · 13 August 2015
Daniel · 13 August 2015
mattdance18 · 13 August 2015
mattdance18 · 13 August 2015
Uncle Floyd's lack of any criticism of Byers' claims and ideas should presumably be construed as full agreement.
W. H. Heydt · 13 August 2015
phhht · 13 August 2015
eric · 13 August 2015
eric · 13 August 2015
Henry J · 13 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 13 August 2015
Just Bob · 13 August 2015
Just Bob · 13 August 2015
Biology
Dictionary.com: the science of life or living matter in all its forms and phenomena, especially with reference to origin, growth, reproduction, structure, and behavior.
Collins English Dictionary: the study of living organisms, including their structure, functioning, evolution, distribution, and interrelationships
The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary: The science of life and of living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, and distribution. It includes botany and zoology.
Wikipedia: Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy.
So Robert, do all of these English dictionaries -- our standard arbiters of WHAT WORDS MEAN -- not know what 'biology' means? They all include things you've eliminated from your idea of what biology is, like structure (anatomy).
Does that mean that not only do working biologists not know what is properly biology, but neither do lexicographers (whose job is to know what words mean) know what the word means.
So who is left? Can you tell us of anyone, Robert, who agrees with your definition of biology? If you claim someone does, please give a quote or link so we can check for ourselves.
Just Bob · 13 August 2015
Oh, and one more (I had to hold my nose, but I took one for the team):
Conservapedia: Biology encompasses several fields of study, including genetics, biochemistry, cell biology, structural biology, mammalian physiology, biophysics, medicine, botany, and zoology; in addition, studies such as ecology and evolution also fall under the purview of biology.
Man, Robert, they specify even MORE things that you think don't belong under "bio sci"!
Do you think there's maybe just the slightest chance you could be even a teensy bit wrong about what biology is and isn't?
Yardbird · 13 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 13 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 13 August 2015
Addendum: There are some possible mix-ups in names that occur around "Young Warriors."
"Young Warriors" was a Chinese series on television. But it is also the name of an organization that is supposed to be helping young boys without fathers. I don't know if it is sectarian in nature.
"Warriors for Christ" is one of the organizations I was thinking of. There are several others as well that have some kind of name that signifies warfare. There is even a motorcycle gang that does battle with the satanic forces of society.
I'll have to wait until the program on television comes around again. Most of the leaders in this program are the macho young males in their 20s haranguing a bunch of teens and preteens about the bad old world they are going to be facing as Christians.
jjm · 13 August 2015
phhht · 13 August 2015
TomS · 13 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 13 August 2015
If humans are created in the image of God, but don't follow God's commandments, then why would we expect any other thing to do so? If God gives plants to animals to eat, what's to stop them eating other animals? And even if they didn't eat animals, how did they avoid killing plants while eating them? If there was no death before the fall, does that include bacteria, protists and plants? How can that be true?
This reminds me of Daniel Dennett's thought experiment involving a scientist implanting a memory that you have a brother in Cleveland. It flat out can't work because something that's true is linked to so many other memories. You couldn't just add one. The Genesis stories require miracle upon miracle and it still doesn't make sense.
Scott F · 13 August 2015
eric · 13 August 2015
TomS · 13 August 2015
jjm · 13 August 2015
prongs · 13 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 13 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 13 August 2015
And why is plant death not considered death?
Maybe the early plants were Shmoos?
Robert Byers · 13 August 2015
Yardbird · 13 August 2015
phhht · 13 August 2015
Yardbird · 13 August 2015
Robert Byers · 13 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 13 August 2015
prongs · 13 August 2015
phhht · 13 August 2015
PA Poland · 13 August 2015
Yardbird · 13 August 2015
TomS · 13 August 2015
W. H. Heydt · 13 August 2015
jjm · 13 August 2015
Robert,
If you were to study a car, does the car have to be running? Can i study components of the car to see how each piece works and then combine that knowledge to understand how the car works? Would this incorporate different discipline of science? we need to understand thermal effects, chemical reactions, material behavior, electronics etc etc. By your theory, it would only count if the car was running!
***
So Robert,
Have you detailed your description of biology? No
Have you given an example of studying biology within your definition? No
Have you explained why DNA isn't part of biology? No
Have you explained why anatomy isn't part of biology? No
Have you explained why biology isn't based on an understanding of physics and chemistry? No
Have you explained why we can't make inferences about biology from geological observation? No
Have you explained how Behe's arguments about irreducible complexity aren't invalidated by your definition of biology? No
In comparison
Have we given a detailed description of biology and what is included? Yes, the definition found in dictionaries and Biology text books
Have we given examples of studying biology within the standard definition? Yes
Have we explained why DNA is part of biology? Yes
Have we explained why anatomy is part of biology? Yes
Have we explained why biology is based on an understanding of physics and chemistry? Yes
Have we explained why we can make inferences about biology from geological observation? Yes
Have we explained why Behe's arguments about irreducible complexity are invalidated by your definition of biology? Yes
***
So how about you start giving some examples and explanations or can't you!
Scott F · 13 August 2015
mattdance18 · 13 August 2015
I think we can pretty much definitively say at this point that Robert's paper about thylacines, which is ostensibly trying to address an issue of biogeography (namely the distribution of marsupials), is not a "bio sci" paper, according to his own insanely restrictive definition of biological science.
Just too dumb for belief.
Scott F · 13 August 2015
jjm · 13 August 2015
FL · 13 August 2015
jjm · 13 August 2015
FL · 14 August 2015
FL · 14 August 2015
Typo correction - the phrase should read, "as indicated by verse 13."
jjm · 14 August 2015
jjm · 14 August 2015
FL,
You still haven't answered if you think Byers definition of biology is correct, you seem to be avoiding that one. So is Byers right? Are Behe et. al. wrong? You argued earlier that the eye was evidence for design. According to Byers that's invalid. Is he right?
Why haven't you commented on Byers misquoting the bible which started this whole sidetrack? Was Byers right or wrong with his bible quote?
Dave Luckett · 14 August 2015
I think it is possible to say many things about phhht, but that he lacks confidence is not one that would occur to me. What he wants is equity, and so do I. We're not going to get it. FL has no intention of playing fair.
Phhht long ago responded to FL's demand that he explain why Genesis 1:29-30 does not imply prelapsarian exclusive herbivory. Having done it already, he makes his repeated response conditional on a substantive response from FL to a question FL has never been able to answer in any sensible way. That question is "How do you know that there is a god?"
Now, to do FL justice, I can recall one, but only one, occasion when FL attempted a direct response to that question. FL said that there were wonders of nature (including the Universe itself) that defied scientific explanation, and that he only had to look in the mirror to see one of them; therefore, God. He also cited the life-cycle of the cicada, especially the 13 and 17 year varieties, and their shrilling, as inexplicable.
Other statements were made in other contexts, not directly responsive to that question. FL asserted elsewhere that human beings alone possess the qualities of aesthetic appreciation, narrative ability, culture, and ethics and morality. He implied, without actually asserting, that these could only be divinely installed by a Creator. He also asserts that the Bible is inerrant because it was divinely inspired - by which he means that it was actually dictated by God. (He has to mean this if he is to eliminate the possibility of human error. Any allowance whatsoever for human error has to imply that the text, as we have it, is not inerrant.) Because the Bible is divinely inspired, there must be a God who inspired it.
He also cited what he called evidence for miracles, specifically mentioning three such. One was a television show entitled, as I recall, "Unsolved Mysteries", which insinuated that one Christina Umowski had been miraculously cured of neurofibromatosis by a Catholic priest, Fr Ralph DiOrio. FL asserted that he had seen the MRI "photographs", before and after, that proved the cure. He hadn't, of course - only images on a television screen as part of a dramatised presentation pitched to an audience that likes woo. Even then, the show didn't actually say that it was a miracle. There is no report anywhere of an even slightly more rigorous investigation.
The second was slightly more respectable, although again third-hand, and distorted. In an Amazon review of a book sympathetic to Pentecostalism, a Pew survey was said to have confirmed that upward of two hundred million Christians in ten countries had witnessed miracles. When the actual survey was consulted, rather than the Chinese whispers on Amazon, the data was that so many "Pentecostal and charismatic" Christians had agreed that they had witnessed "divine healing, divine inspiration or exorcism". Miracles weren't mentioned, but that was enough for FL.
FL said he had witnessed the third instance himself. He was present at a Church service when a woman who had been in pain for years from a bad leg cast her brace aside (or it might have been a crutch), shouted that the pain was gone, and walked out without a limp.
Finally, there was an anecdote that appeared on a website (there are in fact a number of them) in which the writer asserted that he'd "died" and been given a guided tour of Hell, and admonished to mend his ways. When accessed, the story had the credibility of "Ghost Riders in the Sky" without the musical or literary quality.
I've been here for some years, and that's about it, as far as I can recall. If FL has anything to add, by all means let him add it.
Now, whatever you might say about the quality of these assertions, they are arguable. By that, I don't mean that they are right, or represent truth or reality or anything like that. I mean only that they are to be argued. Me, I think the arguments against them are manifest, and overwhelming. But still, they might be argued.
FL won't actually argue them, though. He just mentioned them at long intervals and then ignored all rebuttals. This frustrates all discourse. But of course, that is FL's object. His purpose, generally, is to quarantine his assertions from rational enquiry. So you can ask, but from FL you will not receive. The above are the gleanings of years. To get from him what he thinks is evidence for God, is far, far harder than pulling teeth.
But that, of course, does not deter FL from demanding evidence and rigorous argument in favour of our various positions. He gets it, generally speaking, which only makes him look foolish. And that's reason enough for me to do it. Hobby, nothing. It's an avocation.
Keelyn · 14 August 2015
âDoes a person have to prove God exists merely to state their own rational assessment of (for example) what Gen. 1:11-12 says or doesnât say?â
Yes. First, you have zero evidence that your god thing even exists. That has always been the situation; no evidence. The lack of evidence, over the course of the millennia of human existence, leads one to rationally conclude that such things donât exist. Ergo, you are attempting to rationalize a fictional scenario that is meaningless in reality, regardless of what it says or doesnât say. Second, even as fiction itâs wrong. The authors of the stories were clueless; they couldnât even get the order of things correct. Angiosperms are considerably older than graminoids (both day 3) â and neither could have existed before the Sun (day 4). Those are facts. Please donât use the term ârationalâ as an adjective to the term âassessment.â It is thoroughly irrational. You might just as well attempt to make a rational assessment of the nasty troll in Three Billy Goats Gruff. What difference does it make?
âTell me, whatâs stopping your pal Mr. Phhht from giving his rational assessment of HIS favorite text, Gen. 1:30? Why canât he just give his rational explanation like you do?â
Thatâs an easy one. The rational assessment is that itâs utter nonsense. Many âbeastsâ are not herbivores and never have been. They would never survive eating only vegetation, no matter what your fictional stories say, and thatâs another fact. So again, what difference does it make what it says? Can you debate something that is real? Matt has a great post on noncircular pupils.
âWe both know the answer: Phhht is scared to do so. He lacks confidence. You freely put your bible stuff on the table, I freely put my bible stuff on the table; but Phhht is just flat out scared to put ANY of his bible stuff on the table. Doesnât want to risk getting openly refuted (or **nuked**, more likely) on the field of battle.â
That has to be some of the most obvious and feeble baiting Iâve seen in some time. Phhht, youâre just a scaredy cat!
Keelyn · 14 August 2015
FL · 14 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 14 August 2015
FL apparently thinks - or affects to think - that changing the translation of the Hebrew verb from "produce" to "sprout" changes the meaning of the text so much as to require his reading, which is that God caused life to appear by miraculous fiat.
So the text would read - if he were completely correct in this translation - the earth sprouted growing things, not the earth produced growing things.
This makes all the difference in the world. Obviously, to say the earth sprouted growing things is to say that God sprouted them, by miraculous fiat.
I think a moment of respectful silence is called for. We are seeing a serious melt-down here.
jjm · 14 August 2015
Just Bob · 14 August 2015
TomS · 14 August 2015
There is a lot of scholarly writing on what is called the distinction between Wortbericht ("Word account") and Tatbericht ("Deed account") in the Bible, particularly in Genesis 1, which bears on just this sort of thing, what significance there is to the Hebrew using different words in two accounts of the appearance of plants, the divine command and the action.
TomS · 14 August 2015
I'd just like to point out that "Pentecostal" is not a synonym for "fundamentalist". For example, the paleontologist Bob Bakker is a pentecostal preacher, and no YEC.
Bobsie · 14 August 2015
FL · 14 August 2015
Yardbird · 14 August 2015
phhht · 14 August 2015
TomS · 14 August 2015
FL · 14 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 14 August 2015
Sergeants can't sprout chairs, FL, but the earth can sprout growing things, and it needs no miracle. God can will it, but it still needs no miracle to happen.
On the other hand, if you were not to sprout fabricated nonsense like this, I'd call it a miracle.
phhht · 14 August 2015
TomS · 14 August 2015
FL · 14 August 2015
Yardbird · 14 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 14 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 14 August 2015
So Floyd, from your comments, the Bible is useless as a source of natural history knowledge? Thanks for clearing that up.
Why should we trust it as a source of anything, if it can't get the basics correct?
W. H. Heydt · 14 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 14 August 2015
The attempt to bamboozle someone by pretending to understand other languages - i.e., bandying about a term like ânephesh chayyahâ - is a hackneyed old trick used by fundamentalist preachers trying to impress illiterate country rubes. FL gets away with it in his church, but he has absolutely no clue about what other people know that he doesn't.
This behavior is such a classic example of what goes on in the "minds" of people who take the Christian bible literally that it demonstrates why educating fundamentalists, especially those on a mission to stamp out evolution, is futile. Better to save one's energies for those who are still able to learn.
A slavish indulgence in word-gaming everything into submission to one's preconceptions is a clear indication of a "mind" that no longer learns but has, instead, developed an obsessive/compulsive habit of nit-picking over the meanings of the meanings of the meanings of meanings. It is a mind that can no longer branch off into new directions and come to understand new evidence and perspectives but, instead, now cycles endlessly within an extremely narrow world view. I am not a psychiatrist, but I suspect these behaviors fit within the category of an obsessive/compulsive mental illness.
We are watching a sectarian robot going through its "programming" without the slightest awareness of an external world that contains people who know lots of other things. It has absolutely no awareness of what it doesn't know. All of its responses are preprogrammed; and it knows nothing of the history of religion or of a complex intellectual history that culminated in the development of science.
Michael Fugate · 14 August 2015
Floyd is now willing to jettison common sense to protect his dubious interpretation of the Bible. We know these guys will jettison science at the drop of a hat, but common sense? Where is "fish to Gish" without common sense? Every five year old knows plants die. They can watch them die in real time. Where is Ken Ham's "were you there?" argument now.
TomS · 14 August 2015
mattdance18 · 14 August 2015
Never gonna answer those three pesky little questions, are ya, Uncle Floyd? It's okay. You didn't understand the difference between remote and proximate causation, either, so I imagine you're trying to avoid displaying your ignorance any more prominently than you already have. Enjoy the coziness of your cabin.
FL · 14 August 2015
phhht · 14 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 14 August 2015
James Downard · 14 August 2015
James Downard · 14 August 2015
James Downard · 14 August 2015
James Downard · 14 August 2015
James Downard · 14 August 2015
James Downard · 14 August 2015
James Downard · 14 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 14 August 2015
How do these verse fit in:
Genesis 3:
21 Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.
22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
23 Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.
Did the animals die immediately upon Adam and Eve eating the fruit or did God kill them to make skins into clothes for Adam and Eve?
Doesn't 22 infer, that we should know as much as Gods? And if we could live forever before eating from the tree of good and evil, why would there need to be a tree of life? And why didn't Adam and Eve eat from it earlier? Did the tree of good and evil counteract the tree of life?
And then if we are made of dust from the ground, then why aren't we mostly silica instead of carbon?
Mike Elzinga · 14 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 14 August 2015
Henry J · 14 August 2015
Sylvilagus · 14 August 2015
Just Bob · 14 August 2015
Just Bob · 14 August 2015
Actually, by mass, we are far more oxygen than carbon.
prongs · 14 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 14 August 2015
Henry J · 14 August 2015
W. H. Heydt · 14 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 14 August 2015
Scott F · 14 August 2015
Scott F · 14 August 2015
AltairIV · 14 August 2015
Scott F · 14 August 2015
W. H. Heydt · 14 August 2015
W. H. Heydt · 14 August 2015
Just Bob · 14 August 2015
TomS · 14 August 2015
Henry J · 14 August 2015
stevaroni · 14 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 14 August 2015
"Nephesh chayyah". Literally, it means "living breathers" or maybe "living movers", but even FL tacitly acknowledges that it doesn't mean that literally, in the way it is used in Genesis 1 and 2. He refuses to say exactly what he thinks it means, so that he can't be pinned down when whatever definition he adopts clashes with some other tenet that he can't resile from.
At one point, he seemed to think that it implied the possession of red blood. He crowed that he could demonstrate with his microscope that he did science with, that green plants didn't have haemoglobin cells, which proved that they didn't have whatever this "nephesh chayyah" is. When told (not reminded: he didn't know) that insects don't have red blood either, but Genesis 1:24 says they do have this "nephesh chayyah", whatever it is, he did his usual trick of simply ignoring it. By implication, he went back to motility and/or breathing, without specifying anything, and without acknowledging the hit.
When told - again, not reminded, because he didn't know - that plants respire, they just don't inhale and exhale, he ignored that. When told that some plants have motility - Venus flytraps, for instance - he ignored that, too. But the crunch came when he was informed that human foetuses had neither motility until they had developed to the point of having a working musculature nor did they breathe in the sense of exhaling and inhaling. It would follow that by the criteria he seemed to be applying a human foetus is not "nephesh chayyah" at least until it starts to move under its own power; hence that it only dies in the same way as a plant dies; hence that termination of pregnancy is of the same consequence.
That caused the usual melt-down. FL lost control of his intellects completely. He frothed that we were saying that we didn't know the difference between a baby and a lettuce. Patiently, it was explained to him that we knew; it was just that his "nephesh chayyah" nonsense didn't seem to distinguish them. Or if he thought it did, it was up to him to provide a definition of it that didn't leak like chickenwire coracle. At that point he retired to nurse his wounds.
But now he's back, all healed up and full of sass. Bar-B-Q sass, no doubt. But let's not go there.
stevaroni · 14 August 2015
stevaroni · 14 August 2015
Robert Byers · 14 August 2015
Robert Byers · 14 August 2015
W. H. Heydt · 14 August 2015
Keelyn · 14 August 2015
Henry J · 14 August 2015
Re "Is a virus alive?"
Good question!
Now if there are no more questions, class is dismissed for the day.
Mike Elzinga · 14 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 14 August 2015
TomS · 15 August 2015
BTW, we heard about plants not being alive after being told that Genesis 1 describes the spark of live in the creation of plants.
Malcolm · 15 August 2015
Scott F · 15 August 2015
Scott F · 15 August 2015
Scott F · 15 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 15 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 15 August 2015
mysteriopus - being in possession of a hidden foot.
Scott F · 15 August 2015
Yardbird · 15 August 2015
W. H. Heydt · 15 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 15 August 2015
If we can just merge "complex information organization" (CIO) with AFL, then we might be able to do some real organizing. We just have to figure out what AFL is? Any ideas?
James Downard · 15 August 2015
James Downard · 15 August 2015
phhht · 15 August 2015
James Downard · 15 August 2015
James Downard · 15 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 15 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 15 August 2015
I might add another possibility that is not inconsistent with politics of our time. ID/creationists know full well that they are lying. The do it with a confident brashness that comes from knowing that there is a grass roots political effort out there doing the ground game of changing the laws and stacking the courts.
And it piques people into debating them so that they get attention from the press, television, and other news organizations.
Many of these politicians, as Donald Trump is now illustrating, know that they can suck all the oxygen out of the room by being just plain ridiculous. Lee Atwater and his protege, Karl Rove used this tactic to drum up the lunatic, far-right fringe to gum-up any possible rational political process during Presidential campaigns, a process that already just barely comes in contact with any kind of rationality or reality.
Henry J · 15 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 15 August 2015
I remember a conversation in the 80s with a professor who had worked on BSCS materials and debated Gish in the 70s. He said that he had asked Gish why he continued to use material that had been shown to be incorrect and Gish replied that he used it because it worked. Apologetics not science is their business. The goal is keeping people in the faith at any cost. One even sees Christian science educators who accept evolution stating that if a student feels he or she has to make a choice concerning evolution, then it is better to reject evolution than reject Jesus.
Scott F · 15 August 2015
Just Bob · 15 August 2015
Just Bob · 15 August 2015
Just Bob · 15 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 15 August 2015
Yardbird · 15 August 2015
Scott F · 15 August 2015
Yardbird · 15 August 2015
David MacMillan · 15 August 2015
The "nephesh chayyah" schtick is, of course, patently ridiculous and utterly bogus to us. We can quite readily recognize that not only is the distinction completely unfalsifiable, as evidenced by FL's demonstrated inability to come up with any consistent metric for what it means, but it's also vacuous from a literary perspective. It's a pure invention. The OT used the words "nephesh" and "chayyah" together several times, but the ANE Hebrews didn't make the distinction FL insists they made and they didn't use that term as some Great Signifier. YECs have simply latched onto those two words and decided to make them into something special because it suits YEC purposes.
Even so, I think it's useful to point why the "nephesh chayyah" schtick is convincing to the likes of FL, if only for the sake of better understanding the loony that pervadeth our world.
To the creationist -- particularly the young-earth variety -- the world around them is a mysterious place, filled with "living" and "non-living" things which demand a strict separation. Life, to the YECs, is a magical and supernatural thing which can only come from Divine Ordination. Because they view every single piece of life as de facto evidence of a Creator, they feel an obligation to draw strict boundaries between life and non-life.
Plants tend to challenge this boundary. An onion is certainly not alive. It neither moves nor breathes nor consumes anything...at least, not to the perspective of the layperson. Yet if planted, it will sprout and germinate and grow into a plant. So it is alive. Or is it? What a puzzle! Worse, the YEC Authorities are very clear about the Doctrine of No Death Before Sin but what about plants?
But hark, what light through yon window breaks! The YEC is excited to hear that there is some unmeasurable quality -- "nephesh chayyah" -- which distinguishes Real Life from plants. Plants, you see, are nothing more than complex biological machines. YECs can say that with a straight face because they believe in some measurable link somewhere. To them, "nephesh chayyah" not only makes sense, but makes such good sense that anyone questioning it can be discarded.
Scott F · 15 August 2015
I just finished listening to an NPR piece from Friday, their weekly Friday interview with a pair of political columnists, one left leaning, the other right leaning. I was struck by their conversation.
They both noted that Donald Trump is popular on the Right, and that Bernie Sanders is popular on the Left. Why?
Both the "Left" and the "Right" pundits agreed that Trump is doing well on the Right because of fear. He taps into the angst, the fear, and the anxiety of right wing Christians. In contrast, both pundits agreed that Sanders is doing well on the Left because of ideas and policies. He taps into the optimism and thirst for solutions on the Left.
I see the same thing here. (In fact, it's typically the same people.) The Creationists are (typically) deeply fearful: afraid of death, afraid of Hell, afraid of the "other", afraid of losing their souls, afraid of change and new ideas, looking forward to the day that God will come to destroy the world, judge the "others" as unworthy, and punish the unrighteous. The Rationalists are (typically) optimistic: forward looking, curious, seeking solutions, seeking out new ideas, new experiences, looking forward to a better world where everyone can live a better life, together.
Sorry, FL. I don't want any part of your religion of fear and hate.
Scott F · 15 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 15 August 2015
Scott F · 15 August 2015
FL · 15 August 2015
phhht · 15 August 2015
Why should anyone care what the bible says or doesn't say, Flawd?
The only reason to care what the bible says is if gods are real.
And you cannot show that.
phhht · 15 August 2015
Why should anyone care what the bible says or doesn't say, Flawd?
The only reason to care what the bible says is if gods are real.
And you cannot show that.
FL · 15 August 2015
So, Mr. Phhht -- these last few pages are a direct result of YOU bringing up Gen. 1:30.
Therefore, hast thou anything to contribute yet?
Offereth thou a considered analysis, prithee?
phhht · 15 August 2015
TomS · 15 August 2015
About death before the Fall, there is also apoptosis.
But it is just impossible to try to fit modern understanding of nature into the framework of Ancient Near Eastern culture. The concerns are too different. We have experienced too many things, we have explored too many ideas. We have come to expect what modern ideas have provided for us. The creationists may think that they are following the Bible, but they cannot do it consistently. They cannot accept the cosmology with the Sun and Moon attached to a firmament, they cannot ignore the vastness of the variety of life uncovered since the rise of modern science.
Yardbird · 15 August 2015
phhht · 15 August 2015
FL · 15 August 2015
When all else fails -- and let's be candid, you guys are a serious FAIL on this issue -- you can always try ridicule.
(But don't try it outside Pandaville or you'll just get nailed, as usual!)
FL
Yardbird · 15 August 2015
Scott F · 15 August 2015
W. H. Heydt · 15 August 2015
Scott F · 15 August 2015
stevaroni · 15 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 15 August 2015
FL says that in the Bible, "nephesh chayyah" is never ascribed to plants. I think he's right.
So what does it mean, "nephesh chayyah"?
The answer is, it means whatever plants lack that deprives them of the ability to die. That's what it means. Which is to say, it means whatever FL wants it to mean that has that effect. The fact that plants breathe, grow, move, reproduce, whatever - that doesn't qualify them as living and therefore able to die. They lack something. What? No, not a nervous system or a brain. Neither Genesis nor FL would know or care about that. All the, you know, actual physical attributes of living things are found in plants as much as in animals. So either the ancient text is wrong, or else this must be a non-physical thing. A spirit. A soul.
But hang on, the Bible attributes to animals this spirit, or whatever, that plants lack. That's what Genesis 1:24 says: it attributes "nephesh chayyah" to animals, even to insects and "creeping things". And the very same expression "nephesh chayyah" is used at Genesis 2:7, where God breathes whatever it is into man.
So insects and humans have the same spirit. So says the Scripture. Or it would do, if, as TomS reminds us, we are to attribute to the text the properties of rigour, literality and equality of terms of observation of nature that we have come to expect in our own culture. But that's the sword FL falls on. He says it is literal, and the words have the same values. (Except, of course, where it isn't and they don't, as convenient to FL. But that's another argument.)
So now FL, having avoided the Scylla of the reality that plants live and can die, has fallen into the Charybdis of asserting that animals have souls. Worms have souls. Chiggers, cockroaches, mosquitoes, ticks, have souls, the same as human beings.
Then, as TomS points out, we have John 12:24, where Jesus says, unequivocably, that a seed dies before it germinates. Either he was wrong - which is of course the case - or else Jesus says that FL is wrong, and plants can die, lack of "nephesh chayyah" or not, and "no death before the fall" goes out the window, on the word of Jesus himself.
(Oh, and there's no refuge to be found in translation error. "Apothane". Dies. No equivocation possible.)
The upshot is that whatever meaning FL attributes to the expression "nephesh chayyah", he's in trouble. That's why he won't say what it means. He can't.
Scott F · 15 August 2015
Scott F · 15 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 15 August 2015
Scott F · 16 August 2015
FL · 16 August 2015
Scott F · 16 August 2015
SatanFL. I dealt with that issue long ago. I fear pain, but I don't fear death. My death (any death) may be a sad thing, but it is nothing to fear.RobinM · 16 August 2015
Henry M. Morris III, D.Min agrees with FL - www.icr.org/article/6916/
He's got letters after his name so it must be right. Or maybe my brains really did explode when I read this.
Mike Elzinga · 16 August 2015
Hans-Richard Grümm · 16 August 2015
I realize I'm really late to the party - but where does Genesis say that the Earth could not have brought forth plants etc. *without* the command or permission of God ? This question does not depend on any translation of a Hebrew iussive.
FL · 16 August 2015
Bobsie · 16 August 2015
Plant cells are biologically alive, live and die as all living cells do. To say otherwise is foolish.
https://vimeo.com/135798046
Dave Luckett · 16 August 2015
There is no definable quality called "nephesh chayyah". There is no spirit or soul. It doesn't exist. There is no separation of it from the body, and no afterlife.
Those statements have exactly the same value as FL's, except for one consideration, which is that the positive claim is always the one that has to be established. FL refuses to accept that, of course. Under his version of presuppositional theology he can take anything he wants as axiomatic. Nor need he be consistent, nor explain.
Shrug.
I suppose it's possible that FL might think his last is in some way substantive. There's no way of knowing what he really thinks, if such a description can be applied to whatever process he goes through. It's purely a personal opinion, but I think he's only taunting. It's founded in frustration and spite, and consists of simple denial. "Empirically observed reality", yet!
He has lost, of course. He can't define this "nephesh chayyah" in any terms that make sense either in relation to the physical attributes of living things on the one hand, or with Christian theology on the other. If it means 'blood' or 'breathing', it doesn't actually separate animals from plants. If it means 'soul' then the Bible is saying that insects have souls.
It's an impossible dilemma. The only way forward, for FL, is the one he's taken. Simply ignore it, and taunt others for thinking rationally about it.
Yardbird · 16 August 2015
Scott F · 16 August 2015
Scott F · 16 August 2015
The phrase "dog whistle" comes to mind. The things that a weaselly, smarmy carpet bagger would say with plausible deniability, the code phrases that everyone knows the meaning of, but no one will use honestly. "Honest, officer. I only said, "strange fruit". I didn't say nut'n about lynching."
I didn't use 'dem words "death" or "fear". I was talk'n "bio sci" with my fellow scientists.
FL · 16 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 16 August 2015
Floyd's whole project is a fail; you can't fit "no death before the fall" into the biblical narrative and have it make the least bit of sense. Running on organic materials as living things do requires death - they weren't eating rocks before the fall, they were reported as eating plants and plants are alive.
It is epic in it failure and it is a wonder any one buys into it. They must be pretty gullible.
phhht · 16 August 2015
W. H. Heydt · 16 August 2015
FL · 16 August 2015
Just Bob · 16 August 2015
phhht · 16 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 16 August 2015
If Nephesh Chayyah is real then what is it exactly, Floyd. A non-circular definition, please. Oh and we will know when we die, rich! That is so useful.
James Downard · 16 August 2015
James Downard · 16 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 16 August 2015
The fundamentalist bible doesn't say anything about DNA. All life on this planet has DNA. And DNA behaves similarly in all things that have it; it rearranges and evolves over time. New species; does the bible mention gymnosperms and angiosperms?
Any discussion of stamens and pistils? Plant sex? Did any of the ancients - as do artists and photographers today - engage in "flower porn?" Those plants really mix it up and put it out there on display; and isn't that debauchery of the worst kind. Why wasn't it condemned?
Even more primitive cultures - cultures that haven't heard any of this mumbo-jumbo from the ancient Hebrew - are aware of a "cycle of life." Were primitive cultures actually more observant of nature before authoritarian religion raised its ugly head? Who were the real "stupid egg-heads" back then?
James Downard · 16 August 2015
stevaroni · 16 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 16 August 2015
Scott F · 16 August 2015
FL · 16 August 2015
Yardbird · 16 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 16 August 2015
Floyd that's the best you can come up with? Why don't plants have souls or spirits? They are alive then they are dead. I can certainly see the difference between the two states. No Floyd as usual you have no idea what you are talking about. period.
phhht · 16 August 2015
Scott F · 16 August 2015
W. H. Heydt · 16 August 2015
Scott F · 16 August 2015
You know what, FL? I've got a better explanation.
My father lying in the coffin lacked electrical activity in his brain, brain stem, and peripheral nerves. He lacked a functioning heart, lungs, kidneys, and other organs. The cells of his body could no longer maintain an electrical potential difference across their outer membranes, and so could not excrete or ingest the chemicals necessary to maintain the cells' metabolism.
That's it. Period. End of story. But, it is an actual "explanation", as opposed to your fairy tale, your "mysteriopus" supernatural I-can't-explain-it-but-I-know-it-when-I-see-it "info org", which doesn't actually explain anything.
Therefore, Jesus.
Yeah, right.
Today, thanks to modern Science, we actually know what the differences are between things that are alive, and things that aren't. And you know what? Those differences are rational and knowable. Because we understand those differences, we know how to fix and keep those live things alive a little bit longer, thanks to Science. Further, those differences lie on a spectrum of electrochemical activity. Those differences aren't really that great, and they aren't black-and-white. There is a range of things between "living life" and "non-life".
But your stunted theology understands and comprehends none of that. The richness and beauty of life and non-life is simply invisible to you.
If you weren't such a mean SOB, I would pity you, in your dim stunted world.
stevaroni · 16 August 2015
Henry J · 16 August 2015
Re "Now that you mention it, I do remember smelling something different about him."
It's smellamentary!
Yardbird · 16 August 2015
W. H. Heydt · 16 August 2015
phhht · 16 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 16 August 2015
Henry J · 16 August 2015
This gives a new meaning to the term "undead". Or maybe it gives an actual meaning, since the only previous meanings that I know of were based on fictional stories.
Yardbird · 16 August 2015
W. H. Heydt · 16 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 16 August 2015
W. H. Heydt · 16 August 2015
W. H. Heydt · 16 August 2015
Just Bob · 16 August 2015
Hey FL, human hearts are occasionally harvested from accident victims for transplant into people with failing hearts. After being removed from the donor, the heart no longer beats. It is chilled and may be transported for several hours before it is transplanted into the recipient. Then blood flow is restored, nerves are spliced, and the heart may need to be shocked to start it beating again.
Does the heart have that nephesh stuff while it is out of a body for several hours and not even beating? If so, is it the NC of the donor, or some of it (can it be divided)? Once reinstalled, whose NC does it have? And whatever your answer is, how do you know?
Actually, I'll be surprised to see any answer. Whenever I try to extend the logic of silly religious ideas to real cases, fundies generally go quiet.
Just Bob · 16 August 2015
FL · 16 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 16 August 2015
Bobsie · 16 August 2015
W. H. Heydt · 16 August 2015
FL · 16 August 2015
W. H. Heydt · 16 August 2015
Scott F · 16 August 2015
phhht · 16 August 2015
Yardbird · 16 August 2015
Scott F · 16 August 2015
Scott F · 16 August 2015
Henry J · 16 August 2015
W. H. Heydt · 16 August 2015
stevaroni · 16 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 16 August 2015
Scott F · 16 August 2015
TomS · 16 August 2015
I knew that it would get around to evolution.
1) Even if there is this nephesh chayyah uniformly and consistently described in the Bible, you have not established that it is a "something". See the Fallacy of Reification. Nor have you established that it is not material, as described in the Bible. Even if it is not matter, it can be natural. (But this is beginning to run into the next point.)
2) You have not established that the Biblical concept has any relevance outside the culture of the Ancient Near East, in particular to modern science. You can't just assume that a concept will fit in to such a different context without doing the work.
3) You claim that NC is a feature of, at least, air-breathing terrestrial vertebrates - let's say, for convenience, tetrapods. Are you willing to admit there is evolutionary common descent among the tetrapods - including mammals and birds? Having NC does not distinguish humans from other primates, other mammals, birds, or other tetrapods.
4) And then there is the issue of the Fallacies of Composition and Division. Are you going to claim that NC invalidates the sciences of reproduction, development, metabolism and growth because they do not explain NC? Or do claim that when a chicken lays an egg that God is creating a new NC which is outside the laws of nature?
W. H. Heydt · 16 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 16 August 2015
To back up what ScottF said:
FL was certainly present on many occasions when various non-believers on this board got to arguing the shades of unbelief involved in the word "atheism". Is an agnostic an atheist? Does atheism necessarily require the rejection of all things supernatural, or just of the Abrahamic or some other specific deity, or is 'rejection' itself too strong a word and we have to go to 'non-acceptance'?
Is deism "atheism lite"? Is there such a thing as 'antitheism'? Dawkins, for example, wears that badge, by his own statement - but he also describes himself as a 6.5 on an atheist scale of 7. Is this a contradiction? Is he not actually sure? By 'antitheist' he appears to mean that he is against the real effects of religious practice, rather than against a simple belief in God. Others might mean something a little different by the word, if they use it.
But these were not, absolutely not, arguments over whether any of these slightly variant positions were "right" or not. They were debates over what precisely the terms meant, and the internal consistencies of the various positions. There was no dogma involved. No authorities were invoked, no creed consulted.
All of which makes FL's disingenuity intensely difficult to stomach. He knows perfectly well that atheism is not in any sense a religion. He's just taunting.
But see how not even his taunts hold together? We may not believe that we have souls, but somehow that's inconsistent with grief or mourning, or with respect for the dead?
I remember a thread that started from one of FL's taunts about eric or me respecting the wishes of the family at a funeral. We'd sing the hymns, or behave appropriately during the prayers, or observe the silence or do whatever the family wanted, out of respect for them and for the deceased, because we're human beings, we understand how they feel, and that we would feel the same in their place. That's called "empathy", the ability not only to have the same feelings as them, but to understand how they would feel in response to our actions. FL sneered at that, demonstrating he didn't have the slightest notion of the concept. I shudder to think what that would imply for his own behaviour at a funeral, especially of anyone whose religious beliefs had differed from his own.
Of course he's got a major doctrinal problem - but he's got it with other Christians, not with me (I don't speak for anyone else here, mind.) He reckons a dog has "nephesh chayyah", which he translates in this instance as "possessing an immaterial supernatural spirit". Well, of course that's right. Genesis 1:24 says so, and if it were true of any being on this earth, it would be true of the dog I had to put down a couple years back, and which I still mourn. Trouble is, Gen 1:24 also extends this quality to "creeping things". That is, bugs, worms and whatnot. Insects. Spiders. Centipedes. Creeping things all. They got this immaterial supernatural spirit, too, says the text.
And so have humans - and here's the thing. Genesis 2:7 says God put it into man, using exactly the same words - "nephesh chayyah". Same words. Same spirit, or else Scripture means different things by the same words in different places. So humans and spiders have exactly the same spirit. The same soul.
You want to run that idea past your pastor, FL? Or are you going to go down the Calvinist highway, not just scriptura solus, but every man his own authority on what the scriptures say? Good luck with that. Lucky for you that you're living in a secular state. If it were a theocrcy, the inquisition or equivalent would be busting down your door about now, depending on what kind of theocracy it was.
Mike Elzinga · 16 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 16 August 2015
W. H. Heydt · 16 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 16 August 2015
eric · 17 August 2015
Bobsie · 17 August 2015
Scott F · 17 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 17 August 2015
Floyd seems to believe that if we discuss the Bible with him, then we believe the Bible to be true in the same way he does. It is pretty clear that no one here believes that, but Floyd. In typical apologetic fashion, the short-term, easy solution is favored - one sticks bubble gum in the cracks rather than rebuilding the dam. Every half-way decent teacher knows it is better to say "I don't know" than lie to protect your authority, but not Floyd. Look at all the ludicrous places he has gone to protect something like "no death before the fall" - plants are not alive, all animals have souls, all animals are really deep-down herbivores - places he really doesn't want or even need to go, but has no choice once he starts. He can't ever admit he was wrong - not the Bible mind - he will try to claim the Bible is the one that is never wrong, but it is really he who is. He just keeps digging deeper and deeper - a hole so deep he can't escape. It is the nature of apologetics - shoring up a foundation built on sand.
DS · 17 August 2015
mattdance18 · 17 August 2015
Incredibly, I find creationism even less attractive than I did before all this "nephesh chayyah" business started.
I mean, come on -- vitalism? Really? Vitalism?!? As if, after well more than a century of ever-increasing success at explaining life in physico-chemical terms, we were still just flummoxed by the differences between living and dead organisms? Or between organisms and inanimate objects? Such that we could only account for life and nature by positing supernatural phenomena? Give. Me. A. Break.
This call for pre-Enlightenment magical thinking in biology is bad enough on its own. But when you couple it to what amounts to a Cartesian epistemology -- introspective "self-evidence" as touchstone of truth, but mislabeled as a form of "empiricism," leaving us with subjective experience masquerading as objective knowledge -- well, the whole thing is just transcendently ridiculous.
Unfortunately, when tied to the idea that this magical, subjectivist nonsense should be taught in science classes, it's also extremely dangerous.
Batshit insane. There's no other way to describe this retrograde lunacy.
mattdance18 · 17 August 2015
mattdance18 · 17 August 2015
Daniel · 17 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 17 August 2015
Yes, DS there never is an attempt to use any empirical evidence to either support creationism or disprove evolution. There is only the use of Bible verses and his dubious interpretations of said verses. And the appeals to authority - the Bible, conservative theologians, fundamentalist preachers - the appearance of pseudo-scholarship by trotting out "Hebrew" and feigning he knows something about ancient languages and cultures. Never, ever any attempt to use scientific methods or even historical methods - more and more appeals to authority so long as it agrees with his ill-conceived theology.
Just Bob · 17 August 2015
eric · 17 August 2015
eric · 17 August 2015
Argh, electrons. Pushing elections is illegal. :)
W. H. Heydt · 17 August 2015
mattdance18 · 17 August 2015
FL · 17 August 2015
mattdance18 · 17 August 2015
Don't you just love how Uncle Floyd loves to ask questions of others, but (a) ignores most of the answers he gets, and (b) refuses to answer questions from others?
Still waiting, Uncle.
phhht · 17 August 2015
W. H. Heydt · 17 August 2015
phhht · 17 August 2015
So Flawd, how come your gods won't show empirical evidence of themselves?
Either they are musing, or they are gone aside, or they are in a journey, or peradventure they sleepeth, and must be awaked.
Why don't you wake them up and make them show their bronze butts?
See Flawd, exactly the same biblical reasoning that refuted the reality of Ba'al still works today to refute the reality of Yawheh.
TomS · 17 August 2015
If one "follows the Bible", does that mean that one accepts the cosmology in the Bible?
The surface of the Earth is a rather small, by modern standards, with no place for the Americas, Australia, Antartica, and the Pacific Ocean. Over that there is a "firmament" with the Sun, Moon and stars are attached. The sun makes a daily circuit over the mostly stable (other than the occasional earthquake) Earth.
I recognize that even in antiquity, the Ancient Near Eastern cosmology did not fit with the knowledge of Hellenistic learning, so that for something like 2000 years, the Bible was "interpreted" as consistent with the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic cosmology of the spherical Earth mostionless at the center of the daily motion of the heavens, so I'm going to go along with that.
Does adhereing to what the Bible says entail accepting geocentrism? Or are we allowed to notice that "nothing in astronomy makes sense except in the light of heliocentrism", and therefore accept that the Earth is a planet of the Solar System?
eric · 17 August 2015
eric · 17 August 2015
eric · 17 August 2015
gnome de net · 17 August 2015
gnome de net · 17 August 2015
gnome de net · 17 August 2015
Pay no attention to the first post above, nor to that man behind the curtain over there.
Cogito Sum · 17 August 2015
FL says: No rational baseline for anything. One guy says heâs atheist..,
FL does it register that the concept of being "without god" - when the very definition of "god" is incoherent - has its validity only to an indoctrinated/encultured "theist"? Further, how is that relevant to 'Luskin makes more mistakes on the Cambrian and Cladistics' except as repeating the same fallacious fundamental flaw as the 'cdesign proponentsists' in their misguided political aspirations?
phhht · 17 August 2015
mattdance18 · 17 August 2015
eric · 17 August 2015
TomS · 17 August 2015
richard09 · 17 August 2015
I like the observation that "consciousness is what a brain looks like from the inside, when it's working". You can make the same sort of argument about computer software. What exists on paper or stored on a disk isn't really the software, it's just a description of the software. From a philosophically reasonable pov, the program only truly exists while it is actually running.
I'm inclined to make a snarky comment about creationists, since it seems their brains don't work. But I decided that wasn't appropriate.
prongs · 17 August 2015
Just Bob · 17 August 2015
phhht · 17 August 2015
James Downard · 17 August 2015
James Downard · 17 August 2015
David MacMillan · 17 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 17 August 2015
FL tells us that the Bible says that insects, spiders, worms and centipedes have the exact same immaterial supernatural spirit as human beings. I suggested that he might like to run that one past his pastor. He asks me why on earth I'd think that. Well...
(Observe: this is me answering him. Ask yourself, will this create in him a sense of reciprocal obligation? Answer: no chance.)
In the first place, animals - his dog, but also the tick that causes typhus and the mosquito that carries malaria - are innocent. They didn't eat the forbidden fruit. They didn't fall. That was us. So the wasp that injects its eggs into a caterpillar so they can eat it slowly from within, is possessed of the same immortal immaterial spirit as, say, St Francis of Assisi or Albert Schweitzer, but it is the wasp that's innocent, not them. So...
It would appear that the wasp gets eternal life, too. We all do. It's only us that can get eternal punishment, for our original sin and fall, if for nothing else, redemption excepted. So not only do all dogs go to Heaven, all wasps do, too. And all chiggers. And anopheles mosquitoes. And trapdoor spiders.
Big place, heaven. Well, fine. But what would heaven be, to a tapeworm, I wonder?
No, actually, I don't wonder, because I start laughing about then. I can imagine that FL's pastor might possibly have the same capacity for seeing the ludicrous as me. I can imagine that because I possess the quality of empathy, which FL lacks. But I might be wrong - maybe pastors of whatever conventicle FL infests have to have their sense of humour surgically removed to qualify. But who knows?
And the pastor might possibly have the brainpower to reflect that if heaven contained all the mosquitoes that ever lived, it might fall a tad short of perfection, after all. Which is a problem, isn't it?
Just Bob · 17 August 2015
I think Floyd has revealed his inner Hindu. Or maybe animist.
Let's see how many fundamentalist apologist 'authorities' he can find to back up his painted-himself-into-the-corner notion that ALL animals have souls.
Just Bob · 17 August 2015
And doesn't this constitute a concession that humans are animals? Has he or IBIG ever admitted that before?
Henry J · 17 August 2015
Yardbird · 17 August 2015
phhht · 17 August 2015
[It is a lovely day in Heaven. Poppa God, a Deity, has let there be light,and the air is full of the hum of birds and bees, doing what even they do. Living plants sprout in spontaneous profusion from the heavenly soil, and a pack of dogs frolics at the far end of the lawn of immortal bluegrass. Poppa God lies in a hammock strung between two Trees of Life, snoring like every chain saw in Creation. He shifts, snorts, and falls silent. Before He is
entirely awake, His right hand moves to scratch vigorously at his ass crack under his white robes. Then He claws at His long, flowing beard and locks, sits upright, and ...]
[Poppa God, thundering] Me Damnit! I believe I got fleas! Hole, you get your transparent ass out here!
[Hole, whispering] I'm a-comin, I'm a-comin, keep your hair shirt on! [aloud] OK, what can I do for you?
[Still scratching, Poppa God notices the ragged condition of many of the plants of Heaven.] What can you do for me?! Just look at this place! You call this a Paradise?
[Hole, in some exasperation] It's the insects Sir, specifically the locusts. I warned you about letting them in. It's the confluence of the Thirteen and Seventeen Year cycles, the Blood Moon, and your standing Horrible Plague Curse in Retaliation for that Supreme Court Ruling. There is very little to be done unless something gives.
[Poppa God, steam beginning to come from His ears] Urm, yeah, but what about these Damned fleas? [He scratches His crotch again, and under His left arm.]
[Hole] Uh, Sir, I'm afraid that itching is not due to insect parasites, although You've got those too. It looks more like poison oak. Have you been out strolling in innocent nudity in the cool of the evening again? Did you stop to pee against a wall? Or even - squat in the weeds?
[Poppa God] None of your Me-damned business! I want all those plants out of here, and I mean yesterday! And look! [A roach-eaten cereal carton materializes
in His hand.] Just look! They've eaten all my Froot Loops! Fix it!
[Hole] I'm sorry to tell you that there is only one way to accomplish that, Sir. We'll have to eliminate every single thing in Heaven with Nebbish Chayyah - all the bugs and plants and people and all. If only you'd used evolution, as I advised -
[Poppa God] I don't care! Make it so! Let it be!
[As Poppa God speaks, a tremendous horde of hideous Cheney demons sweeps over Heaven, smiting all the living plants into undead zombie plants and sending every bird and bee and locust to Hell. One by one, the frolicking puppies fall silent, give small whimpers, and disappear in puffs of smoke. The Cheney demons sneer and howl in manaical delight. Poppa God looks out across the blackened ruin of Heaven and finds it good. He speaks.] That's better! Now maybe I can finish my nap in peace.
FL · 17 August 2015
Keelyn · 17 August 2015
Keelyn · 17 August 2015
Keelyn · 17 August 2015
Keelyn · 17 August 2015
Come on, Floyd. I know youâre there. Iâve had a very long day and I want to go to bed. Just make a simple one word statement â âyes.â or âno.â â in answer to my question. If you feel it necessary, you can even elaborate. That might be interesting.
Michael Fugate · 17 August 2015
Floyd demonstrates that his reading of Genesis not only is at odds with science, but with common sense and he still tries to claim victory. Driving more and more people from Christ every day - you must be proud Floyd, you must be proud.
FL · 17 August 2015
Keelyn · 18 August 2015
FL · 18 August 2015
Keelyn · 18 August 2015
Daniel · 18 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 18 August 2015
FL again hallucinates words that aren't there. The text says that we are made in God's image. It doesn't say we aren't animals made in that image. (Image: a reflection, a representation, not the original, nor made of the same materials.) It says we have dominion over animals. It doesn't say we aren't also animals ourselves - for obviously a human being can have dominion over other animals, or even over other human beings.
So the text doesn't say we aren't animals, but it does say - explicitly, and in the same words - that we have the same immortal immaterial supernatural spirit as animals. (Well, it says that if we allow FL's translation, so let's.) So the rest follows. Flies share our immortal spirit, but they don't share our knowledge of good and evil, so they are innocent. Innocent souls go to heaven - FL is perfectly happy to tell you that about babies that die - so flies go to heaven.
Theology is such fun, don't you think?
Malcolm · 18 August 2015
Keelyn · 18 August 2015
TomS · 18 August 2015
For the fate of the sons of men and the fate of beasts is the same. As one dies so dies the other; indeed, they all have the same breath and there is no advantage for man over beast, for all is vanity.
Ecclesiastes 3:19
eric · 18 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 18 August 2015
eric · 18 August 2015
Scott F · 18 August 2015
Scott F · 18 August 2015
phhht · 18 August 2015
mattdance18 · 18 August 2015
Floyd, if you're seriously claiming, on the basis of a book written thousands of years before natural science was invented, that plants don't die and/or that humans aren't animals... well, I'm sorry, but not all the apologetics in the world could make young earth creationism or (your interpretation of) Christianity more generally the least bit attractive to a mentally competent, reasonably educated human being.
FL · 18 August 2015
CJColucci · 18 August 2015
Nothing to add. I just wanted to make it an even thousand.
DS · 18 August 2015
FL · 18 August 2015
FL · 18 August 2015
Taking a small break, then it's time to show where Dave went wrong.
mattdance18 · 18 August 2015
TomS · 18 August 2015
eric · 18 August 2015
eric · 18 August 2015
phhht · 18 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 18 August 2015
If anyone hasn't looked into Leucippus, Democritus, Epicurus, and the early ideas of atomism, they might like to read Lucretuis. It would be well worth the effort.
Where many of the ancient philosophers and priests attributed the origins of things to deities, the atomists surmised that the existence of everything was due to atoms. They argued against deities and the superstitions of religion. These ideas can be traced back to the 5th century BCE.
The early atomists also surmised that, because of the fact that everything, including plants and animals, came out things like themselves, there must be some underlying commonality to each thing that didn't allow a rabbit to come from a bird, or fish to come from a goat, etc.
Atomism was condemned by the early Christian church as heretical, but it gradually crept back into thought throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
Leap forward to today, we now have solid evidence and a pretty complete theory of elementary particles and their relationship to space and time.
Time itself is intimately tied up with the existence of matter; if there weren't matter changing states, there wouldn't be time. The awareness of the passage of time also requires a complex system with hierarchies of memory; memory that is capable of comparing states of matter with other states of matter and extracting a record of a progression of changes in states.
The fact that the nervous system and the brains of animals are temperature dependent tells us that the "mind" is a phenomenon that emerges out of the hierarchy of memories and memories of memories.
While many of the details are yet to be elucidated, there is no doubt whatsoever that the mind emerges out of the complexity of soft-matter systems comprised of atoms and molecules; they are physical systems subject to physical law, and they cease to function when taken out of a very narrow temperature range. Temperature dependence is a profound clue that most people, especially sectarians, are completely unaware of.
The early atomists had already surmised much of this, but religion set us back thousands of years.
Michael Fugate · 18 August 2015
eric · 18 August 2015
eric · 18 August 2015
TomS · 18 August 2015
eric · 18 August 2015
eric · 18 August 2015
Just Bob · 18 August 2015
Well, FL claims not to know if other animals go to heaven... but that means he thinks they MIGHT. So there's nothing to stop him from speculating about what they would do there IF they went. Remember, FL, there's no death in heaven, regardless of whether there was any on Earth before the "Fall".
So start with Dave's question: What would heaven be for a tapeworm? I'll add a few more: Who gets to host all the billions of "passed" crab lice? What does a turkey vulture eat? How about the dermestid beetles that scour the dead, rotting flesh from bones? Lampreys? Vampire bats? Ticks? Plasmodium falciparum? Lung flukes? Or just predators in general: What would an animal whose 'goals' in life are pretty much limited to killing and eating other animals, and spawning as many descendants as possible (i.e., having lots of sex), get to do in heaven as a reward for his sinless life?
Scott F · 18 August 2015
mattdance18 · 18 August 2015
mattdance18 · 18 August 2015
Malcolm · 18 August 2015
mattdance18 · 18 August 2015
David MacMillan · 18 August 2015
phhht · 18 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 18 August 2015
Re the discussions going on among eric, matt, and Scott: I go back to temperature dependence. Temperature dependence is no small matter; it is a quantitative measure of the energy range in which physical systems can operate.
Even the functioning of a computer is temperature dependent; just in a different temperature range than soft-matter systems such as the nervous systems and brains of animals, or the functioning of systems in plants.
In a computer, we know what happens when things get too hot; that's why cooling is provided. But a computer stops functioning when it gets too cold also. This is a type of "hypothermia," the mechanisms of which are slightly different from those in a soft-matter system such as a brain. In a computer there are competing processes of mobility and freeze-out of charge carriers. Mobility increases with decreasing temperature, but eventually freeze-out of the charge carriers becomes dominant.
The soft-matter systems of biology have similar issues; but these are more sensitive to temperature ranges because soft-matter systems are already at the threshold of coming apart. Hypothermia and hyperthermia are phenomena associated with potential thresholds that determine the "trigger levels" of neural activity. These are measurable; and the temperatures a which hypothermia and hyperthermia occur set a pretty accurate potential energy range of a few thousandths of an electron volt in which neural processes can operate.
People who have experienced hypothermia or hyperthermia will have some idea of what that entails; outside that narrow energy range, "willing" anything becomes impossible, and the ability to even judge what is going on disappears. Only fleeting memories of such an event - much like dream states - are left to be mulled over as a lesson to be remembered.
There is nothing ambiguous about the physical nature and energy ranges in which biological neural networks operate. Many of the mechanisms are known. The forces with which "walking" molecules can pull are in the range of piconewtons; they can be measured. This is biophysical and biochemical research that has been going on for decades now.
Michael Fugate · 18 August 2015
eric · 18 August 2015
eric · 18 August 2015
James Downard · 18 August 2015
You're exactly right. Creationists love using familiar examples and reasoning from those. It starts to get messy when you try to keep categorizing. If you ever want a laugh, check out any of the "initial estimate of ____ Ark kinds" articles on AiG's website. They're sincerely trying to categorize and delineate but it gets messier and messier and sillier and sillier.
One of the tasks I've set in #TIP www.tortucan.wordpress.com is gathering together all the creationist baraminological taxonomy attempts (IDers don't bother to even try at this) and analyzing their content. I allude to Lightner's recent one on bird kinds in TIP 1.4, where she not only conceded the finch paternity suit proposed by evolutionary analysis (by lumping them all into one of the baramins) but pointedly avoided any fossil examples which would have required further blurring of the supposedly distinguishable kinds.
Ultimately, creationists are facing the same problem Marsh faced in the 1940s when he first proposed the baramin approach: too much life to fit into their tidy boxes. The fossil and living examples have only piled up in the 70 years since then, and show no signs of letting up. But looking into the details of YEC arguments is endlessly instructive, revealing how their arguments are assembled and how they go about avoiding the full data set.
Please, everyone, check out #TIP (I know, it's still a work in progress, lots of reading in pdfs, no fancy interactive graphics) but there is a lot of documentation knocking around at www.tortucan.wordpress.com already, and comments windows there for all commenters and questioners (Byers tried a hand at trolling and you can see how far that got him). And consider also supporting the project (there's a link there for that too).
#TIP can't make a difference in upping the game on evolution defense and opposing antievolutionism unless the content is looked at, actively shared and used.
mattdance18 · 18 August 2015
Scott F · 18 August 2015
Maybe mathematical terms might better serve.
I'm imagining that if one could measure the entire neural state of the brain at a given point in time, then the "mind" would not be those states themselves, but would be something like the derivative of those states, or maybe higher derivatives. It would still be "physical", "objective", but if those states aren't changing, then the time derivative ceases to exist, or goes to zero, which for the creature involved would probably be the same thing.
Just as the whirlpool is more "visible" as the derivative of the position of the atoms in the liquid.
Or, perhaps the patterns in a "chaotic" system. I know almost nothing about a "chaotic" system (maybe I've even picked the wrong term), but the "patterns" in that system depend on recurring motion. A multi-arm pendulum, for example. All the arms are fixed length straight rods, but the patterns that the tips of those rods make are the interesting "parts" of the pendulum. If the pendulum stops moving, it and the physical pieces of which it is composed continue to exist, but the pattern has "died". Did the "pattern" of motion even ever have a "physical" existence?
Maybe my use of the word "immaterial" is misleading to those who have a better understanding of what that term means in a philosophical sense. I'm using it only in a vague, general sense, and see that I'm deeper out of my depth than I expected.
While this discussion is fascinating, I certainly don't seem to be making much headway in explaining myself. :-)
mattdance18 · 18 August 2015
mattdance18 · 18 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 18 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 18 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 18 August 2015
In case this isn't common knowledge by now, the brain and many parts of the nervous system are "self-wiring" as a result of the "experiences" of stimulation from "outside" input and from "inside" input from memory itself.
That "wiring" is more or less permanent, with some tendency to fade and change a bit over time. And it is that wiring that is unique to you and responds to further input in the unique ways that are identified as your self. Its states are YOU.
Cogito Sum · 18 August 2015
Re David MacMillan in a reply (Aug 18th, 2:33pm) to FL: "why do you think your view of sin, innocence, Biblical commands, and conscience are all predicated on an early-20th-century middle-class American social existence?"
----
Indeed a salient point. Why does every isolated (uncontaminated) culture have different conceptualization of origin and "god/s" (mythos) - on what criteria/basis is the "correct" one established if not simply a specific culture/individual's Weltanschauung as they choose to interpret/express it? Luskin et alii err - as is demonstrable through multiple sources, many of which have been previously explored here at Pandas (as well as in this current context).
...
Aside, perhaps the electro-biochemical processes of sensory input altering neuro pathways establishing short/long term memories recreates a unique "current" brain (as tidal action creates a unique inter tidal physical zone - or as electrical input writes RAM/ROM)? Certainly a snapshot of that zone, or the electrical configuration of the specific RAM/ROM, is "material"... Are we of a different "consciousness" or "mind" a moment later (well yes and no), perhaps semantic hairs are being split? If an interface were established and our individual brain pattern downloaded (duplicating the neuro-pathways and chemistry) to a memory virgin cloned copy, would it not essentially be us?
Just Bob · 18 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 18 August 2015
I had to run an errand, so I couldn't finish my last comment.
This entire discussion of the states of complex, condensed matter assemblies goes right back to the important concept of emergence. The more complex a system is - and especially if it exists in a temperature range in which it can explore billions upon billions of states and still stay assembled - the more complex and varied are the range of states it can be in; and furthermore, the more sensitive it is to being tipped into a different set of states.
As a somewhat poetic analogy, consider the conditions for a beautiful sunset. Literally thousands of atmospheric conditions, temperatures, angle of the sun, and the angle of the viewer all contribute to something that is spectacular at one moment and dull and uninteresting a few moments later. Just a few changes in a few of the many contributing states that set up the conditions for a beautiful sunset can make dramatic differences.
Life, plant and animal behavior, "personalities" of individual animals and humans are all emergent properties of a complex arrangement of matter existing in an extremely narrow temperature range. Change the temperature range just a tiny bit and it all goes away. Introduce drugs or anesthetics, and it all changes. Destroy or inhibit the development of part of the nervous system and brain and you get something different.
All these well-known phenomena are dramatic evidence of the meaning of emergence. Even more interesting is the fact that these kinds of phenomena were known to the ancient Greek atomists over 2500 years ago; but now we have experimental evidence and far more detailed knowledge that supports what was speculation and heresy throughout the history of religion in the West.
The demonization of emergent properties is based on a further demonization of "reductionism" by asserting that life and plant and animal characteristics are reduced to physics and chemistry; the sneer that atheists and materialists are claiming that we are nothing but molecules and chemistry. But that has nothing to do with the correct understanding of emergence.
Emergence is ubiquitous and important across the entire spectrum of condensed matter. It is what happens without prompting. And it becomes far more complex, subtle, and fast-changing the more complex the systems and the closer these systems exist to their melting temperatures. Life as we know it is the most complex and meets every criterion for the surprising properties that emerge out of that complexity.
Life isn't just reduced to chemistry and physics; life is a beautiful and delicate emergent property of complex condensed matter, and it should be nurtured and cherished not just because of its beauty and delicacy, but because stupid, foolish minds following stupid, foolish ideologies can easily destroy it and have demonstrated the capacity to do so when they get the chance.
Just Bob · 18 August 2015
Cogito Sum · 18 August 2015
mattdance18 · 18 August 2015
Malcolm · 19 August 2015
eric · 19 August 2015
eric · 19 August 2015
Just Bob · 19 August 2015
eric · 19 August 2015
eric · 19 August 2015
Hmmm that link seems to send you to my search page, not the specific cartoon I wanted. Try this one if the other isn't clear.
Michael Fugate · 19 August 2015
This is an interesting post:
http://www.culturalcognition.net/blog/2015/8/13/cognitive-reflection-and-belief-in-evolution-critically-enga.html
It suggests that highly reflective individuals are resistant to evolution if religious. Perhaps, if you are reasonably intelligent and have been reared in a conservative Christian environment - certain fields my be more acceptable like medicine or engineering than say biology or social sciences and humanities. This could explain in part the Salem hypothesis.
phhht · 19 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 19 August 2015
Just Bob · 19 August 2015
TomS · 19 August 2015
A recent publication on the concept of the individual
Seth R. Bordenstein, Kevin R. Theis
Host Biology in the Light of the Microbiome: Ten Principles of Holobionts and Hologenomes
PLOS Biology, 13(8) e1002226, August 18, 2015
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1002226
Cogito Sum · 19 August 2015
FL · 19 August 2015
FL · 19 August 2015
W. H. Heydt · 19 August 2015
Scott F · 19 August 2015
Keelyn · 20 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 20 August 2015
prongs · 20 August 2015
FL knows very little about his Bible, but pretends to know everything. Unfortunately, he can hoodwink a host of those who know even less.
Thanks for exposing his wicked deceptions.
TomS · 20 August 2015
Is there any indication in the Pentateuch of a concept of "pure spirit"? Something other than the material? Adam and Eve heard Giod walking in the garden in the cool of the day (Genesis 3:8), among other examples.
FL · 20 August 2015
FL · 20 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 20 August 2015
Just Bob · 20 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 20 August 2015
I don't say anything about souls, FL. I know nothing about what is only unsubstantiated rumour. Me, I don't grant any factual authority to Genesis. That would be you.
But Genesis 2:7 describes this spirit that God breathed into man with exactly the same words as the ones animals are said to have at Genesis 1:24. Either that is to be taken as true, or it isn't. Pick one, FL. Right now, you're in the ludicrous position of wanting the animals to have the same souls as us, only different. Even you have to be able to see that you can't have it both ways. Either the text is right, or it isn't and it is actually misleading to boot.
Of course, back here in the real world, we understand that the writers of Genesis (note the plural) probably didn't mean to say that animals and humans have the same soul-stuff. What happened was that texts from different sources were copied up together, by different redactors who didn't completely smooth out the implications. But that's what the text ends up saying, if taken literally.
But FL takes it literally. He says. We will now witness an exhibition of how he doesn't actually mean that. Stand by.
DS · 20 August 2015
You lose asshole.
phhht · 20 August 2015
phhht · 20 August 2015
Here ya go, Flawd: remedial apologetics.
Go for it!
Henry J · 20 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 20 August 2015
Henry J · 20 August 2015
Well, with Noah all that water had to go somewhere, and with Moses, all the water from the Red Sea had to go somewhere, so maybe they drank a lot!
FL · 20 August 2015
mattdance18 · 20 August 2015
phhht · 20 August 2015
So Flawd, why should anyone believe a single word from the bible? Why do you?
Isn't because, despite the complete absence of any testable evidence confirming the existence of your gods, you are convinced that your gods are real?
How do you know that conviction is anything less than full-blown delusion?
mattdance18 · 20 August 2015
David MacMillan · 20 August 2015
David MacMillan · 20 August 2015
Oops, those claims got jumbled.
1. The Bible establishes clear and consistent delineations between non-life, soulless life, ensouled life, and what Iâll call âmoral agencyâ life;
2. The Bible uses the term âthe image of Godâ to clearly and consistently identify ensouled beings possessing moral agency;
3. The Bible clearly states that moral agency has a 1-to-1 correspondence to immortality;
4. The Bible uses the term ânephesh chayyahâ to clearly and consistently identify ensouled beings regardless of whether they possess moral agency;
5. The Bible provides a clear and consistent means of distinguishing between ânephesh chayyahâ ensouled life and soulless life such as plants; and
6. The Bible story describes a period of time after creation during which no ensouled life expired.
mattdance18 · 20 August 2015
Eric and Scott, more tomorrow. I'm truly enjoying this. Just had to fire back at Floyd, which is easy by comparison. Not abandoning the discussion, though.
Cheers, Matt
phhht · 20 August 2015
"Intelligent design" is dead, Flawd.
Malcolm · 20 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 20 August 2015
If God's face, hands, and back parts and those are metaphors because God is "pure spirit", then why not the whole of Genesis as a spiritual narrative and and not an account of actual events?
Why Floyd?
And speaking of metaphors, do you think that God had a sexual encounter with Mary resulting in Jesus?
Just Bob · 20 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 20 August 2015
The scripture says Jacob said he saw God face-to-face (Gen 32:30). But apparently Jacob was mistaken (or lying) because scripture reports God as saying that to see his face is death to man (Exodus 33:20). (Or else scripture is wrong about that. But that's impossible.) Mind you, Deuteronomy 34:10 states that Moses knew the Lord face-to-face, which is a direct contradiction of Exodus: that Moses didn't just see God's rear.
So what was it? Jacob and Moses saw God face-to-face, or they didn't? It's death to see God's face, or it isn't?
And once we've decided that thorny question, what about the question of God being pure spirit? Was what they saw (or thought they saw) a spiritual body, or did God assume the flesh for the purposes of manifestation (and wrestling)? If the latter, where does that leave the Incarnation of Jesus? Was that a unique event, or not?
How about God's manifestation as a voice from a burning bush, Exodus 3:4ff? The bush was not consumed, which appears to be an indication that these were spiritual flames, not material ones that consume fuel. Were God's other manifestations as a glory in a cloud or a column of fire also spiritual, or material? Real smoke, real light, real fire, or spiritual ones?
Beats me. Beats everyone. It would appear that either is defensible, from the text, but the idea that God became material flesh at other times than the Incarnation is fraught with theological and doctrinal difficulties, so it's usually sidestepped. Fundies usually go with "God is pure spirit", as FL does above. Of course, being fundies, they then talk out of both sides of their mouths and want the words "made in the image of God" to describe the form of our physical bodies, thus to contrive a false argument against evolution, even though they've just said that God doesn't have a physical body. They can do this because they're fundies, and perfectly capable of believing two opposed concepts at once.
Scott F · 20 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 20 August 2015
Scott F · 20 August 2015
Scott F · 20 August 2015
TomS · 21 August 2015
Italics were used in the King James Version for words which are not represented in the original language. They are demanded by English grammar. So, for example, there is is needed in English to make an existential statement, while Hebrew does not need to use a verb.
FL · 21 August 2015
FL · 21 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 21 August 2015
FL · 21 August 2015
FL · 21 August 2015
FL · 21 August 2015
FL · 21 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 21 August 2015
I really think he's losing it entirely.
I will try to put this as simply as I can.
FL says that animals have an immortal spirit. It is the same spirit as was breathed into man, according to the text I have repeatedly quoted, Genesis 2:7.
Humans always have had faculties that other animals do not, and vice-versa. The point, which FL has comprehensively ignored for days now, is that they are NOT different in this specific, of having an immortal spirit, according to the text. Genesis says specifically and directly that they are the same in spirit. Ecclesiastes says that the fate of animals and that of man are not different.
Innocent humans - for example, newborn children - go to heaven. Jesus said so, and anyway it's either that or God is unjust, to damn the innocent. They go to heaven because they are innocent.
But animals are also innocent. They did not eat of the fruit. They do not possess the knowledge of good and evil. They have immortal spirits, and they are innocent. It must follow that they go to Heaven, unless some specific statement from scripture says otherwise. None has yet been cited.
That humans can pray to, worship, commune with, relate to or be filled by, God - or think that they are - is therefore irrelevant. Animals possess both an immortal spirit the same as us, and are innocent, and hence go to Heaven. In the alternative, the scripture is simply wrong.
FL is in the impossible position of assuming that scripture is inerrant and implying that it's wrong.
prongs · 21 August 2015
Especially in his last response to mattdance, I detect a sense of panic as FL attempts to change the subject, and divert attention, away from his own self-contradictions. Can you see it too?
DS · 21 August 2015
For anyone who is interested in discussing the Cambrian, spiders didn't evolve until about 200 million years later. Floyd just can;t bring himself to admit this, since it eviscerates his fairy tale and puts the lie to his "spiders have souls" bullshit. All he can do is twist and turn and try to stick to misquoting bible verses, as if that is going to help. He can go on and on for another forty pages but no one is going to care. He's just making shit up and blowing it out his ass.
mattdance18 · 21 August 2015
FL · 21 August 2015
FL · 21 August 2015
mattdance18 · 21 August 2015
mattdance18 · 21 August 2015
Daniel · 21 August 2015
DS · 21 August 2015
FLoyd wrote:
"How foolish to âpredict no response, Everâ when such a prediction can be falsified with only a few keystrokes at any time. (Sheesh!)"
That's really funny Floyd, because I did in fact predict that you would not answer my question and you didn't. You could have proven me wrong with just two keystrokes, but you didn't. And not only did I predict that you wouldn't answer, but I also specified the outcome if you refused to answer. Now everyone can see that you know that creationism is pure bullshit. The fact that you don't have the guts to admit it is just another strike against you. You can rant and rave about the bible and make believe bullshit about spider souls forever, it isn't fooling anybody. The facts are all against you, it doesn't matter what you say or do or write, you will always be wrong.
phhht · 21 August 2015
So Flawd, it's clear that you cannot answer the obvious fact that until you demonstrate the reality of your gods, all appeals to the bible are ridiculous and futile.
My question is this: is it that you simply have no response, or is it that you are too stupid to grasp the challenge?
Either alternative seems plausible.
Michael Fugate · 21 August 2015
Floyd how did these supernatural events come about? You have never explained the contradictory statements - pure spirit v. hands, lungs, faces, back sides, etc. You have an event supposed to result in Jesus' birth - did God take on human form and have real sex or was it spiritual sex? Did God cast a spell over Mary like God did over Adam? Did Mary consent? Did she have a choice?
phhht · 21 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 21 August 2015
TomS · 21 August 2015
Keelyn · 21 August 2015
Henry J · 21 August 2015
Re " Which means when Jesus fed the 5000 people with only one little boyâs lunch basket of fish and bread, Jesus was doing ..."
An act of cod?
Michael Fugate · 21 August 2015
TomS · 21 August 2015
Yardbird · 21 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 21 August 2015
Like most stories in the Bible - only the hopelessly clueless would take them literally. Jesus' "miracles" are mostly of the kind "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." The stories are meant to teach about human relationships. You aren't in this alone, ask for help if you need it.
FL · 21 August 2015
phhht · 21 August 2015
phhht · 21 August 2015
phhht · 21 August 2015
phhht · 21 August 2015
Just Bob · 21 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 21 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 21 August 2015
At last, and with mighty effort, we have a decision. FL doesn't know if animals go to heaven. The Bible doesn't say, he says.
No, it doesn't, in so many words. It's an implication from several different texts in Genesis - 1:24, 2:7, 3:14, (where God curses only the serpent) and 3:22 (where God says that only the man knows good and evil). The innocence of animals and their possession of souls implies that they go to Heaven, but FL doesn't get implication, especially where he doesn't want to get it.
He tells us that Jesus was speaking of human beings, not animals, so His words cannot possibly be applied to animals. FL thus demonstrates that his total lack of empathy extends to incapacity to apply a principle, again especially when he doesn't want to.
What is it about children that causes Jesus to say of them that "of such is the Kingdom of Heaven"? Is it their unfailingly impeccable behaviour? Their self-abnegating charity? Their complete peacefulness? Their unfailing goodwill towards all others? Their invariable obedience?
Ah... in a word, no.
Come on, FL, you can manage this. What is it about children that drew that description from the Lord? Could it be their innocence? Put to it, I can't think of another childlike quality that fills the bill. So I'm going with innocence. Jesus said they are of the Kingdom of Heaven because they are innocent.
But so are animals. And the rest follows. Principle, FL. I know it's a foreign concept, but have a go. Amazing insights can follow.
So where are we? We are left contemplating the implications of a silly idea: that there's some quality called "nephesh chayyah" that sharply divides animals from plants, and it consists of having a spirit. Animals including humans have it, plants do not. But the implications of that idea are ridiculous - even FL can't wear the idea of bugs in heaven. But rather than admit that the idea is wrong, FL simply takes the theological fifth. He doesn't know, he says.
So here we are, after a week or more of wrangling. FL herded into his little corner, refusing, as always, to think about what he doesn't think about. And me, recognising again that it doesn't matter a hoot what this nephesh chayyah stuff really is, because it isn't really anything. It isn't real at all. The result I've been chasing has been achieved. FL doesn't know, and FL won't think about it, and he's made that blatantly obvious.
Maybe it's been a waste of time. Well, yeah. But it's my time.
Henry J · 21 August 2015
DS · 21 August 2015
Floyd wrote:
"On the one hand, I can see Dave The Atheist displaying the same sheer intensity of Bible-text-searching, analyzing, organizing, and explanation skills that I try to bring to my Bible and theology assessments. Some of you lazy-bm-butt Pandas donât have any of that intensity, but Dave seriously has it AND makes every effort to use it."
That's really funny coming from someone who is so monumentally lazy, willfully ignorant and so proud of his ignorance that he can't be bothered to answer even one question about science. He can't be bothered to learn anything, can't even be bothered to look anything up. And yet he condemns others for being lazy! What an asshole. He can waste his entire life arguing about spiders going to heaven, but he can't be bothered to learn even one thing about science.
W. H. Heydt · 21 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 21 August 2015
stevaroni · 21 August 2015
Yardbird · 21 August 2015
https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad · 21 August 2015
What a bunch of crappie puns!
I mean I really would rather not carp, but this sort of "humor" always flounders.
Glen Davidson
W. H. Heydt · 21 August 2015
Yardbird · 21 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 21 August 2015
Yardbird · 21 August 2015
https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad · 22 August 2015
Those responses smelt! You all skate on thin ice, and fail to rays the level of discourse.
Someday you'll be saury.
Glen Davidson
FL · 22 August 2015
Quick notes:
(1) For Just Bob:
Exactly where did Jesus specifically DENY that he was God? You say He did so repeatedly. I'd like to see the biblical citations on that. Thanks in advance.
(2) For Keelyn:
I can only do the Bathroom Wall at night, because that's the only time I have access to a computer that doesn't get bogged down on all those pages (they really need to be cleaned up soon). So the pace will be much slower, for real, but yes let's give it a try. And yes Keelyn, for the historical record, I **am** calling you out. (But not in a mean-spirited way). By the way, if you're going to continue saying silly things like "I still believe you are not willing to participate in dialogue" after all this dialogue with you, I'm just going to quietly chuckle at you, and keep on dialoging anyway.
3) The fish one-liners are welcome; lightens the mood. Can't say the Pandas don't have a sense of humor. Or something.
FL · 22 August 2015
Just Bob · 22 August 2015
youothers--you'll deny the plain meaning of Jesus' own words yet again--that you twist or ignore the very words of Jesus in your "inerrant" Bible? All of us have seen that demonstrated quite adequately and ad absurdum already.Yardbird · 22 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 22 August 2015
In at least four places, FL. In order of directness, least to greatest:
1) Mark 10:18. (The other synoptics parallel.) Jesus asks why a man calls him good, when nobody is good but God alone. (He is, of course, alluding to Psalm 14.) Now, this might possibly be taken to be irony. Jesus might be implying that the man is right: he is good, and hence is God. But that possibility is immediately undercut by Jesus's further answer to the question he was asked: "What must I do to earn eternal life?". He does not answer on his own authority. He simply quotes the law of Moses, on God's. The remark reverts to its face meaning: "I am a human being, not God. You must follow God's laws." This is the plain literal meaning of the text. FL will, of course, prefer the ironic and reversed meaning, and will then tell you that you must read scripture in its plain and literal interpretation, except where he doesn't like it.
2) Matthew 24:36, where Jesus directly disavows knowledge of his own return, and says that only God knows. This does two things, both of which deny divinity. One, he reveals that he is not omniscient; two, he acknowledges God's authority over him. If he were God, there could be no higher authority.
3) At John 10:32 ff, Jesus answers an accusation that he claims to be God. He says that it was by the Father's power that he had performed many great deeds. If he were God, it would have been by his own power. But his further defence of the accusation is interesting, although it would be meaningful only to one steeped in Jewish thought. He reminds his accusers of Psalm 82, which says that those who are sons of the most high, though they were gods, would yet die as any mortal dies - because they are under the authority of God Almighty. He thus denies that he is this God Almighty, the one God of Israell. Yes, he does claim to be the son of God - but that puts him under God's authority, as the Psalm says of these other 'sons of the Most High'. At 10:36 he says specifically that the Father consecrated and sent him into the world, thus disclaiming that he came of his own will or authority, and at 37 he tells them that his deeds are in fact the deeds of the Father. He thus denies both Godhood and divine power.
4) But the most direct is John 14:28, where Jesus says plainly that the Father is greater than he is. It would be difficult to imagine a more straightforward denial of divinity. There are not greater gods and lesser gods, no graduations of divinity. That's paganism. Jesus is not saying that he is a lesser god and that the Father is a greater one. He is saying that he is not God, flat as that.
Earlier in that chapter, vs 8, he does say that anyone who has seen him has seen the Father. This is as close as he ever comes in scripture to making the claim that he is god; but he immediately undercuts it at vs 10: "I am not myself the source of the words I speak to you. It is the Father who dwells in me doing his own work." That is, one sees God in Jesus because Jesus has completely given himself to God's will, to become a perfect reflection of that will. But this is in and of itself a denial of personal authority and a complete cession of it to God alone - and hence, necessarily, a denial of godhood for himself.
Have a go at that FL. The usual hijinks should ensue.
Keelyn · 22 August 2015
phhht · 22 August 2015
phhht · 22 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 22 August 2015
gnome de net · 22 August 2015
Henry J · 22 August 2015
phhht · 22 August 2015
FL · 22 August 2015
Malcolm · 22 August 2015
phhht · 22 August 2015
What's the problem, loony?
You're just a coward, aren't you, Flawd.
You KNOW I'm right when I say there are no gods. You KNOW it.
But your mental illness won't even let you address the question.
It's too threatening to your ego. It's too threatening to your entire delusional edifice. You're a slave to your madness.
You're just a pants-pissing coward, too scared to engage in real debate. All you can do is to drool and fling spittle.
Fool.
phhht · 22 August 2015
FL · 22 August 2015
phhht · 22 August 2015
David MacMillan · 22 August 2015
gnome de net · 22 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 22 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 22 August 2015
phhht · 22 August 2015
Just Bob · 22 August 2015
Yardbird · 22 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 22 August 2015
Anyone who's ever had a nightmare knows that this idea that humans control other personalities, fictional or not, is a crock. We can try, and some of us do, but when it comes right down to it, we can't control even our own minds.
phhht · 22 August 2015
TomS · 22 August 2015
David MacMillan · 22 August 2015
Scott F · 22 August 2015
Scott F · 22 August 2015
TomS · 22 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 22 August 2015
Scott F · 22 August 2015
TomS · 22 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 22 August 2015
Scott F · 22 August 2015
Malcolm · 22 August 2015
Scott F · 22 August 2015
Scott F · 22 August 2015
More explicitly, the author's mental "simulation" of the fictional character is as "real" as our simulation of any actual person. I suspect that author's mental "simulation" of that character must be that good, in order for the character to be believable to the reader.
Scott F · 22 August 2015
Scott F · 22 August 2015
gnome de net · 23 August 2015
gnome de net · 23 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 23 August 2015
One does wonder of which bible that Floyd believes he has a superior understanding - certainly not the one with 66 books and a new and old testament.
CJColucci · 23 August 2015
At the risk of stating the obvious, there's no ascertainable truth of the matter on what the Bible says about scientific issues, whether you're a believer or not. To take an example, did God proximately poof plant life into existence directly, or is he a remote cause, having created dirt and what-have-you with sufficient powers to create plant life without his direct involvement? We squabble over vague language. If one wants his theology not too outlandishly out of step with what we know from scientific investigation, one will choose the latter. If not, not. So what is the truth of the matter?
Damned if we know. Did the human authors of Genesis believe the former or the latter? Or did they think about it and decide they didn't know? Or did they not think of it at all? We have no way of getting at the truth of the matter. And if either of the last two possibilities are correct, there never was a truth of the matter.
So we have vague language that either side can reasonably cite for its position, and no way of knowing which is true, or even whether there is a "true" meaning. All we have is our theology. What the Bible says doesn't tell us our theology; our theology tells us what the Bible says.
TomS · 23 August 2015
CJColucci · 23 August 2015
Nice to see the confirmation come so quickly.
FL · 23 August 2015
phhht · 23 August 2015
stevaroni · 23 August 2015
Scott F · 23 August 2015
DS · 23 August 2015
phhht · 23 August 2015
Poor old Flawd.
He can no more prove that slugs don't talk to God than he can prove that dogs don't talk to werewolves.
What a fool.
FL · 23 August 2015
Just Bob · 23 August 2015
Once again, to save his own bacon, Floyd comes up with something his "omnipotent" god CAN'T do. God can't "dwell within" a warthog, even if he chooses to, nor can God speak conversational Warthog.
According to FL, who makes the rules for God.
Just Bob · 23 August 2015
Find me a human that is capable of daily two-way conversations with God, and in which God himself can dwell within that human and make His home...
...and an objective way to demonstrate that that has happened.
Just Bob · 23 August 2015
phhht · 23 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 23 August 2015
phhht · 23 August 2015
DS · 23 August 2015
FL · 23 August 2015
phhht · 23 August 2015
W. H. Heydt · 23 August 2015
phhht · 23 August 2015
Malcolm · 23 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 23 August 2015
Speaking of animals worshipping (which we kinda sorta were), there's a charming old story that at midnight on Christmas Eve, the oxen in the stall kneel to the Christ-child, who was born among them. For that reason, it was considered wrong to put them in too narrow a box, or halter them too closely. (Of course their mouths could not be bound up, either, see Deuteronomy 25:4.) Funny how out of wrong ideas, right action can come. And the converse, of course.
Thomas Hardy had heard the story: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/238448
I hate Hardy's novels. But on this, I'm with him. I, too, would go, and hope that it might be so.
Michael Fugate · 23 August 2015
mattdance18 · 23 August 2015
mattdance18 · 23 August 2015
Yardbird · 23 August 2015
mattdance18 · 23 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 23 August 2015
mattdance18 · 23 August 2015
Once upon a time, Answers in Genesis used to display proudly the slogan "Upholding the authority of the Bible from the very first verse." Had it right there on the front page of their site, next to the brontosauruses cavorting with humans.
They got wise to how irrational, anti-scientific, and obviously authoritarian it made them sound. Haven't used it in years.
I guess we should all be giving Uncle Floyd some credit: he's less dishonest than Ken Ham. Less intelligent and less successful, to be sure. But less dishonest.
Well done, Uncle Floyd!
Rolf · 24 August 2015
jjm · 24 August 2015
DS · 24 August 2015
You would think that if the asshole was only going to read one book for his entire life that the would at least know what that book said. You would think that if he were going to ignore all of human history, knowledge and science, in effect ignoring all of reality that he would at least know what crap he was substituting for his understanding of reality. But no, he can't even be bothered to read his own holy bible. He is reduced to making shit up and blubbering incoherently about it for days on end. Now that is a holey babble.
Nick, if you will not moderate this thread, for the love of satan, close it. This happens every time you open a thread and let the morons post here.
TomS · 24 August 2015
The Bible was uniformly understood for something like two millennia (let's say, 500 BC to AD 1500) as saying that the Earth is motionless and the Sun made a daily path around it. Just about everybody today agrees with the heliocentric model of the Solar System. What justfication do those who claim that the obvious meaning of the Bible, when read literally, is inerrant and sole source of truth about things ... what justification to they have for accepting heliocentrism? What evidence to they point to which overrides the obvious geocentric meaning of the Bible?
On the other hand, nobody noticed that the Bible said anything about the relationship between various forms of life (whether there were fixed species, for example) over those millennia. How does the demand for common descent have to be to overrule the modern anti-evolutiionary interpretation?
Compare and contrast:
1) What the Bible says about the fixity of the Earth and the fixity os species
2) What evidence do you have about the fixity of the Earth and the fixity of species
FL · 24 August 2015
Yardbird · 24 August 2015
FL · 24 August 2015
CJColucci · 24 August 2015
Now FL, I was nice enough to say that your reading of the Biblical text was a possible one, but only a possible one. The language supports other readings at least equally well -- and if it doesn't, you haven't made an argument that it doesn't. All you have done is said that you read it the way you read it. Given your theological leanings, that is how you would read it. Because theology determines what you read in the Bible, not vice versa.
DS · 24 August 2015
So Floyd is afflicted with the curse of Ham. Not too surprising. Ham is another one who mangles the science and claims that he gets all of his answers from the holey babble. He lies and cheats and steals and when he gets caught he condemns all those who oppose him to hell. These guys are two of a kind, a baramin if you will, or even if you won't. And just for the record Floyd. I didn't call Ham a name, not one. I just accurately described his tactics. I do have a few choice names for people like that, but then again, so did jesus.
FL · 24 August 2015
W. H. Heydt · 24 August 2015
W. H. Heydt · 24 August 2015
FL · 24 August 2015
gnome de net · 24 August 2015
Yardbird · 24 August 2015
The FSM WANTS to communicate with you and me, that's why he created you and me. I communicate with the FSM through a big bowl of spaghetti and red sauce. The FSM communicates with me via acid reflux.
Personal relationships are all about mutual communication and fellowship together. The FSM would like a personal relationship with you. You must give up any association with the false gods of gigli, fusilli, and linguine.
Henry J · 24 August 2015
Pasta la vista!
Michael Fugate · 24 August 2015
If this god can communicate with dirt to make it sprout plants, it can surely communicate with animals - animals which can communicate with humans and other animals - even plants and bacteria can communicate with each other. Floyd keeps digging a deeper and deeper hole for himself, one wild idea divorced from reality leads to an even wilder one until reality disappears completely.Why spend thousands on virtual reality technology when all you need is Floyd's religion?
Yardbird · 24 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 24 August 2015
CJColucci · 24 August 2015
FL says: You say that âthe language supports other readings equally wellâ, but so far neither me nor Dave nor any other poster are claiming that each otherâs readings are âequallyâ likely.
The respective conclusions we are offering about âwhat the Bible is sayingâ are mutually exclusive; we genuinely ARE saying that the other personâs position is a wrong position and should be abandoned.
Well, of course that's what you'd say. When there is a dispute over the meaning of language, the contending parties aren't going to say that the other party's version is "equally likely," they're going to say that they're right and the other is wrong. But that's the best evidence that there is a genuine dispute about what the language means.
And how do you resolve a genuine dispute? You can't just say, "Well, look at it, dammit," because if there is a genuine dispute the language necessarily bears more than one possible reading. Neither side can determine what the human authors of Genesis meant, if they even had an opinion on the issue being disputed. That evidence is lost to us, if it ever existed.
So what do you do? You decide what reading makes the most sense based on some prior commitment to a world view, or, in this case, to a theology. Each side uses its theology to read meaning into Biblical language; they don't get their theology by reading meaning out of Biblical language. That's all you can do. Other than suspending judgment, nothing else is even possible.
Yardbird · 24 August 2015
TomS · 24 August 2015
FL · 24 August 2015
Found any animals that can commune with God yet? Any at all?
Praying mantis, maybe?
David MacMillan · 24 August 2015
Henry J · 24 August 2015
Ah, but what if all those verses were metaphors!!!111!!!eleven!!!
Malcolm · 24 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 24 August 2015
David MacMillan · 24 August 2015
DS · 24 August 2015
phhht · 24 August 2015
Just Bob · 24 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 24 August 2015
One does get the sneaking suspicion that the mind of Floyd's God = the mind of Floyd. No need for communion when you share one brain.
David MacMillan · 24 August 2015
mattdance18 · 24 August 2015
phhht · 24 August 2015
David MacMillan · 24 August 2015
phhht · 24 August 2015
David MacMillan · 24 August 2015
phhht · 24 August 2015
Just Bob · 24 August 2015
David MacMillan · 24 August 2015
Just Bob · 24 August 2015
... or a newborn infant.
David MacMillan · 24 August 2015
Just Bob · 24 August 2015
If God can "commune" with a newborn (or a fetus?), or a severely retarded person just because they're human, but can't "commune" with a dog, or horse, or parrot, or chimpanzee because they're "animals", then there's something very wrong with his Divine Telecommuner!
fnxtr · 24 August 2015
Reminds me of a broadcasting course where they talked about "para-social relationships". People think they know dj's / actors / personae, but they really don't. Just like reading a book makes you think you know the characters even though they aren't real.
TomS · 24 August 2015
If God communicates directly to humans, including humans not in contact with civilizations with the Bible, then the Bible is not the only source of knowledge necessary and sufficient to salvation (Sola Scriptura).
TomS · 24 August 2015
If God communicates directly to humans, including humans not in contact with civilizations with the Bible, then the Bible is not the only source of knowledge necessary and sufficient to salvation (Sola Scriptura).
TomS · 24 August 2015
If God communicates directly to humans, including humans not in contact with civilizations with the Bible, then the Bible is not the only source of knowledge necessary and sufficient to salvation (Sola Scriptura).
Henry J · 24 August 2015
Malcolm · 24 August 2015
phhht · 24 August 2015
There remains the unanswered question of how to distinguish what purports to be divine communication from plain old delusional illness.
eric · 24 August 2015
phhht · 24 August 2015
Scott F · 24 August 2015
Scott F · 24 August 2015
phhht · 24 August 2015
Scott F · 24 August 2015
Scott F · 24 August 2015
Scott F · 24 August 2015
phhht · 24 August 2015
TomS · 24 August 2015
TomS · 24 August 2015
Isaiah 44:23 - Sing, O ye heavens; for the LORD hath done it: shout, ye lower parts of the earth: break forth into singing, ye mountains, O forest, and every tree therein: for the LORD hath redeemed Jacob, and glorified himself in Israel.
So plants don't have soul?
Scott F · 24 August 2015
David MacMillan · 24 August 2015
Floyd's approach seems to be backfiring. Though this is par for the course.
How about this, FL? Here's the evidence you asked for from the horse's mouth itself:
"The whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, 'Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!' And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, 'Teacher, rebuke your disciples.' He answered, 'I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.'"
So, based solely on what Floyd has told us in combination with the Bible, even chunks of rock are capable of communing with God and therefore must be "made in the image of God" even though we would presume that they lack the Nefish Chayyuh he is so excited about.
And guess what! It doesn't even stop there. According to Job 38:35, even transient electrically charged plasma is capable of speaking to God.
Job 38:41 also notes that baby ravens pray to God for food, and God provides food for them. Two-way communication right there.
Rolf · 24 August 2015
FL · 25 August 2015
phhht · 25 August 2015
phhht · 25 August 2015
phhht · 25 August 2015
Just Bob · 25 August 2015
"Are you just flat stupid? Or is it that you are impaired by your religious disorder?"
Yes.
Or he's so used to preaching to just flat stupid and/or religiously brainwashed folks that he thinks such "arguments" ought to work with everybody.
mattdance18 · 25 August 2015
Eric, I've replied about "mind" over on the BW.
FL · 25 August 2015
phhht · 25 August 2015
FL · 25 August 2015
Typo correction: "Valley", not "Vallety."
phhht · 25 August 2015
phhht · 25 August 2015
mattdance18 · 25 August 2015
Putting a statement in boldface doesn't make it any truer, Uncle Floyd. You got nothing. No arguments, just bald assertion after bald assertion.
And an internalist, subjectivist epistemology that's a bad joke.
Just Bob · 25 August 2015
Just Bob · 25 August 2015
I know, I know, it's "'cause the Bible tells me so."
Except [all together now] the bible does not say that.
Dave Luckett · 25 August 2015
So now FL demands an example of an animal talking to God in terms that he, FL, can also understand. Move the goalposts, much?
As phhht has been pointing out for pages now, FL wouldn't have the vaguest clue about animals communicating with God. For all FL knows, banana slugs do it. And if it were asserted that they do, FL would be hoist on his own petard, the one he so often deploys: prove that they don't. How does he know that the whale's song is never a hymn? Whence comes his certainty that the elephant never rumbles a subsonic prayer?
Prove it, he'll say. And he'll say, the very next breath, it's not up to me to provide evidence for God; it's up to you to prove there is no God. We have to prove the negative, but he doesn't, no no no. Not FL. Consistency? He laughs at your footling consistency!
But he's gone for all money, as soon as the young of the raven cry out to God for food, and God answers them. Animals speak to God. The ravens brought food to Elijah at God's command. So God speaks to them. God speaks to, and is spoken to by ravens. It's in the Bible, so it must be right.
It's over. FL's lost. Animals pray to and obey God in innocence. Animals have spirits, says Genesis 1:24. So animals go to heaven. Mosquitoes, fleas, chiggers, tapeworms, and every other pathogen vector, spider, predator and animal parasite on earth - they all go to Heaven. Heaven has typhus ticks and guinea worms. Who knew?
Of course he's still going to go with bold face (bare-faced) assertion and the the ludicrous attempts at exerting personal authority he keeps trying. FL's got nothing else, as mattdance points out, and rarely has it ever been so obviously threadbare.
Meanwhile, on the BW, he's trying to work out a way that eternity could even be bearable, let alone perfection. So far, his efforts consist of playing dumb and attempted distraction. That hasn't worked. It'll come down to another blank assertion of personal authority again. He just can't seem to get it through his head that that never works.
Mike Elzinga · 25 August 2015
Perhaps of some additional interest would be the issue of sex in the animal world; it is a bit more variable than many people realize. And since evolution involves repeated branching into new species, most of the more recent species still retain features that were part of ancestors many millions of years ago.
Consider sex change. Anthias and most wrasses are protogynous hermaphrodites; they are born female, but if a dominant male perishes, the largest female of the group may change into a male to take its place.
On the other hand, clown anemonefish are protandrous hermaphrodites; they mature as males but the largest will change to a female if the resident female dies.
It seems reasonable to expect that sexual ambiguity still exists in other animals as well; and this raises the question about the rigid sexual identities that are proscribed by sectarian religions. Opening up the prospect of evolution - and all the evidence of nested hierarchies and descent with modification - most certainly brings up the issues of the origins and characteristics of sex; not just in the plant world, but in the animal world as well.
How are sectarians supposed to cope with homosexuality knowing that sex and sex roles are not as well-defined in either the plant world or the animal world as sectarians claim they are? One way is for sectarians to keep asserting that their holy book is literally true; but, as has been shown repeatedly here, it isn't.
Do hermaphrodites pray for a sex change when the resident male, or female, dies? How does the deity decide which is worthy of a sex change?
tomh · 25 August 2015
Since I don't visit the BW, I have to admit I haven't seen FL loose in full crazy mode before. Usually he's cut off long before this. Wow, what a display. My all-time favorite - plants are not alive. He'll have to dig deep to top that one.
phhht · 25 August 2015
Henry J · 25 August 2015
Re "How are sectarians supposed to cope with homosexuality knowing that sex and sex roles are not as well-defined in either the plant world or the animal world as sectarians claim they are? "
Delusions of gender?
TomS · 25 August 2015
stevaroni · 25 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 25 August 2015
What you guys didn't like Floyd's "someone had a dream speech" as evidence?
Bobsie · 26 August 2015
It never ceases to amaze me how seriously some take their fairy tales. Some can even make a living of it.
eric · 26 August 2015
TomS · 26 August 2015
Just Bob · 26 August 2015
Henry J · 26 August 2015
Re "And how if there was no death, but there was reproduction, how the environment could support unlimited population growth."
What was that? Couldn't hear you through all these rabbits...
Michael Fugate · 26 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 26 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 26 August 2015
Just Bob · 26 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 26 August 2015
Just Bob · 26 August 2015
Rolf · 26 August 2015
phhht · 26 August 2015
Scott F · 26 August 2015
Henry J · 26 August 2015
Maybe they used gopher wood for the tower?
TomS · 26 August 2015
This population growth argument is frequently encountered, and goes back to the 19th century, and it takes only a little math to show that it is self-defeating. But even a little math is beyond far too many people.
I don't have the knowledge to do this, but ISTM that there would be a use for an app which would show the difficulty of human population growth to fit YEC. One could take Biblical numbers and YEC dates as a starting point - there are Adam and Eve at 4004 BC, the 8 on the Ark, the 70 of the house of Jacob at the time of their settling in Egypt (Genesis 46:27) and the number taking part in the Exodus, 603,550 adult males, not counting Levites (Numbers 1:46).
David MacMillan · 26 August 2015
Rog Lan · 26 August 2015
Long time lurker here but I just want to say this is a fascinating thread. It seems to me there are two arguments here. The first is whether the Bible has any authority if you can't prove the God of the Bible (however that is defined)exists. That is a very strong argument, but it's never going to get a response from people like FL (because its one of those questions they don't think about) so on a website like the Panda's Thumb it can get sterile as it goes nowhere and we just get endless repetitions of the question with no answer.
However, the second question is much more interesting and fruitful - ignore whether the Bible is the work of God and look at it as if it is and see what it literally says. Over these 44 pages it is clear to any one who is not as blinkered as FL that a literal reading of the text requires a lot of contortions as to what a literal reading means - starting from having to go back and torture the Hebrew and then moving on to deciding there was no death and thus plants are not alive. While I absolutely agree that the bible is not the inerrant word of any god and is a human creation which has nothing to say about whether evolution occurred or how old the earth is (or even whether processed cheese is the spawn of the devil); I think the approach of looking at it in the way that Dave and David have done (a good example is the post above this one) adds to my knowledge and is much more persuasive for fence sitting Christians than the approach that it's all nonsense - though I must admit I like the idea of banana slugs communing with God and I would love FLs answer on how he knows they're not (I suspect we'll be waiting longer than the god-communing banana slugs would be)
Rolf · 27 August 2015
I have a term, "Intellectual catalepsy" that I find quite appropriate on some cases.
mattdance18 · 27 August 2015
August 26th comes and goes. Where, O where, has our Uncle Floyd gone? Where, O where can he be?
I'm betting he is either (a) finding an appropriate conservative theologian whose authority to cite -- because for all his put-downs about "lazy bm butt" Pandas letting others carry their hermeneutical water, he has no problem letting others carry his water all the time, and on the contrary seems never to offer any arguments of his own, the hypocrite -- or (b) getting the over-used boldface functionality fixed on his computer, so he can repeat his assertions again, but still more loudly -- what if he figures out how convincing boldface plus caps-lock is?!?...
Yardbird · 27 August 2015
TomS · 27 August 2015
W. H. Heydt · 27 August 2015
gnome de net · 27 August 2015
David MacMillan · 27 August 2015
mattdance18 · 27 August 2015
TomS · 27 August 2015
stevaroni · 27 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 27 August 2015
I am reminded, again, of "Inherit the Wind", where the Frederick March, as "Matthew Harrison Brady" (William Jennings Bryan) delivered one of the great lines: "If the Lord wishes a sponge to think, it THINKS!" Well, at least it's a demonstration of genuine faith.
Meanwhile FL displays his usual cracked doublethink: An animal is not capable of communicating with God, which is to say that God is not capable of understanding the animal. Say what?
It's a curious amalgam - blind but limited faith. God can perform miracles, but he has to match our understanding of how the Universe works, as well. Animals can't talk. Therefore they can't talk to God. Naturalism, and limitation on the powers of God, simultaneously with a visceral rejection of naturalism and insistence on God's omnipotence elsewhere.
Such obvious internal inconsistency would usually run into cognitive dissonance sooner or later. There would be an attempt at reconciliation, even synthesis of a new position. But in a mind as deeply fissured as FL's, the walls hold firm despite everything. He is completely blind to the contradiction. For him, it simply isn't there.
This is your mind on fundamentalist religion.
Michael Fugate · 27 August 2015
Yes, Floyd cries out every morning, "I am the center of the universe. Everything revolves around me. Why? because I am a human made in God's image and I have dominion over everything because God gave it to Adam and again to Noah and I am their descendent. Ain't I special!"
W. H. Heydt · 27 August 2015
Malcolm · 27 August 2015
TomS · 27 August 2015
Just Bob · 28 August 2015
Thus fades away yet another thread wherein FL circumscribes once more the powers of his "omnipotent" god: in this case his god's inability to "commune with" or "dwell within" any non-human animal. And all in flagrant disregard of biblical instances of his god doing those very things.
Reminds me of the Big Bang episode in which Sheldon deliberately loses a quiz match rather than admit that one of his teammates knows something he doesn't.
FL apparently would rather diminish the powers of the Lord God Almighty than to admit that he, Floyd, could be wrong.
Henry J · 28 August 2015
Re "Thatâs your very definition of God, FL, what am I missing here?"
Faith?
Mike Elzinga · 28 August 2015
Just Bob · 28 August 2015
stevaroni · 28 August 2015
Dave Luckett · 28 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 28 August 2015
Not to mention if your "privy member" is missing you can't be a Jew.
The biblical God thinks too much like a human and not enough like a God.
phhht · 28 August 2015
W. H. Heydt · 28 August 2015
fnxtr · 29 August 2015
Just Bob · 29 August 2015
Just Bob · 29 August 2015
Yardbird · 29 August 2015
stevaroni · 29 August 2015
Just Bob · 29 August 2015
Just Bob · 29 August 2015
David MacMillan · 29 August 2015
Yardbird · 29 August 2015
Michael Fugate · 29 August 2015
Thanks David for pointing that out. I was looking for something else and ran across that odd section.
No wonder the OT perpetually depicts God as pissed at his chosen people if even the priests act like that. It really put the current whining about gay marriage as the downfall of civilization into perspective. Emasculating boys for use as sex slaves in temples!? Talk about coveting your neighbor's ass!
Mike Elzinga · 29 August 2015
Rolf · 30 August 2015
I've said it before and I'll say again: Man is a freak of nature.
Among other things, I base my assertion on what I consider a most rare series of events leading to the origins of man: What went on in our maybe less than one million years transition from the LCA with the other great apes, with no return path available?
Putting us on the road that lead us here, still the same primitive animals with an oversized brain, forgetting that our only purpose is to survive and multiply. With love, the only thing that really can make life worthwhile, on the back burner only?
stevaroni · 30 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 30 August 2015
Sylvilagus · 30 August 2015
Mike Elzinga · 30 August 2015
There are plenty of historical examples of religions that were started in order to keep growing populations in crowded cities in line; the evidence goes back apparently to the Babylonians, Sumerians, Persians, and certainly to the height of Rome Empire.
There have been some recent attempts to find objective measures of big societies needing big gods. People who express doubts and don't engage in rituals to demonstrate their fidelity to the religion are not just viewed with suspicion, they are often put to death as examples to everyone else. Apparently "gods" who are omniscient and powerful are more effective in keeping people in line when they aren't being monitored by their neighbors.
Whether or not these research measures pan out in the long run is still uncertain; but we certainly do have evidence that, under our Constitution, "freedom of religion" has made it possible for all sorts of "control freaks" to operate with impunity using religion as a club to exploit large enough groups of people that those who "preach" these religions can become obscenely rich without breaking the law.
So whether big gods are used for keeping people in line or for fleecing them, these big religions do in fact benefit someone.
Rolf · 30 August 2015
Leviticus? Fullfledged verbosity, passed off as divine command.
Just Bob · 31 August 2015
Leviticus? A scheme to keep the priesthood in food and drink and shekels and power, passed off as divine command.
Henry J · 31 August 2015
Surely not!
Sylvilagus · 31 August 2015
Sylvilagus · 31 August 2015
David MacMillan · 31 August 2015
Just Bob · 31 August 2015