(April 20, 2016 at 6:32 pm)TheRocketSurgeon Wrote:

(April 20, 2016 at 6:00 pm)robvalue Wrote: I keep thinking about this...

These people are supposedly studying actual science at an actual proper place. Let's assume that is true.

They have things that they think don't add up about evolution. Do they go and talk to the staff there? Do they go and seek any actual answers? That AAA guy admitted that he hadn't brought any of it up. So they're not interested in learning, to see if they might not understand it properly.

Instead, they turn up here at an atheist (not even science) forum, and write these questions as a "gotcha", as if there is no answer. If those questions are so stumping, why not present them at their university or whatever? And what do they hope to achieve, even if they did manage to stump a bunch of strangers on a forum?

Instead, the questions could be used to learn something. But they don't want to learn, they don't want the actual answer. They want us to say, "Yes you're right. You just busted evolution wide open. Care to insert your personal magical explanation in its place?"

When I was an undergraduate in Bio at a university in the deep South, we had Kent Hovind (formerly known as "Dr. Dino", for his claims that humans and dinosaurs coexisted before Noah's Flood wiped the latter out... and more recently known as Inmate #135733) come to my university to debate one of our biology professors, and I researched his tactics, since I knew most of their arguments were designed to fool the audience, rather than to actually win the debate. I called what I discovered "the machine-gun tactic" (they ask one question, which the professor answers, and quickly move on to the next question so no one would notice that the "GOTCHA!" didn't get anything, until they finally get to one the professor doesn't know, at which point they latch on and say, "Aha! You see, folks..."), and I set up a LAN of three computers on which we (three grad students, with me as a "runner" to take the printout to the professor) could look up the information from the databases online at UC Berkeley and such. After that, since I was the main one visible, I was called "the Evolution Guy" when people from that audience recognized me on campus.

The crazy part isn't the nickname, it's that I was constantly asked "gotcha" questions of their own. They'd ask something in a tone that clearly indicated that they thought they had "busted all of evolution wide open", as you put it... even the really inane questions like, "Well if you think we came from monkeys then why are there still monkeys!?" 

At first, I exercised my patience and tried to explain the facts to them... but after meeting wall after wall of deliberately-maintained ignorance, I finally started telling them that they need to inform the scientific community of their inescapable conclusions, and mocking them with things like, "Oh wow... how did we MISS that!?"

When I was able to leave that place, it was none too soon. The school had great bio and genetics departments/labs... but I could feel my IQ points being sucked away through osmosis, every day I was in that town.

Based upon your knowledge and observation are American Southerners more likely to be anti-evolution than people from other regions and foreign countries?

(April 20, 2016 at 8:53 pm)AJW333 Wrote:

(April 20, 2016 at 9:54 am)TheRocketSurgeon Wrote: However, that's nothing like being in favor of genocide or starvation. Through his Gates Foundation, in particular, Bill Gates has done amazing work in staving off both disease and starvation in third-world countries.

Bill has also stated that the worlds population can be reduced by about a billion people thru using vaccines. Maybe he plans to put something special in them. It's been done before.

"Previous vaccination programs have been shown to have covertly been used to sterilize women.  In 1995, the Supreme Court of the Philippines found that vaccines used in a UNICEF anti-tetanus vaccination program contained B-hCG, which when given in a vaccine, permanently destroys women's ability to sustain a pregnancy."

The Hcg hormone was also added to tetanus vaccines in Kenya.

Here's an interesting article on the subject of tainted vaccines.

Is Gates really funding mass murderers?  Some people seem to think so.  And we all know Planned Parenthood's reputation.  

"BILL GATES INSANE QUEST TO STERILIZE AND DEPOPULATE THE WORLD REVEALED (VIDEO)
"BILL GATES DREAM OF POPULATION CONTROL IS BEING ACCOMPLISHED THROUGH THE EXTENSIVE USE OF VACCINES AND ABORTION"

“Woe to them that devise iniquity, and work evil upon their beds! when the morning is light, they practise it, because it is in the power of their hand.” (Micah 2:1)
When I was outlining the main points of this article, at times I felt like I was reading a fictional novel — so EVIL, that it nearly took my breath away that people could do such horrific things to their fellow human beings.
When we hear the name of Bill Gates, we think of a man who became ridiculously rich from his empire, Microsoft. I will tell you this. You will never think of Bill Gates the same after reading this article.
The Eugenics Foundation Of Bill Gates’ Father
In an interview, Gates talked about his family, in particular – his dad. He told the interviewer that his father was a eugenicist, and that for many years his dad was the head of Planned Parenthood. When Bill Gates divulged this information, it was clear that he felt proud of his father for his work. It disgusted me."
http://www.nowtheendbegins.com/bill-gate...led-video/

(April 20, 2016 at 10:51 pm)Wyrd of Gawd Wrote: Based upon your knowledge and observation are American Southerners more likely to be anti-evolution than people from other regions and foreign countries?

I would say yes, due to the high number of people there who are "evangelical" and/or fundamentalist Christians in that region.

However, I do not have the data to tell you how we fare in comparison to other locales.

(April 20, 2016 at 10:13 am)Esquilax Wrote:

Quote:No, because the APA appears to have caved in to intense lobbying from homosexual activism.

So, again, when an organization produces a result that comports with what you already believe, then it's an accurate result, but when they produce one that disagrees with you, it's not a good result. Is your metric for acceptable citations seriously how much it aligns with what you want to be true?

Nope. I simply think that without the lobbying from a 3% minority group, the designation of homosexuality as disordered would have remained.

(April 20, 2016 at 10:13 am)Esquilax Wrote:

Quote:Your bigotry against Christians is quite evident here. In Australia, there has been no such "war" against transsexuals. If there is any aggression towards them, it is most likely going to come from the irreligious .

Shall I give you a piece of advice, mate? Don't try to tell an Australian, what Australia is like. Because I'm going to be able to correct you: now, Australia might be better, in that there isn't a concerted, government based effort to discriminate against the trans community state by state, but that doesn't mean my country is free of cultural memes or ideas of acceptable treatment that negatively affect trans people, and those are promulgated, in large part, by your religion. I'm looking at a study right now, because unlike you I actually research my shit before I make wild, random claims: trans people still experience the highest rates of discrimination and abuse among LGBTQI peeps in Australia: fully half have experienced verbal abuse, a third threats of physical abuse, with half again reporting sexual assault. Your claim that all of this comes from the irreligious is completely baseless, especially in light of the already established fact that anti-trans and LGB bigotry tends to scale with religious fundamentalism.

I never said that all violence is carried out by the irreligious. I would hold to the view that most violence is carried out by them because serious Christians know that they are not supposed to act in this way.

Do you have any figures supporting your view that the Church is responsible for violence against the LGBT community? What research can you produce showing that the Church is conducting a "war" against such people? I did find an interesting article on violence against the transgendered but it made no mention of the Church. It looked at secular institutions and their role in sins of commission and omission.

I think there is plenty of evidence to support that religious people are extremely violent toward anything with which their belief system does not agree.

Without the lobbying from Galileo and Tycho Brahe, the solar system would still feature the Earth at the center...

AJ, why don't you try to get your head out of the sand?

(April 21, 2016 at 2:17 am)pocaracas Wrote: AJ, why don't you try to get your head out of the sand?

It's been in there so long, I'm uncertain what could draw it out.

(April 20, 2016 at 10:21 am)Esquilax Wrote:

(April 19, 2016 at 9:30 pm)AJW333 Wrote: Do you think that the experiences of three people constitutes scientific proof of anything? For a guy who bangs on and on about the scientific method, your appeal to anecdotal experience is quite a turnaround.

Hey, you were the one who said that following your religion brings about certain responses. You certainly didn't appeal to statistical averages or population studies when you made your claim, you simply made the simplistic assertion that it would change people for the better: don't then get uppity when someone tries to falsify your claim on the same terms.

You claimed to dismiss the entire concept of inductive reasoning based on a tiny sample group. I never suggested that all people who assume God to be real would have the same experience. Some will conclude that there is nothing there, others like my son in law have had a profound change in their thinking and attitudes - much for the better.

(April 20, 2016 at 10:21 am)Esquilax Wrote: Besides, you're the one advocating for a magical god working his magic in the hearts of everyone that believes, why should there be anyone no feeling it in that case?

Perhaps they believed amiss,

"Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand,  and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain." 1 Corinthians 15:2

(April 20, 2016 at 10:21 am)Esquilax Wrote: Oh, and by the way? The guy going on about "spiritual fruit" and the effects of divine influences probably shouldn't then be dismissing others because of a lack of scientific rigor. You might be a tad bit... massively hypocritical, there.

It's hardly hypocritical to have a debate in which you disagree with someone. It isn't wrong to be annoyed with them either.

(April 21, 2016 at 2:17 am)pocaracas Wrote: Without the lobbying from Galileo and Tycho Brahe, the solar system would still feature the Earth at the center...

AJ, why don't you try to get your head out of the sand?

Not Catholic.  Don't follow the Church of Rome.