(November 16, 2014 at 7:17 pm)His_Majesty Wrote: Its funny how my credentials are constantly being raised in to question as if there are a bunch of college graduates on here 
I am willing to bet that none of you guys on here is more educated than I am, especially when it comes to the issues we've been discussing.
Actually, many of us are college graduates, some with some pretty fancy degrees. And since one of the issues we're discussing is biology, and I'd bet dollars to donuts that you aren't any kind of scientist, your laughter is a tad misplaced.
Quote:I am still waiting on you to provide some sort of refutation of anything that I've said. So far, you've said a lot, but contributed little.
Who can refute you when you've apparently bestowed upon yourself the right to decide that things aren't rebuttals, by fiat assertion? All you ever do is just say "nuh uh!" and then act like nobody's said anything at all. But your unwillingness to entertain an idea is not a measure of its validity.
Quote:I don't believe in evolution, plain and simple. No matter how angry you get or how red your face gets wont change the fact that you've never witnessed an archae-type change in animal reproduction. You've never see it, yet you believe it occurred. That isn't science, that is religion.
Science is about observation
of evidence, not literal direct, live observation. Of course the latter helps, but it's hardly as key to the process as you wittering "observational science" want to portray it as. Science, insofar as it is anything, is the method by which we can make our best guesses, even about things we've never directly seen, in the universe around us.
For example, the-former- planet Pluto has an orbital path that takes longer than we've actually known about the existence of Pluto. Put simply, no human being, living or dead, has ever seen Pluto complete an orbit around the sun. But because of the evidence we've observed, because of what we know about gravitational mechanics and so on, we have been able to map and predict Pluto's orbital path and the length it takes. According to you, this makes acceptance of the idea that Pluto even orbits the sun
at all a religion.
It's a patently absurd claim to make if made consistently, and completely misunderstands the very basics of the scientific method, but then, you don't seem to have any ducks in a row at all.
Quote:Tell me when did I lie about anything on here?
Well, you said you'd read the rules of the debate and that you'd follow them. You hadn't, and you didn't.
Thass what we call a lie, in rational circles.
Quote:You are asking me that question...so I will ask you; how is macroevolution confirmed by science?
The fossil record, combined with genetic evidence, combined with direct observation, combined with absolutely no indication that there is some force or phenomena that would prevent small changes from accumulating across species barriers, combined with a whole host of other evidences.
Oh, and let's not forget the absolute failure of anyone to come up with a single valid argument against evolution that doesn't rely on made up bullshit, there's that too.
Quote:First off, it is clear that you still don't know what the hell you are talking about. In his debates, when Dr. Craig gives his opening statements, he also presents his argument in the same statement, he doesn't have one segment for his opening statement, and another one for his argument presentation...they are all in the same damn statement. So what the hell are you posting videos of his debates for when they corroborate what I've been saying.
But that's what I did too; I posted an opening statement, which had a comprehensive summary of my argument position too, with links and resources and everything. It was quite lengthy. If you look, in all of those debate videos I gave you just now, there's always a pair of opening statements; Craig does one, and the other guy does one. And they do them concurrently, before anyone gets to a rebuttal. But you didn't post an opening statement at all until you were directly told to. You just leaped right in and posted a rebuttal directly out of the gate. You say these videos corroborate what you've been saying, but you did not remotely follow the procedure in them, or even in any of the debates you've seen, probably; how do they corroborate you? Have you really seen that many WLC debates where one side just doesn't give an opening statement? Can you link to it?
And if you pay attention- I don't think for a moment that you so much as clicked play on a single one of those videos I linked, so I'll point this out- the format goes "Pair of opening statements, rebuttals to those openings, cross examination," every time. You can even watch through the introductions to see that. This is
precisely the format I suggested to you, and it's also precisely the one you didn't follow. I am honestly baffled that you think these actually agree with the way you conducted yourself in the debate; the only excuse I can think of is that you just didn't watch.
Quote:In our debate, you guys apparently thought it would be cool for us to have opening statements that where distinct from our main body presentations, which again, I've never seen before.
Am I in the twilight zone?
No, I posted an opening statement that also contained quite a lot of argumentation. I was honestly expecting that you would do the same, but instead you posted like one paragraph. Which is weird, because my long, argument filled opening was right there from the beginning, well before you wrote yours; even if you hadn't read the rules there was a really obvious cue as to the nature of your opening that you could take, you just didn't.
Also, I'd like to remind you that you didn't post an opening right away, you started out with a rebuttal of my opening. No matter the debate format both sides make opening statements, and yet you missed that.
Quote:His opening argument and his argument presentation are in the same damn speech. Are you stupid?? You posted videos that only confirm what I've been saying.
So was mine? Are
you stupid? You're making arguments that don't even gel with the way you acted during the debate itself, here.
Quote:Like I said before, I guess being wrong doesn't seem to bother you. You were wrong about the BGV implications, you were wrong about whether or not dinosaurs were reptiles, and you are wrong about WLC's debate formats.
You are consistently and blatantly...wrong...all the time.
I'll leave that up to everyone else reading these threads. If there's one thing you've made clear, it's that you absolutely cannot be trusted to come up with accurate conclusions as to your performance in any given argument or debate.
Quote:My point was...let the playas play.
Is there even a game if there are no rules?
Quote:Well, give me on single claim of macrevolution and I will be glad to explain why it is a lie...but I already did in the debate anyway.
Alright. Just off the top of my head,
whales evolved from land animals. You can sometimes even find little vestigial hind limbs inside living whales today, evidence of their land-dwelling ancestry. They serve no use, so it can't be design.
Now, you say you can explain why this is incorrect... but you'll need to give more than an off hand dismissal, here. An actual reason will be a
start but it won't have much weight without, you know, evidence? The kind I actually stopped and looked for so I could have a link to show you here?
Quote:Lets pretend like we don't know what "kind" is..and if you don't, then apparently that is how much of a hold this nonsense theory has on you.
It's not pretending; I genuinely don't know what a kind is. It's not present in any science book, and I hadn't even come across it until I started hearing from christian apologists. In fact, I have another creationist, in another thread, using the word too, and the vague details he's giving me conflict with the ones you're giving me. Apparently one of you hasn't got this right.
But you know, you could easily resolve this situation right now by just giving a definition of kind that is concrete, so we could have a discussion about it. Instead, you seem to
want to keep it vague enough that it can mean whatever you want it to mean, so much so that you'd rather cast aspersions about other people than just give a definition, along with how it fits into the scientific vernacular.
I mean, if it's so widespread and common in usage that you're surprised I don't know it, it should be relatively easy to obtain a definition online, right?
Quote:Dishonest creation tactic? Wait a minute, so atheists can ask theists for evidence for God all day and night, but when we ask for evidence for evolution, we are being dishonest?
Makes no sense.
Oh, it's not the request for evidence that's dishonest. I actually explained what is dishonest in that part of the post you've quoted, but evidently pretending to misunderstand to delay this one whole post is so very important to you.
What's dishonest is demanding that you be given one piece of evidence alone, devoid of the context which gives evolutionary theory its explanatory power. You want a simple soundbite answer to a complex, interdependent web of data;
one piece of evidence rarely points exclusively at evolution, it's when you look at the evidence in total that the reality becomes so much clearer. Creationists seem to instinctively know this, it's why so many of their arguments are based on simplified, misrepresentative ideas of evolution, and why you ask for one piece of evidence rather than the totality. You can't argue against it all, but it's easy enough to make a single piece look insignificant.
Quote:I don't even remember what it was...it must of not been worth remembering.
Alternative possibility: you are an arrogant blowhard who's married to his presupposition and doesn't actually read much of the arguments he's presented with.
If you can't be trusted to read a few bullet point rules, why should any of us trust that you actually read my opening, let alone with sufficient rigor that your forgetting it would actually mean anything?
Quote:Well, how about this...here is another analogy, since my analogies are on so much demand here...
Oh, fucking hell...
Quote:If you went in a pet store, and you asked the clerk "Can you show me where the dog section is", and the clerk says "Sure, follow me"...and you proceeded to follow him to a section that consisted of nothing but hamsters...would you simply brush it off and begin looking at the hamsters, or would you recognize that there is a damn difference between what you asked for, and where you were taken? If the latter, then you would recognize that the "kind" that you asked for was different than the "kind" that you were taken to.
A single example of one kind is not a definition of the term kind, nor an explanation of how one determines which kind each animal falls into. See, we're already fully aware that the term "kind" trades on being vague and meaning whatever you require it to in the moment, so we're not going to accept vague answers and analogies here. We want a real, concrete definition to call back to, so that we can be sure you're actually playing by the rules of what words mean, rather than changing the meaning when it suits you, as I personally suspect you're doing.
You could stem the suspicion of dishonesty right now by canning the analogies and just giving the definition. It's even more suspicious that you aren't willing to do that.
Quote:No need for technicalities...a dog is a different "kind" of animal than a hamster. And I know what you will say "What do you mean, they are both mammals"...but SO FREAKIN' WHAT...they are two different KINDS of mammals..either way you look at it, they are a different kind.
But how do we make that determination? Does the dog kind include wolves? What about foxes? Raccoons? What scientific acceptance does the term "kind" have, and if it has none, why should it figure into a scientific conversation?
What is the definition?
Quote:And if you still insist on putting up a front about the whole "kind" business as if it has no place in biology....then the next time you go in a pet store to buy a dog and you are brought any animal other than a dog, just purchase whatever animal that is...since you apparently don't know what a kind is.
But I wouldn't object to that situation on the basis that the hamster is a different kind than the dog I wanted. I would object on the basis that it's not the same
species; we already have a perfectly good, granular classification system, why would I want to use your vague-ass, made up crap?
And your analogy contains a hidden problem: say I go to buy a dog, but I have a certain breed (that's sub-species, by the way) in mind. According to your analogy, if I ask for a Labrador and get given a Chihuahua, I should just accept it. After all, they're the same
kind so there's no difference, right? I mean, since we all secretly know what kinds are, and use kinds exclusively in our biological determinations, and all dogs are in the same kind, it's not even an issue!
Quote:Well, that is what me and you were talking about.
Uh, no, you and I were talking about dinosaurs and cladistics too. The first post I made in response to you, the other day, was to correct you on this dinosaurs/reptiles thing. I didn't even mention archaeopteryx for quite a while, and when Chuck responded to me, it was on the dinosaur point, not the Archaeopteryx one. To the extent that you and I were talking about it at all, that's completely irrelevant to the point of mine that Chuck had responded to.
You really aren't reading this stuff, are you?
Quote:Look the bottom line is, as I've said for the 5th time (at least), is the archae is the alleged missing link between reptiles and birds. You tried to correct me in that regard, and you are wrong...not that it mattered anyway, since it doesn't matter whether or not it is the alleged missing link between reptiles/birds or dinosaurs/birds, but overall point was: No one has ever witnesses such large scale changes in ANY living organisms. That was the point.
So instead of just admitting the error you try and redirect around it? You apologists can never admit when you're wrong about
anything, can you?
