The Problem with Christians

[Esquilax]

So where are all the  intermediates? There should be thousands, if not millions of them.

Living or dead? If you're after living, then every species is an intermediate species, in the sense that they're mid-transition into the next thing they'll be. If you're looking for dead ones, then your problem is with fossil formation, not evolution: fossils require uncommon environmental factors to remain in place for extended periods of time, and are thus quite rare. All you have to do is go to a museum to see the ones we've found, though.

Incidentally, how did you determine that there "should" be thousands, if not millions, of intermediates? What actually got you to those numbers? And I thought your problem was with abiogenesis, now you're suddenly against evolution too?

What do you make of this?

Job 26:7
"He stretches out the north over the void
and hangs the earth on nothing."

The Earth isn't hung on anything.

[Esquilax]

So out of the estimated 107 billion human beings that have ever lived, dating back over 200,000 years, what new species have evolved so far?

Do you understand how small a time span 200,000 years is, on an evolutionary timescale? Is this another aspect of the subject you've failed to research, before deciding it can't be true?

[IATIA]

About 0.000444% of the total time earth has been around.

If the climate change does precipitate into a truly inhospitable environment, there will definitely be some observable evolutionary changes.

[Esquilax]

About 0.000444% of the total time earth has been around.

If the climate change does precipitate into a truly inhospitable environment, there will definitely be some observable evolutionary changes.

A period of time, additionally, during which humans have increasingly been the dominant species on the planet, who aren't influenced by environmental factors due to the totality of the way we change our environment. There really aren't any selection pressures capable of motivating large changes in the human species because our environment is largely one we control and bend to our will, rather than having to coexist with in the way that any other animal has to. Even assuming that 200,000 years is some huge span of time on an evolutionary scale, our stasis wouldn't be too surprising; we're an apex species with no selection pressures to prompt us to change.

The same is true of sharks and crocodiles, where the basic form is so effective against the pressures on the organism that it doesn't change much, barring basic functionality and cosmetic changes, because within its ecosystem there's nothing funneling the population down a specific path. Evolutionary stasis is apparently another thing that our theist chewtoy doesn't understand and apparently hasn't heard of before he decided he disagrees with it.

Isn't it interesting that, around the time I started pointing out all the ways that this guy severely misunderstands his subject matter, and cannot provide positive evidence for his god, he started ignoring my responses?

[abaris]

Do you understand how small a time span 200,000 years is, on an evolutionary timescale?

Funny, I already typed the same question in my last reply. Then I decided it would be entirely lost on someone like that and deleted it.

[IATIA]

Isn't it interesting that, around the time I started pointing out all the ways that this guy severely misunderstands his subject matter, and cannot provide positive evidence for his god, he started ignoring my responses?  

I guess he thinks he won.

[abaris]

He ignores everything he doesn't have an answer for. If it's not in the manual, it goes above his head.

Well, maybe he did have some courses in anatomy - was that what he claimed? Or was it anthropology? Can't be recent though. Otherwise he would know about the fossil record. But even if it isn't recent, I'm amazed that he doesn't know about the evolutionary remnants in our bodies. The parts that serve no longer any purpose. I'm also amazed that he doesn't know that a different species of humans walked the earth only some 40.000 years ago. That's the blink of an eye as far as evolution is concerned.

[AJW333]

1) The chemical reactions you call "artificial" are not done by hand, but my setting conditions so that the reaction occurs automatically under those conditions. We know how it works based on the physics model of Atomic Theory, which is why we are able to accurately simulate nature. When you ask "does that occur in nature?", you're demonstrating an ignorance of how chem labs even operate.

What I asked was a perfectly valid question that anyone with a scientific brain would like to know. Here it is again;

"I would like to know what the small chemical tail was. Was it something that naturally occurs in nature or a manufactured substance?"

Let's not be so naive as to think that scientific research never has biases or that experiments can never be set up to go down a desired path. It is entirely reasonable that I ask what the chemical additive was.

2) We've covered the fact that some mutations ARE beneficial, even though most are not. The fact that you are refusing to acknowledge this simple fact tells me you're more interested in spreading Creationist propaganda than actually understanding science.

I said that the vast majority of mutations were negative. Presumably that means that a minority are either neutral or positive.

Here's a hug. It must be hard for you, out there.

Thanks. I feel better now  

[Esquilax]

I said that the vast majority of mutations were negative.

And you're wrong. I proved that a few pages ago. Do you intend to answer for that, or persist with the same scientifically wrong claim?

[Minimalist]

How do you reconcile the theories of extra dimensions and SCIENTIFIC fact? No one's proven that they exist but yet many scientists are convinced that they are real.

What someone - even scientists - believe is irrelevant. What they can show to be true is not. That you keep referring to "many scientists" but haven't given even one name or published paper that we can factcheck is revealing. It's like that bit in the bible where Jesus invents the "yo momma" joke.

Hey, Stim.

You don't suppose he's full of shit, do you?