The Problem with Christians

[Whateverist]

Problems with Christians? Try Christian stakes. Worked on that blighter two millennia ago and it can take care of your infestation too.
*inaudible disclaimers*

[LadyForCamus]

Problems with Christians? Try Christian stakes. Worked on that blighter two millennia ago and it can take care of your infestation too.
*inaudible disclaimers*

Mmmmm...Christian steaks...

[Esquilax]

It analogous to what was given for the opposing view given (it seems that you don't want a fair playing field).... And if you don't think that common descent evolution is based largely on genetic and structural similarities, then I suggest you do some reading.

If you don't see a considerable difference between "here is a mountain of scientific data, collected over more than a century, establishing a correlation between genetics and morphology, which, along with X, Y, and Z, leads us to conclude common ancestry," and "if you saw a watch on the beach, you'd just know it was designed," then I don't know what to tell you.

[Pat Mustard]

No, Junk Status, you got schooled and ran away, just like you did back in January.

The reason I stopped replying in January is because I went back to school, and this semester has been crazy busy. I'm taking 3 of the hardest classes offered at my school. I know that this forum is your whole life, but some of us have other things that take priority, while the forum is secondary.

And what's the reason why you ran away the second time? And is this the "biology" course you're supposedly doing, that allows people to pass through despite not knowing what thirteen year olds have picked up before they've gone into second level education? Very convenient for you that this course got so hard just at the point when your non-arguments were being shown as a tissue of lies and fabrications, now isn't it?

[LadyForCamus]

Christianity is not science.  At the end of the day it is a matter of faith and reason. My reason to believe is multifaceted but I regard the Scripture as being accurate because of its ability to reliably predict the future.

So, if predictions are sufficient to believe in a thing, would you not then have to agree that the predictions that evolution makes- which unlike your scriptural ones are not simple post hoc rationalizations made to retrofit the text to modern events, but actual predictions made before and unambiguously about a given event- that have all been proven true, are sufficient evidence to accept evolution?

I mean, if you want a prediction coming true, Tiktaalik is about as perfect an example as you'll ever get. So why is it that the vague bible prophecies, that have to be self-servingly "interpreted" by religious figures to match, and which give you no evidence at all for the cause of those predictions, are sufficient for you to believe in god, but an actual scientist that you can talk to right now making a specific prediction about what sorts of organisms they might find in a specific place in the fossil record if evolution were true, and then that same scientist going out and finding exactly that creature at exactly that place is not sufficient to accept evolution? Are predictions good enough or not?

Concerning evolution, I don't regard it as being scientific. If you called it a faith, that would make more sense to me. One thing I would like to know is, what are the stages of the evolution of humans? Apart from neanderthals, what was the progenitor to humans? And what was the progenitor to that?

I'll give you a tip: if you're going to ask a question, look it up on Google before you ask it, especially if you're phrasing it as a sort of gotcha question that you think doesn't have an answer, because if it turns out that there is an answer, then all your confidence is going to look as though it was borne of ignorance, rather than intellectual rigor. In this case it's particularly embarrassing because your question suggests that you think Neanderthal is the only progenitor species we know of, which hasn't been true for at least fifty years: we actually have a pretty clear ancestral record, for humans. In fact, we can chart the development of the Homo genus from the great apes, all the way back to the basal primate species some 65 million years ago, and we did this through observation, repeatable testing, and examination of the evidence.

You know, all the best practices of science.

Exactly this. Apparently, to these guys direct observation is ESSENTIAL in science (when the science contradicts their beliefs), but when it comes to claims of Christianity it's perfectly sound and reasonable to accept predictions as reliable evidence. No direct observation necessary. So. Hypocritical.

[RoadRunner79]

It analogous to what was given for the opposing view given (it seems that you don't want a fair playing field).... And if you don't think that common descent evolution is based largely on genetic and structural similarities, then I suggest you do some reading.

If you don't see a considerable difference between "here is a mountain of scientific data, collected over more than a century, establishing a correlation between genetics and morphology, which, along with X, Y, and Z, leads us to conclude common ancestry," and "if you saw a watch on the beach, you'd just know it was designed," then I don't know what to tell you.

I don't disagree, that their is a correlation between genetics and morphology.  What I disagree with, is the representation that is being given (and not equally).   It seems fair, that if an overly simplified explanation is going to be given for the one, then I can do it too.  So far, it seems we have X,Y,and Z vs the intuitive knowledge, that a watch didn't just naturally fall into place from physical forces plus chance to wind up on the beach.

[Esquilax]

I don't disagree, that their is a correlation between genetics and morphology.  What I disagree with, is the representation that is being given (and not equally).   It seems fair, that if an overly simplified explanation is going to be given for the one, then I can do it too. 

Except in the design case presented thus far, it's not an oversimplification, it's just an honest representation. I don't know how anyone could read through this thread and see any form of cogent justification for design: we spent approximately ten thousand hours talking about probabilities, which is a completely irrelevant issue, and yet when asked about the probability of a designer god, our design proponents go curiously silent. We spent some time talking scientific citations, yet at the first pass it becomes clear that the designbros just want to cherry pick, and that when the science seems to support design then it's valid, but when it specifically contradicts design, even within the same paper, then it should be discarded as making "no sense," demonstrating that what makes citations valid to the design advocates is merely whether or not they support the design conclusion, rendering their citations nothing more than presuppositional circle jerking with no means of determining what a real source of knowledge even is. We discussed transitional forms, and the cdesign proponentsists asserted that there were none for a few given subsets of animals, and then when shown these apparently non-existent transitionals, they stamped their feet and said we couldn't demonstrate that they were actually related: when we did that, they just shrugged, said "okay," and tried to move on as though nothing had happened. We talked protein chemistry, which only showed that the design guys refused to examine evolution's claims by the method of evolution, continuing to assume that DNA would have to pop into existence fully formed in its modern iteration instead of evolving from simpler things.

And all throughout, no matter the topic, despite whatever refutations we brought to the table, the design guys insisted on arguing from ignorance and false dichotomies, mistaking arguments against evolution for arguments for design, as if just proving one wrong makes the other right by default. Every single thing the design proponents said was purely negative, aimed at poking holes in evolution, and as a result we still have no clear idea how they actually recognize design, merely that they insist that they do: pointing at things and saying "that looks designed," is literally the only thing they've done, while the rest of us brought the fossil record, genetics and so on to the table, and an honest accounting of the contents of this thread, bearing in mind how evidence actually works, aptly demonstrates this.

It's not an oversimplification merely because the design position espoused here is so unfortunately, deeply anemic. It's not our fault that they have brought nothing positive to the table, and pretending that we've done likewise is profoundly intellectually dishonest.

So far, it seems we have X,Y,and Z vs the intuitive knowledge, that a watch didn't just naturally fall into place from physical forces plus chance to wind up on the beach.

I do hope you're just joking about this "intuitive knowledge," thing. If you're serious I'll refute it but... come on.

[RoadRunner79]

---

I don't disagree, that their is a correlation between genetics and morphology.  What I disagree with, is the representation that is being given (and not equally).   It seems fair, that if an overly simplified explanation is going to be given for the one, then I can do it too. 

Except in the design case presented thus far, it's not an oversimplification, it's just an honest representation. I don't know how anyone could read through this thread and see any form of cogent justification for design: we spent approximately ten thousand hours talking about probabilities, which is a completely irrelevant issue, and yet when asked about the probability of a designer god, our design proponents go curiously silent. We spent some time talking scientific citations, yet at the first pass it becomes clear that the designbros just want to cherry pick, and that when the science seems to support design then it's valid, but when it specifically contradicts design, even within the same paper, then it should be discarded as making "no sense," demonstrating that what makes citations valid to the design advocates is merely whether or not they support the design conclusion, rendering their citations nothing more than presuppositional circle jerking with no means of determining what a real source of knowledge even is. We discussed transitional forms, and the cdesign proponentsists asserted that there were none for a few given subsets of animals, and then when shown these apparently non-existent transitionals, they stamped their feet and said we couldn't demonstrate that they were actually related: when we did that, they just shrugged, said "okay," and tried to move on as though nothing had happened. We talked protein chemistry, which only showed that the design guys refused to examine evolution's claims by the method of evolution, continuing to assume that DNA would have to pop into existence fully formed in its modern iteration instead of evolving from simpler things.

And all throughout, no matter the topic, despite whatever refutations we brought to the table, the design guys insisted on arguing from ignorance and false dichotomies, mistaking arguments against evolution for arguments for design, as if just proving one wrong makes the other right by default. Every single thing the design proponents said was purely negative, aimed at poking holes in evolution, and as a result we still have no clear idea how they actually recognize design, merely that they insist that they do: pointing at things and saying "that looks designed," is literally the only thing they've done, while the rest of us brought the fossil record, genetics and so on to the table, and an honest accounting of the contents of this thread, bearing in mind how evidence actually works, aptly demonstrates this.

It's not an oversimplification merely because the design position espoused here is so unfortunately, deeply anemic. It's not our fault that they have brought nothing positive to the table, and pretending that we've done likewise is profoundly intellectually dishonest.

So far, it seems we have X,Y,and Z vs the intuitive knowledge, that a watch didn't just naturally fall into place from physical forces plus chance to wind up on the beach.

I do hope you're just joking about this "intuitive knowledge," thing. If you're serious I'll refute it but... come on.  

---

You made a number of claims here, and I haven't been following this thread all the way through; so I'm going to have to go back and search. I would say that some of your claims; exceed those on many common pro evolution sites. I also think that you are misguided to think that the claims of I.D. are only negative in nature (and that you should look into the actual claims more).

I would like to note, that I do agree, that evolution and I.D. are not mutually exclusive. Also, I'm skeptical of common descent, but not opposed to it. The neo-Darwinian explanation of chance plus natural selection as the mechanism for evolution however, I think that the data is against it.

[Esquilax]

You made a number of claims here, and I haven't been following this thread all the way through; so I'm going to have to go back and search.  I would say that some of your claims; exceed those on many common pro evolution sites.  I also think that you are misguided to think that the claims of I.D. are only negative in nature (and that you should look into the actual claims more).  

We were only discussing the argumentation of this particular thread, though. I'm well aware that more sophisticated I.D proponents are capable of branching out from simplistic arguments from ignorance to more complex arguments from ignorance, but that's not what we were getting here.

Incidentally, can you furnish an example of positive evidence for intelligent design? I'm thinking hard, but I'm drawing a blank.

 The neo-Darwinian explanation of chance plus natural selection as the mechanism for evolution however, I think that the data is against it.

Oh, do tell.

[AAA]

The reason I stopped replying in January is because I went back to school, and this semester has been crazy busy. I'm taking 3 of the hardest classes offered at my school. I know that this forum is your whole life, but some of us have other things that take priority, while the forum is secondary.

And what's the reason why you ran away the second time? And is this the "biology" course you're supposedly doing, that allows people to pass through despite not knowing what thirteen year olds have picked up before they've gone into second level education? Very convenient for you that this course got so hard just at the point when your non-arguments were being shown as a tissue of lies and fabrications, now isn't it?

Biochemistry, Cell and molecular biology, and Biological literature are the three courses I'm talking about. Plus I'm taking lab safety and brain and behavior. You would not be able to pass any of them I guarantee it, except maybe lab safety. I don't remember any of my arguments being shown as lies. I remember me saying that DNA can't copy itself and people telling me how wrong that was. I remember you guys shouting that I was lying every time I mentioned how an enzyme functions because you didn't want to acknowledge their complexity. 

And its not coincidence that my classes started in January, that is pretty standard. You probably wouldn't be familiar with it, but that is normally the time when students go back to school for their second semester.