It's not on my cable system either. Oh wait- that's because I don't have cable. Now I wish I did.

I don't understand - what kind of wierdo would challenge evolution? It's like wearing a 'kick me, I'm stupid' t shirt.

It's written in the book.........Syrian dog rituals not withstanding.

I've got it. And an idea just occurred to me as to why the Cambrian Explosion happened.

When organisms first evolved motility, they were able to take advantage of a wide open ecological niche filled with static food and with practically no natural enemies. Because of this, many more mutations survived and reproduced than otherwise would have been the case.

It was only subsequently, when these mobile organisms began competing against and feeding upon each other, that mutation survival-to-reproduction rates dropped back down.

It's nice to see the History Channel take a break from UFO's and Bigfoot for a while.

Any news or flame wars while I was out?

are we live blogging Evolve?

re: #1 Sharmuta

It's not on my cable system either. Oh wait- that's because I don't have cable. Now I wish I did.

Be strong.

It all comes out on DVD in time anyway.

re: #5 Killgore Trout

It's nice to see the History Channel take a break from UFO's and Bigfoot for a while.

Funny you should say that, I am watching Nessie/Bigfoot now on the History channel.

re: #9 Crimsonfisted

Heh.

re: #10 Killgore Trout

Heh.

What always cracks me up about these shows, is that they build to a big finish, and, of course, the evidence is "inconclusive" and we must watch the next installment.

Large Hadron Collider nearly ready
/with lots of really cool pics

I guess I don't understand- why is the History Channel picking on the DI?

/

Tonight's broadcast is a repeat of the premier that aired Tuesday. It's excellent.

Next week: "Guts".

re: #12 Killgore Trout

Large Hadron Collider nearly ready
/with lots of really cool pics

What am I looking at? Nuclear reactor for power? Am I reading that right?

re: #12 Killgore Trout

Large Hadron Collider nearly ready
/with lots of really cool pics

The first image, I immediately thought, the Eye of God.

And this is on the Hitler Channel?

re: #15 Crimsonfisted

It's a particle collider. They spin protons (and other stuff) close to the speed of light and then crash them together to see what happens.

re: #17 Macker

And this is on the Hitler Channel?

Hitler/Big Brother's Eyes/Evolution of Eyes/WE ARE WATCHING YOU!

Yup. Seems about right.
:)

OT: Can someone else try to hit Jawa report or The Long war Journal? When I try to hit either I get a message IE can't load even though both sites start to load. Let me know what you get.

re: #17 Macker

And this is on the Hitler Channel?

Yes, they do, occasionally, run programs that have absolutely nothing to do with WWII.

re: #16 Crimsonfisted

...or the eye of Sauron

re: #20 Thanos

Lot's of people reporting IE errors tonight.

re: #18 Killgore Trout

It's a particle collider. They spin protons (and other stuff) close to the speed of light and then crash them together to see what happens.

To see what happens? Yikes!

Ok. I can see that. Some men pursue particle colliders. Others? Matching their socks I guess.

re: #20 Thanos

They load ok in Firefox 2.0.0.16.

re: #20 Thanos

Jawa works fine from here.

re: #22 Killgore Trout

...or the eye of Sauron

...or Hello, Dave.

Just tested Hot Air with IE 7 and sure enough -- it threw an error. There's something weird in the web tonight.

re: #28 Charles

Just tested Hot Air with IE 7 and sure enough -- it threw an error. There's something weird in the web tonight.

You mean, other than me?

re: #24 Crimsonfisted

This one will let us know what the universe was like right after the Big Bang (within a tiny fraction of a second). It really gonna be cool.

re: #27 Crimsonfisted

Bwahaha!

Yep, I get an 'Operation aborted' error on Jawa Report with IE7 too.

re: #28 Charles

Just tested Hot Air with IE 7 and sure enough -- it threw an error. There's something weird in the web tonight.

I can't get Hewitt, Hot Air of Malkin.

re: #12 Killgore Trout

Large Hadron Collider nearly ready
/with lots of really cool pics

Finally, we'll be able to test Garrett Lisi's Grand Unified Theory Of Everything!

re: #23 Killgore Trout

Lot's of people reporting IE errors tonight.

It's just certain sites, all right wing... interesting.

re: #28 Charles

Just tested Hot Air with IE 7 and sure enough -- it threw an error. There's something weird in the web tonight.

Sure it isn't the framus? "Something weird in the web" sounds like the Far Sides "Then a miracle occurred" It's all the techie terms that confuse the lay person.

re: #23 Killgore Trout

Lot's of people reporting IE errors tonight.

Just got here and tried to look at a couple of links on the last thread and got IE error on both.

When the balloon goes up the first warning will be lizards catching the disturbance emanating from China and or Malaysia. Not terribly farfetched, we must to much more to guard the Internet.

re: #30 Killgore Trout

This one will let us know what the universe was like right after the Big Bang (within a tiny fraction of a second). It really gonna be cool.

Those pictures look like a really cool James (Sean Connery) Bond movie, until I got to the pictures of what looks to be mini me on the scooters. Those were cute!

I would love to live in the copper rotunda-like housing (love copper!)

Stunning images, really, what mankind can do.

And to think, I was frustrated tonight because I can't get my Nessie cam to work! What THEY do with a particle collider!

re: #23 Killgore Trout

Lot's of people reporting IE errors tonight.

Because IE sucks.

re: #34 Salamantis

Higgs Boson rules!

re: #39 kitkat

You have an odd concept of having things "shoved down your throat."
Just look at a different thread.

And what is happening on Evolve?

re: #16 Crimsonfisted

The first image, I immediately thought, the Eye of God.

I'm no doctor, but the Eye of God looks a little jaundiced there. Cirrhosis of the liver, perhaps? Hey, big guy, put down that bottle!
//

Comments telling me not to post on the subject of evolution will be deleted.

re: #39 kitkat

Why do you (Charles) continue to shove your belief in evolution, something that will never be proven in our lifetime along with creationism, down our throats?

Nobody forced you to come here, nobody forced you to click the link, isn't "shoving down our throats" quite a lot of hysterical hyperbole?

re: #39 kitkat

I don't get it. Why is Charles making this such a focal point of his blog? Lots of people believe in a creator while lots of others believe it was all by accident. Why do you (Charles) continue to shove your belief in evolution, something that will never be proven in our lifetime along with creationism, down our throats? Did an ID enthusiast hurt your feelings somewhere along the line or something? What's so wrong with believing that we are created beings which the science of evolution cannot prove otherwise? BTW, keep up the good work with all your other subjects. I think you're the bee's knees mostly.

why shouldn't charles post what he likes on his own blog?
btw insect evolution is quite interesting. that includes bee's (knees).

re: #32 Charles

Yep, I get an 'Operation aborted' error on Jawa Report with IE7 too.

American Thinker is ok,

Poligazette, Hot Air, The Long War Journal, Gateway Pundit, Jawa, Big Lizards and others all throw the error. Is there a common ad they are running?

i recieved the page to than be told, operation aborted

re: #48 nyc redneck

why shouldn't charles post what he likes on his own blog?
btw insect evolution is quite interesting. that includes bee's (knees).

So is insect forensics, actually, a new field when I was working at a bug company. Encouraged to pursue the science. Ick.

That would be interesting, if it was designed to screw up the sites it appeared on, and was space was selectively bought. A different kind of trojan ad...;~)

Something is happening:
Went to almost every conservative website that I have links for using Firefox - Okay.
Change to IE 7 - It loads the site to start and then says operation aborted and disconnects from site.

"Progressive' sites, no problem.

Looks to me like some DNS hacking has been done.

*waves goodbye to post #39*

Memri ok, Virginia Postrell ok.

yes american thinker has a nice write up about bbc being fined for deliberate dishonest reporting

remove the first 'was'...thanxabunch!

What do you mean starting with Eyes. I never ok'd that!

re: #55 right_on_target

I just clicked through a bunch of lefty sites and they won't work with IE either. Try Andrew Sullivan.

re: #15 Crimsonfisted

It's a device used for high energy physics experiments. Somewhere I watched a video on it. I'll see if I can track it down.

im being told enternet exployer cannot open page for hot air

Counter Terrorism Blog throwing the error.

re: #55 right_on_target

What sites are you trying to hit? I'm in CA, using Firefox. I get LGF and Hot Air just fine. What others should I check? I as 'cuz I'm curious.

internet*

TimeWarner Cable in Central Texas, Fort Hood area has Eyes and Guts on Aug05. HiDef and NoDef.

re: #55 right_on_target

Something is happening:
Went to almost every conservative website that I have links for using Firefox - Okay.
Change to IE 7 - It loads the site to start and then says operation aborted and disconnects from site.

"Progressive' sites, no problem.

Looks to me like some DNS hacking has been done.

If it was DNS, it wouldn't work with Firefox, either. Unless someone checked the browser type and redirected Firefox users to the correct site, but if they did that why let firefox work?
Most likely, it is an ad that blows up on IE. I avoid IE except for a few sites that I truest and that require it.

re: #61 Killgore Trout

I worked off my bookmarks and only have three or four "left sites" so you're probably right.

michelle malkin also. hmm seems to be an internet exployer problem?

re: #64 Thanos

Counter Terrorism Blog throwing the error.

I can access it without errors. Again, in CA using Firefox.

i could hget up steve emersons site

dr sanity is up

This can't be good for Mircrosoft's market share. If you listen carefully you can hear millions of people switching browsers.

Charles, ever consider adding a permanent reminder not to tell you what to post in the box above with the general reminders about commenting?

re: #70 willowone

Seeing that fine in Firefox as well.

re: #62 Archimedes

Thanks!

A 15 minute tour of the Hadron Supercollider by Brian Cox:

Brian Cox: An inside tour of the world's biggest supercollider
[Link: www.ted.com...]

re: #78 Archimedes

Got it. Favorited.

re: #78 Archimedes

That's well worth watching. It's very informative and easy to understand.

re: #80 Killgore Trout

Absolutely. He makes it crystal clear to the layman.

re: #53 Crimsonfisted

So is insect forensics, actually, a new field when I was working at a bug company. Encouraged to pursue the science. Ick.

i saw the most stunning metallic turquoise green bug in the garden today.
some kind of waspy fly.
last wk. i saw a wasp attack and kill a caterpillar on a fruit tree. that was a vicious brutal assault.
lots goes on in the bug world.
isn't the forensics insect field abt. estimating time of death and location of death. it's pretty amazing what we can learn abt crimes from insects.

re: #1 Sharmuta

"Sharm" -

IF you are a LIGHT TV VIEWER - Get the $40.00 - "FREE GOVERNMENT CHEESE" for a converter box. they retail for about $60. "'Magine that - for $20.00 ALL 'yall's can run, NextGeneration TV - on your "LastGeneration" TV!

-S-

OT
Has anybody heard that Obama has launched a new website, "The Low Road Express"?

Looks like article is from The Washington Post
"Battling what campaign aides called John McCain's "gutter distractions," Sen. Barack Obama launched a new website dubbed "The Low Road Express," designed to counter a wave of new attack ads against him."
[Link: my.barackobama.com...]

re: #82 nyc redneck

i saw the most stunning metallic turquoise green bug in the garden today.
some kind of waspy fly.
last wk. i saw a wasp attack and kill a caterpillar on a fruit tree. that was a vicious brutal assault.
lots goes on in the bug world.
isn't the forensics insect field abt. estimating time of death and location of death. it's pretty amazing what we can learn abt crimes from insects.

ummmm. yes. I didn't want to bring up our de-evolution on an EVOLVE thread. :)

It was a new and exciting field a few years ago when I was working at a large extermination company. I am sure it has metamorph.... transfigur....
transmu..... EVOLVED since then.

re: #83 texasjihad

"the recent issues that have been a real force to make the case that no living thing evolved across the line from one specie to another."

A link substantiating that assertion would be good. Even better if it's unrelated to Discovery Institute or Harun Yahya.

Question of the evening: why is it that the portion of Homo sapiens sapiens that best understands the evolutionary imperative of passing one's genes along also seems to be the one least willing or able to do so?

re: #83 texasjihad

What is this with deleting the critics. Are we really that threatening?
#39 deleted:
re: #39 kitkat

"I don't get it. Why is Charles making this such a focal point of his blog? Lots of people believe in a creator while lots of others believe it was all by accident. Why do you (Charles) continue to shove your belief in evolution, something that will never be proven in our lifetime along with creationism, down our throats? Did an ID enthusiast hurt your feelings somewhere along the line or something? What's so wrong with believing that we are created beings which the science of evolution cannot prove otherwise? BTW, keep up the good work with all your other subjects. I think you're the bee's knees mostly"

You really do need to put both sides up --or better yet just leave it alone--for those who really have not taken the time to study the recent issues that have been a real force to make the case that no living thing evolved across the line from one specie to another.

The attempt to force religious dogma into public high schjool science class should NOT be 'left alone', and there IS NO credible empirical 'other side':

[Link: littlegreenfootballs.com...]

Instead of spending more than $1 million a year on publishing books and articles for non-scientists and on other public relations efforts, the Discovery Institute should finance its own peer-reviewed electronic journal. This way, the organization could live up to its self-professed image: the doughty defenders of brave iconoclasts bucking the establishment.

For now, though, the theory they are promoting is exactly what George Gilder, a long-time affiliate of the Discovery Institute, has said it is: "Intelligent design itself does not have any content."

Since there is no content, there is no "controversy" to teach about in biology class. But here is a good topic for a high school course on current events and politics: Is intelligent design a hoax? And if so, how was it perpetrated?

Daniel C. Dennett, a professor of philosophy at Tufts University, is the author of "Freedom Evolves" and "Darwin's Dangerous Idea."

It seems that IE 7 operation aborts when sitemeter tries to load on the affected sites. Sites that don't use sitemeter are okay.

Sorry; wrong link.

[Link: ase.tufts.edu...]

There is no end to this debate...

Can't us lizards just "agree to disagree" on this topic? It requires a boatload of faith to believe either account. It seems like the election and the threat from islamofacisists is a far more urgent concern to western civilization than our personal beliefs on the origin of life.

re: #93 tunnelrat

It requires a boatload of faith to believe either account.

Nope. Faith and reason are very different entities. We can debate about which is better but they are certainly not the same thing.

re: #95 Killgore Trout

Nope. Faith and reason are very different entities. We can debate about which is better but they are certainly not the same thing.

My faith is not devoid of reason.

re: #96 mama winger

Of course they can be combined but they are not the same thing.

re: #88 ubercheesehead

That's a stupid comment.

re: #89 Salamantis

The attempt to force religious dogma into public high schjool science class should NOT be 'left alone', and there IS NO credible empirical 'other side':

[Link: littlegreenfootballs.com...]

Instead of spending more than $1 million a year on publishing books and articles for non-scientists and on other public relations efforts, the Discovery Institute should finance its own peer-reviewed electronic journal. This way, the organization could live up to its self-professed image: the doughty defenders of brave iconoclasts bucking the establishment.

For now, though, the theory they are promoting is exactly what George Gilder, a long-time affiliate of the Discovery Institute, has said it is: "Intelligent design itself does not have any content."

Since there is no content, there is no "controversy" to teach about in biology class. But here is a good topic for a high school course on current events and politics: Is intelligent design a hoax? And if so, how was it perpetrated?

Daniel C. Dennett, a professor of philosophy at Tufts University, is the author of "Freedom Evolves" and "Darwin's Dangerous Idea."

Look-- I am a militant home school advocate. I am much more concerned that the religious Darwinists will attack home schooling when they have hammered the government schools to teach a hatred of moral absolutes --and absolute conformity (home schooled children average in the 80th percentile overall)
The issue for many is that the religion of Secular Humanism--Naturalism is the current religious dogma of the government schools.
The positions taken here tend to push more Christians out of Government schools and in to home schools. To me--that is a good thing.
I have been shocked that my six children have been welcomed to a wonderful university education that is totally paid for by the taxpayers due to their PSAT and SAT scores. (top 1%) My oldest just graduated in Electrical Engineering with a perfect GPA
This is so common among the home schooled that the University is very active in recruiting the home schooled.
I think you will find that a new crop of Christian kids is Americas best hope--- and it has almost nothing to do with a view of origins.
They know how to humor the Secularists with the answers that fit the dogma---but they reject the multi-culture crap and the global warming crap and the filth of Hollywood and the music that is full of hate and violence -- and they wait for sex within marriage and they have huge families because they love kids and they love the God of creation. And they vote in very high percentages
Come to think of it--they are a threat. You self loathing libs better stop them while you still can.

re: #99 texasjihad

"The positions taken here tend to push more Christians out of Government schools and in to home schools. To me--that is a good thing."
If this is true, then you should encourage more discussion of this topic.

I have been subjected to several beatdowns on LGF for having the audacity to imply that evolution cannot be proven. Yes, you can cite evidence which can be assumed to imply the possibility of this or that, however it is not an observable event, and any explanation for the origin of life is as good as another since nobody was there to see it. Why are we debating the unknown? Are there not more serious threats to western civilization than our personal beliefs on this subject?

re: #96 mama winger

Who cares about your faith? There is NO evidence for evolution. Your faith has ZERO to do with it.

The faithful of evolution are just as convincing as the faithful of any religion.

I will not stop reading this site. But I will also not stop feeling discouraged by the ardent religion of evolution advocated here, without evidence.

The intellectual failure is absurd. Moreso, because the psychological motive is the bizarre need to assert intellectual superiority, as opposed to addressing facts supporting logical inferences.

The fatuous link response proves the point.

No one here, or anywhere, can state the evidence, facts, validly supporting evolution.

Now lets see the torrent of characterization.

re: #28 Charles

Just tested Hot Air with IE 7 and sure enough -- it threw an error. There's something weird in the web tonight.

Okay, I've seen how these movies turn out ...

}:)     [Meanwhile, in the server room ... ]

re: #46 Charles

WOW.

re: #104 Moonzoo

WOW.

That's right, and if you persist, your account will be blocked.

re: #102 Moonzoo
There is also no evidence for God.

Charles, I show Evolve appearing at 8/5 (Tuesday) at 10pm. I'm in Southern California using Time Warner cable.

Thanks for the tip. I've set my DVR.

re: #108 Moonzoo
AMF!

re: #101 tunnelrat

Yes, you can cite evidence which can be assumed to imply the possibility of this or that, however it is not an observable event, and any explanation for the origin of life is as good as another since nobody was there to see it.

It has been observed. You are either lying or unaware of the facts.

re: #100 jaunte

"The positions taken here tend to push more Christians out of Government schools and in to home schools. To me--that is a good thing."
If this is true, then you should encourage more discussion of this topic.

Hey--I guess this is true. The fact is that not many people are so soft in their our view of the issue that they be persuaded by the insults and venom here --and many older guys get to see first hand what kind of bullying their children have to deal with from a high school biology teacher who got his indoctrination years ago when Darwin deniers were like the global warming deniers of today.
Christians who care will let the failed institution fall under its own weight. And they will not sacrifice their childen to a lost cause. Do we so soon forget the roll that Christianity played in education in this country? Virtually all the Ivy League schools started as divinity schools.

RE 108, told ya so!

re: #106 pingjockey

There is also no evidence for God.

For any of the Deities, as a matter of fact.

}:)     [Evidence being a scientific term, after all ... ]

re: #113 Kulhwch
That is why religion is faith. Faith is not science. Faith did not develop a polio vaccine science did. Faith did not put man on the moon, probes out past the edge of the solar system, science did. Faith and science are not incompatible until you want to teach faith as science.

Implosion alert.

}:)     [WOW, he threw himself on the antimatter to save us all!]

re: #93 tunnelrat

Can't us lizards just "agree to disagree" on this topic? It requires a boatload of faith to believe either account. It seems like the election and the threat from islamofacisists is a far more urgent concern to western civilization than our personal beliefs on the origin of life.

No, you are absolutely, positively wrong. It takes faith to believe in religious dogma; it only takes rationality and reason to accept the testimony of empirical evidence. One need not believe in what one can know.

Also, we're talking about not the origins of life, but its evolution. I can, however, understand how those who erroneously believe that it was made as is could make such a mistake.

Threats to western civilization can come from both within and without. Scientific and technological achievement have been hallmarks and driving engines of western civilization, politically, socioculturally and economically, ever since the Enlightenment; for the well from which they have sprung to be threatened with a polluting poisoning by a dark ages sectarian fundamentalist religious resurgence is a clear and present danger.

re: #115 Kulhwch
I said goodbye on #109.

re: #111 texasjihad

One problem is that the reclassification of one part of science as another faith (because its central story conflicts with the creation stories of several faiths) is one of the tactics of some dishonest people who can't conduct their arguments sufficient to convince scientists working in the field of evolutionary biology. So they switched to a political and pr campaign which is ultimately divisive and distracting, not to mention expensive for school districts.

re: #117 pingjockey

I just worked out your 109 acronym. I'm slow.

re: #113 Kulhwch

For any of the Deities, as a matter of fact.

}:)     [Evidence being a scientific term, after all ... ]

Romans 1:20 (New International Version)

For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

re: #119 jaunte
Ah well, I'm retired navy and have 100s of those things lying around.

re: #99 texasjihad

Look-- I am a militant home school advocate. I am much more concerned that the religious Darwinists will attack home schooling when they have hammered the government schools to teach a hatred of moral absolutes --and absolute conformity (home schooled children average in the 80th percentile overall)
The issue for many is that the religion of Secular Humanism--Naturalism is the current religious dogma of the government schools.
The positions taken here tend to push more Christians out of Government schools and in to home schools. To me--that is a good thing.
I have been shocked that my six children have been welcomed to a wonderful university education that is totally paid for by the taxpayers due to their PSAT and SAT scores. (top 1%) My oldest just graduated in Electrical Engineering with a perfect GPA
This is so common among the home schooled that the University is very active in recruiting the home schooled.
I think you will find that a new crop of Christian kids is Americas best hope--- and it has almost nothing to do with a view of origins.
They know how to humor the Secularists with the answers that fit the dogma---but they reject the multi-culture crap and the global warming crap and the filth of Hollywood and the music that is full of hate and violence -- and they wait for sex within marriage and they have huge families because they love kids and they love the God of creation. And they vote in very high percentages
Come to think of it--they are a threat. You self loathing libs better stop them while you still can.

I wish your children all the success that they can achieve. I also am willing to wager that their success will not be in biology, botany, paleontology or genetics. Creationism simply renders such fields conceptually incoherent.

re: #121 pingjockey

My first thought was: "bowling?"

re: #123 jaunte
Ahahahahaha! Well, he got his 3rd "strike"!

re: #124 pingjockey

Martyr points, to spare!

re: #125 jaunte
You owe me a coke! Mine is now on the floor!

Is it a full moon tonight? No.

Maybe new moons bring 'em out now too?

re: #126 pingjockey

Comin' right up: [Link: blog.ecr.co.za...]

re: #114 pingjockey

re: #113 Kulhwch

That is why religion is faith.

Exactly.

Faith is not science.

Exactly.

Faith did not develop a polio vaccine science did.

Yep.

Faith did not put man on the moon, probes out past the edge of the solar system, science did.

Yep.

Faith and science are not incompatible until you want to teach faith as science.

You're exactly right.  They don't have to be opposites, they CAN be complimentary if you look at them the right way, but there's no way they're synonymous.

Faith operates outside of reason, via emotion.  It feeds upon nuance, not fact.  It nurtures a different part of ourselves (at least in my case -- I can't speak for everyone else), and is a complete mystery when seen in light of Science.

Science also operates outside of faith.  It's coinage are facts, and is also somewhat a mystery if viewed only through the eyes of faith.

I like what Joseph Campbell once said.  He said that religion (or, precisely at the moment he was speaking, myth) was the software for reality.  The implication was that science is the hardware of the cosmos ... haven't meditated on that a lot, but I like that concept too.

}:)     [Oops, I done shot my mouf off now!]

re: #128 jaunte
Merci buckets!

I swear, the little trolls must get off on telling Charles what he can and cannot post on his own blog...then get off even more when Stinky steps in with the Banning Stick.

re: #117 pingjockey

I saw that.

}:D     [Ah, the service was too brief, but he's in a happier place ... ]

re: #101 tunnelrat

I have been subjected to several beatdowns on LGF for having the audacity to imply that evolution cannot be proven.

It's a tough room that fact-checks your ass at lightning speed. There is a saying about heat and kitchens that should apply here.

Yes, you can cite evidence which can be assumed to imply the possibility of this or that, however it is not an observable event, and any explanation for the origin of life is as good as another since nobody was there to see it. Why are we debating the unknown?

The theory of evolution does not address the origin of life, the spark that started it all, nor does it pretend to.

Are there not more serious threats to western civilization than our personal beliefs on this subject?

There are many threats to western civilization, as thinking people we are all capable addressing many of them simultaneously. Why should discussion of this particular threat be excluded simply because it causes discomfort for some?

re: #101 tunnelrat

I have been subjected to several beatdowns on LGF for having the audacity to imply that evolution cannot be proven. Yes, you can cite evidence which can be assumed to imply the possibility of this or that, however it is not an observable event, and any explanation for the origin of life is as good as another since nobody was there to see it. Why are we debating the unknown? Are there not more serious threats to western civilization than our personal beliefs on this subject?

Lenski's macroevolution of e. coli can be replayed and observed at will under controlled laboratory conditions. The artifactual retroviral DNA sequences that are located in isomorphic sites in human and great ape genomes can be observed, checked and rechecked at will.

These things are most assuredly known. And the fact that they are known, and do not require belief, is what distresses and disturbs you. And no, we will not shut up about these cases of factual empirical evidence to spare your delivcate feelings. Or about all of the countless millions of others, from the fossil record, to the genetic record, to the observed evolutions, and on and on and on...you would have acquitted OJ, if you have no respect for what evidence - including DNA evidence - means, because no one alive will admit to witnessing the murders.

I wish your children all the success that they can achieve. I also am willing to wager that their success will not be in biology, botany, paleontology or genetics. Creationism simply renders such fields conceptually incoherent.

Seriously Sal, Why do you need to speak as though you have all the answers to everything. Do you need to put others down in order to feel good about yourself? Can't you just allow other people to have faith in what they believe? Why must everyone who disagrees with you be made out to be a moron or a religious nut? Do you not respect any opinion but your own? Try to be a little more open minded.

re: #129 Kulhwch
Well said. The 'creator', whomever or whatever it was, gave us a brain to reason with. Now is it reasonable the creator would give us a brain to do all the stuff I mentioned plus this little device everybody(well most everbody uses) to communicate and figure out the age of the earth and carbon dating, etc...But the creator put dinosaur fossils and other indicators of great age just to fool us?! The logic of that isn't logical.

re: #118 jaunte

Once again--this is not something that I care about since I think the Darwinism is a small part of a devastating world view that is a long war against God.
The fact is that the idea of evolutionary biology is more or less a myth in itself. That is the hard science is to observe the order and structure of living things in order to intervene with medications or to manipulate genetic information to reach a goal.
The similarity of certain kinds of life is evidence that the same designer designed it all ---or for the Darwinists that slow changes over time changed life forms into other life forms in the same way enough collision between an SUV and a sports car changes into a "Crossover" vehicle.

re: #135 tunnelrat

Creationism simply renders such fields conceptually incoherent.

Seriously Sal, Why do you need to speak as though you have all the answers to everything.

Irony much?

re: #137 texasjihad

I think the Darwinism is a small part of a devastating world view that is a long war against God.

Booooo!

re: #1 Sharmuta

It's not on my cable system either. Oh wait- that's because I don't have cable. Now I wish I did.

Really? But you have internet; why don't you have cable? I can understand saving money and boredom, but what is the excuse for not having CSPAN at your fingertips?

As an aside, I have another occasional place with phone and DSL, but no cable (not available there actually). I use a SLINGBOX connected to my TV and modem at the other place and have access to the same services, including DVR etc., via the DSL, with a few other little connections feeding the PC to my TV. The remote appears on the TV and is controlled by the mouse. Cost me about $200, which is a couple of months worth of satellite TV; which is the other option, but I'm not in two places at once.

re: #122 Salamantis

As a matter of fact they do have some interest in those fields. And my daughter has excelled in genetics in particular.
Can you please explain to me how that the highest possible understanding of genetics is in the least diminished by a view of origins?

re: #120 texasjihad

re: #113 Kulhwch

For any of the Deities, as a matter of fact.

}:) [Evidence being a scientific term, after all ... ]

Romans 1:20 (New International Version)

For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

Exodus 33:20 And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.
Exodus 33:21 And the LORD said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock:
Exodus 33:22 And it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by:
Exodus 33:23 And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen.

}:P     [Talk about your Grand Canyons ... ]

re: #137 texasjihad

Telling people iyou describe as "Darwinists" that they're part of "a war against God" can be a slippery slope.
You might one day find yourself wearing a "God Is With Us" belt buckle.

re: #137 texasjihad
So, the fossil evidence for at least 3 great extinctions is the Creator playing a practical joke on us? Or, these extinctions happened and at the end of each of these 'experiments' the creator said "nah I don't like that, think I'll try it again".
So which is it? Or the universe was created and the Creator let life take its chances wherever and whenever it arose?

test

re: #98 Sharmuta

That's a stupid comment.

Gee, ya think? Have you ever read Mark Steyn, everyone's favorite demographic bore? I have not perused the literature enough to know whether or not there have been any demographic studies comparing self-proclaimed evolutionists and self-proclaimed creationists, but there are boatloads of demographic studies that seem to draw pretty close proxies for the two groups, and the results are pretty clear: the only demographic groups in Europe and North America that are reproducing above replacement levels are those where you would most expect to find creationists.

Or, if we want to oversimplify the statistics, let's just randomly pick an equal number of prominent proponents for each side. Let's pick, say, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennet, and P.Z. Myers and tally up how many children and grandchildren they have. Then let's compare to, say, Ken Ham, Steve Austin and Henry Morris. I don't know what the numbers add up to, but I'm guessing that for every baseball team the creationists could field you couldn't get enough evolutionary materialist offspring to field a hand of bridge.

re: #120 texasjihad

For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

It's cool that you have faith, but how can this in anyway be considered measurable, observable, scientific evidence?

re: #137 texasjihad

Once again--this is not something that I care about since I think the Darwinism is a small part of a devastating world view that is a long war against God.

I think we've heard this before, from you. Clearly you don't give a gnats ass for the time expended in trying to educate you in reality. Why do you keep repeating the same ingorance, not to mention the lies about a war, and this comes from an atheist with many Christian friends, who have many times your IQ.

re: #145 Killgore Trout
You failed. Try again!

re: #102 Moonzoo

Who cares about your faith? There is NO evidence for evolution. Your faith has ZERO to do with it..

You keep having your eyeballs crammed with empirical evidence, and you continue screaming that there is none, like a tantrumy two year old with your lips folded over your eyes so you don't have to see it.

The faithful of evolution are just as convincing as the faithful of any religion.

One need not believe in what one can know through a rational inspection of the empirical evidence. Only religion requires belief, not science.

I will not stop reading this site. But I will also not stop feeling discouraged by the ardent religion of evolution advocated here, without evidence.

What is actually discouraging you is the massive amount of solid, valid and sound empirical evidence being presented; you just can't admit it to yourself, because of your visceral emotional commitment to your chosen beliefs.

The intellectual failure is absurd. Moreso, because the psychological motive is the bizarre need to assert intellectual superiority, as opposed to addressing facts supporting logical inferences.

This site has INUNDATED you with facts that support logical inferences. Your psychological need to deny them is what is actually bizarre. But continue with your futile turnspeak; everyone recognizes it for the desperate psychological projection that it is.

The fatuous link response proves the point.

All you can do is denounce what you cannot disprove.

No one here, or anywhere, can state the evidence, facts, validly supporting evolution.

On the contrary; evidence and facts validly supporting evolution have been presented hundreds, perhaps thousands. of times on this site. But no, there is too much supporting evidence for anyone to present it all; you might as well ask someone to carry the Pacific Ocean to you in a bucket.

Now lets see the torrent of characterization.

Yeah; deep down inside, you know that your repeated torrents of unmitigated willfull ignorance richly deserve it.

re: #149 pingjockey

I did. I was trying to change my avatar but it's not working.

re: #151 Killgore Trout

Ah, working now.

re: #151 Killgore Trout
Well crap, sorry about that. I was just being a smart ass.

Faith in everyday life.

How do I know a place exists that I haven't seen. Is not part of it faith in how the world works? I have to rely on the testimony of others who claim to have seen it. Don't I have to put my faith in them?

Wouldn't particle theory say that because I, nor anyone else has seen a certain place, that it doesn't exist until it is observed?

When I get in an elevator, don't I put faith in the people that have built and maintained that elevator - apart from the science of it's functionality.

Don't I make a leap of faith, when I turn the key in my car, that I will be safe from catastrophic system failure. Because even if the science and statistics say that I have significant chance of having a good outcome, don't I still have to use faith in my individual circumstance?

Okay, I don't challenge evolution or its compatibility with God, but seriously -- are they ever going to expend this kind of energy challenging Climate Crisis Inc.?

Evolve is playing again at midnight on Dish. Central time

re: #111 texasjihad

Hey--I guess this is true. The fact is that not many people are so soft in their our view of the issue that they be persuaded by the insults and venom here --and many older guys get to see first hand what kind of bullying their children have to deal with from a high school biology teacher who got his indoctrination years ago when Darwin deniers were like the global warming deniers of today.
Christians who care will let the failed institution fall under its own weight. And they will not sacrifice their childen to a lost cause. Do we so soon forget the roll that Christianity played in education in this country? Virtually all the Ivy League schools started as divinity schools.

Yeah, but they didn't stay that way. And I don't think they're gonna fail because homeschooled kids boycott their life sciences classes.

re: #155 kynna
We hardly ever, and I mean ever get any of algorebulls believers/acolytes in here.

Later all Dr. Who is on!

re: #135 tunnelrat

Can't you just allow other people to have faith in what they believe? Why must everyone who disagrees with you be made out to be a moron or a religious nut? Do you not respect any opinion but your own? Try to be a little more open minded.

Hey, I hear there are people, like a recent Muslim Mufti who thought, for sure, that the earth was flat, because the Koran seemed to say so.

Do believe in dowsing, do you believe in, fairies, do you believe you've been abducted and sexually probed by aliens? Should that be respected, or should it be pitied, and corrected with reality?

What exactly does "open minded" mean to you?

/I can think of less than nice answers.

re: #99 texasjihad

Look-- I am a militant home school advocate. I am much more concerned that the religious Darwinists will attack home schooling when they have hammered the government schools to teach a hatred of moral absolutes --and absolute conformity (home schooled children average in the 80th percentile overall)
The issue for many is that the religion of Secular Humanism--Naturalism is the current religious dogma of the government schools.
The positions taken here tend to push more Christians out of Government schools and in to home schools. To me--that is a good thing.
I have been shocked that my six children have been welcomed to a wonderful university education that is totally paid for by the taxpayers due to their PSAT and SAT scores. (top 1%) My oldest just graduated in Electrical Engineering with a perfect GPA
This is so common among the home schooled that the University is very active in recruiting the home schooled.
I think you will find that a new crop of Christian kids is Americas best hope--- and it has almost nothing to do with a view of origins.
They know how to humor the Secularists with the answers that fit the dogma---but they reject the multi-culture crap and the global warming crap and the filth of Hollywood and the music that is full of hate and violence -- and they wait for sex within marriage and they have huge families because they love kids and they love the God of creation. And they vote in very high percentages
Come to think of it--they are a threat. You self loathing libs better stop them while you still can.

Hear, hear! But tj, don't tell them about our nefarious plans! We want to keep this all kind of stealthy. Bwahahahahaha!

re: #120 texasjihad

Romans 1:20 (New International Version)

For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

And ancient scriptural texts, regardless of the translation of them that you employ, and no substitute for empirical verification.

Don't you think that G-d, the creator of the Universe, could have, if he had wanted, provided us with very clear and distinct manifestation of his absolute hand in everything? Instead He's allowed enough ambiguity for dissection and intrigue, and alternative theories, and threw dinosaurs in the mix.

It makes for an interesting life, with opportunities for personal choice, and no forced belief. If He appeared and gave us all the answers, how would that help us develop into intelligent moral beings? It would be disabling.

re: #136 pingjockey

I agree.  And, per the faith of those who think I have no faith, I am exactly as their Deity created me.  Seems to me if you question me with that in mind, you're second-guessing your Deity.

Irony is delicious at times.

}:)     [Bill Hicks had something to say a part of your comment, as a matter of fact.]

re: #161 ubercheesehead

Hear, hear! But tj, don't tell them about our nefarious plans! We want to keep this all kind of stealthy. Bwahahahahaha!

As I said before; you care not about what is factually true, but how warm and fuzzy your chosen myths make you feel, and because of that, if empirical evidence was Angelina Jolie and showed nude up in your home and relentlessly screwed you, you would still be claiming virginity.

re: #150 Salamantis

You keep having your eyeballs crammed with empirical evidence, and you continue screaming that there is none, like a tantrumy two year old with your lips folded over your eyes so you don't have to see it.

Sal, I notice that you use the term "empirical evidence" a lot as a tool to make your position seem indisputable. Whether you like it or not, this "evidence" is only speculation by another person. You swallow it whole, but indict others who do not agree Why do you insist that religion is a bad thing?

re: #144 pingjockey

So, the fossil evidence for at least 3 great extinctions is the Creator playing a practical joke on us? Or, these extinctions happened and at the end of each of these 'experiments' the creator said "nah I don't like that, think I'll try it again".
So which is it? Or the universe was created and the Creator let life take its chances wherever and whenever it arose?

Look, you should not take offense because you very likely believe that the fossil record is somehow really clear. --but you are aware of the fact that the links between species have been a big disappointment. The link between man and ape is not there and the hoaxes have been many. Scientists have a history on this that is as bad a a modern TV preacher. :)

Why do so many people write G-d, when they mean God? Is this some sort of polite convention I'm just ignorant of, or is it an acknowledgment that that there seem to be so many flavors of God?

Just asking.

re: #168 Naso Tang

The practice of writing "G-d":
Shut Achiezer, 3:32, end, where it is endorsed and accepted as the
prevailing custom. Rambam cites Deut. 12-03:04, which states "and you
shall destroy the names of pagan gods from their places. You shall not
do similarly to G-d your Lord." The intent of this is to create an
atmosphere of respect for G-d's name vs pagan gods names.

[Link: www.faqs.org...]

re: #147 Slumbering Behemoth

re: #120 texasjihad

For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

It's cool that you have faith, but how can this in anyway be considered measurable, observable, scientific evidence?

Short answer: it can't.  But he loves the soapbox!

}:)     [Let the guy strut a bit, if he hits any high points we'll notice ... ]

re: #146 ubercheesehead

So Americans and europeans should start behaving like islamic creationists? Or perhaps you think women should just stay at home and breed? Never mind how many babies the women feel like pushing out and nursing. Just as long as you get to pass on your genetic material, huh?

And never mind that government tax codes make it virtually impossible for families in North America and Europe to provide for a family unless both parents are working. How do you propose westerners PAY for larger families?

re: #168 Naso Tang

It's a Jewish thing.

re: #166 tunnelrat

Why do you insist that religion is a bad thing?

Since I'm so impatient I can't wait for my turn to be asked; religion is not a bad thing for many people, probably for most as far as the evidence goes. But what is so infuriating (depending on the wine) is that so many of "you" religious people can't distinguish simple truths of reality from your faith and have to reduce it all to whatever level of schooling you didn't have by the time you stopped learning.

I saw it last week; excellent program.

re: #135 tunnelrat

"I wish your children all the success that they can achieve. I also am willing to wager that their success will not be in biology, botany, paleontology or genetics. Creationism simply renders such fields conceptually incoherent."

Seriously Sal, Why do you need to speak as though you have all the answers to everything. Do you need to put others down in order to feel good about yourself? Can't you just allow other people to have faith in what they believe? Why must everyone who disagrees with you be made out to be a moron or a religious nut? Do you not respect any opinion but your own? Try to be a little more open minded.

I refuse to be so open minded that I accept religious myth as empirical science. People may be entitled to their own OPINIONS, but they are NOT entitled to their own FACTS. The facts of which I speak are not my personal property; they are available to anyone with a computer and keyboard. I respect the stances of many other science-positive people on this site. What I do NOT respect is the attempt to cram sectarian religious dogma into public high school science class - nor should anyone who can credibly claim to be sane. So yes, I will spank pseudoscientific bullshit right into the rhetorical compost heap where it so deservedly belongs, and will not lose a wink of sleep over it. You have no moral standing whatsoever from which to guilt trip me on behalf of your preferred set of antiscientific lies.

re: #172 Killgore Trout

It's a Jewish thing.

Great, just because I'm circumcised, I'm supposed to understand that?

re: #165 Salamantis

As I said before; you care not about what is factually true, but how warm and fuzzy your chosen myths make you feel, and because of that, if empirical evidence was Angelina Jolie and showed nude up in your home and relentlessly screwed you, you would still be claiming virginity.

Sir, it is sometimes difficult to read someone's bearing or intent when just reading their written words with no further context. Therefore I have a question for you; are you being deliberately gauche, or merely stupid?

re: #147 Slumbering Behemoth

It's cool that you have faith, but how can this in anyway be considered measurable, observable, scientific evidence?

Well--uh It is on its face evidence. It is a little funny that if you found a watch --and you were from a lost tribe and had never seen a watch--you would not know what its purpose was. But you would know that it was designed by an intelligent being.
If we found a radio signal from space that repeated prime numbers--we would know that it was intelligent life.

Compared to a watch or prime numbers -- event the smallest life form has millions of time the information stored in it.

The complexity of life is evidence-- it may not be a verdict --but do not kid yourself it is evidence for a Designer. The evidence that Christ was raised from the dead is evidence the Designer loves us all.

re: #168 Naso Tang

Why do so many people write G-d, when they mean God? Is this some sort of polite convention I'm just ignorant of, or is it an acknowledgment that that there seem to be so many flavors of God?

Just asking.

It's a Jewish thing. You wouldn't understand.

Naso- I don't have cable because I don't really watch TV anymore. It was a waste of money for me.

re: #137 texasjihad

Once again--this is not something that I care about since I think the Darwinism is a small part of a devastating world view that is a long war against God.

Logic fail. Science does not seek to kill God, it only deals with explaining the natural order of things through observable evidence.

Anyone who tells you that your faith is rendered null and void because of the study of science is full of shit and should be ignored. Faith is grounded in the supernatural, and is therefore unobservable and immeasurable. Science deals only with what is natural and measurable. The theory of evolution is science, science grounded in over 150 years of observable facts.

The fact is that the idea of evolutionary biology is more or less a myth in itself. That is the hard science is to observe the order and structure of living things in order to intervene with medications or to manipulate genetic information to reach a goal.
The similarity of certain kinds of life is evidence that the same designer designed it all ---or for the Darwinists that slow changes over time changed life forms into other life forms in the same way enough collision between an SUV and a sports car changes into a "Crossover" vehicle.

Nonsense. There are many people of many different faiths here that would object to your characterization. You're attempting to shove your Creator into a box of your own understanding, do not be surprised when those who share your faith lambaste you for this.

re: #171 Sharmuta

So Americans and europeans should start behaving like islamic creationists? Or perhaps you think women should just stay at home and breed? Never mind how many babies the women feel like pushing out and nursing. Just as long as you get to pass on your genetic material, huh?

And never mind that government tax codes make it virtually impossible for families in North America and Europe to provide for a family unless both parents are working. How do you propose westerners PAY for larger families?

Did you ever hear a Christian say that those who teach Darwinism should be killed? Only put in the stocks Right? Who is the totalitarian here?

re: #169 jaunte

The practice of writing "G-d":
Shut Achiezer, 3:32, end, where it is endorsed and accepted as the
prevailing custom. Rambam cites Deut. 12-03:04, which states "and you
shall destroy the names of pagan gods from their places. You shall not
do similarly to G-d your Lord." The intent of this is to create an
atmosphere of respect for G-d's name vs pagan gods names.

[Link: www.faqs.org...]

I still don't understand why it is spelled that way, and I would imagine that the original was not in the Queen's English either, nor that there was an exact equivalent of "-" when that was written. Can I contact the translator?

It does occur to me that there is an implied similarity here between the prohibition of drawing a likeness of Muhammad on a napkin, and actually spelling the name, currently in vogue, of you-know-who.

/just kidding, but deadly serious.

re: #168 Naso Tang

Why do so many people write G-d, when they mean God? Is this some sort of polite convention I'm just ignorant of, or is it an acknowledgment that that there seem to be so many flavors of God?

Just asking.

I think the Jewish faith or the orthodox version has an issue with writing the word, so out of respect for those here who are of that persuasion - I use G-d.

re: #177 ubercheesehead

re: #165 Salamantis

As I said before; you care not about what is factually true, but how warm and fuzzy your chosen myths make you feel, and because of that, if empirical evidence was Angelina Jolie and showed nude up in your home and relentlessly screwed you, you would still be claiming virginity.

Sir, it is sometimes difficult to read someone's bearing or intent when just reading their written words with no further context. Therefore I have a question for you; are you being deliberately gauche, or merely stupid?

He made a point you didn't like (albeit a great mental image, ahem) and you hit him back with an ad hominem?

}:)     [You're tacitly admitting defeat?]

re: #179 ubercheesehead

It's a Jewish thing. You wouldn't understand.

I know that already, or I wouldn't have asked. Is this kind of similar to asking a creationist to understand evolution? You can't get there from here?

Certainties: Death, taxes, and a rip-roarin' ID thread.....

re: #178 texasjihad

And Dorothy is evidence of Oz.

}:)     [For Ozma is Goddess, and Dorothy is Her prophet.]

re: #137 texasjihad

Once again--this is not something that I care about since I think the Darwinism is a small part of a devastating world view that is a long war against God.
The fact is that the idea of evolutionary biology is more or less a myth in itself. That is the hard science is to observe the order and structure of living things in order to intervene with medications or to manipulate genetic information to reach a goal.
The similarity of certain kinds of life is evidence that the same designer designed it all ---or for the Darwinists that slow changes over time changed life forms into other life forms in the same way enough collision between an SUV and a sports car changes into a "Crossover" vehicle.

The long war, if there be one, is against superstitious irrationality masquerading as eternal wisdom, and demanding dominion over our lives. Evolutionary bioloigy is no myth, for unlike myth, it has massive empirical support. And without Darwin and Mendel, Watson & Crick would never have known to search for DNA, and we wouldn't be doing all the remarkable genomic work we are doing in genomic medicine and the engineering of genetically enhanced food crops.

The argument from design has been refuted and discredited since 1860, but like a bad penny, people who cannot understand how it was proven fallacious keep bringing it up. But yet they continue on their clumsy pseudoanalogies between human-manifactured mechanisms and naturally evolving organisms.

But one cannot ascend from an ascription of design in nature to a designing deity; instead, one must descend from an assumption of that deity to design:

Consider the idea that nature itself is the product of design. How could this be demonstrated? Nature, as we have seen, provides the basis of comparison by which we distinguish between designed objects and natural objects. We are able to infer the presence of design only to the extent that the characteristics of an object differ from natural characteristics. Therefore, to claim that nature as a whole was designed is to destroy the basis by which we differentiate between artifacts and natural objects. Evidences of design are those characteristics not found in nature, so it is impossible to produce evidence of design within the context of nature itself. Only if we first step beyond nature, and establish the existence of a supernatural designer, can we conclude that nature is the result of conscious planning.
George H. Smith

Thus, you work exactly backwards from the way that both science and logic do: you assume as a premise precisely what you purport to prove as a conclusion. It doesn't work that way.

A snowflake is infinitely elegant and complex.

Is it a manifestation of intelligence?

How about a rock?

re: #184 DistantThunder

I think the Jewish faith or the orthodox version has an issue with writing the word, so out of respect for those here who are of that persuasion - I use G-d.

Well, that is an answer I can understand, but not one I can comply with. No disrespect meant, but playing games with letters sounds just like playing games with secret symbols that only the "in crowd" understands, and by playing along all one does is acknowledge the importance of the difference between them and us.

I vote for a level playing field. None is more sacred than another.

A little traveling music for an ID thread ...

}:)     [Not what you thought, huh?]

re: #182 texasjihad

How did that address any of my questions?

You want to know why we don't breed as much as islamists? Because Western women refuse to be treated like we're nothing but incubators. And believe me- if the day ever comes when muslimas stand up for themselves- their birthrates will go down as well.

re: #141 texasjihad

As a matter of fact they do have some interest in those fields. And my daughter has excelled in genetics in particular.
Can you please explain to me how that the highest possible understanding of genetics is in the least diminished by a view of origins?

Well, if she has any interest in artifactual retroviral DNA sequences, she would have to come to the logical conclusion that humans and great apes diverged from common ancestors. In fact, genetic studies lead one to the conclusion that all life diverged from common ancestors. This is, of course, incompatible with a literalist reading of Genesis, where each species is separately created ex nihilo and as is. But the Catholic Church has no problem with either recognizing evolutionary theiorty as valid, sound and solid science or with accepting a metaphorical, parable-type reading of Genesis.

My guess is that if your daughter continues in genetics, she will either not progress far in the field, or will have to be less than honst with you regarding her scientific convictions.

re: #178 texasjihad

It is a little funny that if you found a watch --and you were from a lost tribe and had never seen a watch--you would not know what its purpose was. But you would know that it was designed by an intelligent being.

And we would know that it was the result of not one but many inventors, who built on the work of previous inventors, and that the design was refined repeatedly over a long period of time, until a team of people created that particular watch.

Would teaching that lost tribesman the truth about the history of timepieces be an attack on his beliefs?

re: #181 Slumbering Behemoth

Look It is the nature of religion to be exclusive. Jesus said that He was one and the same with God. He said very clearly that his offer of forgiveness is the only way to be right with God.
It is not I who made religion what it is. There is only one truth. Unless you want to make all religion for fools and little old ladies.
If there is a God then all truth is God's truth.
I think you will find that most Christians believe as I do that their faith is base squarely on fact and on history and that modern science came out of the great tradition of searching out the order in Creation because God made it so we could understand it.
This is not complicated.

re: #189 Salamantis

What about clouds that look like objects? Or individual plants that have unique characteristics that resemble human faces or whatever? Do we say nature? or designer when it is significantly unusual?

Check out these trees......

re: #171 Sharmuta

So Americans and europeans should start behaving like islamic creationists?

Well, actually this Christian creationist has no intention of beginning to behave like an Islamic anything.

Or perhaps you think women should just stay at home and breed?

I make no such representation about women in general. But I sure am glad that my sweet, charming, gracious, intelligent and beautiful wife chose to leave a successful career to be completely devoted to caring for the needs of her husband and children. "And her children rise up and call her blessed." ...And her husband, too!

Never mind how many babies the women feel like pushing out and nursing. Just as long as you get to pass on your genetic material, huh?

Hey, listen, it's not women that are pushing out and nursing my children. It's one woman (who it is only fair to point out is sweet, charming, gracious, intelligent and beautiful). And she has chosen to bear and nurse all of our children.

And never mind that government tax codes make it virtually impossible for families in North America and Europe to provide for a family unless both parents are working. How do you propose westerners PAY for larger families?

Well now just a cotton pickin' minute here. Our family gets along just fine on one income, thank you very much. So if us fundy creationists are so stupid, how do I keep conning my employer into paying me enough to support my family on one income?

re: #191 Naso Tang

Well, that is an answer I can understand, but not one I can comply with. No disrespect meant, but playing games with letters sounds just like playing games with secret symbols that only the "in crowd" understands, and by playing along all one does is acknowledge the importance of the difference between them and us.

I vote for a level playing field. None is more sacred than another.

I enjoy showing respect - it is my personal preference. The same way a person can chose to spell their name as Shelly or Shelli or Shellie. If I want to write G-d in Greek or Hebrew I can do that to, because I am an individual.

Crowd: "We are all individuals."
Individual: "I'm not."
- Monty Python

I hate to comment and run but it's almost midnight and my hubby is calling me to bed.

I hope that TV show is available on DVD at my local rental shop someday; I'd like to see it.

Good night, folks.

re: #146 ubercheesehead

Gee, ya think? Have you ever read Mark Steyn, everyone's favorite demographic bore? I have not perused the literature enough to know whether or not there have been any demographic studies comparing self-proclaimed evolutionists and self-proclaimed creationists, but there are boatloads of demographic studies that seem to draw pretty close proxies for the two groups, and the results are pretty clear: the only demographic groups in Europe and North America that are reproducing above replacement levels are those where you would most expect to find creationists.

Yeah; the Islamocreationists with which the Disco dewdes have allied are well known for that.

Or, if we want to oversimplify the statistics, let's just randomly pick an equal number of prominent proponents for each side. Let's pick, say, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and P.Z. Myers and tally up how many children and grandchildren they have. Then let's compare to, say, Ken Ham, Steve Austin and Henry Morris. I don't know what the numbers add up to, but I'm guessing that for every baseball team the creationists could field you couldn't get enough evolutionary materialist offspring to field a hand of bridge.

My guess is that for one group, thinking feels better than for the other group - that has to pursue feeling good in other ways...;~)

But you are right in this sense; they have found out that the higher the IQ, the less the rate of reproduction.

re: #190 DistantThunder

A snowflake is infinitely elegant and complex.

Is it a manifestation of intelligence?

How about a rock?

A snowflake can be easily represented by simple math, and an even more elegant example, which can also create snowflakes, would be fractals which in turn can be defined, input output and all, in less space than this page occupies, in a simple programming language.

And that is no dismissal of beauty, only a statement that the beauty is more than surface deep and often so simple that it is amazing.

Look up the core formulations for fractals and Mandelbrot shapes in particular if you are interested. The heart of it takes up one line of type.

re: #161 ubercheesehead

Hear, hear! But tj, don't tell them about our nefarious plans! We want to keep this all kind of stealthy. Bwahahahahaha!

The only problem with that plot is that stealth propaganda doesn't work. You actually have to tell people lies for them to have a chance to believe them.

re: #194 Salamantis

DUH Is this the evidence? Did you explain the relationship between those who see the really cool way that all DNA carries genetic information in a similar way and put two and two together and say WOW these thing all came from each other ---and the one who sees the same thing and says WOW the same designer designed all this stuff? I missed it.

re: #199 DistantThunder

If I want to write G-d in Greek or Hebrew I can do that to, because I am an individual.

Crowd: "We are all individuals."
Individual: "I'm not."
- Monty Python

Of course you may do so, but you should also be aware that you do so in order to indicate that you think you are not the same as those who just use normal spelling. Why you wish to surreptitiously indicate this fact in your communication, I am not sure. Perhaps you also have a bumper sticker saying "G-d, G-ns, G-ts" ?

/Joke

re: #193 Sharmuta

How did that address any of my questions?

You want to know why we don't breed as much as islamists? Because Western women refuse to be treated like we're nothing but incubators. And believe me- if the day ever comes when muslimas stand up for themselves- their birthrates will go down as well.

Why do I get this niggling sense that no actual man is attempting to treat you as an incubator?

re: #166 tunnelrat

Sal, I notice that you use the term "empirical evidence" a lot as a tool to make your position seem indisputable. Whether you like it or not, this "evidence" is only speculation by another person. You swallow it whole, but indict others who do not agree Why do you insist that religion is a bad thing?

Is it only speculation by another person when the identical artifactual retroviral DNA sequences reside in identical locations in human and great ape genomes, and can be checked at will by anyone who can draw some human and chimp blood and extract the DNA? Is it only speculation by another person when Lenski has preserved populations of e. coli through a major macroevolution that allows some to metabolize citric acid for the very first time, so that the evolution can be replayed at will for anyone who wants to go and see it?

No, these things are NOT mere 'speculation by another person'; they are empirical science, repeatable under controlled conditions, for all and sundry who wish to view the truths that such repetitions reveal.

I do not insist that religion is a bad thing; I DO insist that it is a bad thing for religious dogmas to be taught in public high school science classes. Keep the religion in the churches and the science in the schools.

It’s on at 9 pm tonight on some cable systems. (Not mine, unfortunately.)

Since I don't have cable, I don't see it either.

}:)     [Ah, well, what more do I need than the Net?]

Hey, you guys talkin' about G-d rather than God: That's about the Jewish proscription against invoking His name, right? You can sometimes say "Hashem" too, correct?

re: #201 Salamantis

My guess is that for one group, thinking feels better than for the other group - that has to pursue feeling good in other ways...;~)

But you are right in this sense; they have found out that the higher the IQ, the less the rate of reproduction.

By your own lights, you have ceded my point. So the question is, what is it about understanding the evolutionary imperative that makes the possessor of this knowledge less successful in pass on his or her genes?

re: #206 ubercheesehead

That's got to be the stupidest post of the night. Maybe the month.

re: #162 Salamantis

And ancient scriptural texts, regardless of the translation of them that you employ, and no substitute for empirical verification.

You are betting your eternity that your empirical verification is more credible than the evidence in an amazing book that God has spoken--and that He loves you--but that you must face Him.

You got way more faith than I do---

re: #206 ubercheesehead

Because I refuse to be treated as such. Who taught you to disrespect a woman like you did to me just now? Not very Christian of you.

re: #206 ubercheesehead

Why do I get this niggling sense that no actual man is attempting to treat you as an incubator?

Shit!

}:(     <Running into safe room, dogging door, crouching down, covering ears ... >

re: #167 texasjihad

Look, you should not take offense because you very likely believe that the fossil record is somehow really clear. --but you are aware of the fact that the links between species have been a big disappointment. The link between man and ape is not there and the hoaxes have been many. Scientists have a history on this that is as bad a a modern TV preacher. :)

The link between man and ape is most certainly there:

[Link: www.newyorker.com...]

Excerpt:

“If Charles Darwin reappeared today, he might be surprised to learn that humans are descended from viruses as well as from apes,” Weiss wrote.

Darwin’s surprise almost certainly would be mixed with delight: when he suggested, in “The Descent of Man” (1871), that humans and apes shared a common ancestor, it was a revolutionary idea, and it remains one today. Yet nothing provides more convincing evidence for the “theory” of evolution than the viruses contained within our DNA. Until recently, the earliest available information about the history and the course of human diseases, like smallpox and typhus, came from mummies no more than four thousand years old. Evolution cannot be measured in a time span that short. Endogenous retroviruses provide a trail of molecular bread crumbs leading millions of years into the past.

Darwin’s theory makes sense, though, only if humans share most of those viral fragments with relatives like chimpanzees and monkeys. And we do, in thousands of places throughout our genome. If that were a coincidence, humans and chimpanzees would have had to endure an incalculable number of identical viral infections in the course of millions of years, and then, somehow, those infections would have had to end up in exactly the same place within each genome. The rungs of the ladder of human DNA consist of three billion pairs of nucleotides spread across forty-six chromosomes. The sequences of those nucleotides determine how each person differs from another, and from all other living things. The only way that humans, in thousands of seemingly random locations, could possess the exact retroviral DNA found in another species is by inheriting it from a common ancestor.

Molecular biology has made precise knowledge about the nature of that inheritance possible. With extensive databases of genetic sequences, reconstructing ancestral genomes has become common, and retroviruses have been found in the genome of every vertebrate species that has been studied. Anthropologists and biologists have used them to investigate not only the lineage of primates but the relationships among animals—dogs, jackals, wolves, and foxes, for example—and also to test whether similar organisms may in fact be unrelated.

Yep, the empirical link is most definitely there. And since it resides within human and great ape DNA, it isn't going anywhere.

And transitional fossils are quite numerous:

[Link: www.talkorigins.org...]

[Link: en.wikipedia.org...]

Science is unlike religion in that it is self-correcting. All televangelists lose money when any of them is discredited, by the osmosis of doubt; scientists are well known to climb up into prominent careers on top of the discredited or surpassed theories of other scientists.

re: #193 Sharmuta

You want to know why we don't breed as much as islamists? Because Western women refuse to be treated like we're nothing but incubators. And believe me- if the day ever comes when muslimas stand up for themselves- their birthrates will go down as well.

That is certainly a truth, culturally speaking, but not the entire truth. Part of the answer is also that the commandment is to multiply and populate the earth, and spread the word thereby, which many of those same women sincerely believe.

One could also ask the Pope where he stands on that particular concept.

re: #177 ubercheesehead

Sir, it is sometimes difficult to read someone's bearing or intent when just reading their written words with no further context. Therefore I have a question for you; are you being deliberately gauche, or merely stupid?

I am trying to demonstrate that your self-concept, self-identity and self-esteem are so inextricably intertwined with your willfully blind adherence to your particular dogma that NO PROOF WHATSOEVER, NO MATTER HOW FRIGGING CONCLUSIVE, could EVER CHANGE YOUR SUPERGLUED MIND!

re: #213 Sharmuta

Because I refuse to be treated as such. Who taught you to disrespect a woman like you did to me just now? Not very Christian of you.

I don't get it? You can do everything from calling me stupid to trotting out shrill feminist rhetoric about "treating women as incubators" and that's all perfectly OK, but if I respond in kind you suddenly need to be protected like a hothouse plant? Click on your avatar and reread your own motto.

re: #193 Sharmuta

How did that address any of my questions?

You want to know why we don't breed as much as islamists? Because Western women refuse to be treated like we're nothing but incubators. And believe me- if the day ever comes when muslimas stand up for themselves- their birthrates will go down as well.

I might add that my wife has completed her courses toward a PhD and that she teaches an online graduate level history course. Big families are much work and costs.--but sooo worth it. Let's face it--we do not "need" a lot of what we have. It is a matter of priorities.
For the self loathing who believe in democracy? The future does not look good.

re: #212 texasjihad

I strongly suspect that if there is a god he's not an asshole. He wouldn't require my worship or care which religion I practice.

re: #215 Salamantis

There you go again, trotting out New Yorker articles as if they were scientific proof of anything. Why not throw in a few Grauniad (misspelling intended) links while you're at it, too?

Remember Sally, scientific articles show up in...science journals. Tabloid stuff shows up in the Grauniad.

re: #178 texasjihad

Well--uh It is on its face evidence. It is a little funny that if you found a watch --and you were from a lost tribe and had never seen a watch--you would not know what its purpose was. But you would know that it was designed by an intelligent being.
If we found a radio signal from space that repeated prime numbers--we would know that it was intelligent life.blockquote>

[Link: littlegreenfootballs.com...]

Compared to a watch or prime numbers -- event the smallest life form has millions of time the information stored in it.

And there is plenty of times for millions of cumulative and nonrandom (environmentally shaped) mutations over the course of two billion years. Or are you one of those people who believe that God did it all just a few thousand years ago, and just crammed all of these old fossils here just to pull your leg?

The complexity of life is evidence-- it may not be a verdict --but do not kid yourself it is evidence for a Designer. The evidence that Christ was raised from the dead is evidence the Designer loves us all.

The Irreducable Complexity argument favored by Behe has been crushed, by Ken Miller among many others, in the two cases in which they attempted to proffer it (the eye and the flagellum). All that those two organs are evidence for is how well evolution works.

What amazes me is the baffling mindset of people who will accept as gospel truth without question the writings of ancient middle eastern tribesmen who weren't even alive to witness the people and events about which they write, but refuse to accept as evidence millions of painstakingly conducted and repeatable-under-controlled-conditions empirical science investigations and the results they repeatedly yield.

re: #221 ubercheesehead

There you go again, trotting out New Yorker articles as if they were scientific proof of anything. Why not throw in a few Grauniad (misspelling intended) links while you're at it, too?

Remember Sally, scientific articles show up in...science journals. Tabloid stuff shows up in the Grauniad.

There you go again, attacking the messenger because you cannot refute the message.

re: #220 Killgore Trout

I strongly suspect that if there is a god he's not an asshole. He wouldn't require my worship or care which religion I practice.

More to the point; what being would we respect if what they demanded of us, free will and all, was unquestioning worship and adoration under all circumstance? We have words for people who are like that, and no doubt would if we knew aliens of similar inclination.

And here is where I sign out for the night.

Cheers.

re: #166 tunnelrat

Sal, I notice that you use the term "empirical evidence" a lot as a tool to make your position seem indisputable. Whether you like it or not, this "evidence" is only speculation by another person.

Evidence is evidence, it is that which is demonstrable. Evidence is not speculation.

You swallow it whole, but indict others who do not agree Why do you insist that religion is a bad thing?

Sal may have a rough edge, but I have yet to see him "insist that religion is a bad thing". That statement of yours is speculation, not evidence.

re: #182 texasjihad

Did you ever hear a Christian say that those who teach Darwinism should be killed? Only put in the stocks Right? Who is the totalitarian here?

The totalitarians are those who insist that other peoples' kids be taught their particular sectarian religious dogmas in public high school science class.

re: #218 ubercheesehead

Do you have comprehension issues? I didn't call you stupid- I said your comment was stupid.

And yes, my profile's quote is perfect for these threads- evolution is a fact.

re: #224 Naso Tang

Agreed. What just god would condemn Gandhi, Mark Twain and the Dalai Lama to eternal torment and torture. If that is what god is then I want no part of him. I wouldn't eat in restaurants that didn't allow Jews why would a patronize a heaven that didn't allow Buddhists? Even if St. Peter were to give me a pass I'd have to refuse just on principle.

re: #215 Salamantis

Look--I understand that you find this stuff compelling. Some now say that a single cell organism is something like 90% as complex as man. The fact is that life is far more complex than we thought when it was widely believed that meat had fly larva simply appear.
The story of man is that we were not originally designed to die. Viruses are not that well understood. They are clearly a pathogen. If you think that similarity alone somehow comes down on the side of Darwinism--and you cannot concede that if a Designer made everything--then the raw material might look very much alike? And the self awareness of man --Where did that come from? I think self awareness is so outside of nature that is could only come from a God who feels and loves. That is evidence.

re: #196 texasjihad

Look It is the nature of religion to be exclusive. Jesus said that He was one and the same with God. He said very clearly that his offer of forgiveness is the only way to be right with God.
It is not I who made religion what it is. There is only one truth. Unless you want to make all religion for fools and little old ladies.
If there is a God then all truth is God's truth.
I think you will find that most Christians believe as I do that their faith is base squarely on fact and on history and that modern science came out of the great tradition of searching out the order in Creation because God made it so we could understand it.
This is not complicated.

No, it's not complicated. You are an admitted ideologically imperialist and theocratic religious totalitarian. You believe that you know, from what you have read in your Holy Gospel Scriptures, what is best for everybody's immortal souls; it is only a small step from there to being willing to scourge and sacrifice their mortal bodies in order to save those souls. Of course, you are not presently employing such tactics. But Christianity has a history of employing such tactics not too many centuries ago, and there is no reason to suppose that they might not be resorted to again.

re: #167 texasjihad

The link between man and ape is not there and the hoaxes have been many.

It's not? No kidding?

Present-day humans and chimpanzees, despite obvious external and behavioral differences, have extremely similar internal organs and physiological functions; indeed their genes are more than 98% identical (Goodman et al., J Molec Evolution 30:260,1990). Just as the resemblance between two siblings suggests a common parentage, resemblance between species suggests common ancestors.

Scientists have a history on this that is as bad a a modern TV preacher. :)

Moral equivalence? Wishful thinking? Hopeful projection? Either way, it boils down to this: Comparative analysis FAIL.

re: #220 Killgore Trout

You can be certain that he is not the Christian God.--Not that you want to find the real god.

re: #231 Slumbering Behemoth

It is the pig's heart that we get valves parts for humans from. I am telling you bud if this is all you got then it is just not compelling. If God created everything in one literal week---He would use as much of the genetic information as He could---And yet look at the variety in dogs. They have pretty much 100% the same genetic material and yet they are so different. This is just a neutral at best.

Okay, this is getting too weird now.  I'm not running IE7, but rather IE6, and when I try to jump to this link, it won't load and I get an error message saying "Internet Explorer cannot open the site http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/002905.html. Operation aborted" ... so I try to load the cached version that Google has online, here, and get: "Internet Explorer cannot open the site http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:9tenBpDNEVcJ: www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/002905.html+%22kill+evol ution%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=us. Operation aborted"

}:/     [Now I'll have to use another browser, damnit.]

re: #158 pingjockey

We hardly ever, and I mean ever get any of algorebulls believers/acolytes in here.

I'm not talking about here. Climate Crisis gets challenged here all the time. I'm talking about the History Channel or any other mainstream media source.

I just get a little tired of the MSM selective science reporting.

Since I'm not really debating the subject of their series, I guess my comment pertains more to their inability to see that there are other very contentious subjects in science that could make for a very interesting and informative series. Yet, they choose to ignore them and go with the standard line. What they have that kind of agenda, it brings down their overall credibility.

But then, THC lost me with their absurd Skull and Bones episode on History's Mysteries. Of course that was back when Bush was running against Gore. Once he was up against fellow S&B alum Kerry, he was no longer suspected of sleeping with corpses and whatnot.

See. Credibility is a problem.

Again -- Not Questing Evolution, God's Existence, or Charles's right to put whatever the frack he likes on his own excellent site.

Just bitchin' about the History Channel in general, I guess. ;D

re: #232 texasjihad

From your 212...

You are betting your eternity that your empirical verification is more credible than the evidence in an amazing book that God has spoken--and that He loves you--but that you must face Him.

So Jews who don't believe in your add on to the Torah go to hell too? Along with the Buddhists and Hindu? Tell me why your god is now at this very moment responsible for the unspeakable pain, torture and eternal torment of Gandhi. I'd love to hear your justification.

re: #232 texasjihad

re: #220 Killgore Trout

You can be certain that he is not the Christian God.--Not that you want to find the real god.

Which real God?

}:)     [C'mon, what's Her name?  You DO know the name of your God, don't you?]

re: #226 Salamantis

The totalitarians are those who insist that other peoples' kids be taught their particular sectarian religious dogmas in public high school science class.

I for one have no interest in seeing public schools being forced to teach anything about origins. Aside from anything else, if you require a teacher to teach something they don't believe in it isn't too likely they will do a good job of it. Look no further than the bogus religion classes taught at state colleges for evidence of that. However, I am very interested in the state having no power over my family to be able to dictate what we teach our own children. Those of us who opt out of the soft totalitarianism of government funded, operated and controlled schools really could care less what you teach in these schools. We are too busy raising our own families on one income.

re: #230 Salamantis

You have stumbled onto a point. You clearly treat Christians like infidels here. I have always said. It is not whether you see others as infidels or not--- it is all about how you treat infidels.

re: #204 texasjihad

DUH Is this the evidence? Did you explain the relationship between those who see the really cool way that all DNA carries genetic information in a similar way and put two and two together and say WOW these thing all came from each other ---and the one who sees the same thing and says WOW the same designer designed all this stuff? I missed it.

You simply do not understand. Let me explain it to you.

The artifactual retroviral DNA sequences are artifacts left over from past infexctions by retroviruses, that spliced their DNA sequences into their hosts' genomes during the infections. In other words, they didn't evolve from within the host, but came from outside.

Now, there are literally thousands>/b> of identical artifactual retroviral DNA sequences in the human and great ape genomes. Now that would be remarkable on its own, because it would mean that, in the absence of a common ancestor from which the two species diverged, these separate species would have had to contract thousands of the same illnesses, at the same time (because the sequences show precisely equal degradation), at a time when we have no fossils of either species (this is the case because they didn't exist yet; it was their common ancestor that was being infected).

But what rally ties the bow is that these thousands of identical artifactual retroviral DNA sequences are spliced into precisely the isomorphically identical sites in both human and great ape genomes. And these genomes are comprised of 3 billion base pairs.

The chances of this being the case in the absence of divergence from a common ancestry are vastly less than the chance that you could buy one ticket in every lottery for the rest of your life and win them all, while showing up at all the casinos around the world and rolling boxcars until you broke the bank at them all. It is simply, speaking statistically and probabilisitically, irrational and unreasonable to not accept common ancesty once you understand the consequences and ramifications of the way things genetically are respecting the thousands of artifactual retroviral DNA sequences shared, in the exact same isomorphic positions, by humans and great apes.

re: #238 Kulhwch

Which real God?

}:)     [C'mon, what's Her name?  You DO know the name of your God, don't you?]

I think for Mr Trout -- that would be the one in the mirror

re: #210 ubercheesehead

By your own lights, you have ceded my point. So the question is, what is it about understanding the evolutionary imperative that makes the possessor of this knowledge less successful in pass on his or her genes?

What about this compound question:

What is it about higher intelligence quotients that renders one more likely to accept the empirical evidence in favor of evolutionary theory profferred by science, and what is it about lower intelligence quotients that renders one more likely to reject that empirical evidence in favor of religious dogma?

re: #230 Salamantis

...it is only a small step from there to being willing to scourge and sacrifice their mortal bodies in order to save those souls. Of course, you are not presently employing such tactics. But Christianity has a history of employing such tactics not too many centuries ago, and there is no reason to suppose that they might not be resorted to again.

That history is nothing compared to the real totalitarian menaces that emerged in the 20th Century, which BTW, were all atheistic and evolutionary in their outlooks. For every victim of the Spanish Inquisition (many if not most of whom were Christians) that you can name I'll see you and raise you ten victims of Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, or even Margaret Sanger's fellow travelers.

re: #242 texasjihad

C'mon, tell me why your god condemns Gandhi and Einstein to eternal torture. Should I follow him out of fear or should I stand up for my principles and boycott this unjust afterlife? Who would be more moral, your god or myself?

re: #212 texasjihad

You are betting your eternity that your empirical verification is more credible than the evidence in an amazing book that God has spoken--and that He loves you--but that you must face Him.

You got way more faith than I do---

Pascal's Wager is obsolete and long-refuted. If I place my present life, of which I am certain, in thrall to a believed in next, and therefore do not do with it what I would have wished, and die that way and there is no believed-in next, then I have lost everything. On the other hand, if I do what I wish with the one life of which I am certain, and die and am sentenced by some cosmic sadistic bastard to eternal damnation, at least I got to live one life as I chose.

re: #244 ubercheesehead

Atheism vs. religion has less to do with it than the competition between the "constrained" and "unconstrained" visions that Thomas Sowell wrote about, and how they affect ideology.

Okay, it's official, though Charles told us first:

SiteMeter causing blogs and websites to crash in Microsoft's Internet Explorer

Readers who attempted to access The NPI Advocate during the last few hours in Internet Explorer (the browser of choice or habit for a majority of you, according to our server logs) probably were confronted with an abrupt and cryptic error message that looked like this:

Internet Explorer cannot open the Internet site http://www.nwprogressive.org/weblog.
Operation aborted

That error message was caused by embedded code from SiteMeter, a tool for monitoring and analyzing website traffic.

We have removed the problematic code, so The Advocate should now load without crashing inside of Internet Explorer.

The Core and the Portal do not have SiteMeter code embedded, so those parts of our network have not been affected by this problem.

We believe this problem began occurring shortly before 6 PM Pacific Time. As of yet, there appears to be no fix.

Regardless of what happens next, we won't be adding the SiteMeter code back in. It's redundant since we get better information from our own server logs. Plus, we've been trying to reduce excess JavaScript and cookies that collect unnecessary information about you for third parties (along with its counter, SiteMeter serves a cookie from Specific Media, an ad targeting firm).

}:)     [I wonder if it's all versions of IE?  6 & 7, definitely.]

re: #246 Salamantis

I'll take that bet.

re: #219 texasjihad

I might add that my wife has completed her courses toward a PhD and that she teaches an online graduate level history course. Big families are much work and costs.--but sooo worth it. Let's face it--we do not "need" a lot of what we have. It is a matter of priorities.
For the self loathing who believe in democracy? The future does not look good.

Do we really wanna get into a breeding contest with a religion that cedes every jihadi stud 4 broodmares, which we cripple our scientific and technological advantage over them by morphing our schools into mindless madrassas? I don't think so.

re: #231 Slumbering Behemoth

Your argument that commonality of features indicates an organic link has finally convinced me. It's just like with cars. The 2008 Corvette is clearly a case of descent with modification. It is clearly organically related to the older, slightly less advanced, but clearly similar 2007 Corvette, and so on right back to the 1955 Corvette. During some Combustion Chamber Explosion a great number of auto body design plans suddenly came into being and then went through a series of descent with modification. Oh, wait a minute...you mean 2007 Corvettes don't give birth to 2008 Corvettes? What's that? They are similar in appearance and function because they were designed by the same design team?!? Oh, never mind. :-)

re: #240 texasjihad

re: #230 Salamantis

You have stumbled onto a point. You clearly treat Christians like infidels here. I have always said. It is not whether you see others as infidels or not--- it is all about how you treat infidels.

And here you're treating infidels like they're stupid second-class people.

}:)     [Here, hold this, it's your petard ... ]

re: #178 texasjihad

Well--uh It is on its face evidence. It is a little funny that if you found a watch --and you were from a lost tribe and had never seen a watch--you would not know what its purpose was. But you would know that it was designed by an intelligent being.
If we found a radio signal from space that repeated prime numbers--we would know that it was intelligent life.

Compared to a watch or prime numbers -- event the smallest life form has millions of time the information stored in it.

The complexity of life is evidence-- it may not be a verdict --but do not kid yourself it is evidence for a Designer. The evidence that Christ was raised from the dead is evidence the Designer loves us all.

That is nothing more than conjecture, and is not in the least bit observable, testable, scientific evidence. It is religious scripture, sir, do not try to pass it off as anything else. Doing so would be a disservice to my nation, to empirical science, and your own faith.

"Well--uh It is on its face evidence."

Well--uh No. On it's face it is faith-bound scripture, and nothing more. It is fine by me if you want to believe whatever religious doctrine that appeals to you, I have no problem with that. I do start to have a problem when people take their religious beliefs and use them to assail observable reality, those of different faiths, and the foundations of the country I love.

To be clear, I am not accusing you of those offenses, but I most certainly accuse the DI, the ICR, radical islam, and many other factions of doing such. The evidence does present itself in this regard.

re: #243 Salamantis

What about this compound question:

What is it about higher intelligence quotients that renders one more likely to accept the empirical evidence in favor of evolutionary theory profferred by science, and what is it about lower intelligence quotients that renders one more likely to reject that empirical evidence in favor of religious dogma?

Hypothesis contrary to fact.

re: #242 texasjihad

re: #238 Kulhwch

Which real God?

}:) [C'mon, what's Her name? You DO know the name of your God, don't you?]

I think for Mr Trout -- that would be the one in the mirror

I accept your apology and your tacit admission that you don't know.

}:)     [Now go and sin no more ... 'cause Ed's watching, I'm sure ... ]

re: #250 Salamantis

Do we really wanna get into a breeding contest with a religion that cedes every jihadi stud 4 broodmares, which we cripple our scientific and technological advantage over them by morphing our schools into mindless madrassas? I don't think so.

You mean we have a choice?

re: #252 Kulhwch
That there is funny. I will sacrifice a poodle when mars is fully asended to mitigate your upcoming eternal torment!

re: #229 texasjihad

Look--I understand that you find this stuff compelling. Some now say that a single cell organism is something like 90% as complex as man. The fact is that life is far more complex than we thought when it was widely believed that meat had fly larva simply appear.

The single-celled organisms we see around us today have been around evolving from that common ancestor for as long as we have been.

The story of man is that we were not originally designed to die. Viruses are not that well understood. They are clearly a pathogen. If you think that similarity alone somehow comes down on the side of Darwinism--and you cannot concede that if a Designer made everything--then the raw material might look very much alike? And the self awareness of man --Where did that come from? I think self awareness is so outside of nature that is could only come from a God who feels and loves. That is evidence.

All born things die. Being born is eventually fatal. Otherwise, life would so populate this planet that we would witness mass disease and famine. One out of every 50 people who have ever lived are alive today, but can you imagine what it would be like if people had to be killed by others in order to die? But if what you are saying is that God made viruses as biological weapons with which to kill us, then I want that SOB's celestial head on a pike; I most certainly would not prostrate myself before such an Evil One.

But to answer your question about conscious self-awareness, it, too, evolved. it emerged when the quotient of the number of neurons in our brains and the complexity of their synaptic and axonal interconnections breached a Godelian threshhold, permitting recursive self-reference. Check out I Am A Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter for further enlightenment on the topic (he's the guy who wrote Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid).

re: #257 swamprat
missed a "c" in that last post.

re: #242 texasjihad

The fact that you avoid my question leads me to believe that I'm morally superior to your god. I would never refuse service to Jews, Hindus and Buddhists but your god does. I'm not even a very good person and I'm still morally superior. Shouldn't your god be worshiping me?

re: #232 texasjihad

You can be certain that he is not the Christian God.--Not that you want to find the real god.

And not that you have.

re: #182 texasjihad

Did you ever hear a Christian say that those who teach Darwinism should be killed? Only put in the stocks Right? Who is the totalitarian here?

A complete non sequitur to the comment you quoted. And BTW, when you walk into a room smoking that kind of stuff, it is considered to be quite rude, socially speaking, not to make an offer to share with others.

/just a little tip