The Black Vault

frrostedman wrote:I would like to formally request that this thread be moved to the spirituality forum where the scientific-minded skeptics and Atheists can have their turn at shooting down the points made by this article.

It's really a poor, overly-simplified advertising piece for what I guess is Hinduism?

There is really nothing new here, just a watered down version of the common arguments against evolution, such as:

1) No intermediate fossils (missing links)
2) Inability of organisms to evolve due to partially evolved parts not being able to function
3) Mutations being harmful and incapable of positive change
4) There are genetic limits to change within species
5) Creationism is just a different interpretation of the evidence

There are a few more points, but this is the gist of it. As I say, a very poor "hit piece" which will appeal to those who want a very simple answer such as "God did it" without having to take the time and effort needed to actually understand the theory of evolution, which is a lot of work!

To respond to the points in a basic fashion matching the amount of effort put into the article's rehashing of already refuted arguments:

1) Not true. Here is a list of intermediate fossils:

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC200.html

2) This just isn't true. A partially formed eye, for instance, one that lets a little light in, is superior to to nothing at all, and we see such eyes in certain fish. There is evidence of partially formed wings, and again, it's not hard to imagine that it might be useful, and at the worst not bad enough to cause the organism to die.

3) Most mutations are neutral, not harmful, so the author is just wrong there. It only takes one positive mutation to create a new trait that may get passed on, it doesn't matter if a million others resulted in death or harm.

4) No there aren't. The limits shown were limits found when breeding between the same species. This is not how evolution works, as evolution requires mutations, and there is no limit upon those mutations.

5) Sure, but you could invent anything and call it an "interpretation", that doesn't make it a good one.

These discussions are always a bit pointless, but I thought I'd respond before this hits the religion forum.

By the way, not to be rude, but I really don't agree with opening posts like this.

I mean, Joker put absolutely no effort in, had no comments of his own, nothing. His work = 15 seconds?

Mine, about 15 minutes refuting it.

And if it didn't get a response, the believers would treat that as a point for creationism.

A bit lame, no? I might as well make a thread saying:

Evolution Proved: http://www.talkorigins.org

Like I said, I thought Darwin got a few things right but you have to admit his theory falls short of an explanation of how life got to where it is on Earth. We don't see evolution happening and if say its because it takes so long then it takes longer than the Earth has been around, which is what some scientists have said.

Something happened. We don't know what, for certain. I'm not going to suggest that God waved his magic wand and out popped Man. I think God created the universe and its basically a machine process running its course, the ultimate Rube Goldberg machine. But it sure does appear that the universe was designed to create life. and that means it was deisgned.

I'm not anti-Darwin. I'm not pro-Darwin. I'm just asking questions.

If I can find the aritical I will copy and paste it, but I read that scientists looking around with a flashlight accidently found a bunch of fossils lost for over 150 years in storage of some kind, that were collected and labeled 165 years ago, by Darwin himself. Evidently they knew about them and lost track of them where ever it was, and stumbled on to them.

greeney2 wrote:If I can find the aritical I will copy and paste it, but I read that scientists looking around with a flashlight accidently found a bunch of fossils lost for over 150 years in storage of some kind, that were collected and labeled 165 years ago, by Darwin himself. Evidently they knew about them and lost track of them where ever it was, and stumbled on to them.

greeney2,

Is this what you're talking about?
I posted this elsewhere yesterday.


http://news.yahoo.com/uk-scientists-los ... 25391.html

CodeBlackv2 wrote:Like I said, I thought Darwin got a few things right but you have to admit his theory falls short of an explanation of how life got to where it is on Earth. We don't see evolution happening and if say its because it takes so long then it takes longer than the Earth has been around, which is what some scientists have said.

We do see it happening, just on a very small scale. I don't think you realize that the time we have been studying evolution is a tiny blink of an eye compared to the amount of time species have had to evolve since the beginning of the Earth.

I think we have seen more than enough evidence to conclude that evolution is true, but yes, it needs more work, like most theories, to fill in some gaps in our knowledge, for instance, whether punctuated equilibrium is true and if so, to what extent, and so on.

Things like the Cambrian Explosion need better understanding too.

humphreys wrote:By the way, not to be rude, but I really don't agree with opening posts like this.

I mean, Joker put absolutely no effort in, had no comments of his own, nothing. His work = 15 seconds?

Mine, about 15 minutes refuting it.

And if it didn't get a response, the believers would treat that as a point for creationism.

A bit lame, no? I might as well make a thread saying:

Evolution Proved: http://www.talkorigins.org

Sometimes, I feel that making a comment on a thread I start is in my view not necessary. I feel no need to discuss the issues raised in the article as I believe what is being said is true. You have the right to disagree with that stance, I can give supporting argument and no doubt you can give the counter argument and no doubt we can both do it until we are both blue in the face..What will it accomplish?

Bugger all I reckon...that is why I leave such arguments to the more argumentative or qualified.

The_Joker wrote:You have the right to disagree with that stance, I can give supporting argument and no doubt you can give the counter argument and no doubt we can both do it until we are both blue in the face..What will it accomplish?

Bugger all I reckon..

I wonder what the point was then. I could understand if this was some fantastic new article giving new unheard of arguments against evolution in a detailed manner, but this is just like a Hindu recruiting pamphlet with some stuff he heard on the internet about evolution somewhere.

Bit of a cheap, below-the-belt hit-piece, if you ask me.

You very bad man

For anyone who missed the Seinfeld reference, the article was written by a certain BABU. Very bad

Interestingly, I just come across an article I saw posted on another forum which describes exactly the type of animal described as not existing in the OP.

http://videnskab.dk/miljo-naturvidenska ... -niva-bugt

The site is in Danish, unfortunately, although you can translate using google.

Essentially, this organism is neither plant nor animal, as it gets its energy from eating other organisms, but also from photosynthesis. Very interesting!