Creationists

[Hollie]

Yet more lies by Creationists, and their corrections

Yet more lies by Creationists, and their corrections

Niles Eldredge, in The Monkey Business: A Scientist Looks at Creationism (1982, Washington Square Press, pp. 130-131) writes regarding the ICR's Gary Parker and Luther Sunderland:
The ICR's Gary Parker has been among the more blatant offenders [in distorting the words of scientists]. On page 95 of his Creation: The Facts of Life, we read: "Famous paleontologists at Harvard, the American Museum, and even the British Museum say we have not a single example of evolutionary transition at all." This is untrue. A prominent creationist [Sunderland] interviewed a number of paleontologists at those institutions and elsewhere (actually, he never did get to Harvard). I was one of them. Some of us candidly admitted that there are some procedural difficulties in recognizing ancestors and that, yes, the fossil record is rather full of gaps. Nothing new there. This creationist then wrote letters to various newspapers, and even testified at hearings that the paleontologists he interviewed "admitted" that there are no intermediates in the fossil record. Thus, the lie has been perpetuated by Parker. All of the paleontologists interviewed have told me that they did cite examples of intermediates to the interviewer. The statement is an outright distortion of the willing admission by paleontologists concerned with accuracy, that, to be sure, there are gaps in the fossil record. Such is creationist "scholarship."

David Raup, in a letter to Thomas J. Wheeler dated December 9, 1987 (quoted in Wheeler's "A Response to D. James Kennedy's Presentations on Creationism and Evolution on 'The John Ankerberg Show'," available from Wheeler at 426 Deerfield Lane, Louisville, KY 40207) wrote regarding a quote about the horse series being "phony" (used by Kennedy) that:
I suspect that much of the quote from the radio [actually television] came from the Sunderland interviews. Although I might easily have made the statement about the horse series, I do not remember doing so. In my interview with Sunderland I said: "Well, as more is learned about the evolution of the horse, more separate lineages have been recognized and it's far more complicated than early work indicated." I suspect that the quoted statements were actually made either by Eldredge or Gould. I have heard Gould repeatedly criticize the traditional museum treatment of horse evolution. And Eldredge said in his Sunderland interview that the AMNH [American Museum of Natural History] exhibit on the subject is "lamentable."
Wheeler notes that when he asked Kennedy for the source of the Raup quote, he was sent a photocopy of a page from The Quote Book which did not at all match what Kennedy said on the air (Wheeler reprinted it in full on p. 26 of his response) and does not state that there are no transitions in the horse series.

Leave it to Lawrence Krauss to only be able to come up with articles from the 80's and 90's. Continuing to quote him and his minions is not going to convince us of your belief in the eternal universe.

Leave it to your hero charlatans at the creationist ministries to be dishonest hacks.

 

[Hollie]

Young-Earth Creationists Believe Supernovas are Beautiful Lies told by God

Young-Earth Creationists Believe Supernovas are Beautiful Lies told by God

Young-earth creationists, strictly speaking, can’t believe that there are such things as “supernovas” in the sense in which other people use that term. That term refers to stars exploding in faraway parts of the universe. For instance, the NASA page about one supernova visible in recent memory, SN 1987A, says this: “The star is 163,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud. It actually blew up about 161,000 B.C., but its light arrived here in 1987.”

A young-earth creationist has to deny that, and must instead claim that God put the light from the explosion on-route to us at some point.

Good gawd, as they say.

Why are the gawds playing head games with us.

 

[newpolitics]

Your whole paragraph makes the false assumption that the TOE is science like physics is science. The TOE is pseudo science and comparing it to gravity is a favorite tactic of materialists atheists in attempt to give the Darwinian myth weight, so to speak.

The TOE is science.

You can't accept that because it conflicts with the bible and a 6000 year old earth.

The TOE is pseudo science based on your materialist secular humanist religion. You spend all your time cutting and pasting from IHEU websites and never stop long enough to actually do any critical thinking.

You cut and paste false quotes from your religious leaders like Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss. If your good with "may haves" and "might haves", and nice little stories about how giraffe necks are longer because they could only eat high fruit, supporting your supposed fact, then by all means continue to support your myth. But don't pretend that the outrageous claims of the TOE are backed by any real science. News flash for you: Darwin's tree of life has been dis-proven by modern genetics and the embryo drawings were fakes. However, since Darwinism is religion for you, none of this should matter. Continue to go ahead and cling to your religion even no there is no proof.

TOE is a science, based on the same concepts and laws that govern all other areas of scientific inquiry, such as chemistry, biology, physics, astronomy, etc... In fact, it is an inter-discplinary field, which makes it quite unique. That you think evolution receives special treatment or exists by suspending the laws of physics or logic (I can infer this when you claim evolution is based on pseudo-science), means that you only wish it to be so, because this claim is not based in fact.

The tree of life, as I have already said, has not become invalid because of horizontal gene transfer, which only happened during the earliest stages of unicellular life on earth, billions of years ago. Instead, there are simply a few "cobweb" additions to link the possible places where genes may have been horizontally transferred. By and large, the tree of life still stands as a valid pictorial model for evolutionary descent. So, nothing has changed. You are now being dishonest in claiming this, which means, you don't want to have an honest debate.


Maybe you've heard of this guy: Theodosius Dobzhanzky was an evolutionary biologist and a Russian Orthodox Christian, who is famous for saying,

"Nothing in Biology makes sense except in light of evolution."

Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"He criticizes creationists for implying that God is deceitful and asserts that this is blasphemous.

Dobzhansky then goes on to describe the diversity of life on Earth, and that the diversity of species cannot be best explained by a creation myth because of the ecological interactions between them. He uses examples of evidence for evolution: the genetic sequence of cytochrome C to show evidence for common descent (citing the work of Emanuel Margoliash & Walter M. Fitch); embryology; and his own work on fruit flies in Hawaii. Dobzhansky concludes that scripture and science are two different things: "It is a blunder to mistake the Holy Scriptures for elementary textbooks of astronomy, geology, biology, and anthropology"."

-wikipedia.org

 

[UltimateReality]

Omigosh was that an enlightening 5 pages. I would love to keep it going because it was really getting under her skin but I have to get to the gym.

Did you guys just see what happened there? I became Holly!!!! I employed all of her tactics and techniques and baited her into a frenzy. She was cutting and pasting like mad trying to teach me and I was just repeating the same thing over and over again like she does.

Technique 1: Continually accuse me of getting my info from the ICR website. Truth is I have never been to the ICR website. So I picked the IHEU website and just mentioned it over and over and over again, not bothering to really read any of her posts.

Technique 2: Continually quote this character Haran Yahya. I had no clue who that was and I doubt many ID Theorists or Creationist do since the guy is a Muslim trying to prove the existence of Allah. It's not really like Christians use the same sources as Muslims since for the most part, they want us Christians dead.

So I picked Lawrence Krauss and just kept accusing her of using him as a source over and over again. Lawrence Krauss is a Dawkins crony and atheist philosopher. The most disturbing thing about Holly is she never once denies that is where she is getting her info. I really think something is wrong with her. Maybe she is trying to manage hating on multiple forums at one time but it is like she isn't reading anything. She doesn't even question who Krauss is or what the IHEU is. Weird.

Tehnigue 3: Attribute some belief someone has explained numerous times they don't believe in just to aggravate them. Holly has repeatedly stated I believe in a 6000 year old earth when I have told her numerous times I do not. So for the last 5 or 10 posts, I keep talking about her belief in an eternal universe. Hollie has never said she believes in an eternal universe and if she believes current thought, more like believes the big bang and a universe that is approx 14 billion years old. Again, really weird she never denies that. It's like she isn't reading anything.

Technique 4: Continually accuse your opponent of being dishonest and misquoting. Did you see how I didn't even bother to read what she posted but just kept saying over and over again she was quoting out of context or intentionally leaving parts out? I kept using her phrase on her over and over,"intellectual dishonesty".

Technique 5: Aggravate your opponent by using subtle word games. Know your audience only believes in ONE God, continually refer to gods.

Bravo Hollie!! Your own techniques beat you at your own game!!

Omigosh Hollie. You were cutting and pasting like a mad woman. It is funny that you accused me of lashing out when I was just following your posting methodology. Did this little experience enlighten you at all to how frustrating your posts are, or how people could take you as the one who is attacking?

 

[UltimateReality]

The TOE is science.

You can't accept that because it conflicts with the bible and a 6000 year old earth.

The TOE is pseudo science based on your materialist secular humanist religion. You spend all your time cutting and pasting from IHEU websites and never stop long enough to actually do any critical thinking.

You cut and paste false quotes from your religious leaders like Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss. If your good with "may haves" and "might haves", and nice little stories about how giraffe necks are longer because they could only eat high fruit, supporting your supposed fact, then by all means continue to support your myth. But don't pretend that the outrageous claims of the TOE are backed by any real science. News flash for you: Darwin's tree of life has been dis-proven by modern genetics and the embryo drawings were fakes. However, since Darwinism is religion for you, none of this should matter. Continue to go ahead and cling to your religion even no there is no proof.

TOE is a science, based on the same concepts and laws that govern all other areas of scientific inquiry, such as chemistry, biology, physics, astronomy, etc... In fact, it is an inter-discplinary field, which makes it quite unique. That you think evolution receives special treatment or exists by suspending the laws of physics or logic (I can infer this when you claim evolution is based on pseudo-science), means that you only wish it to be so, because this claim is not based in fact.

The tree of life, as I have already said, has not become invalid because of horizontal gene transfer, which only happened during the earliest stages of unicellular life on earth, billions of years ago. Instead, there are simply a few "cobweb" additions to link the possible places where genes may have been horizontally transferred. By and large, the tree of life still stands as a valid pictorial model for evolutionary descent. So, nothing has changed. You are now being dishonest in claiming this, which means, you don't want to have an honest debate.


Maybe you've heard of this guy: Theodosius Dobzhanzky was an evolutionary biologist and a Russian Orthodox Christian, who is famous for saying,

"Nothing in Biology makes sense except in light of evolution."

Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"He criticizes creationists for implying that God is deceitful and asserts that this is blasphemous.

Dobzhansky then goes on to describe the diversity of life on Earth, and that the diversity of species cannot be best explained by a creation myth because of the ecological interactions between them. He uses examples of evidence for evolution: the genetic sequence of cytochrome C to show evidence for common descent (citing the work of Emanuel Margoliash & Walter M. Fitch); embryology; and his own work on fruit flies in Hawaii. Dobzhansky concludes that scripture and science are two different things: "It is a blunder to mistake the Holy Scriptures for elementary textbooks of astronomy, geology, biology, and anthropology"."

-wikipedia.org

Evolutionists can't even agree on a method to test fitness or even a common definition for it. If Natural Selection is based on an organism's fitness, how can we do experiments to determine if natural selection has occurred if we can't even test for it???

 

[UltimateReality]

The tree of life, as I have already said, has not become invalid because of horizontal gene transfer, which only happened during the earliest stages of unicellular life on earth, billions of years ago.

Ahhh and there we are. If the real scientific evidence doesn't fit the myth, just make up some other unproven methodology to cover the original lie. This is not science my friend. Show me some experiments for actual horizontal gene transfer please.

It is funny in your quote above you use assumptive language to state horizontal gene transfer like it is a fact. What is your scientific proof that it only happened during the earliest stages of life?? You have none. So belief in something without proof is called faith my friend.

Can you not see the circular reasoning behind this argument? Darwin proposes the tree of life, genetic evidence shreds it. So in order to maintain the tree we say gene transfer HAD TO HAVE happened. This is the tale wagging the dog if there ever was one!!!

How about maybe Darwin was wrong about common ancestry. What? No? Darwin couldn't have been wrong? Really? Just make the science fit? Propose some other unproven methodology we have no evidence in the present for? Or can't duplicate with an experiment. Then call that science? Wait, not just science, but fact? Oh now I get it. Silly me.

 

[Hollie]

The TOE is pseudo science based on your materialist secular humanist religion. You spend all your time cutting and pasting from IHEU websites and never stop long enough to actually do any critical thinking.

You cut and paste false quotes from your religious leaders like Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss. If your good with "may haves" and "might haves", and nice little stories about how giraffe necks are longer because they could only eat high fruit, supporting your supposed fact, then by all means continue to support your myth. But don't pretend that the outrageous claims of the TOE are backed by any real science. News flash for you: Darwin's tree of life has been dis-proven by modern genetics and the embryo drawings were fakes. However, since Darwinism is religion for you, none of this should matter. Continue to go ahead and cling to your religion even no there is no proof.

TOE is a science, based on the same concepts and laws that govern all other areas of scientific inquiry, such as chemistry, biology, physics, astronomy, etc... In fact, it is an inter-discplinary field, which makes it quite unique. That you think evolution receives special treatment or exists by suspending the laws of physics or logic (I can infer this when you claim evolution is based on pseudo-science), means that you only wish it to be so, because this claim is not based in fact.

The tree of life, as I have already said, has not become invalid because of horizontal gene transfer, which only happened during the earliest stages of unicellular life on earth, billions of years ago. Instead, there are simply a few "cobweb" additions to link the possible places where genes may have been horizontally transferred. By and large, the tree of life still stands as a valid pictorial model for evolutionary descent. So, nothing has changed. You are now being dishonest in claiming this, which means, you don't want to have an honest debate.


Maybe you've heard of this guy: Theodosius Dobzhanzky was an evolutionary biologist and a Russian Orthodox Christian, who is famous for saying,

"Nothing in Biology makes sense except in light of evolution."

Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"He criticizes creationists for implying that God is deceitful and asserts that this is blasphemous.

Dobzhansky then goes on to describe the diversity of life on Earth, and that the diversity of species cannot be best explained by a creation myth because of the ecological interactions between them. He uses examples of evidence for evolution: the genetic sequence of cytochrome C to show evidence for common descent (citing the work of Emanuel Margoliash & Walter M. Fitch); embryology; and his own work on fruit flies in Hawaii. Dobzhansky concludes that scripture and science are two different things: "It is a blunder to mistake the Holy Scriptures for elementary textbooks of astronomy, geology, biology, and anthropology"."

-wikipedia.org

Evolutionists can't even agree on a method to test fitness or even a common definition for it. If Natural Selection is based on an organism's fitness, how can we do experiments to determine if natural selection has occurred if we can't even test for it???

What a clueless comment. A very basic test for fitness for survival would be... wait for it... here it comes... "survival".

 

[UltimateReality]

TOE is a science, based on the same concepts and laws that govern all other areas of scientific inquiry, such as chemistry, biology, physics, astronomy, etc... In fact, it is an inter-discplinary field, which makes it quite unique. That you think evolution receives special treatment or exists by suspending the laws of physics or logic (I can infer this when you claim evolution is based on pseudo-science), means that you only wish it to be so, because this claim is not based in fact.

The tree of life, as I have already said, has not become invalid because of horizontal gene transfer, which only happened during the earliest stages of unicellular life on earth, billions of years ago. Instead, there are simply a few "cobweb" additions to link the possible places where genes may have been horizontally transferred. By and large, the tree of life still stands as a valid pictorial model for evolutionary descent. So, nothing has changed. You are now being dishonest in claiming this, which means, you don't want to have an honest debate.


Maybe you've heard of this guy: Theodosius Dobzhanzky was an evolutionary biologist and a Russian Orthodox Christian, who is famous for saying,

"Nothing in Biology makes sense except in light of evolution."

Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"He criticizes creationists for implying that God is deceitful and asserts that this is blasphemous.

Dobzhansky then goes on to describe the diversity of life on Earth, and that the diversity of species cannot be best explained by a creation myth because of the ecological interactions between them. He uses examples of evidence for evolution: the genetic sequence of cytochrome C to show evidence for common descent (citing the work of Emanuel Margoliash & Walter M. Fitch); embryology; and his own work on fruit flies in Hawaii. Dobzhansky concludes that scripture and science are two different things: "It is a blunder to mistake the Holy Scriptures for elementary textbooks of astronomy, geology, biology, and anthropology"."

-wikipedia.org

Evolutionists can't even agree on a method to test fitness or even a common definition for it. If Natural Selection is based on an organism's fitness, how can we do experiments to determine if natural selection has occurred if we can't even test for it???

What a clueless comment. A very basic test for fitness for survival would be... wait for it... here it comes... "survival".

That would be called a... wait for it... circular argument. They are fit because they are fit. You are wrong because you are wrong. I am right because I am right. They survived because they are the species that survived.

I'm sorry I baited you for so long and had to be so mean to teach you a lesson about how you don't really play fair on here. What I can't figure out is why you never once denied you believed in an eternal universe or even bothered to look into who Lawrence Krauss was. None of the sites you were posting had any remote association with Mr. Krauss.

 

[UltimateReality]

Come on. You have to admit I really had you going. You were cutting and pasting like mad and getting really frustrated, huh?

 

[newpolitics]

Evolutionists can't even agree on a method to test fitness or even a common definition for it. If Natural Selection is based on an organism's fitness, how can we do experiments to determine if natural selection has occurred if we can't even test for it???

What a clueless comment. A very basic test for fitness for survival would be... wait for it... here it comes... "survival".

That would be called a... wait for it... circular argument. They are fit because they are fit. You are wrong because you are wrong. I am right because I am right. They survived because they are the species that survived.

I'm sorry I baited you for so long and had to be so mean to teach you a lesson about how you don't really play fair on here. What I can't figure out is why you never once denied you believed in an eternal universe or even bothered to look into who Lawrence Krauss was. None of the sites you were posting had any remote association with Mr. Krauss.

No it wouldn't be a.. wait. for it... circular argument, because we are not talking about logical arguments here. We are talking about demonstrable proof about a claim. You asked about fitness, and I'm not quite sure why, first of all. This is not a topic or a term of contention among evolutionists, or anybody. It simply a term that describes something about reality, a species degree of adaptation to its environment, which is entirely subjective, by the way. What is objective, is that a given species is alive today, thus demonstrating its ability to survive. This reality is much more important. We might ascribe a species survivability to its fitness, but there would not be a need to test fitness, because that is useless, especially with respect to TOE. This isn't a contest among extant species about who is most fit. Those that are still alive, have won. Extant species display "fitness." This word is used to describe reality. It is not essential to it. You are playing a game of semantics. Fitness does not need to be testable to verify evolution as a process.

 

[newpolitics]

The tree of life, as I have already said, has not become invalid because of horizontal gene transfer, which only happened during the earliest stages of unicellular life on earth, billions of years ago.

Ahhh and there we are. If the real scientific evidence doesn't fit the myth, just make up some other unproven methodology to cover the original lie. This is not science my friend. Show me some experiments for actual horizontal gene transfer please.

It is funny in your quote above you use assumptive language to state horizontal gene transfer like it is a fact. What is your scientific proof that it only happened during the earliest stages of life?? You have none. So belief in something without proof is called faith my friend.

Can you not see the circular reasoning behind this argument? Darwin proposes the tree of life, genetic evidence shreds it. So in order to maintain the tree we say gene transfer HAD TO HAVE happened. This is the tale wagging the dog if there ever was one!!!

How about maybe Darwin was wrong about common ancestry. What? No? Darwin couldn't have been wrong? Really? Just make the science fit? Propose some other unproven methodology we have no evidence in the present for? Or can't duplicate with an experiment. Then call that science? Wait, not just science, but fact? Oh now I get it. Silly me.

I don't have the energy to dissect the myriad fallacies you are employing here and show you where you went wrong. I am going to go drink some OJ.

But, I will say, that the part of it happening only during the earliest stages of life, is a somewhat original thought of my own (inspired by the very articles you posted about HGT: they did mention that HGT was much more difficult among higher order animals, so my assertion is not baseless). It is based on the fact that gene trasnfer between cells is much more likely when unicellular organisms are interacting directly with eachother, instead of when contained inside bodies of animals. We have skin for a reason, to prevent contamination, including that of our own DNA. I, of course, realize that skin are made up of cells carrying DNA, but cells contaminated on a such superficial layer on the body would be easily expelled by the body's defenses and never able to express their alien DNA. The only way to contaminate DNA is through viruses and such, and even if that happen, its effect would be similar to that of a mutation, and as such, only a VERY few would prove successful, if this happened at all among higher mammals. The point is, the incidence rate for horizontal gene transfer among multi-cellular eukaryotes is drastically minimized in comparison to uni-cellular colonies, simply by virtue of the fact that we have layers of cells (skin) dedicated to protected the cells within. Protecting our genetic information is of paramount importance for any species, and as such, it would not be "easy" for HGT to occur among animals, as it once was among unicellular organisms who had no way to defend themselves, and had no real reason to either.

 

[AnonymousIV]

I believe that God, my God, had hand in my creation. I believe that a spirit world exists. And that God, through his intercessory's, know your heart, and I believe there are many. I mean, you can put a lot out there, on the universe, and dream, and reason. For either side to blatently deny the other is playing God. So.... I like to hear from both sides. But not the argument. Can everybody give us Big Picture instead of disagreement?

 

[Youwerecreated]

it's not an act, I've stepped over better men then you to take a shit.
In my younger days I would have gleefully ripped out you tongue and shoved it up your ass, just to amuse myself.

but now I'm too busy laughing at your total ignorance of reality,anyone who claims the the Incas and dinosaurs lived together with a straight face has to have some misfiring synapses in his brain.
all your aguments for god fall short!

Yep fits you like a glove. The invitation is still open when I play my next tournament in california for you to come over and introduce yourself and we can see just how tough you are.

thesaurus for internet tough guy:
trollinternetbutthurtdouchefagfat lionforumgayguylosertoughassbadassdouchebage penise-penisflamergeekidiotinternet badass more...



1.

internet tough guy

679 up, 87 down





Someone who constantly talks about how bad and "hardcore" they are over the connected phone lines called the internet. These people usually frequent chat rooms and online forums for the sole purpose of shit talking and gloating to complete strangers to fill the void in their life, something that dosen't impress someone in the REAL WORLD. They also like to troll areas in chat and forums that contain such topics as: Martial Arts, Boxing, Fighting, Excercise, Weight Lifting, Wrestling etc. so they can compete with other lifeless internet whores for the sole purpose of determining who is the biggest nerd of them all. These people talk about how much ass they kick and how they could take on the world single handedly, when in reality, quiver at such ideas of someone who dosen't like them finding them in their parents basement where they thought they were safe. Internet Tough Guys should be regarded as the lowest form of life on Earth. 99% of the time they are liars, who will make completely bogus claims of being 7 feet tall, 400 pounds of pure muscle, and bench 700. Often they have bullshit stories to accompany such shitty claims like "I've wrestled a bear and a lion at the same time, and I kicked both of their asses with ease!" or "I'm a pro boxer who beat Mike Tyson in a backyard brawl with no gloves!" They often reply with sayings such as "fuck you", "i'll kick you ass", "your luckee that i cant get you", and the ever...

again only in your wett dreams

That is what I thought.

 

[UltimateReality]

What a clueless comment. A very basic test for fitness for survival would be... wait for it... here it comes... "survival".

That would be called a... wait for it... circular argument. They are fit because they are fit. You are wrong because you are wrong. I am right because I am right. They survived because they are the species that survived.

I'm sorry I baited you for so long and had to be so mean to teach you a lesson about how you don't really play fair on here. What I can't figure out is why you never once denied you believed in an eternal universe or even bothered to look into who Lawrence Krauss was. None of the sites you were posting had any remote association with Mr. Krauss.

No it wouldn't be a.. wait. for it... circular argument, because we are not talking about logical arguments here. We are talking about demonstrable proof about a claim. You asked about fitness, and I'm not quite sure why, first of all. This is not a topic or a term of contention among evolutionists, or anybody.

I am shocked by your statement!!! The whole TOE hinges on fitness keeping random, chance mutations! Ever heard the term "Survival of the Fittest"!?!?!? How can you show natural selection is real if you can't show traits that make a species more fit are kept??? Your statement this is not a topic of contention shows the relevance of my claim students are not educated regarding the problems facing the TOE. Mass brainwashing and dumbed, down public schools that don't teach critical thinking must be responsible!!

"Lewontin was not the only central figure in evolutionary biology who long ago recognized the difficulty of assessing the fitness, or adaptive value, of traits. In 1953, the paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson opined that “the fallibility of personal judgment as to the adaptive value of particular characters, most especially when these occur in animals quite unlike any now living, is notorious.”[16] And in 1975, the geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky wrote that no biologist “can judge reliably which ‘characters’ are useful, neutral, or harmful in a given species.”[17]

One evident reason for this pessimism is that we cannot isolate traits — or the mutations producing them — as if they were independent causal elements. Organism-environment relations present us with so much complexity, so many possible parameters to track, that, apart from obviously disabling cases, there is no way to pronounce on the significance of a mutation for an organism, let alone for a population or for the future of the species. To pose just one question within the sea of unknowns: even if a mutation could in one way or another be deemed harmful to the organism in its current environment, what if the organism used this element of disharmony as a spur either to reshape its environment or to alter its own behavior, thereby creating a distinctive and advantageous niche for itself and others of its kind?

To see the frailty of the fitness concept most clearly, look at actual attempts to explain why a given trait renders an animal more (or less) fit in its environment. For example, many biologists have commented on the giraffe’s long neck. A prominent theory, from Darwin on, has been that, in times of drought, a longer neck enabled the giraffe to browse nearer the tops of trees, beyond the reach of other animals. So any heritable changes leading to a longer neck were favored by natural selection, rendering the animal more fit and better able to survive during drought.

It sounds eminently reasonable, as such stories usually do. Problems arise only when we try to find evidence favoring this hypothesis over others. My colleague Craig Holdrege has summarized what he and others have found, including this: First, taller, longer-necked giraffes, being also heavier than their shorter ancestors, require more food, which counters the advantage of height. Second, the many browsing and grazing antelope species did not go extinct during droughts, “so even without growing taller the giraffe ancestor could have competed on even terms for those lower leaves.” Third, male giraffes are up to a meter taller than females. If the males would be disadvantaged by an inability to reach higher branches of the trees, why are not the females and young disadvantaged? Fourth, it turns out that females often feed “at belly height or below.” And in well-studied populations of east Africa, giraffes often feed at or below shoulder level during the dry season, while the rainy season sees them feeding from the higher branches — a seasonal pattern the exact opposite of the one suggested by the above hypothesis.[18]"

This begs the question: Is natural selection responsible for the Giraffes long neck? If we can't come up with document-able, observable evidence to support such a claim, how can we even begin to claim the TOE is even a valid theory, much less a fact?

Nice stories about necks and bird beaks are not science!!!

"In Lewontin’s summary: “What is required is an experimental program of unpacking ‘fitness.’ This involves determining experimentally how different genotypes juxtapose different aspects of the external world, how they alter that world and how those different environments that they construct affect their own biological processes and the biological processes of others.”[22] I doubt whether anyone has even pretended to do this unpacking in a way adequate to demonstrate the randomness of mutations relative to fitness".

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/evolution-and-the-illusion-of-randomness

 

[Youwerecreated]

now that is funny!

If you actually understood what he said by your reasoning you would. You still don't get it ,many theories in science require faith to believe because there is no data supporting many of these theories just someones vivid imagination.

Do you understand what conjecture is ?

Why not tell us in detail what part of evolutionary science requires "faith"?

Why don't you tell us of a few theories in science which require faith?

1. Abiogenesis
2. Chemical evolution
3. Dating methods
4. Trasitional fossils
5. Stephen Hawking's explanation of black holes
6. Age of the earth and the universe

Just to name a few.

 

[UltimateReality]

"Another problem with the usual sort of fitness theorizing becomes evident when you consider the unity of the organism and the multifunctionality of its parts. Holdrege remarks of the elephant that it “stands sometimes on its back legs and extends its trunk to reach high limbs — but no one thinks that the elephant developed its trunk as a result of selection pressures to reach higher food.” The trunk develops within a complex, multifaceted, interwoven unity. It “belongs” to that unity, not to a single isolated function. The effort to analyze out of this unity a particular trait and assign it a separate causal fitness is always artificial. This is certainly true of the giraffe, whose long neck not only allows feeding from high branches, but also raises the head to where the animal has the protection of a large field of view (the giraffe’s vision is much more developed than its sense of smell), serves as an “arm” for the use of the head as a “club” in battles between males, and plays a vital role as a kind of pendulum enabling the animal’s graceful galloping movement across the African plain."

 

[AnonymousIV]

Why don't we have wheels for feet, if TOE is true?

 

[Youwerecreated]

more Id shit! this is not evidence...it's whiny criticism with no competing theory to prove it wrong.
like all this crap the bottom line is god did it.

What is your evidence that shows complexity is not the result of design ?

What is your evidence that refutes my evidence showing complexity is not the result of a supermagical designer.

What evidence are you speaking of Hollie ? explain it if you can.

 

[UltimateReality]

"This is the long-running and much-debated claim that natural selection, as an explanation of the evolutionary origin of species, is tautological — it cannot be falsified because it attempts no real explanation. It tells us: the kinds of organisms that survive and reproduce are the kinds of organisms that survive and reproduce."

This is exactly what you said above!!! And it is bogus!!

And here is where the TOE utterly FAILS and breaks down and none of the brainwashed atheist lackys ever question this:

"If we have no practical way to sum up and assess the fitness or adaptive value of the traits of an organism apart from measurements of survival rates (evolutionary success), then on what basis can we use the idea of survival of the fittest (natural selection) to explain evolutionary success — as opposed to using it merely as a blank check for freely inventing explanations of the sort commonly derided as “just-so stories.”

And this is exactly what has been done. Nice stories about moths and finches and giraffes with no science to back them up!! And you think we are the ones with faith???

 

[UltimateReality]

If you actually understood what he said by your reasoning you would. You still don't get it ,many theories in science require faith to believe because there is no data supporting many of these theories just someones vivid imagination.

Do you understand what conjecture is ?

Why not tell us in detail what part of evolutionary science requires "faith"?

Why don't you tell us of a few theories in science which require faith?

1. Abiogenesis
2. Chemical evolution
3. Dating methods
4. Trasitional fossils
5. Stephen Hawking's explanation of black holes
6. Age of the earth and the universe

Just to name a few.

YWC, don't forget the most supernatural theory of all!!! The multi-universe theory....ahhhh. A supernatural theory invented to counter the 38 finely tuned parameters that make life, even planets, possible in our universe. Okay Holly... 1, 2, 3 Go! Quick! Mention Huran Yahan and the ICR!!!