Creationists

[daws101]

Nonsense, the planets in our solar system travel the same direction on the same plane. How do you explain Venus and Uranus traveling on the same plane,going the same direction,but spinning the opposite direction of other planets ? Defies logic if it was the product of an explosion and this contradicts your comment above.

you truly are ignorant .

Is that the best you've got ?

don't need anything else your answer speaks volumes.


Evidence of Huge Planetary Collision Found

Two planets suffer violent collision

Any collisions between planets happened early in the Solar System, and they most certainly did. Our Moon was made by something Mars-sized smacking into the Earth very early on (over 4 billion years ago), and Mars has a giant, very old (about the same age, but ages are pretty uncertain once we get away from the Earth and Moon) crater that makes the northern part of the planet quite a bit lower than the southern part. So, when the inner solar system was forming, all four of the inner planets were probably getting hit a lot by comparable-sized objects (and smaller stuff as well). Thankfully, most of that stuff either collided with something or was eventually knocked out of the area by Jupiter, so it won't collide with a planet any more.

Curious About Astronomy: Can planets collide with one another?

Physics 101: Redshift and the Expanding Universe
by Pearl Tesler


Throughout our universe, light is bursting from stars, bouncing off planets, diving into black holes, wandering into nebulae, and generally going every which way. Meanwhile, a little bit of it actually shows up here on earth.

The light that does arrive here all seems to bear the same message: the universe is expanding.

How can light from the night sky tell us that the universe is growing in size? The main clue comes from something called redshift.

Redshift is light's version of a phenomenon we experience all the time with sound. Have you ever noticed how the pitch of a police siren seems to drop suddenly as the car zooms by you? As the siren approaches you, the waves of sound are squeezed together, and you hear them as being higher-pitched. After the car passes by, sound waves from the receding siren are stretched apart. You hear these stretched waves as being lower-pitched.


Follow the car to see a Shockwave demonstration of Doppler.
This apparent change in the pitch (or frequency) of sound is called Doppler shift. Light from distant stars and galaxies can be shifted in much the same way.

Like sound, light is a wave that can be described in terms of its frequency, the number of wave peaks that pass by each second. Just like a cosmic police car, a star zooming toward you has its light waves squeezed together. You see these light waves as having a higher frequency than normal. Since blue is at the high-frequency end of the visible spectrum, we say the light from an approaching star is shifted toward blue, or blueshifted.

Likewise, if a star is zooming away from you, any light it emits gets stretched. You see these stretched-out light waves as having a lower frequency. Since red is at the low-frequency end of the visible spectrum, we say that light from a receding star is shifted toward red, or redshifted.

Imagine you're moving to the left with this arrowhead. Light emitted from galaxies moving toward you would be squished, making the wavelength shorter and the light bluer. On earth, we perceive the light from galaxies moving away from us (as it appears almost all galaxies are) . . . . as being somewhat stretched, with longer wavelengths that make it look redder.

The amount of the shift depends on the speed of the star, relative to you. For a moving object to create an appreciable redshift or blueshift requires some pretty serious speeds. To get just a 1% change in the frequency of light, a star has to be moving 1,864 miles per second. For a blue lightbulb to look red, it would have to be flying away from you at 3/4 of the speed of light.

Studying light from galaxies throughout our universe, astronomers have noticed something surprising: almost all of it is redshifted. In fact, not only is it redshifted, galaxies that are farther away are more redshifted than closer ones. So it seems that not only are all the galaxies in the universe moving away from us, the farther ones are moving away from us the fastest.

On first glance, this seems to put us at ground zero of a major cosmological exodus. . .what is it, our


Show yourself why it always seems that we're the center of the universe. (requires Shockwave Flash)
breath? In fact, we aren't really at the center of the expansion. In an expanding universe, anyone standing anywhere in the universe would see everything as moving away, or redshifted.

What puzzles astronomers most now is not that the universe is expanding, but that the rate of this expansion seems to be increasing. Using data from the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers hope to be able to figure out the likely fate of our universe: Will it expand forever, or will the expansion reverse and cause the universe to collapse back into another Big Bang? Stay tuned.





For a more in-depth look at how astronomers can use redshift to determine speed and other properties of celestial objects, check out this presentation from NOVA's "Runaway Universe" Web site.

 

[daws101]

Enlighten us or once again did you make an ignorant comment and are now just catching on ?

asked and answerd ..

"If humans randomly come from nature, and circuit boards, spaceships, and engines comes from nature, don't circuit boards, spaceships, and engines come from nature?" ur
if you can't see the misconceptions and flaws in logic in the above statement.. then it's not surprising you're a silly fuck.

I guess I need drugs to understand your thinking.

you mean other than the ones you're on?

 

[UltimateReality]

It's obvious you would disagree with the consistent decisions of the court system regarding your insistence that Christian theology be inserted into the public school. What you refuse to acknowledge is that based upon the evidence presented before the courts, creationism is nothing more than Christian theology under an assumed name.

What you find galling is that the courts are upholding and confirming basic principles that are a foundation of the constitution: separation of church and state. Religious zealots would, of course, prefer to suspend parts of the constitution that limit their ability to force their religion on others. Fortunately, the court decisions have represented the workable mechanism that was framed by the founding fathers.

I can't tell you how pleased I am that I have a constitution that protects me from Christian Taliban.

Do you see the error of your silly logic here? You are bagging on Casey Luskin, stating he is a lawyer and has no business discussing matters of science, but in the same breath you claim another lawyer, a judge, has every right to decide matters of science. Which is it Rugged ManHands?

Where did you attend college?

As expected, the Christian creationists should not be expected to understand the process here.

Yeah, because as the lead investigator on several high profile cases, I never spent any time in court or before a judge. What is your legal background?

The judge made a decision based on evidence presented before the court.

I suppose it would be best to explain these things to fundies in short sentences of gawd friendly monosyllables.

And you know that Casey Luskin didn't base his information on evidence without having ever read the book? You are so foolish, probably because you didn't go to college.

 

[UltimateReality]

That must be one of the more profound things they teach at Harun Yahya.

You should know since your online degree Is from there.

actually the nonsense you spew is more in line (or online) with Harun Yahya then anything hollie could dream up.
especially the steaming pile on materialism.

So your taking Harun Yahya's classes too? Astonishing you and Hollie would subscribe to the same online degree program.

 

[daws101]

uote=ima;6160908]

Loki posted up this stupid and asinine example:

"There is no principle of the actual theory of evolution that says, "if [a trait does] not offer some reproductive advantage, that trait would not survive."

Example: You have skin, I have skin, all humans have skin--having skin offers no reproductive advantage. This is because if we all have this "advantage" it CANNOT be considered an advantage (over other humans who all have skin); it fails to meet the definition of advantage. So, based upon this principle of the version of evolution (that you invented for the purpose of disproving actual evolution), skin--which does not offer reproductive advantage (for some humans over other humans)--should not be present. Yet it is!"

Before you speak for the theory of evolution, I think you should ponder your statement above. It is the negative of the positive statement, traits that offer reproductive advantage will be more common in subsequent generations of a species. However, evolution tells us at some point, the traits that dominate will result in a new species. Back your skin example up a few million generations and then we could make up a "just so" story that humans have skin, because the ones without skin didn't survive. Answer me the question, what if one of the humans above is born without skin??? Will he have the reproductive advantage? We know all random mutations can do is give or take away right? Eventually the skinless humans were out bred by the humans with skin. Skin had to offer an advantage or humans wouldn't have it (Tautological argument) But in your stupid example above, you have not made this clarification. In fact, your Neo-Darwinistic definition of Fitness no longer requires any of your just so stories. It just is because it is.

All your bogus example above does is prove how silly the TOE really is. It really can't tell us anything can it? According to your flawed logic above, it can provide any hypothesis for the complex life we see around us. Because this is what you just said:

Traits that don't offer reproductive advantage can survive and remain unchanged in a species. Traits that do offer reproductive advantage can survive and remain in a species. So your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to go back to all the fossil evidence and dna evidence and tell us which ones are which.

Sorry loki but your skin example is bogus. Black folks skin is better for resisting the sun's rays, so not all skin is the same. Please try again.[/QUOTE]also remember the longer UR'S posts are the higher the bullshit to truth ratio becomes.

 

[daws101]

Cute video's. However, at the risk of you falling into the "Creationist trap" the narrator in the video alludes to, i.e., not looking for evidence, perhaps you should check out the opposing viewpoint if you are serious about wanting to be fully informed. You can start here:

Science and Human Origins: Ann Gauger,Douglas Axe,Casey Luskin: 9781936599042: Amazon.com: Books

The fundie Christian movement faces many hurdles. Among those issues is a lack of credibility. Following string after string of humiliating defeats in the courts for failing to introduce Christian theology into the school system, the movement has become more reactionary, less coherent and more delusional.

There has become a standard roll call of Christian fundamentalist preachers who are trotted out by the Christian creationist ministries. The vast majority of these fundamentalist Christians appear prominently in news and media where they only discredit the very christian fundamentalism they are preaching.



Encyclopedia of American Loons: Search results for luskin

#246: Casey Luskin

a.k.a. the Baghdad Bob of creationism

Casey Luskin is a lawyer (and not a scientist, although he seems to be a little confused about what such credentials do or don't mean) and one of the primary spokespeople for the Discovery Institute. Mr. Luskin obtained a Bachelor of Science and a Masters Degree in Earth Sciences from the University of California, San Diego, and has as a lawyer published “Intelligent Design Will Survive Kitzmiller v. Dover”, and “Alternative Viewpoints about Biological Origins as Taught in Public Schools” (published in the Journal of Church and State). His work illustrates well the actual goal of the Discovery Institute –to get religion, in the form of intelligent design creationism, into public school curricula (not to do any actual scientific research).

Luskin is by far most notorious for his ability to distort scientific evidence to suggest conclusions completely opposite to what the evidence suggests (and curiously always to fit his preconceived notions of what it ought to show), such as here. An even better example of the distortions and quote mining (to put it mildly) he usually reverts to is perhaps this one (or this one). And if you are feeling particularly sadistic, you can watch Luskin getting completely eviscerated here.

The problem with Luskin and his ilk is that they're ignorant of a topic about which they believe they're experts (see The Dunning-Kruger Effect). Luskin appears to believe he’s an expert with absolute confidence and pride,but to anyone with even a cursory understanding of the fields in question his failings are miserably obvious (see also this). In fact, his misunderstandings of science –and his lack of awareness of his own lack of understanding –often reach epic proportions.

Luskin is also interestingly paranoid,going so far as to claim that published articles on evolution contain “veiled threats” against the creationists and that Nature, for instance, has launched a propaganda war on creationism. Of course, science itself is a threat to creationism; what Luskin fails to grasp is the fact that science is concerned with evidence, not argument and polemics. By failing to see the difference (and furthermore failing to distinguish criticism from personal attacks) he comes to equate scientific evidence against his dogmatic beliefs with personal attacks from the scientists who have discovered the evidence (for more on Luskin’s lack of understanding of how science works, see this).

A good assignment in an introductory critical thinking class is to identify some of the mistakes Luskin makes here (I have used it myself).

Diagnosis: Staggeringly cranky illustration of where Dunning-Kruger, confirmation bias and complete lack of understanding of science can lead you. He is very productive and vociferous, and must be considered rather dangerous to a rationality-based, modern civilization.



Encyclopedia of American Loons: #140: Ann Gauger

#140: Ann Gauger

Gauger has a PhD in zoology and is a signatory of Discovery Institute’s 2005 petition “Scientific Dissent from Darwinism”. She’s currently associated with the Discovery affiliated creationist think-tank the Biologic Institute whose goal is to perform real research on ID and which has yet to produce a single publication supporting ID creationism despite big budgets and numerous employed “scientists”.

A rather infamous incident occurred when Gauger reported on her work at the Wistar Retrospective Symposium, 2007, in Boston, Massachusetts. She discussed “leaky growth” in microbial colonies at high densities, leading to horizontal transfer of genetic information, and announced that under such conditions she had actually found a novel variant that seemed to lead to enhanced colony growth. Gunther Wagner, a real scientist, asked the obvious question: “So, a beneficial mutation happened right in your lab?” at which point the moderator halted questioning - Gauger has earlier argued that any evolutionary change is non-adaptive.

Diagnosis: Surely intelligent, but caught up in a system of self-reassuring but misguided views on how reality hangs together. The Biologic Institute is supposed to provided creationism with a sheen of scientific legitimacy, and although its existence may carry some influence on general perception of creationism (then again, probably not), it has failed to fool scientists or scholars in general (apart from Robin Collins).

Judges are not scientists,the science they do have is very basic. They have been brainwashed for many years as most students.

I could care less what the courts think after all they support the law to murder babies. Our society are turning their backs on God and eventually will pay a price you might be seeing that as we speak.

So instead of thinking well the courts support our views why don't you give evidence that supports your view rather then conjecture as evidence.

you have no evidence of brainwashing by the federal or state or government or the public school system.
on the other hand your belief system relies on indoctrination, coercion, fear and willful ignorance to fill it's ranks .

these statements :They have been brainwashed for many years as most students.

("I could care less what the courts think after all they support the law to murder babies. Our society are turning their backs on God and eventually will pay a price you might be seeing that as we speak".ywc) are from a rational pov clear evidence of brain washing and a cult mentality..

my personal fav is the courts bullshit..

 

[daws101]

Loki posted up this stupid and asinine example:

"There is no principle of the actual theory of evolution that says, "if [a trait does] not offer some reproductive advantage, that trait would not survive."

Example: You have skin, I have skin, all humans have skin--having skin offers no reproductive advantage. This is because if we all have this "advantage" it CANNOT be considered an advantage (over other humans who all have skin); it fails to meet the definition of advantage. So, based upon this principle of the version of evolution (that you invented for the purpose of disproving actual evolution), skin--which does not offer reproductive advantage (for some humans over other humans)--should not be present. Yet it is!"

Before you speak for the theory of evolution, I think you should ponder your statement above. It is the negative of the positive statement, traits that offer reproductive advantage will be more common in subsequent generations of a species. However, evolution tells us at some point, the traits that dominate will result in a new species. Back your skin example up a few million generations and then we could make up a "just so" story that humans have skin, because the ones without skin didn't survive. Answer me the question, what if one of the humans above is born without skin??? Will he have the reproductive advantage? We know all random mutations can do is give or take away right? Eventually the skinless humans were out bred by the humans with skin. Skin had to offer an advantage or humans wouldn't have it (Tautological argument) But in your stupid example above, you have not made this clarification. In fact, your Neo-Darwinistic definition of Fitness no longer requires any of your just so stories. It just is because it is.

All your bogus example above does is prove how silly the TOE really is. It really can't tell us anything can it? According to your flawed logic above, it can provide any hypothesis for the complex life we see around us. Because this is what you just said:

Traits that don't offer reproductive advantage can survive and remain unchanged in a species. Traits that do offer reproductive advantage can survive and remain in a species. So your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to go back to all the fossil evidence and dna evidence and tell us which ones are which.

Sorry loki but your skin example is bogus. Black folks skin is better for resisting the sun's rays, so not all skin is the same. Please try again.

All traits are a product of our DNA information.

non sequitur....

 

[daws101]

You should know since your online degree Is from there.

actually the nonsense you spew is more in line (or online) with Harun Yahya then anything hollie could dream up.
especially the steaming pile on materialism.

So your taking Harun Yahya's classes too? Astonishing you and Hollie would subscribe to the same online degree program.

Ur is again lying to avoid the fact that he and Harun Yahya spew the same shit..

 

[Hollie]

Do you see the error of your silly logic here? You are bagging on Casey Luskin, stating he is a lawyer and has no business discussing matters of science, but in the same breath you claim another lawyer, a judge, has every right to decide matters of science. Which is it Rugged ManHands?

Where did you attend college?

As expected, the Christian creationists should not be expected to understand the process here.

Yeah, because as the lead investigator on several high profile cases, I never spent any time in court or before a judge. What is your legal background?

The judge made a decision based on evidence presented before the court.

I suppose it would be best to explain these things to fundies in short sentences of gawd friendly monosyllables.

And you know that Casey Luskin didn't base his information on evidence without having ever read the book? You are so foolish, probably because you didn't go to college.

Oh my. The little Christian zealot is as frantic as usual, offering up nothing (as usual), but gargantuan fonts.

I’m always suspicious of creationist “authors” who claim expertise in a subject yet have no formal training in that subject. That’s why it’s actually comical when a zoologist and a fundie Christian attorney “author” a book regarding human origins. It should be a red flag when credentials assigned to fundie creationists have no real connection to the material they are authoring.

Neither Gauger or Luskin have any academic credentials to give them credibility for work in the field of “human origins”. Neither is an archeologist or biologist and neither have degrees that coincide with the knowledge necessary to develop a thriving biological dissertation on life origins.

It's a shame that all of the above will be lost on the fundie zealot who understands nothing but what he is instructed by creationist ministries.

Out-of-the-madrassah and-into-the-classroom zealots are a danger to themselves and those around them. Most folks do not support Christian zealots controlling science education in this country – obviously the constitution disallows that.

Christian Taliban can believe whatever they choose to believe, but to evoke the coercive efforts of fear and superstition to impose their personal failings upon others is antithetical to the human ideal of freedom of (from) religion..

 

[LOki]

Back home now and I can actually type normally to break down the argument Loki can't seem to grasp:

From Wiki: "The central concept of natural selection is the evolutionary fitness of an organism.[94] Fitness is measured by an organism's ability to survive and reproduce, which determines the size of its genetic contribution to the next generation.[94] However, fitness is not the same as the total number of offspring: instead fitness is indicated by the proportion of subsequent generations that carry an organism's genes.[95] For example, if an organism could survive well and reproduce rapidly, but its offspring were all too small and weak to survive, this organism would make little genetic contribution to future generations and would thus have low fitness.[94]"

From Wiki: "Fitness (often denoted w in population genetics models) is a central idea in evolutionary theory. It can be defined either with respect to a genotype or to a phenotype in a given environment. In either case, it describes the ability to both survive and reproduce, and is equal to the average contribution to the gene pool of the next generation that is made by an average individual of the specified genotype or phenotype. If differences between alleles of a given gene affect fitness, then the frequencies of the alleles will change over generations; the alleles with higher fitness become more common. This process is called natural selection."

So the central question becomes: How do we determine scientifically which members of the species were fit, and passed their genes on, and which ones were not? The answer to that question is clearly stated above. As evolutionary "scientist", we merely study which genes or traits are most common in a given species, and by those results, we can determine that the specific species in the previous generation that was most fit, and must have contributed those genes.

Unless you are in denial of the relationship between genotype and phenotype, and that genetics is fundamentally about inheritable phenotypes, then I am faiuling to see your point in tracing and retracing the DEFINITION of fitness.

And here we arrive at what Loki can't seem to comprehend, that is, we observe an organism and we conclude, this organism must be the result of natural selection, and its predecessor must have been the most fit, otherwise, it wouldn't be here.

Strawman. No such presumption is made, except in the bullshit version of evolution you have created for the sole purpose of claiming you have invalidated the actual theory of evolution.

But isn't fitness a central concept of natural selection? Have we proven this or is it still a theory?

What you're bitching about half the time (when you find it convenient) is something like, "Evolution says "fitness" means "fitness," and that's a "question-begging" arguement. The thing is, "fitness" is not presented as an argument; it's not an "argument" at all.

You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding (or more likely a DELIBERATE misunderstanding) of the conditions under a tautolgy is illegitimate (question-begging). In formal logic (rather than rhetoric), tautologies are ALWAYS valid. DEFINITIONS are inherently tautological AND formally valid. They LITERALLY use different words to say the same thing. They HAVE TO!

A THEORY is something else entirely.

"FITNESS" is not the theory you say it is. While fitness is certainly "a central concept of natural selection," fitness IS NOT natural selection. Why is this so difficult for you to understand? I mean, after all, the definition of "fitness" is fully applicable in the Creationist notions of design--organisms are "designed" to be fit--that is to say, the "Creator/Designer/God/Leprechaun designed organisms to successfully reproduce and pass their genetic material to their progeny.

I told you before that you had to decide what you want, a DEFINITION or a THEORY. You have chosen BOTH so you can illegitimately and dishonestly switch your usage to meet the convenience of your argument. Just like every other member of your intellectually dishonest, superstitious tribe of retards.

The very core of evolutionary theory rests on natural selection. I'm not sure why Loki can't get this: this modern definition of fitness attempts its proof by assuming it is true.

Fitness is NOT A THEORY. Fitness is not the same thing as NATURAL SELECTION you equivocating douche-bag.

Mr. Fallacy, aka, Loki, should recognize this as begging the question.

There is no question-begging involved, except in the STRAWMAN version of evolution you created where "fitness" is the EXACT SAME THING as "natural selection."

We conclude that the fittest species pass along their dna because if they weren't fit, they wouldn't pass on their dna.

This is consistent with the DEFINITION of "fitness."

Said another way... the types of organisms that survive and reproduce are the types of organisms that survive and reproduce.

This also is consistent with the DEFINITION of "fitness."

How many more ways can I say it? Your links prove the very thing you deny.

You are wrong. So woefully wrong. So purposefully wrong.

But the end result is exactly what I posted pages back:

"Bethell argued that evolutionary theory based on natural selection (survival of the fittest) is vacuous: it states that, first, evolution can be explained by the fact that, on the whole, only the fitter organisms survive and achieve reproductive success; and second, what makes an organism fit is the fact that it survives and successfully reproduces. 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."

Bethell is just fatuously arguing that DEFINITION are tautologies, and that in the case of evolution the use of DEFINITION for terms makes the whole theory an illegitimate tautology.

You and Bethell are BOTH retarded.

Seriously. Once you get past the fact that FITNESS is not the same thing as NATURAL SELECTION, what you and Bethell are actually expressing denial of, is the well established relationship between genotype and phenotype. You are expressing a denial that so many of the functional structures and processes exhibited by living things are determined solely by the genetics of that living thing--and those functional structures and processes have peceptable effect on that organism's survival, and that they are inheritable.

And the explanation you offer as an alternative to the reality you deny is literally ... MAGIC!

Begging the question, sometimes known by its Latin name petitio principii (meaning assuming the initial point), is a logical fallacy in which the writer or speaker assumes the statement under examination to be true. In other words, begging the question involves using a premise to support itself. If the premise is questionable, then the argument is bad.

I am aware of this ... I have been pointing out that you have no evidence for your Creator/Designer/God/Leprechaun that doesn't ultimatley rely upon first believing your Creator/Designer/God/Leprechaun is real in order to accept that the "evidence" submitted validates the existence of your Creator/Designer/God/Leprechaun.

So Loki, that brings me to my next question: Is it true (or STRAWMAN) that evolutionary theory teaches man came from a single cell ancestor. Let's see what Darwin himself said:

"[W]ould it be too bold to imagine, that in the great length of time, since the earth began to exist, perhaps millions of ages before the commencement of the history of mankind, would it be too bold to imagine, that all warm-blooded animals have arisen from one living filament, which the great First Cause endued with animality, with the power of acquiring new parts attended with new propensities, directed by irritations, sensations, volitions, and associations; and thus possessing the faculty of continuing to improve by its own inherent activity, and of delivering down those improvements by generation to its posterity, world without end?"

"Therefore I should infer from analogy that probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed."

So we are led to believe that a single cell, with natural selection acting on random variations through a large number of subsequent generations, produced a man? Are you saying this is a strawman?

Aside from the fact that the variations within a gene-pool are not random, no this is not a strawman.

And if it isn't a strawman, we are told this process succeeded, because the organisms that weren't fit, didn't have reproductive success.

This is consistent with the DEFINITION of fitness.

I just cannot wait for you to get to yout point.

Then we are given some bird examples and some moth examples that show a single trait change, i.e., length of beak in the case of the bird and color in the case of the month, and we're told these changes happened, because the other organisms that didn't have these changes didn't survive.

Strawman. You are not told that at all, except in the bullshit version of evolution you created for the sole purpose of claiming you have invalidated the actual theory of evolution.

However, the punch line to both stories is that the original trait that supposedly didn't contribute to reproductive success in the specific environment, reappeared when the rains came back or the pollution went away. We are given a "just so" story about the color of the moths contributing to their survival. Can you please link me to a study where a scientific sample was taken and birds were actually observed eating more of one color moth?

Why do I have to provide validation for your retarded notions?

Or did we simply notice more black moths and make up a neat story of why they survived, having never ruled out other causes for why black moths or white moths might flourish?

If by "we" you mean "you" and your "neat story" about your invisible superfriend, then yes.

If anything qualifies for a "just so" story about anything, it's your story about how your personal imaginary friend just magics everything to be just the way you believe it is.

And finally, we are asked to believe that based on these typically lame examples, that this "selection" of better equipped species, (or can I even say that anymore??) or more successful reproductive species, that this has produced the amazing complexity of life we see around us. We are supposed to believe that this process gave rise to the chemically complex process of blood clotting or for that matter, human consciousness?

No. No one but your strawman evolutionists bases their conclusions "on these typically lame examples."

What has the theory of evolution proven? Absolutely NOTHING.

So what? The theory of evolution (or any other scientific theory) is not a tool to "prove" anything.

Real scientists do not conform to the bullshit paradigm of superstitious retards who are desperately trying to PROVE that their imaginary superfriends are real.

It basically tells us that the surviving organisms survived because their ancestors were good at reproducing successfully. Where is is the explanation for more complex species arising from less complex species?

"Our simulations show that such mutational events, coupled with a selective pressure, leads to growth of pathways. These results indicate that pathways could be driven toward complexity via simple evolutionary mechanisms and that complexity can arise without any specific selective pressure for it. Furthermore, we find that the level of complexity that pathways evolve toward depends on the selection criteria. In general, we find that final pathway size tends to be lower when pathways evolve under stringent selection criteria. This leads to the counterintuitive conclusion that simple response requirements on a pathway would facilitate its evolution toward higher complexity." (Soyer and Bonhoeffer 2006).​

Or would you argue that an Ecoli is just as complex as a species that can make music and send one of its members to the moon?

No.

Based on this simplistic explanation for fitness, how do we arrive at the human eyeball?

The human eyball is not explained by fitness.

And why do we still have single cell organisms billions of years later?

Does the actual theory of evolution predict single cell organisms sould not exist now, or is it just your strawman version that predicts this?

Why were some with slight genetic changes able to reproduce successfully enough to produce a human over millions of generations, but others remained virtually unchanged for billions of years, also successfully reproducing like crazy.

I suppose the answer could be magic, but I'll stand by the notion that every microbe that ever lived did not exists under the exact same conditions, and did not magically experience the exact same mutations at exactly the same time ... or anything even close.

Is E coli more fit that a man or vice versa?

Yes to both.

Under your new, modern definition of fitness, the answer is a resounding NO!

Wrong. Under your personally engineered, strawman theory of evolution, the answer is a resounding NO!

So if man is no more fit than E coli, how did we ever get from a microbe to a man?

Why do I have to explain or validate your strawman?

How did the soup become the soup nazi? Before you whine, STRAWMAN!! STRAWMAN! I am not falling for your semantics tricks.

Between us, I'm not engaging in semantic tricks.

I am not making the claim that man's ancestor is E coli.

But you would if you found it convenient. I'll bet that you will, just as soon as you find it convenient. You have no principled refutation for evolution ... you just grasp at any opportunity--even if it means contradicting yourself.

I am merely drawing an example for argumentative purposes, which in your ignorance you fail to grasp, or you resort to playing word games.

Nonsense.

No, evolution does not teach that humans came from mice or amoeba's, or elephants came from lizards, but in principle, this is what it claims.

Nope. Not even in principle.

The TOE claims that Humans could have come from an "amoeba-LIKE" organism, or an amoeba like organism could be a distant ancestor. So I'm not falling for your black and white explanation denials, for the fact of the matter is, the TOE makes some preposterous generalized claims, but then says, but we really don't know the actual players.

Not at all surprising. I have pointed this out to you before, and I will point it out to you once again, without any fear that you will refuse to understand what is being explained to you.

Science ideally seeks unconditional certainty or "proof", but scientists never really claim such absolute certainty--they claim rather specifically qualified certainties. None of the conclusions made are asserted with unconditional certainty. Every single explanation made by scientists in their respective fields remains susceptible to scrutiny and invalidation in the light of better evidence and better understanding of the evidence. While every single explanation that posits some supernatural "Creator" or "Designer" or "God" thing is asserted on faith, with the conviction of unconditional certainty in the of the reality of the "Creator" or "Designer" or "God" thing--and unqualified certainty in the of the truth of the explanations of reality derived from that certainty. There is no uncertainty in the faith that is the foundation of religion, because faith does not express uncertainty.

Scientists--real scientists, practicing actual valid science--allow for the possibility that a creator is responsible for the existence of everything they observe; applying valid logic to the verifiable evidence simply does not currently point to that conclusion. However, there is no ontological barrier that would prevent a real scientist--practicing actual valid science--from concluding that a creator is responsible for the existence of everything he observes if applying valid logic to the verifiable evidence points to that conclusion.

Christian Creationists, on the other hand, having already presumed the absolute certainty of the existence of this invented Creator of theirs, simply dismiss any verifiable evidence that contradicts their baseless preconceptions, on the basis that such evidence does not support their baseless conclusions. Christian Creationists have imposed upon themselves an intellectually dishonest denial of the significant validity of select evidence and logically valid arguments that do not conform to, validate, or support their conclusions. Christian Creationists have sanctimoniously, without basis in any valid reasoning, for the purposes of promoting the illusion of their intellectual/spiritual/moral superiority, imposed upon themselves an ontological barrier preventing them from concluding that a Christian Creator is not necessary for the existence of everything they observe; especially if applying valid logic to the verifiable evidence points to that conclusion.

Science simply does not share the paradigm of starting from a position of unconditional certainty that religion or superstition does. The uncertainties understood in scientific explanations, working hypotheses, and speculations (expressed in, and as, assumptions) can obviously not be construed as faith. And while there may be no universally satisfying and agreed upon scientific explanation for the existence of the universe, none of those explanations are baseless in valid logic applied to verifiable evidence. Science actually still allows for the existence of a creator who may be responsible for all of the universe as we understand it; the valid logic, applied objectively to the current evidence simply does not require, or point to such a creator. Yet religion, your religion maybe, the Christian religion as practiced by Creationists certainly, has a fundamental problem with this position--as it has with any position that does not agree with or advance the preconceived and very specific conclusions asserted as facts of reality on faith. Christian Creationists, without any basis in verifiable evidence and/or valid logic, simply refuse to accept ANY theory that does not include the superstitious requirement of the existence of this "Creator" or "Designer" or "God" thing" of theirs.

 

[LOki]

Loki posted up this stupid and asinine example:

"There is no principle of the actual theory of evolution that says, "if [a trait does] not offer some reproductive advantage, that trait would not survive."

Example: You have skin, I have skin, all humans have skin--having skin offers no reproductive advantage. This is because if we all have this "advantage" it CANNOT be considered an advantage (over other humans who all have skin); it fails to meet the definition of advantage. So, based upon this principle of the version of evolution (that you invented for the purpose of disproving actual evolution), skin--which does not offer reproductive advantage (for some humans over other humans)--should not be present. Yet it is!"

Before you speak for the theory of evolution, I think you should ponder your statement above.

The statement you are referreing to is not mine ... IT IS YOURS!

It is the negative of the positive statement, traits that offer reproductive advantage will be more common in subsequent generations of a species.

And the positive statement (which you clearly did not make) makes a great deal of sense.

However, evolution tells us at some point, the traits that dominate will result in a new species. Back your skin example up a few million generations and then we could make up a "just so" story that humans have skin, because the ones without skin didn't survive.

Just to be clear, YOU are making up this ""just so" story that humans have skin, because the ones without skin didn't survive."

This is all YOU.

Answer me the question, what if one of the humans above is born without skin??? Will he have the reproductive advantage?

I couldn't tell you ... it's your "just so" story. In your "just so" story the environmental conditions--for whatever reason you might invent--might be such that this skinless human does indeed enjoy some reproductive advantage.

Or maybe this skinless human's invisible superfriend intervenes, and by design causes him and all his future progeny to live and pass on their skinless legacy.

Like I said, I couldn't tell you about your "just so" story.

We know all random mutations can do is give or take away right?

Give or take away what?

Eventually the skinless humans were out bred by the humans with skin.

Ok. If you say so.

Skin had to offer an advantage or humans wouldn't have it (Tautological argument).

Not an argument, but rather just consistent with the definition of fitness.

But in your stupid example above, you have not made this clarification. In fact, your Neo-Darwinistic definition of Fitness no longer requires any of your just so stories. It just is because it is.

That's just how definitions are.

All your bogus example above does is prove how silly the TOE really is. It really can't tell us anything can it? According to your flawed logic above, it can provide any hypothesis for the complex life we see around us. Because this is what you just said:

Traits that don't offer reproductive advantage can survive and remain unchanged in a species. Traits that do offer reproductive advantage can survive and remain in a species. So your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to go back to all the fossil evidence and dna evidence and tell us which ones are which.

All of this, is due to your confusion about the difference between what constitutes a definition of terms, and what constitutes a theory, and what constitutes an argument.

Until you get that all straightened out, your best strategy is to just STFU.

 

[LOki]

Loki (is that plural for little Lokee's?)

Let's look at your "link in lieu of cut and paste" from your atheist, canned-response website you somehow think proves your point:

Claim CA500:
Natural selection, or "survival of the fittest," is tautologous (i.e., uses circular reasoning) because it says that the fittest individuals leave the most offspring, but it defines the fittest individuals as those that leave the most offspring.

UR: Whuh? This is what Loki quoted from Wiki: Modern evolutionary theory defines fitness not by how long an organism lives, but by how successful it is at reproducing. If an organism lives half as long as others of its species, but has twice as many offspring surviving to adulthood, its genes will become more common in the adult population of the next generation.

This was a response to your strawman that alleged that fitness was about how long the organism survived.

I can't help it if Gish presents your bullshit better than you do.

This also from Wiki: However, this does not imply that natural selection is always directional and results in adaptive evolution; natural selection often results in the maintenance of the status quo by eliminating less fit variants. Now with Loki's definition from the same article: Natural Selection often results in maintenance of the status quo by eliminating animals that don't reproduce offspring that make it to adulthood as successfully as others???? WHuh? What does that even mean? Sounds tautological to me!!!

That's just the nature of definitions, you retard.

From Wiki: "Overall, the combined effect of all selection pressures at various levels determines the overall fitness of an individual, and hence the outcome of natural selection." Once again, let's fill in Loki's definition. Overall, the combined effect of all selection pressures at various levels determines the overall ability of an organism to pass its genes to the next adult generation, and hence the outcome of natural selection. What the?

"What the?" indeed. Here, you confuse a discussion of the theory of natural selection (and the role fitness plays in it) with the definition of fitness itself.

Why do you insist upon doing that?

Response:

"Survival of the fittest" is a poor way to think about evolution. Darwin himself did not use the phrase in the first edition of Origin of Species. What Darwin said is that heritable variations lead to differential reproductive success. This is not circular or tautologous. It is a prediction that can be, and has been, experimentally verified (Weiner 1994).

The phrase cannot be a tautology if it is not trivially true. Yet there have been theories proposing that the fittest individuals perish:
Alpheus Hyatt proposed that lineages, like individuals, inevitably go through stages of youth, maturity, old age, and death. Towards the end of this cycle, the fittest individuals are more likely to perish than others (Hyatt 1866; Lefalophodon n.d.).
The theory of orthogenesis says that certain trends, once started, kept progressing even though they become detrimental and lead to extinction. For example, it was held that Irish elks, which had enormous antlers, died out because the size increase became too much to support.
The "fittest" individuals could be considered those that are ideally suited to a particular environment. Such ideal adaptation, however, comes at the cost of being more poorly adapted to other environments. If the environment changes, the fittest individuals from it will no longer be well adapted to any environment, and the less fit but more widely adapted organisms will survive. [What the Freak does this even mean? I read, sometimes organisms better suited to the environment don't survive because their environment changes and then the ones that shouldn't be there because they aren't suite to the environment become suited to the new environment. WTfreak? Huh? Can't we come up with something better than this for the FACT of evolution????? UR]

Of course. Can't you manage just a little bit better reading comprehension?

The fittest, to Darwin, were not those which survived, but those which could be expected to survive on the basis of their traits. For example, wild dogs selectively prey on impalas which are weaker according to bone marrow index (Pole et al. 2003). With that definition, survival of the fittest is not a tautology. [Yeah but this is no longer what Neo-Dariwinism says. They gave up on "just so" stories of might be's and could be's and just settled on "natural selection keeps the traits of the species that are the best reproducers of adult offspring. But in light of this over simplified natural selection, how do we get from the point a to b it claims?] Similarly, survival can be defined not in terms of the individual's life span, but in terms of leaving a relatively large contribution to the next generation. Defined thus, survival of the fittest becomes more or less what Darwin said, and is not a tautology. [No it doesn't!!!]

Sure it does.

Did everyone just read what I just read?

Yes. The difference is the sensible among us all understood it.

Didn't this guy just say it is not tautological because it is not tautological???

No.

HA! This comment you posted above, Einstein, says we really don't have a way of determining which animals are most fit other than the fact that they survive more.

Nonsense. Fitness is measurable.

There is no rhyme or reason to be applied to fitness because sometimes the biggest and strongest aren't the ones that survive.

You just refuse to accept the definition of fitness is not the same thing a natural selection.

Yet we are asked to believe this process without a point, evolution, is responsible for the complexity we see all around us.

Do you have a better one? Besides magic?

We aren't talking about horizontal adaptive change. We are talking about a human being coming from a single-celled ancestor. So what does this response above tell us about that process that supposedly occurred over billions of years? I will tell you what this response says. We don't know how it did it we just know it did it because it did it.

Science ideally seeks unconditional certainty or "proof", but scientists never really claim such absolute certainty--they claim rather specifically qualified certainties. None of the conclusions made are asserted with unconditional certainty. Every single explanation made by scientists in their respective fields remains susceptible to scrutiny and invalidation in the light of better evidence and better understanding of the evidence.

We have been told all along that natural selection causes species to evolve by keeping traits that are an accidental "improvement" (random mutation) and that is how humans came from apes, who came from blank, who came from blank and so on and so forth. [I am assuming that one would consider the eyeball an improvement over light sensitive cells] So now we're told the theory really doesn't even have a way to determine what is an improvement and what isn't.

That is correct. It's not magic. Natural selection is not sentient. There is not predisposed "direction" or "plan" or "design."

All we can really say now is that we got here because our ancestors had traits which were good/bad, offered improvement/no improvement, that help them have more offspring than other animals that didn't have the traits which were good/bad, offered improvement/no

Your opinion of what is good or bad is entirely irrelevent to the point.

Which is the root of your issue with the theory of evolution.

And finally, the FACT of evolution totally breaks down with this little Wiki gem: Re: "survival of the fittest": "Although the phrase is still often used by non-biologists, modern biologists avoid it because it is tautological if "fittest" is read to mean "functionally superior" and is applied to individuals rather than considered as an averaged quantity over populations.

See? You are a non-biologist, and you insist upon asserting your tautological notions of "survival of the fittest" is the same thing as the notion of "natural selection used by actual biologists.

How can this be? Is this saying we have opposable thumbs, NOT because they are functionally superior, but because the dudes with opposable thumbs donated more genes to the next generation than their non-opposed thumb buddies?

This would be consistent with the definition of fitness. "Fitness" is not an explanation for why traits are selected for--fitness is a measurable observation that traits were selected for.

Are eyeballs not functionally superior to light sensitive cells?

In the dark? No. Where a "Creator" selects--by design--light-sensitive cells over eyes, functional superiority is ENTIRELY irrellevent.

Are we saying the animals with eyeballs didn't survive because their eyes were functionally superior to their light sensitive counterparts, but that the animals with eyeballs were more fit only because they contributed more genes to the next generation.

YES!

Man this evolution thing seems totally confused.

No. YOU are confused.

Under this model, an asexual animal that could run extremely fast while simultaneously managing a 45 second gestation period of 1,000 offspring in a single litter, would be the logical evolutionary outcome.

No.

If reproductive success is the only measure, humans, with their one or two offspring litter and 9 month gestation period would seem the illogical outcome of such a process.

Reproductive success is NOT the ONLY measure of evolutionary success.

Darwin said it. I believe it. That settles it!

Sorry pal, evolutionists are not afflicted by the same cult of personality that you "Hovindists" are.

 

[UltimateReality]

As expected, the Christian creationists should not be expected to understand the process here.

Yeah, because as the lead investigator on several high profile cases, I never spent any time in court or before a judge. What is your legal background?

The judge made a decision based on evidence presented before the court.

I suppose it would be best to explain these things to fundies in short sentences of gawd friendly monosyllables.

And you know that Casey Luskin didn't base his information on evidence without having ever read the book? You are so foolish, probably because you didn't go to college.

Oh my. The little Christian zealot is as frantic as usual, offering up nothing (as usual), but gargantuan fonts.

I’m always suspicious of creationist “authors” who claim expertise in a subject yet have no formal training in that subject. That’s why it’s actually comical when a zoologist and a fundie Christian attorney “author” a book regarding human origins. It should be a red flag when credentials assigned to fundie creationists have no real connection to the material they are authoring.

Neither Gauger or Luskin have any academic credentials to give them credibility for work in the field of “human origins”. Neither is an archeologist or biologist and neither have degrees that coincide with the knowledge necessary to develop a thriving biological dissertation on life origins.

It's a shame that all of the above will be lost on the fundie zealot who understands nothing but what he is instructed by creationist ministries.

Out-of-the-madrassah and-into-the-classroom zealots are a danger to themselves and those around them. Most folks do not support Christian zealots controlling science education in this country – obviously the constitution disallows that.

Christian Taliban can believe whatever they choose to believe, but to evoke the coercive efforts of fear and superstition to impose their personal failings upon others is antithetical to the human ideal of freedom of (from) religion..

Second Ad Holliemen attack. I am always surprised when people on forums ignore questions about their qualifications to make such statements and are evasive about what their educational background is.

 

[UltimateReality]

Useless, repetitive nonsense deleted for brevity.

Loki, you can say fitness is not natural selection 100 times but it still won't fool anyone that your claim is anything but a strawman. Please go back through my 3 posts and find one instance where I made the claim fitness IS natural selection. Again, your reading comprehension is way off.

 

[UltimateReality]

Science ideally seeks unconditional certainty or "proof", but scientists never really claim such absolute certainty--they claim rather specifically qualified certainties.

Lie #1. Numerous "scientist" regularly refer to the FACT of evolution, presuming it to be true in all cases, and scoff at those who would question its validity.

Science simply does not share the paradigm of starting from a position of unconditional certainty that religion or superstition does.

Lie #2. The majority of evolutionary biologists enter into "experiments" with the preconceived notion that evolution has to be true. This almost always influences the outcome. Data that does not support their conclusions is assumed to be wrong and many times thrown out.

The uncertainties understood in scientific explanations, working hypotheses, and speculations (expressed in, and as, assumptions) can obviously not be construed as faith.

Lie #3. Evolutionary scientists make multiple assumptions, which actually could be valid, stand-alone processes in the present, but do not occur naturally, and combine them, such as the 43 might haves and could haves previously quoted, into a presumed, specifically ordered sequence, with absolutely no evidence from the distant past to support their claim, and no observation in the present for even two of the processes occurring natrually in sequence and then entertain this fairy tale as a legitimate and distinct possibility for the outcome they are trying to support. This type of reasoning takes IMMENSE Faith.

 

[UltimateReality]

Loki posted up this stupid and asinine example:

"There is no principle of the actual theory of evolution that says, "if [a trait does] not offer some reproductive advantage, that trait would not survive."

Example: You have skin, I have skin, all humans have skin--having skin offers no reproductive advantage. This is because if we all have this "advantage" it CANNOT be considered an advantage (over other humans who all have skin); it fails to meet the definition of advantage. So, based upon this principle of the version of evolution (that you invented for the purpose of disproving actual evolution), skin--which does not offer reproductive advantage (for some humans over other humans)--should not be present. Yet it is!"

Before you speak for the theory of evolution, I think you should ponder your statement above.

The statement you are referreing to is not mine ... IT IS YOURS!

It is the negative of the positive statement, traits that offer reproductive advantage will be more common in subsequent generations of a species.

And the positive statement (which you clearly did not make) makes a great deal of sense.

Just to be clear, YOU are making up this ""just so" story that humans have skin, because the ones without skin didn't survive."

This is all YOU.

I couldn't tell you ... it's your "just so" story. In your "just so" story the environmental conditions--for whatever reason you might invent--might be such that this skinless human does indeed enjoy some reproductive advantage.

Or maybe this skinless human's invisible superfriend intervenes, and by design causes him and all his future progeny to live and pass on their skinless legacy.

Like I said, I couldn't tell you about your "just so" story.

Give or take away what?

Ok. If you say so.

Not an argument, but rather just consistent with the definition of fitness.

But in your stupid example above, you have not made this clarification. In fact, your Neo-Darwinistic definition of Fitness no longer requires any of your just so stories. It just is because it is.

That's just how definitions are.

All your bogus example above does is prove how silly the TOE really is. It really can't tell us anything can it? According to your flawed logic above, it can provide any hypothesis for the complex life we see around us. Because this is what you just said:

Traits that don't offer reproductive advantage can survive and remain unchanged in a species. Traits that do offer reproductive advantage can survive and remain in a species. So your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to go back to all the fossil evidence and dna evidence and tell us which ones are which.

All of this, is due to your confusion about the difference between what constitutes a definition of terms, and what constitutes a theory, and what constitutes an argument.

Until you get that all straightened out, your best strategy is to just STFU.

Whatever, you have made this claim over and over but you can't seem to rebut it with an actual argument. This is so typical of all you posts. Without the ability to cut and paste, your as useless as Obama without a teleprompter.

 

[UltimateReality]

Science ideally seeks unconditional certainty or "proof", but scientists never really claim such absolute certainty--they claim rather specifically qualified certainties. None of the conclusions made are asserted with unconditional certainty. Every single explanation made by scientists in their respective fields remains susceptible to scrutiny and invalidation in the light of better evidence and better understanding of the evidence.

You have repeated this phrase numerous times throughout this thread. Sounds alot like a cut and paste from Immanuel Kant or some other philosopher although I can't quite put my finger on it. You should use quotes and links and avoid plagiarizing like Hollie.

 

[UltimateReality]

Sorry pal, evolutionists are not afflicted by the same cult of personality that you "Hovindists" are.

Only in your dreams, pumpkin. Only in your dreams.

 

[LOki]

Loki posted up this stupid and asinine example:

"There is no principle of the actual theory of evolution that says, "if [a trait does] not offer some reproductive advantage, that trait would not survive."

Example: You have skin, I have skin, all humans have skin--having skin offers no reproductive advantage. This is because if we all have this "advantage" it CANNOT be considered an advantage (over other humans who all have skin); it fails to meet the definition of advantage. So, based upon this principle of the version of evolution (that you invented for the purpose of disproving actual evolution), skin--which does not offer reproductive advantage (for some humans over other humans)--should not be present. Yet it is!"

Before you speak for the theory of evolution, I think you should ponder your statement above.

The statement you are referreing to is not mine ... IT IS YOURS!

And the positive statement (which you clearly did not make) makes a great deal of sense.

Just to be clear, YOU are making up this ""just so" story that humans have skin, because the ones without skin didn't survive."

This is all YOU.

I couldn't tell you ... it's your "just so" story. In your "just so" story the environmental conditions--for whatever reason you might invent--might be such that this skinless human does indeed enjoy some reproductive advantage.

Or maybe this skinless human's invisible superfriend intervenes, and by design causes him and all his future progeny to live and pass on their skinless legacy.

Like I said, I couldn't tell you about your "just so" story.

Give or take away what?

Ok. If you say so.

Not an argument, but rather just consistent with the definition of fitness.

That's just how definitions are.

All your bogus example above does is prove how silly the TOE really is. It really can't tell us anything can it? According to your flawed logic above, it can provide any hypothesis for the complex life we see around us. Because this is what you just said:

Traits that don't offer reproductive advantage can survive and remain unchanged in a species. Traits that do offer reproductive advantage can survive and remain in a species. So your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to go back to all the fossil evidence and dna evidence and tell us which ones are which.

All of this, is due to your confusion about the difference between what constitutes a definition of terms, and what constitutes a theory, and what constitutes an argument.

Until you get that all straightened out, your best strategy is to just STFU.

Whatever, you have made this claim over and over but you can't seem to rebut it with an actual argument. This is so typical of all you posts. Without the ability to cut and paste, your as useless as Obama without a teleprompter.

Your surrender is accepted.

 

[LOki]

Science ideally seeks unconditional certainty or "proof", but scientists never really claim such absolute certainty--they claim rather specifically qualified certainties. None of the conclusions made are asserted with unconditional certainty. Every single explanation made by scientists in their respective fields remains susceptible to scrutiny and invalidation in the light of better evidence and better understanding of the evidence.

You have repeated this phrase numerous times throughout this thread. Sounds alot like a cut and paste from Immanuel Kant or some other philosopher although I can't quite put my finger on it. You should use quotes and links and avoid plagiarizing like Hollie.

I can't plagiarize myself.