If you believe that man evolved from a “lower” form, don’t say that “[t]here is no fossil evidence to support that a lower species mutated into a compassionate and rational philosopher.” Evolution is based on common ancestry. The thought that multiple lines of evolution without common ancestry would use the same DNA is absurd. The simplest solution is that we all evolved from a common ancestor. I’m sorry if that upsets you, although I don’t really understand why.

You were able to clearly communicate, and I never disputed this, that you disbelieve that man and apes have a common ancestor. I just pointed out that many vague thousands of vague scientists don’t agree with you, and that based on the reasonable assumption that they know more than you do, I’m siding with them. The number of scientists who accept a theory, particularly if they understand it, is important. If half were on one side and half the other, then we’d have a controversy. We don’t. Very few biologists dispute evolution, though the exact mechanisms are a subject for debate…among scientists, because they know what they’re talking about.

If you don’t want people to think you’re a creationist, it would probably be best if you didn’t refer to radiometric dating as fallible, controversial and a guess. Creationists do that, and you insist you’re not one. Or even religious. Try saying, instead, that it’s imperfect. Stress the 99.6% figure you used earlier.

Science doesn’t know what triggered the Big Bang. There is no consensus that it was, or even could have been, triggered by an influx of energy from “outside,” even if you insist that it’s a “common” idea. I don’t know what you mean by “common” or why you think it’s important; Bigfoot, Atlantis and alien abductions are also “common” ideas. So what?

“These are questions science cannot answer.” Good thing you told me you’re not religious or a creationist, because I wouldn’t be able to figure it out from what you’re writing. Perhaps you simply forgot that, in the past, there were many, many more things that science couldn’t answer but now can, and so you forgot the last word to that sentence: “…yet.” Written correctly, “”These are questions science cannot answer…yet.” See how much more accurate that is? Glad I could help.

No one asked you about your degree; you were so eager to show us how much you knew you threw it out there. And once you did, asking for clarification is perfectly appropriate. I didn’t ask your name or the year you got it, or even make the cheap shot that it was probably from a Christian school, now did I?

So, Cory, I’m going to have to say that the evidence shows you to be a creationist trying desperately, and quite futilely, to present himself as someone who’s looked at all the evidence and, from the heights of his amazing degree in biology, declared that all those dumb old scientists are wrong. (You are aware that evolutionary biologists also have degrees in biology, right? And that they work in the field? Just checking.)

And, no, I don’t think you’re stupid either, but you are disgusting. The phrase I frequently read referring to others like you is “Liars for Jesus”, although it isn’t necessarily limited to Christians, just religious fanatics who distort science to achieve their own ends.

Another long entry. See how long it takes to refute lies? You’re a typical creationist: lie, then when your lies are refuted, you lie again, insisting the other person never addressed your lies, then you tell the same lies.

But you know what? I’m going to do you a favor. I’m leaving. I was never really talking to you, I was talking to anyone who might come here and read your nonsense, thinking it was gospel (pun intended, of course). The smart ones, the ones who have a chance of seeing what’s true and what’s – well, your posts – have by now figured it out, so I would be a fool if I responded to you again. Anyway, you have nothing new to say, and certainly nothing useful.

Bye-bye, Bubba. Start your rant about how I was vague, and didn’t understand the subtle philosophical points you were trying to make. I won’t be here to read it, but you can feel you won. I like to leave my readers happy.

PS – If you’re smart, you won’t respond at all, so everyone will think you never read this.

Go back through my posts, you misquote and misunderstand me, as well as my argument. So I will make one last attempt to help you understand what it was exactly that I was arguing. My original point was similar to what Jack pointed out- the hypocrisy and narrow minds of people. Go back and re-read my posts without lumping me into your comfortable stereotype of a mainstream creationist, I am not. I also never once disputed evolution (in relation to humans or any other creature). I disputed common ancestry between apes and humans. READ WHAT I WROTE BEFORE YOU MAKE A FOOL OF YOURSELF AGAIN. I do not think that you are not intelligent, I think that you have a poor grasp of what you read, you have proved this by so grossly misunderstanding the original discussion.

Vague, yes. All of your points made, lack any sort of specificity. Which is especially dangerous since THE ONLY mainstream principle that I do not accept is a common ancestor of apes and humans, yet you seem to find a point of contention due to your lack of reading comprehension on almost every modern day scientific principle. I am not arguing against those! Are our dating methods fallible? Absolutely, but they are our best guess at this point. Stop latching on to the peripheral of this discussion… you get distracted so far from the main point that you start arguing about how many scientists believe in evolution. I DO TOO! You argue like a hyperactive child.

You have said that I have no idea what I am talking about, and referred me to physicists twice now regarding thermodynamics and the conservation of energy… but you have not said why (what I said about energy being introduced into the system does not violate any part of the Big bang Theory- which I believe is very plausible). My assertion that energy in some form must have been introduced to the original mass of matter that is now our universe is not my own… it is quite common. How else do you explain an explosion? If all matter in our universe was concentrated at one point, what caused the explosion? Heat? That is matter. Where did it come from! These are questions that science cannot answer.

Not that it is any of your business, but I have B.A. in Biology with a minor in Chemistry. My degree plan concentrated on vertebrate histology and biochemistry. I received that degree from a Big 12 University.

Go back and re-read all of my posts with Ritalin in your system and with your big boy pants on.

Please forgive me for not proof-reading my posts on a blog, when I mistakenly used the word “proves” a few times rather than “suggests”. I was posting during work hours and therefore was trying to get my point across without being too verbose- refer to your post for an example of
why this practice should be avoided in the “comment section” of a blog.

I never once misstated science, I disagree with “thousands of scientists” as you generically stated.

The only time that you state any facts in your entire post is when you try to argue with the point that I made in passing about Darwin’s book not mentioning mankind. Most of the flaws in my post that you point out are merely open to debate due to my desire for brevity. A typical example of your astute argument is the following quote “This evidence is good enough for thousands of scientists who work in the field. This does not make them right and you wrong, but inasmuch as you have no evidence to refute their theory” Come on Pete, you are better than that, this is so vague. I find it hard to defend myself against such hard hitting sources that you cite, such as: “thousands of scientists”

The fact that you said this “But fossils can give us a good idea of the quality of the brain the animal had, and therefore the potential for how well it could use its brain.” Shows that you will probably not see the fundamental philosophical challenge my argument presents to science. And no, fossils do not show us the quality of the brain, merely the size (which we know is NOT an interpretable indices of intelligence).

While you may not push your beliefs onto others, this is not the position of the world’s major churches and religions. They push theirs onto everyone they can. Fairy tales like a talking serpent, a woman being created from a man’s rib, Noah’s ark, Jonah living in the belly of a great fish, a burning bush that talks, turning water into wine and feeding masses with a few fish and loaves of bread, raising the dead, casting out demons from the mentally deranged, etc. etc.

Whether the universe was created by a creator is certainly a matter of philosophical debate, but it is not science. There is no empirical evidence that there is a God. Science deals in facts and laboratory verifiable evidence; religion deals in faith and purports itself using fear of the unknown. Science gives us technologies and things to make our lives easier. Religion gives us a way to shirk responsibility for those things that we believe we have no control over, and to place them into the hands of “God”.

And even if a “creator” made the universe, it is equally plausible that it was Zeus, Rah, or any number of the deities fabricated by man over millenniums as it could have been any Judeo-Christian version of “God”.

Or possibly it was a great spaghetti monster that made all this stuff. Or aliens from another dimension. I am just as likely to believe they did it as I am any other absentee “God”.

All the Best,
Cory

I agree with you that we humans are more than just the sum of our parts. I believe that we all have a spark of the divine within us. What that spark is, how it got there, and why it’s there are all questions I don’t pretend to have the answers to.

You’ve shown me that not all people who advocate creationism are religious nuts. Thank you for showing me this.

Regards,
Brad

I simply submit that there is no evidence for common ancestry in the fossil record. There are transitional fossils, but they do not account for a jump from one species to another. I believe that punctuated equilibrium occurs, but not to transform one species into another- there is no record of that. Just because our physical form is similar to that of apes, does not imply that we are ancestors. Our physical form is not what makes us human, there is more to us than that. There will never be a fossil that allows us to observe higher thinking- fossils only allow us to observe physical form. The ability to use reason, to show compassion, to think critically remains isolated in the human species. There is no fossil evidence to support that a lower species mutated into a compassionate and rational philosopher. It is just not possible to prove that, so why take on that burden of proof required in order to claim that science can show beyond a reasonable doubt that this transformation occurred?