uncadonego on 26/6/2009 at 18:49
The particular forum conversation I was thinking of referring to the mean streak went way beyond the guy being wrong. It was just mean and full of name calling and ridicule. The guy asked questions. They could have simply answered them. That's not what happened. I've seen others similar.
catbarf on 26/6/2009 at 19:10
Quote Posted by uncadonego
No...the term macroevolution was first used in 1927 by a Russian entomologist named Iurii Filipchenko. He supported evolution, not creationism, I'm pretty sure. I think his great great great grandson ends up on the Enterprise.
That doesn't mean it isn't a term almost exclusively used by Creationists today to create a stupid, arbitrary dichotomy. It lets them conveniently accept that bacteria change in response to antibiotics, while denying that animals can become other species.
Quote Posted by uncadonego
It's an arbitrary assumption that the universe would be different whether or not there was a Creator. It's an assumption that it would act funky based on "arbitrary whims". If there is a Creator, the laws of the universe would be created and governed by Him.
And therefore you can never, EVER establish that a specific event is predictable and repeatable, because at any time God could violate the laws of reality. It's pure chaos. Science is about removing possible sources of error in order to draw a conclusion, and God mucking about with it is a source that, if accepted as a possibility, can't be removed.
Science has to assume that no supernatural forces are at work because it cannot account for supernatural forces. It's not a weakness- science deals with the natural and observable phenomena, and leaves you alone in your choice of supernatural beliefs.
Pyrian on 26/6/2009 at 19:20
Quote Posted by uncadonego
Besides that no matter if all of our carefully controlled breeds of dog melded into a few sets of adapted breeds or just one mutt breed, they're still all the exact same species.
Well, no, they're really not. Calling a chihuahua the same species as a great dane is silliness. Calling a grey wolf a different species from a husky is about as silly. We call wolves and coyotes different species, but they interbreed in the wild, while we call dogs the same species even when they couldn't possibly interbreed in the wild.
It's important to realize that the very existence of "species" as such is more of a convenience of nomenclature than a real phenomenon.
uncadonego on 26/6/2009 at 19:33
all breeds of dogs are the same species. Chihuahas and Great Danes are the same species.
Pyrian on 26/6/2009 at 19:35
Chihuahuas and Great Danes fail all of the standard ways of defining a single species. They are not sufficiently similar in form and cannot interbreed in the wild. The fact that we call them a single species is an aberration caused by the fact that the word "species" is simply insufficient to describe reality.
In short, you completely failed to comprehend the point of my prior post.
uncadonego on 26/6/2009 at 19:53
any breed of dog can successfully breed with any other breed
I should probably add that I realize you'd have to be one awfully determined dog, but one woman on a dog forum had a Jack Russell that successfully inseminated a Doberman all on his own.
DDL on 26/6/2009 at 20:31
Yeah, I would tend to interpret 'can interbreed in the wild' as "sperm from one can successfully fertilise eggs from the other", rather than bringing in actual physical differences, since it's a direct and unalterable line, and avoids the fact that otherwise you'd be calling a "Chihuaha without a stepladder and some rohypnol" a different species to one with. (obvious silliness aside)
Also, as an aside, did anyone else notice the original link's "50 page preview" included the full 200+ pages of the rest of the book too? Why buy, when you can just print pages 51-256? :)
Muzman on 26/6/2009 at 21:26
Quote Posted by uncadonego
The particular forum conversation I was thinking of referring to the mean streak went way beyond the guy being wrong. It was just mean and full of name calling and ridicule. The guy asked questions. They could have simply answered them. That's not what happened. I've seen others similar.
Yeah the wide eyed fundies generally cop a pasting. But they are generally trolling in a certain sense. Some pastor of theirs has sent them out fully "armed" with a pamphlet load of "tough questions" from the early seventies that have been refuted again and again and again, and again and again,
and again. Talk Origins Archive represents 20 years worth of argument against Creationist positions far far more sophisticated (and often quite reasonable on the face of it) than anything Comfort and his crew bother with.
It seems harsh to assume it but their 'bruise easilly' innocence is a rhetorical stance as much as anything else. There's plenty of rude cheer squad types on the science side, sure, but for even the more reserved debating types the time for more politeness is over. And I can see why. These people just will not learn.
Harvester on 26/6/2009 at 22:35
Quote Posted by Muzman
There's plenty of rude cheer squad types on the science side
WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, CREATIONISM IS JUST AS MUCH A SCIENCE AS EVOLUTIONISM, AFTER ALL EVOLUTION IS JUST A THEORY WHEREAS CREATIONISM IS PROVEN BY THE BIBLE!!! :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:
:p
Dia on 26/6/2009 at 23:12
What drives me crazy is when faced with facts, figures, & stats, the Fundies puff up like little blowfish and smugly cry 'IT'S ALL ABOUT FAITH!!!! BLIND FAITH!' like they've just won the argument. You honestly cannot have a logic-based conversation with people like that.
Makes me want to behave in a very un-Christianlike manner towards them.
