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edwest2
Guest
So all you’re saying is that your sources are better than my sources. You should realize that what you call popular sources are so identified since the average person is not a subscriber to Nature. A friend of mine did subscribe to it by the way.Nonsense. Of course you do.
You take one data point that you think supports your case and ignore the hundreds that stand against it and pretend that that is justification for repeating a falsehood over and over again. Read my lips: the dinosaur-bird link has not been disproved or weakened in the last few weeks.
Not in this case - have you? But I’ve read the scientific paper. Have you?
It’s very sad - you really don’t get it, do you? It’s deceptive to take a single peripheral claim, particularly one made in the popular press, whether it’s made by someone with a university address or not, that stands in opposition to a huge body of evidence and the consensus of the palaeobiological community, and use that as a trigger to repeatedly state an untruth as a fact (in this case the untruth that the dinosaur-bird link has been demolished). Don’t you see how unethical that is? Probably not.
Well they almost certainly are wrong, and you do not have the knowledge to judge one way or the other so whether you accept it or not is neither here nor there, but that is not the point. The hypothesis of theropod dinosaur ancestry of birds stands on a huge body of evidence and remains in the same rude health after these claims in the popular press as it did before - in other words, as things stand the *fact *is that the link has not been disproved and by repeating your claim that it is, you are merely repeating a falsehood, which cannot be excused by a link to a popular article. What you are suppressing is the vastly more compelling evidence for the dinosaur-bird link and the fact that Quick and Ruben have not disproved it. No-one suggests that you shouldn’t link to contrary research, but neither should you misrepresent its significance. Do you understand now?
As I pointed out, junkdna.com is itself junk and therefore not authoritative. If you would like some respectable and authoritative sources for evidence that some non-coding DNA is functional, I can give you several.
However, again, that is not the key point. The key points are that a) the bulk of most non-coding DNA has no known function and is not conserved so is unlikely to have one; and b) even if every one of the three billion nucleotides in the human genome is functional then the origins of the bulk of the human sequences would still be retroviral insertions, retrotransposons, duplications, processed pseudogenes, tandem repeats - the legacy of molecular evolution. Your claims about non-coding DNA (that it has been shown to be all functional and not reflecting the history of molecular evolution) are therefore false. See above to try and understand why misrepresentation is dishonest.
Furthermore, it is wrong to imply that scientists held that non-coding DNA was all non-functional because of a preconception (especially one that you are unable or unwilling to identify - that’s merely poisoning the well). They held it as a best hypothesis based on what was known about the various molecular processes at the time. So, they have refined that view as new evidence has come along. No-one can truthfully claim that we know no more about the mechanisms of inheritance than we did in 1952, and that is all down to the work of scientists - not theologians, not philosophers, not apologists, not Young Earth Creationists, not Intelligent Design proponents but scientists. So yes, the objective of science is to find out the truth about the way the world works - in spite of your ill-informed contempt for it.
Alec
evolutionpages.com
As someone who does research as part of my job, I recognize indoctrinated bias when I see it. There is a reference at junkdna.com that ignoring the value of junk dna might go down as one of the biggest mistakes in biology. The evolutionary dogma is the ultimate filter – the one taught to everybody.
I’ll just leave with this. While growing up, I kept hearing scientists say that if a planet was a certain distance from its sun, had liquid water and the building blocks of life (amino acids) then we would expect to find life out there. What a bunch of baloney. Back when people thought that flies were generated from a collection of dirty clothing, I can see why people could make such an inference. Today, there is no spontaneous way to generate life. None. Yet, I, and too many others, took the unnamed and named scientists at their word. Why? Because I was told that they were authorities and certainly, I assumed, no one would allow them on TV if they did not actually know what they were talking about. I was wrong. I took as fact something that is a total fantasy. I’m tired of having my trust abused.
Peace,
Ed
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hecd2
Guest
It’s not info - it’s apologetics from Hugh Ross’s bunch of old earth creationists. Mr Rana, although sounding very reasonable, makes a number of false claims which completely undermine his uninformed opinion that Anchiornis huxleyi does not resolve the temporal paradox.Some additional info on the dino-bird finding.
Critical amongst these are:
- False claim that, on the evidence, Archaeopteryx lithographica and Anchiornis could have overlapped. Archaeopteryx is dated to less than 150 million years, Anchiornis to 151 to 161 million years. In the words of the paper: “Anchiornis thus represents the only feathered species unquestionably older than Archaeopteryx lithographica.”
- False claim that, because the fossil was originally discovered by a farmer then its horizon is doubtful. Rana obviously hasn’t read the paper where the authors say in the supplementary information: “LPM-B00169 preserves a nearly complete skeleton and extensive plumage… It was collected by a local farmer from the Tiaojishan Formation at the Daxishan locality in the same county and was acquired by the expedition team of the Shenyang Normal University when the team was excavating at Yaolugou locality, Jianchang County. Two of us (D. Y. Hu and L. J. Zhang) then visited the quarry that produced LPM0B00169. We compared, in detail, the slabs containing LPM-B00169 and the sediments in the quarry and **positively **identified the layer that produced the specimen. Later, we excavated in this quarry and collected a number of fossils including two ptycholepid fish specimens and a second Anchiornis specimen, which is in preparation now”. My emphasis. So much for Rana’s claim that the scientists relied on the farmer’s memory to identify the horizon.
- False claim that the tegument of feathered dinosaurs is hotly disputed - it’s not
Alec
evolutionpages.com
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hecd2
Guest
In this case they are.So all you’re saying is that your sources are better than my sources.
So why do you fall for it constantly?As someone who does research as part of my job, I recognize indoctrinated bias when I see it.
Well then, you should stop reading creationist websites and trawling the internet for sensationalised reports of scientific outliers, and learn a little real science for a change. You’ve only yourself to blame.I’m tired of having my trust abused.
Alec
evolutionpages.com
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buffalo
Guest
Did you share any of this?I’m not sure how to do it – it’s not a written text but sixty PowerPoint slides. We covered a lot of ground, from the philosophy of science to biblical interpretation, theological anthropology, soteriology, theodicy, and eschatology. It was for a Catholic high school – sort of a capstone course for senior women. We discussed six areas of Catholic doctrine in light of evolution.
The Catholic Church and ID: What’s really happening?
…Meanwhile, the Vatican is now selling holy cards in many languages at souvenir stands throughout Rome, featuring a key portion from Benedict XVI’s first homily, including the sentence: “We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is a thought of God.” Hundreds of thousands of visitors take them home to destinations throughout the world.
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edwest2
Guest
Thank you, buffalo.
A) We are the products of the mechanism.
B) We are willed and predestined.
If we teach our children A then all life around them is product. Love is only a necessary chemical reaction, created by our genes. The only imperatives are survival and reproduction.
The same Jesus who ascended will return. Not Jesus the symbol, but the Living God.
Peace,
Ed
A) We are the products of the mechanism.
B) We are willed and predestined.
If we teach our children A then all life around them is product. Love is only a necessary chemical reaction, created by our genes. The only imperatives are survival and reproduction.
The same Jesus who ascended will return. Not Jesus the symbol, but the Living God.
Peace,
Ed
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itinerant1
Guest
If you want to know what the firmament refers to try A Path Through Genesis by Bruce Vawter; or The Two-Edged Sword, or Dictionary of the Bible by Fr. John L. McKenzie. Genesis represents a primitive, pre-scientific cosmology, one shared by Babylonian societies of the same cultural milieu. Fundamentalism has never found a home in the Catholic Church, so you will always be challenged by one side or the other regarding any of your untenable interpretations of Genesis.Just what do you think the ancients were referring to by the firmament?
The ancient Hebrews were satisfied with their non-scientific view of the world. They were not speculators or students of nature as were the ancient Greeks and modern scientists.
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StAnastasia
Guest
No.Did you share any of this?
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StAnastasia
Guest
Cutting edge research from 1917.
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buffalo
Guest
That is exactly the strength of Genesis. God communicated in a way that was understandable to the ancients and the moderns.If you want to know what the firmament refers to try A Path Through Genesis by Bruce Vawter; or The Two-Edged Sword, or Dictionary of the Bible by Fr. John L. McKenzie. Genesis represents a primitive, pre-scientific cosmology, one shared by Babylonian societies of the same cultural milieu. Fundamentalism has never found a home in the Catholic Church, so you will always be challenged by one side or the other regarding any of your untenable interpretations of Genesis.
The ancient Hebrews were satisfied with their non-scientific view of the world. They were not speculators or students of nature as were the ancient Greeks and modern scientists.
Pagans had no real interest in science as they thought the universe was chaotic. It was the Catholics who understood that the universe was intelligible based on what we carried on from Judaism.
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buffalo
Guest
Your credibility falls every time you post. FYI - this is St Basils homily. I responded to your comment on the understanding of the firmament. Any idea when St Basil lived? Maybe you should check it out. Ask one of your esteemed colleagues.Cutting edge research from 1917.
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liquidpele
Guest
Your credibility falls every time you post. FYI - this is St Basils homily. I responded to your comment on the understanding of the firmament. Any idea when St Basil lived? Maybe you should check it out. Ask one of your esteemed colleagues.
- You claimed genesis is true
- Someone mentioned the firmament as something that was not true there
- You showed research about it from 1917 and were called out on it
- You deflected with an ad hominem.
Oh look, someone posted the actual catholic teaching about it on another thread:
catholic.com/library/Adam_Eve_and_Evolution.asp
Concerning human evolution, the Church has a more definite teaching. It allows for the possibility that man’s body developed from previous biological forms, under God’s guidance, but it insists on the special creation of his soul. Pope Pius XII declared that “the teaching authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions . . . take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter—[but] the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God” (Pius XII, Humani Generis 36). So whether the human body was specially created or developed, we are required to hold as a matter of Catholic faith that the human soul is specially created; it did not evolve, and it is not inherited from our parents, as our bodies are.
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itinerant1
Guest
Your post evades the issue.That is exactly the strength of Genesis. God communicated in a way that was understandable to the ancients and the moderns.
Pagans had no real interest in science as they thought the universe was chaotic. It was the Catholics who understood that the universe was intelligible based on what we carried on from Judaism.
Genesis has always been difficult to interpret. St. Augustine wrestled for many years with Genesis. It contains some of the most problematic texts in the Bible due to its mixtures of multiple traditions. The cosmology in Genesis describes a flat-earth that is supported by pillars. This presents problems for fundamentalists who want to read into the text a modern view of the world.
It is blatantly false to say that “pagans had no real interest in science.” Where did you get such an idea??
It was the ancient Greeks (pagans) who proved that the world was round, estimated its circumference with a close estimate, developed geometry, and logic. Darwin considered Aristotle to be the greatest biologist of all time. I could go on for pages about pagans of various cultures and science, but I think your knowledge of history leaves much to be desired.
The one point you have right is that it was the Judeo-Christian view of the world that gave rise to modern science. The Christian view that the world was created by God and that it was good made it a proper object of study. The sceintist Pierre Duhem shows how modern science had its start in the 14th century in the Christian Universities, especially the University of Paris with the discovery of inertial motion and rejection of the erroneous Aristotelian view of motion.
Science only arose in the West, science in the sense of one dicovery followed by another, and there is a specific reason for this. But lets not look for a modern cosmological view in a near pre-literate, pre-scientific culture of the ancient Hebrews, a pre-scientific view present in the O.T.
S
StAnastasia
Guest
330-379. Basil was not an astronomer who carries any credibility today.Your credibility falls every time you post. FYI - this is St Basils homily. I responded to your comment on the understanding of the firmament. Any idea when St Basil lived? Maybe you should check it out. Ask one of your esteemed colleagues.
H
hecd2
Guest
If you are claiming the literal correctness of Basil’s exegesis, then that only makes the fundamentalism of your beliefs more problematic because Basil’s descriptions of the firmament are replete with erroneous physics.Your credibility falls every time you post. FYI - this is St Basils homily. I responded to your comment on the understanding of the firmament. Any idea when St Basil lived? Maybe you should check it out. Ask one of your esteemed colleagues.
If you are not claiming the literal correctness of Basil’s exegesis then why link to it in response to the firmament used as an example of content in Genesis that should not be literally interpreted.
Alec
evolutionpages.com
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reggieM
Guest
There’s a growing distrust of science and scientists in our culture. People are tired of the scientific magisterium issuing proclamations and then contradicting and refuting them months later. Many people simply recognize that much of what is claimed cannot be taken seriously. The reclassification of the planet Pluto to non-planet status is one example. People realize that these kinds of classifications are meaningless. The same is true of interpretations of the fossil records.I’ll just leave with this. While growing up, I kept hearing scientists say that if a planet was a certain distance from its sun, had liquid water and the building blocks of life (amino acids) then we would expect to find life out there. What a bunch of baloney. Back when people thought that flies were generated from a collection of dirty clothing, I can see why people could make such an inference. Today, there is no spontaneous way to generate life. None. Yet, I, and too many others, took the unnamed and named scientists at their word. Why? Because I was told that they were authorities and certainly, I assumed, no one would allow them on TV if they did not actually know what they were talking about. I was wrong. I took as fact something that is a total fantasy. I’m tired of having my trust abused.
The scientific community’s response to this kind of skepticism is to bash creationists. They increase the ridicule and contempt for religion as well.
Then they wonder why the gap is widening. They act as if they don’t control all the levers of power in scientific and educational facilities – and they’re threatened by a virtual handful of home-schoolers and traditionalist Catholics.
So, the atheistic-scientific approach to educating the public has been a disaster and remains as such. The more that they claim to be authorities on all truths, the less credibility they gain from their critics.
They believe the only strategy is to kill off the opposition, not to win it over. They then realize that killing off creationists (killing in figurative terms) is going to require attacks and victories over religion itself. Thus the battle exapands.
We can see it pretty clearly on CAF. Evolutionists could try to win some respect and crediblity from their critics but they don’t try. Instead, they take a confrontational stance and merely generate more opposition.\
The contempt that evolutionists have for traditional expressions of Christianity is pretty obvious. They’ll make every effort to compromise their beliefs to win respect from atheists, and at the same time show nothing by hostility towards more conservative Christian believers. Why the double-standard?
L
liquidpele
Guest
We don’t have to do much work, you guys have been doing a good job of making fools of yourselves without us. As for your ridiculous analogy about pluto being demoted as a planet… that’s a classification. A rose by any other color. It still orbits the sun, still has the same composition, still is the same distance away, etc etc etc. Your notion that science re-categorizing things means that the underlying evidence somehow doesn’t count shows that you have no real understanding of what science is. Your comment on the distrust of science shows your own bias, as you sit there and post using a computer - one of the pinnacles of modern scientific experimentation and research. In short, if you want to believe pluto is really a tea kettle or that animals didn’t evolve, that’s fine, but don’t start asserting your nonsense and whine about persecution and atheist agendas when people (including Catholics here) call you out on it.There’s a growing distrust of science and scientists in our culture. People are tired of the scientific magisterium issuing proclamations and then contradicting and refuting them months later. Many people simply recognize that much of what is claimed cannot be taken seriously. The reclassification of the planet Pluto to non-planet status is one example. People realize that these kinds of classifications are meaningless. The same is true of interpretations of the fossil records.
The scientific community’s response to this kind of skepticism is to bash creationists. They increase the ridicule and contempt for religion as well.
Then they wonder why the gap is widening. They act as if they don’t control all the levers of power in scientific and educational facilities – and they’re threatened by a virtual handful of home-schoolers and traditionalist Catholics.
So, the atheistic-scientific approach to educating the public has been a disaster and remains as such. The more that they claim to be authorities on all truths, the less credibility they gain from their critics.
They believe the only strategy is to kill off the opposition, not to win it over. They then realize that killing off creationists (killing in figurative terms) is going to require attacks and victories over religion itself. Thus the battle exapands.
We can see it pretty clearly on CAF. Evolutionists could try to win some respect and crediblity from their critics but they don’t try. Instead, they take a confrontational stance and merely generate more opposition.\
The contempt that evolutionists have for traditional expressions of Christianity is pretty obvious. They’ll make every effort to compromise their beliefs to win respect from atheists, and at the same time show nothing by hostility towards more conservative Christian believers. Why the double-standard?
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buffalo
Guest
Where did I show research from 1917?I’m seriously curious why anyone would say genesis must be taken literally to then condemn evolution.
- You claimed genesis is true
- Someone mentioned the firmament as something that was not true there
- You showed research about it from 1917 and were called out on it
- You deflected with an ad hominem.
Oh look, someone posted the actual catholic teaching about it on another thread:
catholic.com/library/Adam_Eve_and_Evolution.asp
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buffalo
Guest
Did you read it?If you are claiming the literal correctness of Basil’s exegesis, then that only makes the fundamentalism of your beliefs more problematic because Basil’s descriptions of the firmament are replete with erroneous physics.
If you are not claiming the literal correctness of Basil’s exegesis then why link to it in response to the firmament used as an example of content in Genesis that should not be literally interpreted.
Alec
evolutionpages.com
What do you think St Basil was getting at?
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buffalo
Guest
Did I make a claim he was an astronomer? I made the claim that your comment about the firmament was sorely lacking.330-379. Basil was not an astronomer who carries any credibility today.
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