DescentBB

I heard the dome thing in a Christian lecture by Steve Grohman. The reason they suspected something like that actually existed was the ice at the north and south poles. Ice at -300 degrees is magnetic, -300 is also the temperature required to freeze mammoths quick enough to keep their last meal fresh, and it's also close to the temperature of space. The Mammoths were frozen so fast, not only was the flesh edible; it's last meal, of tropical vegitation, was still fresh. Some were holding they're children up into the air, a feat they could not do for millions of years.
The flood thing is in over 250 different cultures, so it was worldwide. They have found the Ark, it's in the mountains of Siani. I've seen pictures of the rivets marked out in white on the side of the mountain. The reason no one can get there is the government. For one reason or another they don't want people up there. (Some people will say the weather, but Steve Grohman has been on the mountain with the worst weater in the world, MT. Washington I think)
Feathers on a non-flying creature would be a hinderance, not a help. Dinosaur scales are an entirely different chemical composition than feathers. When would they switch over? Slowly switching over time would have to go through a stage of weak scales, and weak scales are worthless in all Evolutionary theories.
Avian lungs need to get so much air throuhg them, they don't have the time to exhale, so they pull air in one side, and expel it in quick bursts out the other side of the lungs. It's hard to explain, try searching for it on-line.

<font face="Arial" size="3"> Faith is based upon what you believe, not what someone says is true. - TopGun</font>

You forget that what someone says is true is a factor in you choosing in what you believe. That is "faith" in all its glory. Christian's say they're right, Catholic's say they're right, Jews, Hindus, Buddists, etc etc....

In the long run what you believe is your faith, but ultimately it is based off of what someone else said from what they believed or thought they believed (Even if that someone is yourself).

<font face="Arial" size="3"></b>As for the eggs: any evolutionary change (if it is a valid theory) must affect every aspect of a creature. The fact that repilian and avian eggs are so different suggests they could not have evolved from a common ancestor - Shoku</b></font>

Within that statement I detect a contradiction. If every aspect of a creature must change, then wouldn't the end result be something completely different then what it started out as?

I'm not saying that I believe certain species of dinosaurs evolved into the different species of the aves class but your statement does lead someone to believe that despite you saying the difference is too great between dinosaur and bird for the possibility to exist that they (only certain species) are related, it also allows that the changing of a animal could be so great that there is no direct correlation between its current evolutionary form and the form that it originally started out as.

Anyways, I think this thread has finally run its course.

rofl at the Ark....

If nobody has been allowed to examine it, then how do we know for sure it is THE Ark and not some old ass remains of some large old boat. It still amazes me that anyone could believe in a man and his family (Depending on what you believe) collecting every animal species alive at the time, carrying them on his boat until the fload subsided, then re-populated the world with the animals.

Personally, it sounds like the oldest Johnny Appleseed story ever told and it really insults the intelligence of modern man and woman. Use some common sense people, we don't live in those superstitious times anymore, wake the hell up.

<font face="Arial" size="3">Within that statement I detect a contradiction. If every aspect of a creature must change, then wouldn't the end result be something completely different then what it started out as? -Tryanny</font>

Yeah, I guess that does sound like a contradiction. This is what I meant: "Every aspect of a creature" - which means large scale change, like the size of a limb, begins with change at the mirco-biological level of the cell, and the differences between reptilian and avian at both these levels are so extreme that a common ancestor is, well, beyond logic or chance.

It's like claiming an airplane evolved from a bicycle. Yeah, the Wright brothers made bikes and built an airplane, but it didn't happen by chance. There was an intelligent designer behind that process, just as there was an intelligent desinger behind lizards and birds.

A several hundred foot long boat, that just happens to match the specs given in the bible, on top of a mountain, and you won't give any credence to it possibly being the ark? hundreds of cultures have things about the flood and the ark. The chinese word for flood is a boat with 8 people on it, and water. If that isn't the ark, than what is it? (by the way, the Chinese word for stife is 2 women under 1 roof )

Since there seems to be so much interest in Evolution and Creation, maybe I should build a level that pits Evolutionists against Creationists? I wonder who would win?

A 700ft long boat couldn't hold the species from one continent, much less the world, flood or no flood. Fantasy story for children and the gullible. Please remember that the people who wrote these books thought that the world was flat, and the Earth was the center of the universe, and the sky was only a few miles from the ground, and consisted of several transparent crystal spheres; one for the sky, and one for each planet, and a final one with stars. Not everything they wrote was accurate!

<font face="Arial" size="3">Please remember that the people who wrote these books thought that the world was flat, and the Earth was the center of the universe, and the sky was only a few miles from the ground, and consisted of several transparent crystal spheres; one for the sky, and one for each planet, and a final one with stars. Not everything they wrote was accurate! -Testiculese</font>

One thing I learned long ago is this: when speaking of the ancient world, don't speak in generalities, because beliefs and customs were not the same everywhere. In fact their was quite a variety of belief. The writers of the books that eventually became the Bible, knew the earth was not flat and that it hung in space. One of the oldest books in the world is the book of JOB. It is ussully placed in Christian Bibles right before the Psalms. Job is recorded to have said this: "He (God) is stretching out the north over the empty place, hanging the earth upon nothing." (JOB 26:7) The earth does hang upon nothing in space. When apollo astronauts took the first photos of the earth from the moon everyone was quite amazed at seeing the circle of the earth hanging in black space. The book of Isaish says this in chapter 40: "Do you people not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told to you from the outset? Have you not applied understanding from the foundations of the earth? There is one who is dwelling above the circle of the earth . . . the one who is stretching out the heavens . . . who spreads them out like a tent in which to dwell . . ." That may not be scientific, but it does describe visually the reality of our situation, and what the apollo astronauts showed us. The writers of those books knew the earth was round and hung in space.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Arial" size="3">Originally posted by Testiculese:
A 700ft long boat couldn't hold the species from one continent, much less the world, flood or no flood.</font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Pre-flood everyone was twice as large as now, due to the increased air pressure and oxygen content, So the measurement would be closer to 1400 feet long. The ark didn't need to hold every kind of dog, just 2. The average size of all the species, including dinosaurs, was the size of a sheep. Do the math, then we can talk.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Arial" size="3">Originally posted by Meathead:
Pre-flood everyone was twice as large as now, due to the increased air pressure and oxygen content, So the measurement would be closer to 1400 feet long. The ark didn't need to hold every kind of dog, just 2. The average size of all the species, including dinosaurs, was the size of a sheep. Do the math, then we can talk.</font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

What?

They put a scorpian in a hyperbaric chamber(don't ask me why ) and over a year, it grew to almost double it's original size, it was also as tame as a mouse.(I want to put an Iguana into one of those things and name him Don )

Sorry, I guess I just have to poke my head in here one more time.

Tyranny, I agree that my statement didn't make much sense. I couldn't really put into words what I wanted to say at the time. I guess what I meant was that religious faith has to be more than blind obedience. You can't just look at something like the Bible and say, "Everything in it must be absolutely true." There is more of an element to faith, that of the supernatural, beyond the senses. I guess it's just that feeling you get when you say to yourslef, "This is what I believe. It is a part of who I am." I'm not really given to great thoughts, but maybe it's a part of experiencing God in one's own life. I just wanted to contrast that with some people (not including anyone who has posted with this thread) who will blindly obey and believe in something, regardless of what they truly feel is right.

Shoku, evolution of species doesn't necessarily involve every aspect of an organism's physiology. Look at the different finch species in the Galapagos Islands. The only difference between them is pretty much the sizes and shapes of their beaks, plus the fact that they cannot interbreed and produce viable, fertile offspring (that's the definition of separate species, by the way ). Also, another part of your reasoning is wrong. Dinosaurs had eggs that were just as hard as those of modern birds, as testified to by modern finds of fossilized dinosaur nests. I'm not sure exactly when reptiles first started laying eggs with leathery shells (some species could have done it at the time of the dinosaurs, even), but the dinosaurs at least had eggs with hard outer shells.

Meathead, scientists think that feathers on a dinosaur would be used to regulate body temperature, as well as for possible mating displays. Scientists think that some dinosaurs were warm-blooded, so a coat of fur or feathers would serve them as well as it does modern mammals or birds. Plus, as I said before, there was a recent find in China of a dinosaur skeleton with feathers all over it, including markings in the skeletal structure showing where they connected to the body. That's some pretty concrete proof that at least a few dinosaurs had feathers. As for the lungs, wouldn't it make sense that they evolved after the earliest birds began to fly? The individuals with the greatest lung capacity would be favored, as they would be able to fly the farthest/fastest, and over time you have the evolution into the modern bird lungs. Also, how are you sure that dinosaurs didn't have the same type of lungs? As you yourself said, we know very little about the internal organs of ancient creatures, so it's a possible theory.

One last point: Meathead, you keep making reference to theories that the vast majority of modern scientists would debunk almost immediately. It seems as if you're unwilling or unable to accept some time-tested truths of science. I don't know if this is what you intend, but if it's not, then it's not making your argument any easier. Your argument about the size of species is an example. I don't know where you're coming from there. Also, you make a rather glaring mistake: the dinosaurs were dead 65 million years before the first humans arrived. Besides that, the dinosaurs were not all from the same species, as you mentioned, but were made up of thousands of different species. Sorry if I come off as insulting, but I just wanted to make you aware of that.

P.S. Tyranny, I agree, this thread is completely off topic and should be put down like a mad dog.

Meathead, even if you took just 2 of every animal there wouldn't be a boat big enough to hold ALL of them. Not 2 of every possible kind of animal of which there had to be more of and a greater variety of creatures then we know of now or knew existed then.

If Noah was able to only get so many animals onto his boat not of aquatic living. Then his re-population of the planet would be the greatest example of evolution as then certain animals would have to account for all the different animals we know existed and know of now that exist today...

Also....of course there was a great flood at some point in time. We had an ice age didn't we? All that water had to go somewhere after it melted.

I don't know about you, sometimes you make references like you're older because you've studied this and that for a long time but then half the stuff you say would indicate you're really young in actuality. Either that or just very much informed from some off kelter form of thinking and/or information.

This reminds me of a book my grandparents gave me one year when I was younger. They are Christian as was myself at one point in time. I looked at this book, it was called Dinosaurs and the Bible or something of that nature. Anyways, this book went on and on trying fit in man and dinosaur living within the same time frame etc etc...

I think that was the turning point for me and Christianity to part ways. Wasn't the deciding factor, but of course had some influence. The book was just completely OFF, it FELT wrong. It sounded like whoever wrote it had NO clue as to what was going on in the real world. So, this is why I bring it up, because thats exactly how your posts sound meathead. No offense or anything, but whatever, to each his/her own.

Top Gun, I agree with your clarification a great deal. Everyone has to make their own observations seeking out what they've read/heard/thought etc...to finally make a conclusion as to what to believe. There are quite a few however that follow blindly the teachings of individuals and never fully make up their own minds until very late in life or perhaps very early, all depends on the person. I find most people, and this is only based on my own observations and there are some exceptions, but for the most part those that are raised to believe a certain thing and bombarded with it from a very early age tend to believe without question the faith they've been raised on.

The questions usually come in times of great peril or hard times in general but then when something good happens they just push it aside and view it as an act of some sort of a divine being. This thinking is hard for me to understand as I don't have the belief that some divine being does all the things in this world and we should understand that.

I believe mankind lacks the faith in its own self to make things happen or do great things. It is always to the credit or discredit of a great creator. I go greatly by common sense, which is a funny term when you think about it since it isn't very common, and things of this nature don't tend to add up for me. This is only a small taste of my beliefs though as I'm trying to be very careful in my words. Since the short blowup that Lothar and I had in a thread not to long ago I've thought very hard about my beliefs and how I express them.

He was right, I'm old enough now that there isn't really a need for flaming, everyone has their point of view and it shouldn't be wrecked when it is being expressed in a calm manner. I've always gotten very heated when it is something I'm passionate about, but in this instance I've realized there isn't a need to flame since your belief isn't really in question to yourself, not now anyways, so there is no point in defending it in blind hatred to those who say otherwise.

Discussing it is fine, calmly defending it is fine, Lashing out isn't. Although I didn't really need him to point that out, I'm glad he did, because it allowed me to step back for a moment and realize what I was doing.

Anyways, I think I'll leave meathead to his beliefs as they really have no bearing on my own and apparently no real relevance to anyone elses other then him as well.

OK, I read the first 4 pages - and the rest must be full of the same garbage.

Meathead, you've suffered a fate (sadly) which befalls many people on this Earth: indoctrination, and lack of education.

Forget evolution - no one's going to convince you it exists. Instead, lets look at the things which are EASY to prove, and which show the "Young Earth" to be nothing more than a self-serving lie used by Creationists to further their God-less Dogma.

Take any and every "young earth" "fact" you know, and take it to Google. You will find, for every stupid claim, there is a logical, reasonable and heavy referenced response which demolishes ANY and ALL claims the Earth is younger than 4.5 billion years (or so).

Once you have convinced yourself the Earth is IN FACT as old as science says it is, then we can begin to examine two more areas of your thinking.

1) "Lack" of evidence for Evolution
2) Creation "Science".

Let's address No.1 first. Given that the Earth is billions of years old, where did life come from? Some will say it evolved on Earth independently, others will say it came from space (Panspermia) and currently, I am learning towards panspermia myself.

If Panspermia is true, then in a galaxy, life only ever has to evolve from nothing ONCE. Given 100 billion suns in our galaxy alone, and 20 Billion or so in the "Blue Zone" - and 5-10 Billion Years in which to bombard chemistry with radiation - it doesn't seem like a stretch to believe that life can begin somewhere - sometime.

There's a major flaw in your arguments against life evolving and evolution (in general) too.

You ignore the fact that the precursors of life where nothing but chemicals which happened to be able to make clones of themselves when exposed to a mixture of raw materials.

We'd say, in 2004, that these were "self assembling", due to the fact that nothing intelligent has to happen in order for them to duplicate, and no outside influence is required for it to work. It's simply a property of the chemicals involved. We wouldn't classify it as "life" simply because there's nothing in it that we recognise as life.

These chemicals would have brainlessly followed chemistry creating more and more similar products, and in the course of this activity, some more chemicals get added or chucked out, depending on the nature of the chemicals in volved. naturally, chemicals which break the self-assembling nature of this system don't proliferate.

Thus, we've established a self-assembling chemical of very simple construction, made with nothing except Carbon, Oxygen and Hydrogen. A great combination because the vast quantities of these elements and their "organic" relatives.

The combinations and Permutations of C, H and O molecules is almost infinite. (Download and run FOLDING@HOME to see what I mean)

Add reactive chemicals (Products of Suns and Super Novae), energy (output from living suns), a benign environment (liquid water), billions of years I(Age of Universe), and Billions of Quadrillions of locations (planets in the universe) and you come up with life. It is INEVITABLE Mr. Meathead.

This is the ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE.

You say the Universe is incredibly unlikely to have the properties it has. I say, if the universe were any other way - we wouldn't be here to say so! The universe is a benign place exactly because we exist within it. There are many implications of the Anthropic Principle - but the biggest is that we accept unlikely things in our universe without qualm, because if they were otherwise, life could not exist within it.

Now, we have established, using our thought experiment, that chemistry and time is all that's required to produce self assembling molelcular chains - some of them quite complex.

Now, is it such a stretch to add a cell membrane (essentially a soap bubble) which allows the chemicals to self replicate faster and more efficiently than others? From here, the extrapolation of life conquering the universe is a short one. That's assuming Panspermia is true, of course.

If Panspermia is untrue (and it seems unlikely to me) then the process is simply lengthened and has to occur over a longer period. But it still only has to happen ONCE to explain us.

One of my major reasons for believing in Panspermia is because without it, the universe, as we expand to fill it, will turn out to be a very dead and boring place for us to explore.

There's lots of indirect evidence to support Panspermia though - like the fact that bacteria coughed into a TV camera in 1963('65?) and which spent 6 years on the surface of the moon began to reproduce again immediately after being introduced into Earth's atmosphere again. (Apollo 15 IIRC).

Meteorites landing on Earth are often covered in a layer of ixe when they are discovered hours after landing. HOW IS THAT I hear you ask? Well, they hit the atmosphere at 40,000-70,000 km/h and are at a single temperature all the way through: about 2 degrees above absolute zero. They melt on the outside on the way through (Up to 10 seconds of heating in the atmosphere) but they stay frozen on the inside. This proved frozen bacteria, or even just the self-replicating molecules, can ride on mmeteorites and survive.

We know from experience that many Martian meteorites exist on Earth. So we know stuff can travel from one planet to another... thus Panspermia.

Now, we get to the interesting part: Evolution.

Is it true? Most likely. But remember, this is the THEORY of evolution - not the law. And like every scientific theory, it is open to debate (And don't think for a second that scientists arguing about evolution means it doesn't exist! They are arguing about the PROCESS of evolution - not it's existence!)

Can it ever be a LAW of evolution? NO. Not in the universe we live in - because we can't actually travel back in time in this universe.

However, it can eventually turn into a VERY solid theory. One which explains all observed phenomena. In no way can Creation explain all observed phenomena - and in no way can it do what good theories do: given certain initial conditions; predict the future accurately.

Creation "science" is a nonsense. Go to http://www.sciam.com or see Scientific American June 2002 "15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense; July 2002; by John Rennie; 8 pages"

Now, let me address a couple of minor points:

Complexity & Thermodynamics. You argue against life because it is too complex and it violates thermodynamics.

Well, Fractals are ultra-ultra complex, and yet they are generated from EXTREMELY simple math. Are you saying fractals can't exist?

The human genome didn't magically appear from nowhere - a common mistake of creationists. DNA has spent billions of years evolving from very simple stuff indeed. Once it was very simple too. And if you look at DNA now - it is STILL very simple - but it's actions and abilities are far and beyond what complexity it has. Like Fractals.

Now you say that DNA has too much information - and ask where did it GET the information. Well, I answer that DNA doesn't CARRY information, it *IS* information. It can't exist without it. It's pure information, and it's passed along during mitosis and recombined in Mieosis (You are a mutant born of your parents!).

How did it get so complex? Well, there's no apparent limiting factor to how much data it can carry - excepting the physical size of the strands, and how it would be prone to extreme damage if it got too long.

The size it is now, is optimal no doubt. DNA strands longer than ours have undoubtedly been made, and used by life, but because we see none now, it's safe to assume ours is better. Ours is long enough to contain thousands of backups for every section, and this number of backups, apparently, is enough.

By the way. Evolution has NEVER said, we are descended from monkeys or apes. They are our brothers - and we have a COMMON ANCESTOR some 5-12 million years ago. That is all. You are no more monkey than you are fish. (And yet, when you grow inside a mother's womb, you display scales AND gills during the early stages. Oh, and a tail too )

Thermodynamics are NEVER violated by evolution NOR DNA. You don't understand the Physics - so it's pointless to explain that THE EARTH IS NOT A CLOSED SYSTEM. And as to entropy - you clearly do not understand the nature of the beast. Read Up!

Getting directly down to Evolution proper:

QUESTION: WHAT GOOD IS HALF AN EYE?

ANSWER: Well, if you cut it in half, it makes a tasty treat!

The evultion of eyes is the most well understood organ in nature (And yet creationists insist on using the argument still! Almost as bad as using coal, or luna dust as an "reason" for a young earth - LOL!)

Quite simply, half an eye is worth nothing. But eyes don;t develop like that. Imagine this: an earthworm with an eye! Pretty stupid though huh? Well, it's silly - and earhworm with an eye!

Now imagine this: half a billion years ago, an earth worm (Arthropod) is "born" (Worms probably not a perfect choice because the reproduce asexually as well as sexually) which has an unusual photo-receptive chemical embedded in the skin cells of its back.

Now, imagine that the photoreactive chemical decays in light, and produces a chemical which causes the nerves around teh cell to fire. Imagine to the earthworm, that this nerve impulse is painful.

Now, this earthworm will avoid daylight, at all costs and thus be less inclined to be eaten, or dried out. And, as soon as it detects the pain, it'll dig to get away!

That's probably how eye's developed - or a process similar.

Animals around the world have an amazing array of light sensing technology - all of them benefit the creature, and at no stage was the development of an eye a disadvantage to them.

"Animals after their kind" is indeed true. (Although some interesting animals can be created: Liger, Donkey, short necked giraffe etc. - by breeding animals articially.) and higher animals don't mate with what appears to be a mutant. But remember - many animals mate indescriminantly, and constantly!

Bad mutations don't survive (Well, unless you're human, because for us, evolution has stopped - and is going backwards now) and good ones thrive. Eveolution in action.

Here's where I introduce the theory (observation) of "PUNCTUATED EQUILIBRIUM" as regards evolution.

I think I've given you more than enough information to research, and stuff to read for you never to question the FACT of evolution again. From now on, your only concern is how evolution works now, and worked in the past, and what effect it's having now.

Oh, and one last thing: yes, humans have stopped evolving as far as evolution is concerned. We are still changing - YES - but it's not evolution any more. More accurately, it is now DE-EVOLUTION, because evolution is the action of mutation IN CONJUNCTION WITH the process of evolution, which is, NATURAL SELECTION.

We have, as a species, virtually done away with natural selection. We select the individuals who will survive, and hence, evolution is not improving us any more - but mutation is harming us quite badly (or will do in the future).

This doesn't mean to say we're doomed though - because in the short term we will select our own genes, and in the long term, we'll completely abandon biology as it's ultimately, a limiting factor in the continued AND HUMAN-GUIDED evolution of man.

Here's the facts guys: Birds didn't descend from dinosaurs. Birds ARE dinosaurs. You want to know what a T-Rex tasted like? Go eat a turkey.

The Raptor class of dinosaurs evolved into avians. No question. The process is still unknown, but it *IS* known that dinosaurs developed feathers a LONG time before they learned to fly.

The explanation is simple too. Mammals are capable of being small because we have fat tissue and fur to insulate ourselves. Small animals have large surface-area-to-body-volume ratios, and hence scaley dinosaurs can't occupy the smallest end of the size spectrum because they couldn't eat enough to keep themselves warm, and they didn't store body fat like mammals do - so they simply could not survive at a small size. (And for goodness sake - NO ONE better start some BS about baby dinosaurs! They were born and raised in prime locations in perfect weather!)

So, in order to take advantage of niches unavailable to dinosaurs, feathers developed (slowly! And yes - feathers ARE actually scales) over millions of years to do nothing except keep a dinosaur warm. Don't think "feather" as in "flight feather" (The long ones with a big vane, and a larger trailing edge than leading edge - those evolved many tens of millions of years later) - think "feather" as in "down".

Feather as in "duck down". Question: what do you have on your bed right now? An "Eiderdown" - a bag full of downy feathers TO KEEP YOU WARM!

Really guys - you have to keep up with the science. Birds are dinosaurs, there's simply no question about it. They are only surviving members of the dinosaur family - but they are indeed dinosaurs.

Whether dinosaurs developed as gliders who eventually flapped, or as jumpers who flapped to get higher is unknown - and the jury is still out. Right now it's a 50/50 proposition either way. Both may be correct.

The full evolutionary history of dinosaurs to avians is well documented and available online at SCIAM, or at any decent library. Go read.

Don't discount that we are not evolving in some form or another Mobi, remember, compared to our understanding of time, evolution is a painfully slow process. Just because we don't have 6 arms to take care of all the things we have to do or greatly improved vision and hearing then we do now doesn't mean things aren't "GOING" to change inside of us.

Mankind has been around a very short period of time in the scheme of things as far as evolution is concerned. We've already made evolutionary steps to become what we are now but as we exist with our modern science nothing in nature that we can perceive is forcing us to make a drastic change in the span between...not yet.

There will be coming events that our species will have to adapt to over time and who is to say that these processes aren't taking place already? TIME, it is universal, but still a very human concept and not one we seem to be fully understanding of.

"By the way. Evolution has NEVER said, we are descended from monkeys or apes. They are our brothers - and we have a COMMON ANCESTOR some 5-12 million years ago. That is all. You are no more monkey than you are fish. (And yet, when you grow inside a mother's womb, you display scales AND gills during the early stages. Oh, and a tail too )" That was proved a fraud 50 YEARS ago!

"This reminds me of a book my grandparents gave me one year when I was younger. They are Christian as was myself at one point in time. I looked at this book, it was called Dinosaurs and the Bible or something of that nature. Anyways, this book went on and on trying fit in man and dinosaur living within the same time frame etc etc..." They found human and dinosaur foolprints in a rivedbed OVELAPPING. People said they were a hoax, but where the tracks left the riverbed they dug dozens of feet, and the prints didn't stop.

Show me a missing link, or Evolution goes down the tubes.

That is the exception, not the rule. For every source you find that says man lived with dinosaurs or footprints were overlapping, etc, etc, I can find 10 that say the opposite.

You need to provide evidence of your claims, otherwise it looks like you're just making it up.

Show us the missing (hyper)link that promotes some evidence of your above claim of footprints and then you can talk. Otherwise it's all as good as make believe.

show me a missing link, or I'll just close the topic

Mobius, I applaud you.

I have no doubt that certain dinosaurs survived and may have interacted with man at some point. This is where myths of Dragons (sans the fire breathing) may have started. We already know other animals survived this same time period, so it is safe to assume that very few dinos managed to as well.

Asking for a missing link for absolute proof of evolution is like telling creationists to bring out God. The only difference is there is a possibility that a missing link "CAN" be found but the likelihood of that happening is very slim due to the fact that it is like looking for a needle in a hay stack.

Personally it matters very little to me if a missing link is found or that god exists because such things will probably never be answered in my lifetime. If there is a god, I'll find out once I'm dead. If there is a missing link, It won't matter once I'm dead anyways.

In the long run it is very trivial because both sides are neither right or wrong at this point in time in history. It just happens that one side has a better chance of prooving itself amongst the living then the other one does

wow, what a mess... I'll have to work up a response to hopefully clean up the last 2 pages of this thread, and get everything back on topic. There are lots of words here, but not a lot of content.

Before I write up my long response (I have a class in a few minutes), let me just say, Mobi, you should really read the rest of the thread. Also, your Sciam article really badly mischaracterizes a lot of the positions it argues against. Some of the responses are right on, but there are a number of straw-man arguments, and the author's treatment of "intelligent design" shows he's pretty ignorant of the field. It will do as a response to some of what Meathead has argued, but it's woefully useless for most serious arguments.

Well, I have been impressed by the depth of knowledge presented here - from both sides. I am not an evolotionist, nor am I a creationist. I believe in God - I studied the Bible and the ancient world for 12 years - and I have removed a lot of misconceptions from my beliefs. I thought it might good, some "food for thought," to present one micro-biologist's conclusion to this whole debate. His view is based on reason and evidence, not wishful thinking. Here it is:

"One hundred and twenty years ago it was possible for a skeptic to be forgiving, to give Darwinism the benefit of the doubt and to allow that perhaps future discoveries would eventually fill in the blanks that were so apparent in 1859. Such a position is far less tenable today. . .
"It would require a highly prejudicial reading of biology history to conclude that advances in biological knowledge have continually tended to narrow the gaps. On the contrary, the gaps are as intense today as they were in the past, and almost every major advance in biological knowledge, from the founding of comparative anatomy and paleontology in the eighteenth century to the recent discoveries in molecular biology, has only tended to emphasize the depth and profundity of the great divisions in nature. . .
"The classic example of this, of major discontinuity being enhanced rather than diminished by advances in knowledge, is the division between life and inorganic nature, In the mid-nineteenth century and perhaps even as late as the 1940's, it was perfectly reasonable to suppose that there was no absolute break, that there was possibly a continuum of simple replicating systems leading from chemistry to life. We know know, as a result of discoveries made over the past thirty years, that not only is there a distinct break between the animate and inanimate worlds but that it is one of the most dramatic in all nature, absolutely unbridged by any series of transitional forms and like so many of the other major gaps of nature, the transitional forms are not only empirically absent but are also conceptually impossible. . .
"To the skeptic, the proposition that the genetic programmes of higher organisms, consisting of something close to a thousand million bits of information, equivalent to the sequence of letters in a small library of one thousand volumes, containing in encoded form countless thousands of intricate algorithms controlling, specifying and ordering growth and development of billions and billions of cells into the form of complex organism, were composed by purely random process is simply an affront to reason. But to the Darwinist the idea is accepted without a ripple of doubt - the paradigm takes precedence! The truth is that despite the prestige of evolutionary theory and the tremendous intellectual effort directed towards reducing living systems to the confines of Darwinian thought, nature refuses to be imprisoned. In the final analysis we still know very little about how new forms of life arise. The "mystery of mysteries" -origin of new beings on earth - is still largely as enigmatic as when Darwin set sail on the Beagle."
-From "Evolution: A Theory In Crisis," by Michael Denton

I think Lothar, that this topic has really run it's course. I'm sure you could debate on this subject until your dying breath, but....

Since apparently nobody in the last two pages has offered anything to the level of your expected arguing standards, I think it is safe to say that all the people who really cared lost interest two pages ago.

I need more time before I respond to lothar's posts...

But first must say mobius's responses are rediculous relating to his assuredness about dinosaurs and birds. Sure, I would agree the evidence points in that direction, but

As my favorite professor, Lawerence Doyle from SETI used to say: "Nothing changes faster than science fact"

That doesn't mean to say we can't perceive/discover general trends or concepts, but to say things as defined as you have... well that's just plain silly.

However, Panspermia is definitely something to consider and is a good point to bring up.

Argh ! I had to poke my head in here again !.. A thread that won't Die ! and a topic that riles me into a response ( Or gets me to run away screaming !)

Birds' ... Certainly the "plain silliest ..." things we've heard about here have been uttered by Meathead.!

I wonder about the identity of our Meathead: is this someone posing as a ludicrously naiive, biblically thumped comedian ? I wondered if Rican was back in disguise, and was playing with us, but the profile for these two DBBers is quite different...

But Quoting Tyrrany;

"Use some common sense people,we don't live in those superstitious times anymore, wake the hell up. (!!!!!). " I'll apply this philosophy to the whole lot of you who are stuck in believeing the bible is a text to be taken literally.

Punctuated Equilibrium ! Thank you Mobius ! And Thank you far all the rest of your posts.! They are an Island of sanity in this debate of superstitious gobble dee gook ! When I was going to post about Punctuated Equilibrium I hesitated and became too fatigued by the thoughts of how much expalining that would have taken for the likes of Meathead, and how much retort I'd get back from mighty Lothar ! ... ( sorry Meat' but there's something missing in your world view; I'll suggest it's just plain experience, never mind getting the facts straight !)

Here we are a hyper-self-conscious species, trying to explian to itself what it is, where it came from and where it's going, thinking about what it's thinking, what's the meaning of life etc etc... But without real experience, with just somebody's "doctrine" of religion or science, we're just playing word games ! We're going in circles !

Try to imagine what experience you could have to break you out of your mold; what kind of "trip" would you have to take to see outside the semantics of our languages, to leave the old familiar doctrine behind...? Maybe fly to New Guinea for a 6 month vacation with some primitive society ..? or volunteer for a DMT experiment ..? Go fast in the desert for 9 days .?... Just Do It ! Smash that mold, don't fret, it'll reassemble itself spontaneously, but it'll include the "new" knowledege, the new experience, which will further the evolution of our psyche and our species.

A simple explanation: To get here and now, we need eons of time! For eg how about 13 billion years !.. Add up over time all the interacting forces in nature that we know of at the nano level and the cosmic level, Add in a creative God element, stir, add some liquid water, a sun and life appears, life evolves (i.e transforms like the rest of the stuff in the Universe does over time). Now here we are, with Homo sapiens and their massive brains, the universe has become super-conscious of itself, way down here in the Saggitarius arm of the Milky Way Galaxy !... And so the story telling begins !

My point way back when was: our consciousness is also evolving ! Our knowledge base is way bigger now than 2000 years ago... In ancient Hebrew did they have words to explain E = mc^2 ..? How about the Human Geneome Project..? What Biblical references are there to that ..? Our libraries are full of millions of volumes of information, and accounts of experiences... Why is it that we cling so insistantly to the crusty doctrine of just one or two books !

Every modern science resets it's limits, reformulates theories, adds new algorhythms, modifies the model to fit the experience we have... Its open ended, and progressive, even though scientists argue over the best theories etc... But we have experiments or "experience" to base it on.

Experience: that's much different than just "believeing" in some doctrine enough that we can end up arguing about how many angels fit on the head of a pin, just because some Biblical references enable us to debate such stuff...

Now, in 2004 we are not having the same experience as the ancient authors of the Bible did, or as the Homo sap's from the middle ages did... ! We have the Hubble Space Telescope for crying-out-loud-in-Ancient-Hebrew ! We know of DMT and related experiences of God !... Thanks to Einstein et al. and particle physics we can concieve of models to expalin time travel and parallel universes ..! There's great topics to debate there !

Because of my belief in our species evolving consciousness, I suggested that the Bible will one day not reside in Churches, but it'll be kept amongst other literary relics in a museum of Homo Sapiens' time on Earth. In some respects it should be there already (MeatHead ! !) ... And I say this knowing the blasphemy I'm uttering to the likes of some of you, sorry for doing so, forgive me !

To quote Tyrrany again: "Use some common sense people,we don't live in those superstitious times anymore, wake the hell up. (!!!!!). "

Aahhhh ... Now I'm going to go chill ... Thanks for leting me catharse this, Tyrrany and Mobius ! ... never mind staying on topic !

Found a good link http://emporium.turnpike.net/C/cs/cartoon.htm

Meathead, I've a link for you, too, and it should be from a source you'll trust. It's in response to this:

<font face="Arial" size="3">They found human and dinosaur foolprints in a rivedbed OVELAPPING. People said they were a hoax, but where the tracks left the riverbed they dug dozens of feet, and the prints didn't stop.</font>

If what you're referring to is the Paluxy river bed prints, you'd probably better read what ICR has to say about them.

www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-151.htm

As for what Mobius brought up, directed panspermia and the anthropic principle both always get a giggle out of me. To me, it is a testament to the evident design of life and the universe that people resort to aliens and parallel universes (respectively) to explain it.

Ah, I guess the prints were a hoax, no matter, this cuts Evolution off at the ankles.
"Our current atmosphere consists primarily of oxygen (21%) and nitrogen (78%) and is called oxidizing because of chemical reactions produced by oxygen. For example, iron is oxidized to form iron oxide or rust.
The presence of oxygen in a hypothetical primordial atmosphere poses a difficult problem for notions of self-assembling molecules. If oxygen is present, there would be no amino acids, sugars, purines, etc. Amino acids and sugars react with oxygen to form carbon dioxide (CO2) and water.

Because it is impossible for life to evolve with oxygen, evolutionists theorize an early atmosphere without oxygen. This departs from the usual evolutionary theorizing where a uniformistic view is held (i.e. where processes remain constant over vast stretches of time). In this case the present is NOT the key to the past.

Instead, they propose a "reducing" (called thus because of the chemical reactions) atmosphere which contains free hydrogen. Originally, they postulated an atmosphere consisting of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), carbon monoxide (CO), ammonia (NH3), free hydrogen and water vapor. Newer schemes exclude ammonia and methane.

There is a problem if you consider the ozone (O3) layer which protects the earth from ultraviolet rays. Without this layer, organic molecules would be broken down and life would soon be eliminated. But if you have oxygen, it prevents life from starting. A "catch-22" situation (Denton 1985, 261-262):

Atmosphere with oxygen => No amino acids => No life possible!
Atmosphere without oxygen => No ozone => No life possible!
In must be noted at this point that the existence of a reducing atmosphere is theoretical and does not rely on physical evidence. To the contrary, there are geological evidences for the existence of an oxidizing atmosphere as far back as can be determined. Among these are: the precipitation of limestone (calcium carbonate) in great quantities, the oxidation of ferrous iron in early rocks (Gish 1972, and the distribution of minerals in early sedimentary rocks (Gish 1984T)."

I'm pretty sure life started in the ocean, not on land. So UV rays and oxygen in the air is irrelevant.

If there's oxygen in the air, there's oxygen in the water. How do fish breath in a fish tank if there's no oxygen transferance between air and water?

@#!$ I can't ReSisT .>@!.~~~ ... Must react, to help out ol' Meathead, who's gotten stuck again ! )

H2S is a sole souce of energy for many thermophylic bacteria living on volcanic vents at the bottom of the oceans. It's called chemosynthesis. We have them right here off the coast of BC. H2S will provide enough high energy electrons to feed the electron transport chains of these prokaryotes, and they in turn feed a whole huge food chain that has never seen the light of the sun... All the energy for this life comes from the volcanic vents, and life just transforms the energy. ..Meathead your sources are Old, and skewed by the doctrine that says Genesis should be taken literally... But keep posting, .. many of us keep coming back for more ..!

Is this the DBB's longest evar thread? I'm not quite sure.

The oxygen is still there, not using it is a moot point. Sitting in hydocloric acid will still kill you even if you're not using it. What you posted only proved life is even more complex, meaning less of a chance it could happen by chance.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Arial" size="3">Originally posted by Meathead:
The oxygen is still there, not using it is a moot point. </font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
How is that? If you're going to say because "amino acides and sugars react with oxygen" I would call on you to defend that with some scientific proof that the rate of consumption is so fast that no other reactions can occur. For example, there's oxygen in the air, but my glazed donut still has sugar on it. And my DNA is not unravling into CO2 and water as we speak...

<font face="Arial" size="3">Originally posted by Meathead: Sitting in hydocloric acid will still kill you even if you're not using it. </font>

No duh, but we're not talking about you, we're talking about bacteria. And bacteria and other forms of life do thrive in this kind of enviornment (because we can observe it today near the vents).


/me enjoys his donut

I think some people struggle with the fact that there might be no real point to our existence...

Even if the Bible were true and Judgement day comes our existence on this planet would still be virtually useless since that which we have done since we've been here has really been very moot in the scheme of things.

God creates the earth and the heavens, god creates man, man creates more men, god destroys man?

If the notion that god only wants us to be kind to ourselves and worship him, was our only real point to worship him? Despite the fact that we try, I think in most regards we've failed miserably at both.

mmmmm nope, I don't think so. I think we make our existence out to be more then it actually is. To give it some vast purpose that isn't there. Thats where things break down, because there is too much focus on something that just doesn't exist. We all end up in the same place when it is all said and done. In a box 6ft under or burnt to ashes. In both we still end up going right back where we came from.

I vote we ignore any and all of Meathead's further posts, since he obviously has no idea of what he's talking about.

Then again neither do I, but I'm not sitting here hashing about things I have no authority to say on.

If there's no point to existance, then no one should mind mindless murder, because we're just fancy pond scum. If that's true, then why did people freak out about 9-11? If Evolution is true, murder should be just like cleaning. So why the rucus about serial killers?

*Topher tries to adjust the lense on Meathead's argument to give it some focus but fails.*

There are many self-aware creatures on this planet. Many with high intelligence, like dolphins. What makes man different than all the rest is his need for a spiritual connection. Lacking that connection, men (and women), try to fill that void with other things - material posessions, sex, drugs, power, or some guiding principle like the theory of evolution. However, the only thing that can really make us whole is a connection with our creator. A connection based on truth. There are many things taught by "religion" that are far from truth. Jesus said "you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." Free from what? Free from falsehood, from the lies perpetrated throughout mankind's history, lies that move us farther away from our creator. Due to this truth I would say the evidence does not point to us evolving, but to us devolving; to the fact that man has been degraded with the passage of time. One point of evidence for this is language. Ancient languages are much more complicated than modern ones (gramatically). If you don't believe this, just study ancient greek (as I have). Ancient langauges are full of nuance and meaning that go way beyond anything possible today. Modern communication is quite elementary compared to ancient forms of communication. If evolution were true, the opposite would make more sense.