creationists/IDists, admit your defeat

If only they were like the Knights Who Say Ni instead. It'd just take a shrubbery or two and we'd be able to put this discussion to bed.

You're right, though. We'll never get a "oh I guess I was wrong" as long as people are willing to ignore scientific research and basic rationality. As long as that is the case, it's not a debate in which ground can be won, only a futile attempt to break someone out of the grasp of ignorance. If they don't want to be freed, there's no forcing them.

reply to post by dave420

...a futile attempt to break someone out of the grasp of ignorance. If they don't want to be freed, there's no forcing them.

If you read my account (here: www.abovetopsecret.com... ) of how I was freed from the straightjacket of having evolutionary theory taught as fact from childhood and through school, you will see how people can come to their own conclusions on an entirely rational basis - with the result that yes, you can't force them to accept evolution!

Sadly I encounter endless reams of pejorative remarks aimed at creationists on ATS/BTS, and I believe it demeans the writer, not the objects of the insults. It doesn't surprise me, as I admittedly once thought as they do, but venting prejudice actually achieves nothing.

As Shugo said, it is wrong to claim that either side of the debate possesses proof - the very basis for this thread - (and it is the presentation of such a claim that suggests ignorance, dave420!) although I respect MIMS enough to be confident he is just being provocative in order to stimulate debate!

[edit on 22/4/08 by pause4thought]

reply to post by pause4thought


Hilarious stuff there.

You're absolutely discounting the work of thousands of scientists who have laboured relentlessly to make their theories and discoveries as water-tight as possible, because you know of a few people who don't believe in evolution? Because you heard a debate? If that's all it takes to convince you of something, then you're not rational. No matter what you claim, you're not.

You might think the "attacks" on creationists on ATS are pejorative, but that doesn't ring true. Calling someone ignorant when they clearly show their ignorance might be pejorative to the person in question, but it is truthful. Calling out a creationist for abandoning reason is also truthful. You see, to deal with discussions on science, which evolution is, you have to have no ego. You have to be willing to have every understanding you have dragged across the floor. It's not pejorative, it's science. If you can't take the heat, get out of the classroom. Science can't hold back, otherwise it can't move forward. A shoddy theory must be laughed out of the discussion, otherwise we learn nothing.

So keep on embracing that ignorance. Telling me you're not doesn't change that fact.

reply to post by dave420

Harsh words, my friend.

I related how my mind was initially opened to the possibility that creation, not evolution, was true by the arguments of a professor of physics from Oxford/Cambridge university.

MIMS, who started this thread recently said:

it doesn't matter is everyone in the world is wrong, they're still wrong.

Source: www.belowtopsecret.com...

I see wisdom in that statement.

Conversely when someone starts thinking that a theory must be true because of the number of people who accept it they are liable to 'the king has no clothes on' delusion!

And I'm not actually discounting all the work of scientists in the sense you imply. I am saying they are often interpreting the evidence exclusively in the light of evolutionary theory, and this stifles their critical appraisal of other people's research too.

If you can't take the heat, get out of the classroom.

I can, which is why I'm here of my own free choice.

So keep on embracing that ignorance. Telling me you're not doesn't change that fact.

I provided evidence for my point of view on the previous page. Keep repeating 'ignorance' like a mantra - you obviously think it will impress some people, but there are plenty of fair-minded people out there who are actually willing to consider evidence before they reject it.

And as to the whole (yawn) 'admit your defeat' attitude - I suggest meaningful debate is apt to continue in countless other threads - here www.abovetopsecret.com... , for instance, and in endless other places.

Pile in, as many as want to. I enjoy the heat of debate (although I just wish people would listen to each other a bit more) - I actually enjoy, and sometimes even promote the contributions of people who have entirely different views to my own.

I only wish I had more time...

[edit on 22/4/08 by pause4thought]

Originally posted by Methuselah
lets focus on something that evolution needs in order to "sound" feasible.
----------time-----------
evolutoin needs lots of time in order to occur. for example, in order for a frog to turn into a prince, you need millions of years to call it science... if the frog turns into a prince instantly (ie kiss of love) then we call it a fairytale and put it in childrens bedtime stories.

...yeah, and we know we have the time. we have several dating methods that are insanely accurate to prove that there was more than enough time for it to happen.

also lets define what type of evolution we are talking about.

not this excrement again...
i've already explained this point, but i'll humor you and do it again.

since most evolutionists want to ignore the fact that you need cosmic, stellar, chemical and organic evolution.

no, you don't

in fact, i've repeatedly stated that you could have a giant dancing purple hippo fart out the universe fully formed with a single life form on the earth and you could have evolution.

lets just focus on the one they do care about. Macro evolution. we already know that micro evolution happens. we have seen it and it is in no way violating what the bible teaches.

...what the bible teaches doesn't matter
what's objective reality matters.

ok about this time thing. since evolutoin needs time (ie millions of years) to occur lets determine some facts. for instance, the age of the earth. because we all know that if the age of the earth were too young, evolution could not occur and the theory would get thrown out the window.
ok so lets look at a few things that evolutionists use as evidence to support their theory that the earth is millions of years old.
Magnetic reversal and the so-called evidences.

ok, i'm snipping the rest. you're throwing out the exact same tired arguments that i've refuted over and over and over again, while ignoring all of the places where i've left your arguments in pieces.

you're not here for a debate and you're never going to admit it when you're wrong, you're just going to keep on preaching the same lack of scientific literacy that you've been spouting off the whole thread.

Originally posted by heliosprime
GOD created science, it is man who is ignorant of its meaning.

...actually, Aristotle is the father of the scientific method.

Evoultion theory does not account for "when did life come from" to evolve into something else.

it doesn't have to
just like cell biology doesn't have to explain where life came from.

reply to post by pause4thought

As dave420 said,

Hilarious stuff there.

Yes, I laughed too, but guiltily. It seemed so cruel...

pause4thought, I followed, in good faith, your links to that rubbish AnswersInGenesis web site and that scientobabble magazine you linked to. What did I find there? Speculative tosh bristling with nonsensical jargon.

Then I followed your link to a series of posts by another ATS member, in another thread, hoping for the solid evidence for creationist claims you keep on promising us. What do I find there? Nothing but an exposition of the poor fellow's need to disbelieve in logic.

Finally, I follow you to a page where -- in all modesty, I am sure -- you quote yourself! -- making what I can most kindly call a thoroughly foolish, self-embarrassing statement and insisting that it proves the ignorance of Richard Dawkins.

Tell you what: I'm not wasting my time following any more links of yours.

Instead, I offer you a link of my own. Go here.

When you can come up with something like that, let me know.

[edit on 23-4-2008 by Astyanax]

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


Typical response, since you don't actually know the answer you deny its importance.

It is imposible for life to evolve from nothing...............there had to be a begining.

Scientific "method" is mans way of trying to explain how God does things. It has often been almost silly and usually very wrong. Science is ever evolving to explain what God has created. Historically most "science" has been dead wrong...............

example.....flat earth, speed of sound, atoms, etc, etc etc................

Originally posted by dave420
reply to post by heliosprime

 

Creationists would just strip naked and dance around screaming, happy that their new train messiah has arrived to carry them off into the great train yard in the sky.

Or something along those lines.

Ahhhh.............no need to share you most hidden fantasy here.......

Creathonist would awe at the fine details of the engineer and train builder and how everything worked perfectly until evolutionist stood on tracks screaming at each other about the age of the rocks in between the ties.......

reply to post by heliosprime

Typical response, since you don't actually know the answer you deny its importance.

No, he was just explaining, for about the fourth time (not that it needs any explanation in the first place, but some folk on this thread just don't seem to get it), that the question of the origin of life has nothing to do with the theory of evolution by natural selection. The theory only deals with what happened after life first appeared.

If you want more information, go here. Don't bother to read the whole post, just go to the bit headed 'In the Beginning'.

That's a theory about the origin of life. It's a theory that accords well with natural selection and, as far as I can tell, the current state of biological knowledge. It is not, however, the theory of natural selection. That's something quite different.

The fact that science cannot yet tell us how life originated -- something no scientist will deny -- has nothing, nothing to do with the theory of evolution by natural selection.

Got it now? You'd better have, because I ain't explainin' again.

Originally posted by heliosprime
Typical response, since you don't actually know the answer you deny its importance.

i never said it wasn't important, it just doesn't pertain to evolutionary theory.

i've said it before, and i'll say it again: the theory of evolution would still be valid if the entire universe was farted out fully formed with just a single life form on it by a giant dancing purple hippo.

i hate repeating myself, just go to the link Astyanax provided.

It is imposible for life to evolve from nothing...............there had to be a begining.

doesn't mean that the beginning was god.

Scientific "method" is mans way of trying to explain how God does things.

oh, not this fecal matter again...

It has often been almost silly and usually very wrong.

...except for the several thousand things that science has to have right for us to be having this conversation using computers and internet tubes and whatnot...

Science is ever evolving to explain what God has created.

...no, science is ever changing because we keep getting more data.

Historically most "science" has been dead wrong...............

with the exclusion of millions of things that we know aren't wrong...

example.....flat earth, speed of sound, atoms, etc, etc etc................

...flat earth wasn't science. it was mathematically proven that the world was round in classical greece... the guy even calculated the circumference of the earth (got damn close too)

speed of sound? what issues are you talking about?

...atoms? um...atoms...the word "atom" also comes from classical greece, along with the meaning attached. granted, we didn't know everything we knew now, but the concept was there for a while.

science isn't the thing that's dead wrong, it's typically the lack of evidence

trying to piece together a story when you don't have all of its parts is bound to come up with the wrong story.

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


Wow such denial............

Science was sure airplanes could never break the speed of sound....til Yeager did it.

Science was sure atomic structure was rasin floating in pudding, not electrons orbiting around a nucleus............

Global warming by man.............no actual science at all....all hype......

the age of the earth....more stupidity...........

when a new car is made....how old is the car? The date it was assembled or the age of the elements in the various metals used?

How about a theological student who drops out of school to observe the animal life on a single remote island then predict the entire chain of events that lead to his observation as natural selection.........

Evolution is a little over 100 years old.......yet says life began in an ooze billions of year earlier and just happened.........

.if you accept the premise, then darwin watched the clock of life of a 100th of a billionth of a second then predicted how the clock was made and how old it was and what time it was.........stupid wrong science........by small minded arrogant idiots...........

reply to post by heliosprime

Science was sure airplanes could never break the speed of sound....til Yeager did it.

No-one even thought about the 'sound barrier' until the Second World War, when military aircraft started encountering stability problems in high-speed dives. Less than ten years passed before the 'barrier' was broken. 'Science' (I think you mean scientists) weren't standing around saying it was impossible to fly faster than sound, they were working like demons to find a way to do it. War has a way of concentrating minds like that.

Science was sure atomic structure was rasin floating in pudding, not electrons orbiting around a nucleus

New models of the structure of the atom have been regularly proposed since Democritus. No twentieth-century physicist, as far as I know, ever claimed that these models were anything but an approximation, nor does any sane physicist deny that our knowledge, even today, is far from complete. They know how little they know and are always happy to admit it, because it means there is so much more to learn, and learning is what they do for a living. This idea of 'dogmatic science' is only held by people who have never met a real scientist.

And remember, 'we know little' is not the same thing as 'we don't have a clue'.

the age of the earth....more stupidity...

when a new car is made....how old is the car? The date it was assembled or the age of the elements in the various metals used?

Please, what do you... no, wait. >takes deep breath<

The age of the car is calculated, as you rightly indicate, from the day it rolls off the production line. The age of Earth is less easy to calculate, but a good place to start counting is the moment the rocky crust of the coalescing planet cooled enough to solidify. It is (very roughly) 4.5 billion years since that happened. If you would like to learn how we know this, here is a simple but comprehensive explanation which also shows why many creationist dating methods are incorrect. And here's the Wikipedia entry on the same topic, which offers a broad summary.

The age of the elements from which Earth is formed is very much greater than this. One of these elements, hydrogen, came into existence about three minutes after the Big Bang (scroll down to the section headed 'The First Atoms'). Deuterium, lithium and helium were formed soon after. About 100 million years later, these elements coalesced to form the first stars. Inside them, the heavier elements were formed. When these first huge, short-lived (a few million years at most) stars went nova and exploded, they scattered the elements formed inside them across the universe. Gravity did the rest.

The process kept on going and is still occurring, though it seems that star fomation in the universe peaked about five billion years ago. So the age of the elements from which Earth is made ranges from about 13 billion years to, maybe, five billion years or so.

The difference in age between the Earth and the elements that comprise it is well known to scientists. The exact figures are uncertain, but we know the ones we have are in the ballpark. As the linked UCLA page about the age of the universe shows, there are many different, independent ways to figure these things out, and though the spread between the answers derived from different methods can be very wide (almost two billion years in the case of the age of the universe -- an uncertainty of just over 15%!), there is still rough agreement between them.

small minded arrogant idiots

Oh, come on. That's a small-minded, arrogant comment.

The theory of evolution is just that, a theory. If it could be proven it would no longer be a theory, it would be a fact. I will say evolution gives some good arguments.

At the same time both spontaneous mutation theory and the Creationist theory also make wonderful arguments, However if you do not believe in God it is impossible to see the merits of Creationism.

Lastly I have to say a bit of a sour fact. In the scientific community evolution theory is no longer given much credence. The leading theory in most cases is now spontaneous mutation (Some may say that spontaneous mutation is evolution but is a completely different theory).

So to both the Scientific and Religious communities Darwin is dead. His theories are only of use to those who like arguing about it so much that even though the rest of the world has left it behind, they just can’t let it go.


[edit on 24-4-2008 by Squiddypuff]

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul
O&C conspiracy has, as of late, become relatively inactive
why?
because every argument for creationism and intelligent design has been soundly refuted

so, please
admit scientific defeat
sure, creationism can be philosophically sound
but you have lost in the realm of science

I will admit defeat when you can scientifically prove to me that the universe came into existance from nothing for no reason.

I will admit defeat when you can scientifically show me that life can come from non-living matter.

you claim, scientific victory, but nothing you claim is scientific.

reply to post by Squiddypuff


No, the theory of evolution is a scientific theory. Theory, when used in every day life, usually means "hypothesis". When used in science, "theory" means something a LOT more. A theory has to be based on a hypothesis, which is in turn based on an observation. The theory must have a set of rules, it must have supporting evidence, and it must be able to be falsified (otherwise it teaches nothing). It also must be able to predict the outcome of whatever it is it's describing. Gravity is still a scientific theory yet I don't hear you banging on about that. Only mathematics has "proof" - every other scientific pursuit has a never-ending flow of evidence either in support or contradiction. So far, evolution has great amounts of supporting data, and I've yet to see any evidence that contradicts it.

And as for evolution not being widely supported in biology, you are talking clear out of your posterior. Please provide us with some evidence for your fantastic claims.

Darwin's ideas are still in use today, throughout evolution study. If there was a smoking gun that would disprove the theory, then scientists would be the first people to bring it to everyone's attention, as science is a method, not a philosophy. The only thing it is absolutely unmoveable on is that logic is everything. It makes no leaps of faith, it doesn't take things for granted. Everything is up for grabs in science - all you need is evidence.

No matter how many times you tell yourself, or this group, how sidelined and incorrect evolution is, it's still very accurate. Creationism, on the other hand, has taught us nothing.

Is this why DNA is tracked back to one single female in Africa, and has been proven to be so.. Hmmm.. Sounds like your theory isn't quite right...

BTW a famous man once said, "God and The Universe are infinite and therefore perfect. Given infinite time man shall never produce anything infinite nor perfect."

Originally posted by heliosprime
reply to post by madnessinmysoul

 

Wow such denial............

Science was sure airplanes could never break the speed of sound....til Yeager did it.

...and they wouldn't have even tried it if they were sure

...and in that context it's science proving itself wrong. the experiment proved it.

Science was sure atomic structure was rasin floating in pudding, not electrons orbiting around a nucleus............

...no, that was purely a hypothesis, and actually quite the creative one considering that it was a way to explain positive and negative charges.

it was a step along with way.

clearly you seem to be operating under the delusion that if it isn't cut and dry right the first time, it has no value. please, deny that ignorance

Global warming by man.............no actual science at all....all hype......

not the thread and it's an ongoing discussion so saying "all hype" is a bit more than ignorant

the age of the earth....more stupidity...........

yeah, we sure as hell proved all the people who believed it was 6000 years old wrong (i've touched stuff older than that....)

radiometric dating is very, very accurate. unlike the whole "let's add up the ages in the bible" method.

when a new car is made....how old is the car? The date it was assembled or the age of the elements in the various metals used?

*facepalm*
please, read up on

How about a theological student who drops out of school to observe the animal life on a single remote island then predict the entire chain of events that lead to his observation as natural selection.........

Evolution is a little over 100 years old.......yet says life began in an ooze billions of year earlier and just happened.........

*facepalm*

...evolution says absolutely nothing about where life came from...
at all

.if you accept the premise, then darwin watched the clock of life of a 100th of a billionth of a second then predicted how the clock was made and how old it was and what time it was.........stupid wrong science........by small minded arrogant idiots...........

i'm not even going to address this blatant ignorance anymore. you have no argument so you resort to name calling.

Originally posted by Squiddypuff
The theory of evolution is just that, a theory. If it could be proven it would no longer be a theory, it would be a fact. I will say evolution gives some good arguments.

*facepalm* (i'm going to leave an impression on my face at this rate)
(clarification, i'm facepalming because of the lies that you've been fed, not because i think you're stupid or some such nonsense for believing them. i used to think the exact same thing until i knew better)

...theory can = fact

like cell biology
it's just a theory too.
so is germ theory

please, please read this article, it will help you to understand how you've been misinformed.

At the same time both spontaneous mutation theory and the Creationist theory also make wonderful arguments, However if you do not believe in God it is impossible to see the merits of Creationism.

...creationism is not a theory. it's a hypothesis.

and calling it "spontaneous mutation theory" is really showing a massive misunderstanding of evolution.

Lastly I have to say a bit of a sour fact. In the scientific community evolution theory is no longer given much credence. The leading theory in most cases is now spontaneous mutation (Some may say that spontaneous mutation is evolution but is a completely different theory).

...no, not at all.
i can't even find any information on "spontaneous mutation theory" so i have absolutely no idea where you're getting this from

So to both the Scientific and Religious communities Darwin is dead. His theories are only of use to those who like arguing about it so much that even though the rest of the world has left it behind, they just can’t let it go.
[edit on 24-4-2008 by Squiddypuff]

seriously, where's this coming from?
the theory of natural selection through environmental pressure is still alive and well....