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originally posted by: drivers1492
a reply to: vasaga
Ii believe a person is free to believe as they wish. But, this statement bothers me to some degree:
"You people are always talking about this overwhelming evidence that there is, but it's never presented. It's only repeated like a religious mantra. Link me to this huge list of overwhelming evidence you like to talk about so much. "
It bothers me because it's dishonest on your part. I read the evolutions threads frequently and evidence is constantly put forward and ignored. IF you were interested in a greater understanding of the proof presented for evolution you would simply google/bing or whatever you use for scholarly papers and read them. You have no argument why you have not since your using a computer or phone to post here and they both have the capability. Since I took the time to respond to your post I will help you get started on your research.
Google scholar for biological evolution
Oxford Journals on evolution and molecular biology
Journal of Phylogenetics & Evolutionary Biology
I hope that supplies you with enough resources to show you that there is a massive amount of evidence and you will take the time to read, understand, and research for yourself instead of waiting for someone else to do it for you. I apologize if I came across rude.
Many accusations have been leveled at this book, which isn't surprising given the controversial nature of its implications. It seems that the word "pseudoscience" is being tossed around a lot. This is incredibly ironic, because the vast majority of the scientific discussion in Darwin's Doubt is based on scientific literature written by scientists who are not even proponents of intelligent design. Meyer does a tremendous job of outlining paper after paper after paper, and he includes the full citations so that any careful reader can check to make sure that nothing is misrepresented or taken out of context. This is exactly what philosophers of science are highly trained to do. (I don't think many of Meyer's detractors even comprehend what philosophy of science IS.) Philosophers of science do sweeping surveys of the work being done in a particular field, document areas of strong disagreement between the prominent scientists in that field, and locate weaknesses in the over-arching theory or theories. Meyer does an excellent job of this in Darwin's Doubt. Every time I had a mental red flag as I was reading his commentary on a specific bit of research, he would answer my concern within another page or two. He maintains a very professional and respectful tone throughout, to his great credit.
Ultimately, Meyer has compiled an impressive amount of peer-reviewed research on the Cambrian phenomenon and the related bio-information problem. He has organized it in a way that flows logically from one chapter to the next. He highlights the strengths of the relevant research and often cites other peer-reviewed literature that directly contrasts with the research he is examining. He offers his own analysis along the way. In the final section, he ties everything together into a logically coherent argument for design.
Now, of course many will disagree with the conclusions Meyer has drawn from the science. But those who have actually done a cover-to-cover reading of the book (and understood it) won't dismiss it with trite, fallacious labels. The majority of negative "reviews" I've seen completely misrepresent the book and even Meyer's credentials. I see little evidence that they even read the book, as they attempt to discredit arguments that Meyer never made, or they get his arguments completely wrong. This kind of zealous intellectual irresponsibility is quite telling.
It's been very entertaining to read the ongoing commentary on Evolution News and Views (an intelligent design news site) about all the pseudo-reviews floating around on the internet.
[For the record, my career background is genetic research and biotechnology. I recently did my graduate work in the history and philosophy of science, with a concentration in origins sciences.]
If one takes the time to read through it and check the references. I find it interesting that many of the so-called "reviews" parrot the same message. I wonder if they read the same book as me! I took my time, read through the book, checked some (not all) of the references, and I can't find where Dr. Meyer distorted or lied about any information.
What I do find is an easy to understand, thought provoking, and contrarian view, which is probably what has the evolutionists up in arms. While curious about the Cambrian Explosion myself, and how so many life forms suddenly (relatively speaking) appeared, I had not done research into the topic. Finally, a work that not only explains another possibility, but does so cogently and with a viable alternative to evolution, which now, I find sorely lacking.
"Stephen Meyer's new book Darwin's Doubt represents an opportunity for bridge-building, rather than dismissive polarization -- bridges across cultural divides in great need of professional, respectful dialog -- and bridges to span evolutionary gaps." --Dr. George Church, Professor of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, and author of Regenesis.
"Darwin's Doubt is by far the most up-to-date, accurate, comprehensive and in-depth review of the evidence from all relevant scientific fields that I have encountered in 40 years of studying the Cambrian explosion. An engaging investigation of the origin of animal life and a compelling case for intelligent design."
--Dr. Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig, Senior Scientist (Biologist), Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, (emeritus), Cologne, Germany.
"It is hard for us paleontologists, steeped as we are in a tradition of Darwinian analysis, to admit that neo-Darwinian explanations for the Cambrian Explosion have failed miserably. New data acquired in recent years, instead of solving Darwin's dilemma, have rather made it worse. Meyer describes the dimensions of the problem with clarity and precision. His book is a game changer for the study of evolution and evolutionary biology. Stephen Meyer points us in the right direction as we seek a new theory for the origin of Cambrian animal phyla." --Dr. Mark McMenamin, paleontogist, Mt. Holyoke College, Author:
The Emergence of Animals (Columbia University Press).
originally posted by: vasaga
You people are always talking about this overwhelming evidence that there is, but it's never presented.
And nice personal attack again by the way. That's all you have.
originally posted by: Blue_Jay33
One acquaintance once told me he enjoys debunking Darwinism, when I asked him why?
He answered with "the math", what he was referring to is that math with biology can't support it.
One biological scientist once said the Darwin theory is so mathematically impossible it's odds of happening are like 1 out of the number that represents all the atoms in the universe. Nobody knows what that number actually is. But it's a hyperbole to make a point.
Part of a keynote address given at the American Museum of Natural History by Dr Colin Patterson (Senior Paleontologist, British Museum of Natural History, London) in 1981.
"One morning I woke up and something had happened in the night, and it struck me that I had been working on this evolution stuff for twenty years and there was not one thing I knew about it.
That's quite a shock to learn that one can be so misled so long. Either there was something wrong with me, or there was some- thing wrong with “Evolutionary theory.”
Naturally, I know there is nothing wrong with me.
The question is: Can you tell me anything you KNOW about Evolution? Any one thing? Any one thing that is true? I tried that question on the geology staff at the Field Museum of Natural History, and the only answer I got was SILENCE.
I tried it on the members of the Evolutionary Morphology Seminar in the University of Chicago, a very prestigious body of Evolutionists, and all I got there was silence for a long time, and eventually one person said, “I do know one thing, it ought not to be taught in High school.”
Darwinism is an Illuminati Scam
originally posted by: mmiichael
British scientist Rupert Sheldrake has been working on a larger scale explanation of the mechanisms of life. He believes and has tried to demonstrate scientifically that there exists what he calls a "Morphic Field" permeating every living form. This creates a connection between all similar forms so that they are able to benefit and essentially learn collectively.
originally posted by: Murgatroid
originally posted by: Blue_Jay33
One acquaintance once told me he enjoys debunking Darwinism, when I asked him why?
He answered with "the math", what he was referring to is that math with biology can't support it.
One biological scientist once said the Darwin theory is so mathematically impossible it's odds of happening are like 1 out of the number that represents all the atoms in the universe. Nobody knows what that number actually is. But it's a hyperbole to make a point.
originally posted by: Quadrivium
a reply to: Barcs
Broad questions Barcs?
Perhaps but sometimes they need to be asked.
If it is alright with you we can lead up to the "broad" questions.
We can start out with something easier.
The Earth is 4.5 billion years old. How was this number reached?
How such a response can get so many stars is beyond me. The 'science' response has become an empty reply that can be applied to anything, in order to avoid the rigorous sequential logical factual explanation.
originally posted by: AngryCymraeg
originally posted by: Quadrivium
a reply to: Barcs
Broad questions Barcs?
Perhaps but sometimes they need to be asked.
If it is alright with you we can lead up to the "broad" questions.
We can start out with something easier.
The Earth is 4.5 billion years old. How was this number reached?
Science.
originally posted by: Quadrivium
a reply to: Barcs
Broad questions Barcs?
Perhaps but sometimes they need to be asked.
If it is alright with you we can lead up to the "broad" questions.
We can start out with something easier.
The Earth is 4.5 billion years old. How was this number reached?
In 1956, Patterson published a study in the journal Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, that reported lead ratios found in one of the Canyon Diablo meteorites. These iron meteorites are the leftover pieces of a big one that created Meteor Crater in Arizona about 50,000 years ago. Most important, they were also leftovers from the formation of the solar system, which before the publication of his papers was known only to be billions of years ago. As Patterson explained in an interview in the year that he died, the Canyon Diablo meteorites didn't contain any uranium, a metal that radioactively decays into lead at well-established rates taking hundreds of millions of years. Other rocks contained both lead and uranium, screwing up earlier age estimates.
So, by reporting the ratio of lead types found in these pristine meteorites and comparing them to lead ratios found in the other rocks on the Earth and other meteorites, Patterson could calculate the age of the solar system, when the Earth formed, to be 4.55 billion years old, give or take 70 million years.
www.talkorigins.org...
The literature on observed speciations events is not well organized. I found only a few papers that had an observation of a speciation event as the author's main point (e.g. Weinberg, et al. 1992). In addition, I found only one review that was specifically on this topic (Callaghan 1987). This review cited only four examples of speciation events. Why is there such a seeming lack of interest in reporting observations of speciation events?
In my humble opinion, four things account for this lack of interest. First, it appears that the biological community considers this a settled question. Many researchers feel that there are already ample reports in the literature. Few of these folks have actually looked closely. To test this idea, I asked about two dozen graduate students and faculty members in the department where I'm a student whether there were examples where speciation had been observed in the literature. Everyone said that they were sure that there were. Next I asked them for citings or descriptions. Only eight of the people I talked to could give an example, only three could give more than one. But everyone was sure that there were papers in the literature.