Thu 27 Mar 97  0:51
By: DAVID RICE
To: MARK O'NEILL
Re: The faulty designs of the gods

KY> I am not God[sic],

He just puts words in his god's mouth.

KY> and thus, do not claim to have all the answers, but yes,
KY> everything He[sic] made, there is a reason for.

MO> And the function of the appendix is?

To rub in the faces of idiot Creationists (redundant).

The appendix just the tip (pardon the pun) of the vestigil iceburg. Why do we have vestigil fingers on our feet? Why do so many human infants get born with tail stubs? Why do we have the masoidic assembly? Why do our nasal passages drain into our lungs? Why are our ankles so damn thin and weak compared to our weight and height? Why are our ribs designed to carry weight horizontally?

Evolutionary Theory has the answers: Creationists do not.

Whales with legs; snakes with legs; snakes with one atrophied lung; embryonic gill slits in ALL land animals; the human jaw too small for the number of teeth it holds (i.e. impacted wisdom teeth). Why would the gods make these worthless, and often dangerous, vestigil features? Scientists know the answer: I've yet to hear a Creationist offer any rational explanation.

Sat 31 May 97 18:14
By: Karl Schneider
To: John Musselwhite
Re: Creationists lie only to themselves

JM> On 26 May 97 16:53:20, Laurie Appleton penned the following to John

LA> (When the Sky Rained Fire, Reader's Digest, February, 1976, p.169)

JM> Perhaps this from page 780 of Asimov's Guide to Science may help:

JM> "To demonstrate that evolutionary theory was not true, they
JM> [Creationists] did not hesitate to misquote, distort, take out
JM> of context, and in other ways violate the Biblical commandment
JM> against bearing false witness. And even so they proclaimed
JM> their own view as true only by default and never, at any time,
JM> have presented rational evidence in favor of their creationism,
JM> which they solemnly (but ridiculously) call 'scientific
JM> creationism.'"

I rather like this, as well, from p. xi, Introduction to Counting The Eons, (c) 1981, Mercury Press:

"What the creationists *call* evidence is quotations from various other creationists whom they call 'scientists' on the basis of such things as a degree in engineering; making use of NO quotes, moreover, that ever offer any evidence worthy of the name."

Sat 31 May 97 19:13
By: Ed Mills
To: Julie Smart
Re: Science v261:321-327

??>> Do you think people want to take the
??>> time to read a bunch of fairy tales?

JS> I guess so. You all seem to believe in evolution, after all.

Also that the Earth is spherical, that electrons can be manipulated in semiconductive materials to process information, that viscous fluids pushing pistons have a mechanical advantage which can be used to perform heavy work.

So you will have to immediately cease to receive any of the benefits of all the things science has provided which are comparable to evolution in their physical tangibility, unless you want to live in a fairy-tale world.

It's not going to be fun sleeping naked in the dirt!

- Scientific American, January 1997:

Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Chalenge to Evolution by Michael J. Behe, Free Press, 1996 ($ 25.00)

The earliest stages in the history of life -- including its origin and the development of the basic biochemical pathways -- are shrouded in mystery.

Michael J. Behe holds that evolutionary theory will never solve the mystery, because some of the components are "irreducibly complex" and so much be the product of "intelligent design" -- maybe God's (sic) maybe not.

It is an old arguement, both arrogant and deeply unsatisfying. Theologians as well as scientists might blanch at the notion that we owe our inner workings to an ambiguous designer who controlled only those aspects of evolution that Behe deems [to be] inexplicable.

Note from Fredric Rice:

Behe is one of those "must believers" who run into something they don't understand and then handle it by throwing up their hands and exclaiming, "gods mustas dun it."

Behe also doesn't understand that evolution is a directly observed phenomena -- he mixes evolutionary theories with the fact of evolution and ignores 99.9999% of the evidence which supports the theories his religious beliefs wish do away.

Sun 27 Jul 97 10:40
By: Fredric Rice
To: Alan Presley
Re: Creation science - where is it?

AP> It does take blind faith, but a lot less than evolution does.

Evolution and speciation is a directly observed phenomena.

The reason why you're told not to accept the directly observed is because by not doing so you evidence your piety to your fellow cult members. It is an indication of committment to your cult to deny what's obviously true for religious reasons.

When you express your piety among intellectuals, however, don't fool yourself into pretending anyone here would believe your masters lies.

By: Fredric Rice
Re: 'Mything' Links!

JB> Why would you believe Wickramasinghe, when he says
JB> that creationism is balderdash, and that 'anyone who thinks
JB> the earth is only 7,000 years old' ought to have his head
JB> examined? (*chuckle*)

la> Of course I have never said that I did, did I? However
la> that does not say that he is not better informed than most
la> evolutionists, when he states other things. i.e.;

This is neat and I had to share it with people who don't bother reading the Creationist lunatics among us.

Here we have a Creationist who was _forced_ under oath to tell the truth and admit that Creationism is insane to believe and yet the Creationist liars among us wish to ignore that fact and quote Wickramasinghe when he's free from punishment for lying.

<rofl!>

Rena Mcgee:
Entropy....according to this person Evolution could not occur because everything in the universe cycles from the complex, to the simple (which is how I felt after attempting to get around the wall of alleged logic...)

Fredric Rice:
Your fundy got it wrong. Entropy referes to the energy budget within a closed system. The Earth isn't a closed system: It receives a great deal of energy from the Sun, ergo evolution continues to work as observed. Evolution on Earth will stop when its Sun collapses.

The Universe, taken as a whole, however, _is_ a closed system. Within the whole of the Universe entrophy wins out yet there are uncounted trillions of pockets of increasing order within the whole. That's because there are uncounted trillions of stellar furnaces keeping little pockets of complexity running.

Fundies are told that the second law of Thermodynamics some how disprove the fact of evolution -- as if directly observed speciation could be wished away. What they prove is that they have no idea what evolution is, what the Second Law states, and where entrophy is a valid effect.

Date: Sat 6 Sep 97 17:35
By:   Mark Nelson
Re:   Evolution in the News

Well, this doesn't happen a lot, but our local newspaper (Houston Chronicle) has decided to allow an ongoing evolution debate in it's "letters" section. If you wish to comment on any of these letters, you may e-mail viewpoints@chron.com or fax to 713-220-3575.

'Boning up' on evolution, paleontology

[this is for the 'no tranitional fossils' people]

I read with dismay the letter from W.B. Robinson (viewpoints, Sept.2) that "there just aren't any fossils showing reptiles turning into mammals. " Apparently, Robinson knows nothing of the paleontologic records of mammal-like reptiles. This group has as one of its members, everyone's favorite: a sail-fin-backed reptile from the Permian period, Dimetrodon.

Throughout the Permian and Triassic periods, fossil records show a progressive change from a sprawling stance like a crocodile or a lizard, to a more upright, mammalian stance. At the same time, changes to the skull structure resulted in the creation of the modern mammalian ear with its three bones.

These changes in physiology show a progressive change over millions of years. It can be read about in any good vertebrate paleontology book, so Robinson's statement that evolution doesn't occur because there are no fossils showing the transition from reptiles to mammals is false. -Mike Edmunds, Houston

[here's one for the 'microevolution' people]

James R. Sumpter (Viewpoints, Aug. 28) committed a scientific "no-no" with his offhanded reference to research without citing where these analyses appear which "prove conclusively that evolution between species is physically impossible."

I doubt there's enough space in a year's worth of Chronicles to list all the studies and demonstrations of modern theories of interspecies evolution, but Sumpter could start with an entry-level textbook. We can't sit on the couch and watch evolution like we watch TV. But a TV-style view is the only type of evidence we don't have.

Also, Sumpter doesn't seem to be aware that interspecies evolution was widely accepted by both secular and nonsecular students of natural history long before Charles Darwin ever published _On the Origin of Species_. Only the mechanism was in dispute.

And now that Darwin's theories on the mechanism have been enhanced and supported by genetics and modern knowledge of biology, chemistry, physics, geology, geochemistry, ecology, paleontology, meteorology, cosmology, etc., it is only the relative importance - not the validity - of various mechanisms which are in dispute.

Perhaps Sumpter should take some college-level classes before casually dismissing one of the most elegant and successful theories of modern science. -Cindy Gresham, Houston

[and here's a Christian who supports evolution]

Anyone with an open mind and enough curiosity to read a little biology could envision that evolution through the processes of mutation, recombinant DNA, and natural selection might be God's way of creating a mystifying, beautiful, constantly changing universe of life forms.

The beauty of studying science involves a love of discovery. It is a passion for pursuing the revelations that result from careful observations and unrestrained thought. Turn your back on science and you turn you back on a truly gratifying study of God's greatness. -Theodore Pierce, The Woodlands

[that last one was for especially for Kochman - even your fellow Christians (some of them) embrace science, while you reject it.] -Mark

... It's a good thing fundyism is only contagious to morons.

What follows might be somewhat offensive to the non-whites who may read it yet keep in mind that the "Alan Presley" here is a very young boy who is the son of a Christian priest. He is only regurgitating what he has been told and probably shouldn't be held entirely accountable for his racist annd badly uneducated beliefs.

Sun 14 Sep 97 16:45

Alan Presley:
No, I never saw that message you wrote about stage magic. Those NDE weren't true if the person wasn't dead or in code blue. It was just a routine operation from what I gathered from it. Of course some people are going to dream things like that. I have not ditched science. I enjoy science greatly (especially chemistry). From what I've gathered using logic and observation, creatrion is the only plausible answer.

There is some type of science law that is in my Chemistry book. This is a law: A system containing many particles will not go spontaneously from a disordered state to an ordered state.

About my evidence being wrong, not a single person in this echo could find fault with my message on genes except one person but he said something that was completely rediculous and no other evolutuinist stood up for him. Here is the simplified version:

Mexicans look the same, as do Jews, Indians, English, Scotish, and any other group like that. Why, because their genes have narrowed. They have less genes in the gene pool then they did origonally. This can also be seen at the continent level. Don't Asians differ from Africans who differ from Europeans? Yes. We are losing genes. If genes were gained then every ethnic group would look like every other one. If we are losing them at a scale like that, the we obviously the entire human race is losing genes. More evidence for this is imbreeding. A child of a mexican and an englishman is more likely to be healthy and intelligent than a child or two mexicans.

Jay Siegel:
Hold on a minute. Find out what you are talking about before making blanket statements.

A gene is a location on a chromosome which contains a sequence of DNA that carries the coding for the production of a protein molecule or a part of a protein molecule. When the gene is active protein molecules are produced which effect the characterstics of the organisms possessing them.

Genes have alleles. These are variations in their seqences of DNA called codons consisting of sequences of three bases. Different alleles of the same gene produce differences in the protein molecule coded for by the gene in question. Human populations contain pretty much the same number of genes and several times as many different alleles. Even isolated populations contain pretty much the same number of genes. Through interbreeding the number of alleles increases but not number of genes. Through natural, sexual and cultural selection the number of alleles is reduced. Through mutations the number of alleles is increased. The interplay of all these processes holds the number of alleles, not genes, in a population in a kind of equilibrium.

The numbers of genes in individuals sometimes are effected by mutations of the chromosomes which result in a loss of chromosomal material or the addition of chromosomal material. The results can be serious and we know they can cause abnormalities effecting brain and body development. Examples are dwarfism and Down's Syndrome. People with these characteristics usually have lowered lifespans and lower fertility so that selective processes reduce their reproductive success and hence they have little effect on the number of genes in successor populations.

There is no evidence that the number of genes is increasing or decreasing and there is no evidence the allele pool is increasing of decreasing. There is a balance of competing process taking place that seems to limit the range of possibilities and maintain the maximum number of possibilities within that range. The more limited range of alleles within an inbreeding population is maintained mainly by cultural and sexual selection. These are human constructs and change as people's behavior changes as their cultures change and they never stop changing. The Scots aren't looking more identical now than they did 100 years ago. The same goes for the Mexicans (who have benefited from a combination of alleles from at least two diverse interebreeding populations, Spanish and Native Indian), and any other designated ethnic of racial group you can mention. They may be showing more diversity now than they did then. These populations are not really reproductively isolated.

Alan Presley:
I think it is the evolutionists who don't think rationally and are dogmatic in their beliefs.

Jay Siegel:
The pot is calling the kettle black.

Anonymous Creationist Liar: APES UP FROM?, DONALD JOHANSON, "At any rate, modern gorillas, orangs and chimpanzees spring out of nowhere, as it were. They are here today; they have no yesterday...., LUCY, p.363

blanche@netaxs.com
I have that book, so let's quote the entirety and capture the context.

"At any rate, modern gorillas, orangs, and chimpanzees spring out of nowhere, as it where. They are here today; they have no yesterday, unless one is able to find faint foreshadowings of it in the dryopithecids. Pilbeam assumes that the relationship exists, and has so indicated in a chart he has constructed -- although he does leave a huge gap in it, and makes no attempt to link any specific dryopithecid with any living ape.

He contents himself with the observation that dryopithecids are primitive apes with certain things in common, things that they do not have in common with a second group of Miocene apes that he has also succeeded in sorting out and lumping together: the ramapithecids, named after the aforementioned Ramapithecus.

What is the distinction? It is a simple but overwhelmingly important one. With the exception of their premolars, which are apelike, all of the ramapithecids have peculiar unapelike teeth: big molars, heavy enamels, small canines. They foreshadow hominids. The dryopithecids, with apelike teeth, foreshadow modern apes."

I'm not trying to convince you of anything. That would be wasted effort - you have your views, I have mine. I would rather teach those younger and more easily misled minds how misquotes and incomplete quotes can twist black into white, to mix a metaphor.

Creationists most often misquote biologists and other scientists and take them out of context to make them appear to "'admit" that evolution doesn't take place some how. Here's a good example from one of the more dishonest and delusional Creationists around the network.

Wed 3 Dec 97 22:18

Laurie Appleton:
Since Patterson is honest enough to say that "there is NOT one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument" (Ibid) then you are not making any sense, but simply begging the question.

I understand your embarrassment!

Alec Grynspan:
Of course, if we continue with the sentence and paragraph:

"... a watertight argument. The reason is that statements about ancestry and descent are not applicable in the fossil record. Is Archaeopteryx the ancestor of all birds? Perhaps yes, perhaps no: there is no way of answering the question. It is easy enough to make up stories of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages should be favoured by natural selection. But such stories are not part of science, for there is no way to put them to the test."

"In several animal and plant groups, enough fossils are known to bridge the wide gaps between existing types. In mammals, for example, the gap between horses, asses and zebras (genus Equus) and their closest living relatives, the rhinoceroses and tapirs, is filled by an extensive series of fossils extending back sixty-million years to a small animal, Hyracotherium, which can only be distinguished from the rhinoceros-tapir group by one or two horse-like details of the skull. There are many other examples of fossil 'missing links', such as Archaeopteryx, the Jurassic bird which links birds with dinosaurs (Fig. 45), and Ichthyostega, the late Devonian amphibian which links land vertebrates and the extinct choanate (having internal nostrils) fishes ..."

Evolution 1978, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. pp. 131-133 "

But, of course, you never get embarassed, do you, Laurie?

That's because you aren't honest enough to care.

Laurie Appleton:
I have produced other humans and my parents were humans as were my parents parents as far back as we have records. There is evidence going back thousands of years that there were humans and that they also produced "after their kind". You sound rather desperate to have evolution in SPITE of the facts. Why is that? Did you turn up a monkey somewhere in your ancestry then?

Alec Grynspan:
It figures that you'd use such a nonsense example.

Laurie Appleton:
Why fit any more than the absolute minimum that would be logically and scientifically required?

Alec Grynspan:
Several billion - yes - we already know that, Laurie.