Desk trauma said:

Any indication that he was a fan of the congress lady?

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Maxine Waters?

In wake of Jerry Falwell's death, Christopher Hitchens had some things to say that are relevant to this topic.

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Chrystal-J said:

My take away from Trump's statement was that we should focus on the positive history of the U.S., not that slavery wasn't bad.

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Why?

Is it because you are too frightened to deal with it, or because you believe that those who were unjustly treated make you feel bad and you don't wanna feel bad?

Cause that seems like a really, really immature stance to take.

rambot said:

So...you're advocating for the division of the united states I guess?

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No, it's very unfortunate, but it's the reality we have to deal with.

sfs said:

The probability of speciation isn't worth simulating, since we see every step in the process in current populations -- it clearly happens and happens frequently.

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The debatable issue is not whether or not we observe a diversity of living creatures. The issue is, "how did that diversity come to be?".

sfs said:

I would not attempt to simulate something like the development of the eye, since there are too many directions that selection can take a species, depending on what environment it faces and which mutations occur first, and since we have too poor a knowledge of most of the relevant parameters.

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The evolutionist's claim is that only mutation is un-directed; selection is directed (toward survival and reproduction), no? So in any hostile environment, for sentient animals the complex sense of sight provides an advantage for survival. But since "there are too many directions that selection can take", a gradual change evolution theory cannot explain the necessary complexity of an evolved functioning eye?

sfs said:

What we can do is note how often multiple mutational routes turn out to be available to achieve a particular trait change (answer: very often) and observe how quickly selection can drive change.

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It seems logical that selection delimits the available mutational routes. Within that limit, those mutational routes remain random, yes? So, how many mutational routes are available? If the number of random mutational routes is not significantly smaller than the number of possible random mutations before selection weans them then I don't see much progress in the discussion on gradual evolution explaining the functioning eye.

sfs said:

For morphological changes in animals, what we see is that typical (inferred) morphological change in the fossil record is much slower than (inferred) change during adaptive radiations (as when a lineage invades a new environment or when many ecological niches open up after a mass extinction), which in turn is much slower than the observed change in invasive species, which in turn is much slower than the observed change in artificial settings when experiments are done on natural selection.

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No argument that radical changes in a creature's environment affect its survival and reproduction. No argument that radical changes in ecology accelerate (or decelerate) micro-evolutionary events. However, the evolution of a functioning eye via accumulated micro-evolutionary events needs evidence. The rate of change is not that evidence.

sfs said:

So there is no hint that the inferred rate of change is somehow difficult for natural selection and normal genetic variation to achieve. That, coupled with the overwhelming evidence -- from biogeography, from morphology, from fossils, and above all from genetics -- that species share common ancestors, provides compelling evidence for the reality of common descent and the role in it of random genetic variation and natural selection.

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Many, not all scientists agree. However, the explanation via evolution for a functioning eye in sentient creatures or the flagellum at the cellular level remains unanswered. (Behe)

sfs said:

Yes to the first; I don't know what's 'mere' about evolution, but yes, we clearly evolved from other animals; all the evidence I've seen to date indicates that abstract thinking evolved; genetic evidence is very strong that humans have had a population size greater than 2 for at least 500,000 years.

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We observe effects and logically infer their causes. What are the effects of abstract thinking? Our evidence is solely those observed effects. So, what is the bais for the claim that "all the evidence (observed effects) ... to date indicates that abstract thinking evolved"? What animals use syntactical speech? What animals bury their dead? What animals draw their abstractions? What animals possess the freedom to act against their instinctive tendencies?

sfs said:

My turn... I would like to know what alternative explanations there are for what we see in living things, aside from evolution.

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Genesis 1 I think has the explanation almost spot on:


What are life's characteristic manifestations? What are its chief forms? What is the inner nature of the source of vital activity?

Vegetation manifests the universal and basic phenomena of life: nutrition, growth, and decay. The second kind of life, the animal kingdom, adds sentience and locomotion The highest kind of life is mind or reason, exerting itself in thought or rational activity. This last properly belongs to man. The source of vitality in all creatures resides in its soul, its animating and harmonizing principle.

You admit to the (non-scientific) omnipotent Creator (a theistic-evolution) but it also appears that you constrain His omnipotence to that which limited human observations and fallible reason can reach on its own. So, the scientific method is quite limited in its discovery of truth. Further, the science jetisons metaphyical principles as guardrails to its claims and admits (I think too much) unwarranted specualtion and imagination to its claims.

sfs said:

Genetically, however, these birds are all more closely related to one another than to any other bird in the world (and are most related to rosefinches outside the islands). Why? Similarly for the 800 species of fruit fly on the island, which are all most closely related to one another. Why?

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Micro-evolution.

rambot said:

So...you're advocating for the division of the united states I guess?

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It’s already divided.

Tropical Wilds said:

And you don’t find that to be kind of a hypocritical double standard that when you do it, it’s ok but when others do it, they’re wrong?

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Again, I don't log on to CF to teach you reading comprehension. Figure it out yourself, or not.

iluvatar5150 said:

lol

How is it that little ol' me, the guy who makes cartoon fart noises for a living, could see this coming from a mile away (and said as much here, repeatedly) when all of these supposedly smart billionaires couldn't. Either these guys don't have a full brain between them or they're lying about being disappointed in the outcome. This approach didn't work at Twitter and it was obvious from before it began that it wouldn't work in the federal government.

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There should be a searing Congressional investigation into this malfeasance, but instead Musk is put out to pasture with a "U tryed" sticker.

Chesterton said:

He's right. And Jesus came with a sword, to divide. If good and evil face against each other, and the evil makes the divide irreconcilable, you need to pick a side.

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So...you're advocating for the division of the united states I guess?

JosephZ said:

An individual killed Charlie Kirk. His name is Tyler Robinson, and investigators believe he alone is the one responsible for Kirk's death. There is no "they."

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And of course you would say the very same thing about James Fields, right?

Chesterton said:

Exactly.

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And you don’t find that to be kind of a hypocritical double standard that when you do it, it’s ok but when others do it, they’re wrong?

Aryeh Jay said:

And people wonder where Sovereign Citizens get their crack ball ideas from.

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I'm not sure where they get their ideas, but now I know where they get their license plates... Walmart

Postvieww said:

Spin at its best. With information now available it is absolutely clear which side of the political spectrum this confused killer was influenced by.

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Oh, it's clear, huh? Tell me, how do you know whether he was far left or a groyper? Hmm? Both groups have long had problems with Kirk and attempted to disrupt his events. The groypers even waged a "Groyper War" against TPUSA in 2019.

These links are all from before Kirk's murder, so they're not attempts to redirect blame: