Creationists, what do the worlds universities know that creationists don't?

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

May or may not have been? Unfortunately this is not the only spot in the world nor is Hibben the only person in the world.

Spatial-temporal features of the Pleistocene megafauna extinction in Northern Asia: an overview

It is obvious that Siberian Arctic was not the “last stronghold” for the Pleistocene megafauna. The process of final extinction of some species was quite complex, with isolated ‘pockets' survived outside of the main habitat range for several millennia

Thanks for providing a link proving my point that the pleistocene extinction took place over a considerable period of time. This is not at all what one would expect if it were the result of a global flood.

Some say it is the climate change,

Climate Change Caused Extinction of Big Ice Age Mammals, Scientist Says

Grayson points to climate shifts during the late Pleistocene and related changes in weather and vegetation patterns as the likely culprits in the demise of North America's megafauna.
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While others blame man,

Humans to Blame for Ice Age Extinctions, Study Says

Steadman and his colleagues argue that megafauna species on the American continents, having evolved in an environment without humans, may have been particularly vulnerable to the sudden appearance of big game hunters.

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But neither has to be fully chosen. The change in climate due to the cataclysm coincides with the migratory patterns and culture fusions as noted earlier. This line sums it up,

Humans to Blame for Ice Age Extinctions, Study Says

Climate change may have been a factor in pushing the animals to extinction, Steadman says, but it took humans to push them over the edge.

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The type of migration depicted earlier would in fact promote the rapid depletion and even accelerate it.
The mammoths in Siberia may be what is being alluded to here.

Bring Back the Elephants - Tools Ideas Environment - Whole Earth Catalog

We are keenly aware that living African ( Loxodonta africana ) and Asian (Elephas maximus ) elephants are not conspecific with fossil mammoths ( Mammuthus) or other native New World Proboscidea. But all are in the same family, and some taxonomists have considered Elephas and Mammuthus to be quite close, even congeneric;
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the end of the Pleistocene was not a time of mass extinction. Instead, what happened in America was an extinction of the massive (plus their parasites and commensals).
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Thanks for providing another link proving my point.

Spatial-temporal features of the Pleistocene megafauna extinction in Northern Asia: an overview

The corpus of 14C dates for several megafaunal species in Siberia include hundreds of values, with largest amount available for woolly mammoth (ca. 580), and less for other species: woolly rhinoceros – ca. 45; Pleistocene bison – ca. 75; and Pleistocene horse – ca. 80.
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'
It is a two fold effect.
The above does not address the point being made. For one, we already know that it was rotten.

Ooparts & Ancient High Technology--The Boneyards IV

The evidence of the violence of nature combined with the stench of rotting carcasses was staggering.

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The extinction of the woolly mammoth: was it a quick freeze?

1. The number of frozen carcasses, in spite of under-reporting, is very small compared to the number of mammoth bones that underwent normal decay and are entombed in the permafrost.104,105
2. The carcasses are often partially decayed with fly pupae and display signs of scavenging,3,79,106,107 not expected during a quick-freeze.
3. The unique condition of several of the carcasses, such as the famished condition of Dima and the headless Selerikhan horse (Figure 5),3,83 indicate some time elapsed before final burial.
4. For some of the carcasses, death appears to have occurred at different times of the year.83,108 A quick-freeze during the Flood, especially as advocated by some creationists, would have occurred in a single instant.
5. The characteristics of the permafrost that entombs the carcasses and bones, show that it was not dumped quickly from above. It is doubtful that ice wedges would form during a quick drop of ice or hail from above.


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The quickness being referred to here is the change in temperature. They were grazers. What is seen does not indicate the type of gradual change where a migration would suffice but instead the onset of a rather sudden change.

This was all thorougly refuted 50 years ago. Occasionally (and there not that many of them) large animals died under conditions that allowed their bodies to eventually be frozen. I provided a link refuting this on a previous post and in what you quote and will not address it again.

The extinction of the woolly mammoth: was it a quick freeze?

Carcasses and bones of woolly mammoths in Siberia, Alaska, and the Yukon have been difficult to explain. The mammoth remains are abundant over the mid and high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, except in formerly glaciated areas. There are probably millions of them buried in the permafrost of Siberia alone. A wide variety of other mammals, large and small, accompanied the mammoth. Many of these animals are grazers, implying that the paleoenvironment of Beringia was a grassland with a wide diversity of plants. This diversity of plants and animals points to a longer growing season with milder winters and very little permafrost.
This paleoenvironment is contrary to what is observed in Beringia today, with its very cold winters and boggy substrate in summer. Scientists constrained by uniformitarian thinking seem to face conundrum after conundrum in regard to the life and death of the woolly mammoth in Beringia, as well as by the ice age itself. A uniformitarian ice age climate would have been even colder still. It is difficult to conceive that the woolly mammoth and all the other animals could have lived in Siberia under these conditions. It is obvious the uniformitarian assumption does not apply.
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As I said already refuted by data collected and published 50 years ago.
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Mass extinction: Why did half of N. America's large mammals disappear 40,000 to 10,000 years ago?

A particular issue that has also contributed to this debate focuses on the chronology of extinctions. The existing fossil record is incomplete, making it more difficult to tell whether or not the extinctions occurred in a gradual process, or took place as a synchronous event. In addition, it was previously unclear whether species are missing from the terminal Pleistocene because they had already gone extinct or because they simply have not been found yet.
However, new findings from Faith indicate that the extinction is best characterized as a sudden event that took place between 13.8 and 11.4 thousand years ago. Faith's findings support the idea that this mass extinction was due to human overkill, comet impact or other rapid events rather than a slow attrition.
"The massive extinction coincides precisely with human arrival on the continent, abrupt climate change, and a possible extraterrestrial impact event" said Faith. "It remains possible that any one of these or all, contributed to the sudden extinctions. We now have a better understanding of when the extinctions took place and the next step is to figure out why."
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Human overkill is not a global flood but the data you linked to above present a different picture.
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They are referring to a time period.
Cro-Magnons - Why Don't We Call Them Cro-Magnon Any More?

Cro-Magnon is the informal word once used by scientists to refer to the people who were living alongside Neanderthals at the end of the last ice age (ca. 35,000-10,000 years ago).

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Even if they changed their names, it is still [insert new name] living alongside neanderthals 35000-10000 years ago. Further, an effect on them is recorded.

Cro-Magnon Europe

The end of the ice age brought about a change in the European environment which would have affected Cro-Magnon people. Europe became forested, which caused a sharp reduction in the number and size of herds of migratory animals. The number of settlement sites dropped and their size also seems to have been smaller.
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Paleolithic Europe
But they did not disappear and their cultural development continued.

Around 10,500 BCE, the Würm Glacial age ends. Slowly, through the following millennia, temperatures and sea levels rise, changing the environment of prehistoric people. Nevertheless, Magdalenian culture persists until circa 8000 BCE, when it quickly evolves into two microlithist cultures: Azilian, in Spain and southern France, and Sauveterrian, in northern France and Central Europe. Though there are some differences, both cultures share several traits: the creation of very small stone tools called microliths and the scarcity of figurative art, which seems to have vanished almost completely, being replaced by abstract decoration of tools. [1]
In the late phase of this epi-Paleolithic period, the Sauveterrean culture evolves into the so-called Tardenoisian and influences strongly its southern neighbour, clearly replacing it in Mediterranean Spain and Portugal.
The recession of the glaciers allows human colonization in Northern Europe for the first time. The Maglemosian culture, derived from the Sauveterre-Tardenois culture but with a strong personality, colonizes Denmark and the nearby regions, including parts of Britain.

You still have not understood the allusion to the global fire.

I understand that you are using your misinterpretation of events that occured 65 million years ago to try to justify your belief in a global flood and I have already shown that those events are irrelevant to global flood. I also understand that you have still not presented any evidence for a global flood. We do not know what caused the extinction of megafauna at the end of the last ice age but we do know that it was not a global flood.

 

[Greg1234]

It is obvious that Siberian Arctic was not the “last stronghold” for the Pleistocene megafauna. The process of final extinction of some species was quite complex, with isolated ‘pockets' survived outside of the main habitat range for several millennia

What does that have to do with anything? Climate change coupled with other factors.

Dinosaurs survived mass extinction by 700,000 years, fossil find suggests

The U of A team, led by Larry Heaman from the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, determined the femur bone of a hadrosaur as being only 64.8 million years old. That means this particular plant eater was alive about 700,000 years after the mass extinction event many paleontologists believe wiped all non-avian dinosaurs off the face of earth, forever.

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The "Great Extinction" that never happened: the demise of the dinosaurs considered - Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences

The concept of a sudden extinction of the dinosaurs, consequent upon the impact of some extraterrestrial object, is so dramatic that it has taken hold upon the imaginations of many scientists, as well as of the general public. The evidence for an impact, at approximately the level of the Cretaceous–Tertiary boundary, is impressive. Whether it was the cause for the iridium concentrations, so widely distributed at that level, remains disputable. The wave of extinctions, so often attributed to the impact, is equally disputable. It is now evident that no clear line can be drawn between the smaller theropod dinosaurs and the birds. In that sense, the dinosaurs are not extinct. The dating of the extinction of the larger saurischians and of the ornithischians, based as it is upon evidence from only one small corner of the globe, is equally disputable. Whenever it happened, that extinction appears to have been the product of natural causes — a slow decline, occasioned by environmental changes, and not an extraterrestrially induced catastrophe. Whether the impact had any effect at all upon the dinosaurs is questionable; if so, it appears to have been not worldwide, but confined to a limited region of the Americas.

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No statistical support for sudden (or gradual) extinction of dinosaurs -- Hurlbert and David Archibald 23 (10): 881 -- Geology

Examination of the quantitative methodologies used shows that these provide no basis for choosing between scenarios of abrupt extinction and gradual decline.
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You haven't grasped the gist of the argument or the data being presented. The extinction of the dinosaurs more aptly fits a change in climate and other environmental factors which brought about gradual decline in response to that shift. But anyways, we're moving on.

I understand that you are using your misinterpretation of events that occured 65 million years ago to try to justify your belief in a global flood and I have already shown that those events are irrelevant to global flood.

No it's not irrelevant. You don't get it now and it appears that you never will. Regardless, we're moving on.

In the bible there are two quotes which stand out in relation to what is about to be presented. The first is the one depicting that the waters had reached the mountain tops (Gen 7:19),

They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered.

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The other passage worth noting here is that of Peleg (Gen 10:25)

Two sons were born to Eber:
One was named Peleg,[a] because in his time the earth was divided;


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In Plato's "Critias and Timaeus", Plato relates the sinking of a large island about 12000 years ago. Bishop Arnobius of the early church also presents such an event. Then there are others.

http://www.higherintellect.info/texts/alien.ufo/Evidence_For_Atlantis.txt

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]Plato affirms that the demise of Atlantis took place "9,000 years before the times of Solon". Now, Solon visited Egypt at about 600 BC, which adds to a total of about 11,600 BP (Before Present). Now, this is precisely the date of the cataclysmic ending of the Pleistocene Ice Age, as given by the geologic record. So, we are led to conclude that Plato's date is correct, and that the Greek philosopher indeed knew what he was talking about.
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Strabo, the Greek geographer and historian, tells us that 2,600 years before his time, certain navigants crossed beyond the Pillars of Hercules, and dealt with the Tartessians. Now, these Tartessians — who are often identified with the Atlanteans — had, he affirms, written records of their history that amounted to 7,000 years before their own time. Again, this adds to a date of about 11,600 BP, precisely as preconized by Plato for the Atlantean cataclysm, for Strabo flourished in the times of Christ.
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]Arnobius, a Christian bishop of the fourth century AD, told in one of his sermons concerning the catastrophes that have previously destroyed human civilization, that "ten thousand years ago, a vast number of men burst forth from the island which is called Atlantis of Neptune, as Plato tells us, and utterly ruined and blotted out countless nations." Again, the date given by Arnobius turns out to be precisely the one of 11,600 BC. Though Arnobius' relation seems to be based on that of Plato, he had access to sources now lost that apparently confirmed Plato's disclosure in an independent way.
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]Manetho, the Egyptian historian, places the start of the dynasty of the "Spirits of the Dead" 5,813 years before Menes, the first king of unified Egypt. Now, Menes flourished between 3,100 and 3,800 BC or perhaps, even earlier, as some specialists claim. Again, this gives a date between 11,000 and 11,600 BC, in close agreement with the one given by Plato. It is quite probable that the "Spirits of the Dead" of Manetho were indeed the survivors of the Atlantean cataclysm, the same dead ancestors that the Romans called Lemures or Lares.
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]The Hindu traditions on the Yugas, as well as the similar ones of the Persians, hold that the eras of mankind last about 12,000 years each. On the other hand, these and other traditions maintain that we now enter, in the year 2,000, the final millennium of the present era, which started just after the demise of Atlantis. So, once again, we are led to the conclusion that the Atlantean cataclysm took place between 11,000 and 12,000 years ago.
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]The Codex Troano of the Mayas, translated by Augustus le Plongeon, the celebrated Mayanist, recounts the tragedy of Lemurian Atlantis, which sunk away in a terrible cataclysm. It tells that millions of people died in the cataclysm, and that the event took place "8,060 years before the writing of this book." Supposing that the codex was written at about 1,500 BC, the start of the pre-classic Era, when the Mayan (Olmec) civilization sprung, we get a date for the cataclysm of about 11,600 BP. This is in perfect agreement with the date given by Plato. As is known, the Mayas originally came to America from an overseas paradise called Aztlan which sunk away underseas. Aztlan in visibly no other thing than Plato's Atlantis. Except that Aztlan was located beyond the Pacific, rather than the Atlantic Ocean.
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]The Ramayana — the book that tells the destruction of Lanka by Rama and Hanumant — affirms that this war took place some 10,000 years before its own times. Now, the experts agree that the Ramayana was written at about 300 BC by Valmiki. Thus, the destruction of Lanka — which is no other thing than the one of Atlantis — took place at about 12,000 BP or so, in fair agreement with the date given by Plato.
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]Hindu traditions affirm that the first sangham (poetic academy) lasted for 4,400 years. The second one for 3,700 years. And the third and last one, which ended at about the start of the Christian era, lasted for 1,850 years. This yields at total of 11,900 BP for the start of the sanghams which, tradition holds, began shortly after the Flood. Considering that the Flood corresponds to the cataclysm that destroyed Atlantis, this Hindu tradition on the poetic academics confirms the date of Plato with excellent accuracy.
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]The end of the Pleistocene Ice Age — the date of whose closely coincides with the one of 11,600 BP given by Plato for Atlantis' demise — also marks the rise of agriculture, of city-building and of the Neolithic both in the Old and the New Worlds. According to a universal tradition, civilization was brought just about everywhere by white, blond, blue-eyed, titanic giants. These giants are no other than the Atlanteans fleeing their destroyed Paradise and moving into their new homelands in order to make a fresh start. As if to confirm this worldwide tradition, it is at this date that we start to find fossil skeletons of Cro-Magnoid men, so often equated with the Atlanteans. And these are found precisely the sites connected with the rise of the Neolithic and of Civilization
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]Arthur Posnansky — the German-Bolivian archaeologist who long studied Tiahuanaco, the site of origin of the Incan civilization of Peru and Bolivia — concluded that this region of the Andes was formerly a seaport which suffered an uplift of about 3,000 meters. This cataclysm happened at about 11 or 12 thousand years ago, precisely the epoch of the Atlantean demise.
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]Bruce Heezen, the famous oceanographer of the Lamont Geological Observatory, showed that sea-level underwent a rise of about 100 to 150 meters worldwide at about 11,600 BP. This rise resulted from the meltwaters of the Ice Age glaciers that covered a substantial portion of the continents in the temperate regions of the world and which were up to a few kilometers in thickness. Heezen also pointed out that this rise of sea-level was sufficient to drown most low-lying coastal regions of the planet. In particular, the region that now forms the South China Sea averages under 60 meters or so in depth. Thus, this region — precisely the one which we preconize to have been the site of Atlantis — got submerged by the rising waters, just as affirmed by Plato.
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]Turning to Egyptian traditions, the source on which Plato bases his legend of Atlantis. The famous zodiac of Dendera — which was copied from far older versions whose origins are lost in the night of times — indicates that the constellation Leo lay at the vernal point in the epoch of its start. Now, the era of Leo centers at about 11,720 BC, in close agreement with the date given by Plato for the end of Atlantis and the start of the present era. What event but the cataclysmic end of the Pleistocene Ice Age and the consequent demise of Atlantis could better serve for the new start of times marked in that famous zodiac?
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]Makrisi, a famous Arab historian of Egypt, affirms that "fire issued from the sign of Leo to destroy the world." This conflagration apparently confirms the above connection between the star of Dendera's zodiac and the Atlantean cataclysm disclosed by Plato. The Arabs conquered Egypt, and inherited its magnificent culture and traditions, and it is quite likely that Makrisi was basing himself on them.
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]A Coptic papyrus indicates the same date for the Atlantean cataclysm. According to it: "the Flood will take place when the heart of the Lion (Aldebaran) enters the start of the head of Cancer". In other words, the papyrus affirms that when the vernal point coincided with the center of Leo — an event that took place some 11,600 years ago — the Flood took place, destroying Atlantis and ending the Pleistocene Ice Age, which had lasted for some 2.5 millions of years. In the terrible event, a great many species of mammals and other creatures became extinct all over the world. This fact attests the universal character of the tragedy. [/FONT]
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Water reaching the mountain tops can be looked at from several perspectives. From my standpoint, there is a simultaneous rising of the water and sinking of a particular landmass.

A new look at geological and oceanographic data supporting Atlantis

Equally misleading statements are made, such as the following: "No scientist believes that the sea level rose by anything like five thousand feet [roughly one mile], although much smaller changes are known to have occurred during the Ice Ages." (ibid.) No Atlantologist to my knowledge has suggested a rise in sea level of this magnitude; but sea-floor upheaval and subsidence is a totally different matter, as will be seen in the data given below—all from scientific sources.

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[Hespera]

If you actually took a college biology course, you'd know this is rubbish. My general and evolutionary biology courses did not mention God at all. Why would they need to? The class is about biology, not God! Most of my biology professors were religious, but they didn't talk about God or their religious beliefs.

Saying that "God is the foundation of biology" is a worthless explanation because it explains nothing. Even if God did create the world and everything in it, evolution is a useful principle because it has powerful predictive capability. Saying that "God did it" does not offer us insight into how the world works. If anything, it leaves us satisfied with nonexplanations, which is the antithesis of science.

Its a good thing that trailer park science is still a small minority in the USA we are far enough behind the developed countries as it is.

 

[Lion Hearted Man]

Its a good thing that trailer park science is still a small minority in the USA we are far enough behind the developed countries as it is.

Seriously. With the proposed NIH cuts, I don't know what's going to happen.

 

[Inan3]

If you actually took a college biology course, you'd know this is rubbish. My general and evolutionary biology courses did not mention God at all. Why would they need to? The class is about biology, not God! Most of my biology professors were religious, but they didn't talk about God or their religious beliefs.

I realize that to teach biology one does not NEED to mention God. I would prefer it that way. One does not need to mention the word "God" to get the point accross. Often, it is just the manner in which it is taught, the inuendos, the references, the jokes, etc. that lead to that conclusion. On the other hand, some do blatantly come right out and say it, even in biology classes, whether YOU have heard it or not.... others have.

Saying that "God is the foundation of biology" is a worthless explanation because it explains nothing. Even if God did create the world and everything in it, evolution is a useful principle because it has powerful predictive capability. Saying that "God did it" does not offer us insight into how the world works. If anything, it leaves us satisfied with nonexplanations, which is the antithesis of science.

I was NOT trying to "explain" anything. I was merely stating a fact. I am not out to "explain" biology. Believe it or not, I leave that to scientists to do. It is ONLY when scientists or biologists or evolutionists or atheists or teachers inject THEIR anti-religious convictions and say that science or biology "concludes or proves" that God did not create it as stated in the Bible, that I disregard their conclusions and speak out against them.

My point was that it is YOUR side, rather than Christians, who are always making the distinction that there is no physical, natural evidence presented, therefore, the existence of God cannot be. It is YOUR side who is always discounting and insulting God BECAUSE supposedly "evolution" provides evidence that we all came from sludge or chaos or whatever (which it really does NOT have, it is only "speculation" to that end) and therefore, the Biblical account cannot be true. But, neither the speculation nor the conclusion can be proved nor borne out. IN TURN, Christians respond to YOUR "shoving this down our throats" and then you cry that we are shoving it down yours.

Saying that "evolution" is the foundation of biology does not offer us the only insight into how the world works. If anything, it leaves us unsatisfied and with improbable explanations, which are the antithesis of reality.


Please give me several examples of what you call "powerful predictive capabilities" of the "tool" of evolution. I hear this all the time but I do not see it as "powerful" or even needful for good science.

 

[Inan3]

And if you're ever ill you can always pray, I'm sure God will be only too please to help out, that's the best suggestion I have ever heard anyone give creationists.

It's always the children who are made to suffer because they have muppets for parents.

That's exactly what I do do! I pray and He always helps out. Not only do I pray but I speak healing and health over my body everyday to maintain my health. I don't get sick. I prayed for my children all their lives, too, and they always got better. I'm not saying that doctors are bad but they are not my God. If I need them I will go to them for help but even then I will surely be trusting God to give them direction and help, and to keep me and heal me. I do the same for my auto mechanic. I'm suggesting that scientists do the same if they want the funding they need. God's not against science or scientists. It's better to put your trust in God, though, and not in men. Don't get mad at me and resentful because I trust in God and He helps me. I don't get mad at you because you don't. I certainly wonder why but I'm not mad at you.

Speaking of children what about all those children who have taken vaccines and their families who trusted doctors and now have autism to deal with? Don't get me started...

You know, it's always the children who suffer because they have muppets for doctors. Drug company puppet masters behind them.... don't get me started.

You know, it's always the children who suffer because they have muppets for governments. WHO / IHR puppet masters behind them.... don't get me started.

http://birdflu666.wordpress.com/200...er-to-order-forced-vaccines-in-194-countries/

 

[wensdee]

We'll just have to believe God to help!

And if you're ever ill you can always pray, I'm sure God will be only too please to help out, that's the best suggestion I have ever heard anyone give creationists.

It's always the children who are made to suffer because they have muppets for parents.

 

[Inan3]

Double Post???

 

[Hespera]

We wonder what a faith healer does if they think "god always helps' and then he always turns up missing when the going gets tough. Like fixing an amputation or maybe just dealing with crooked or missing teeth.

Make excuses for him i guess.

 

[Inan3]

Seriously. With the proposed NIH cuts, I don't know what's going to happen.

Might have to move to the trailer park!! Ha ha!! I'm just too funny!!

 

[AV1611VET]

Might have to move to the trailer park!! Ha ha!! I'm just too funny!!

We 'parkers' are busy looking for an island to get to before Einstein's Cavalry catches us with B's and C's on our report cards.

 

[Lion Hearted Man]

I realize that to teach biology one does not NEED to mention God. I would prefer it that way. One does not need to mention the word "God" to get the point accross. Often, it is just the manner in which it is taught, the inuendos, the references, the jokes, etc. that lead to that conclusion. On the other hand, some do blatantly come right out and say it, even in biology classes, whether YOU have heard it or not.... others have.

You're not in the classroom so how would you even know? 99% of biology professors are respectful of religious beliefs. You'd be surprised how easy it is to talk about evolution without making "God isn't real" jokes.

I was NOT trying to "explain" anything. I was merely stating a fact. I am not out to "explain" biology. Believe it or not, I leave that to scientists to do. It is ONLY when scientists or biologists or evolutionists or atheists or teachers inject THEIR anti-religious convictions and say that science or biology "concludes or proves" that God did not create it as stated in the Bible, that I disregard their conclusions and speak out against them.

My point was that it is YOUR side, rather than Christians, who are always making the distinction that there is no physical, natural evidence presented, therefore, the existence of God cannot be. It is YOUR side who is always discounting and insulting God BECAUSE supposedly "evolution" provides evidence that we all came from sludge or chaos or whatever (which it really does NOT have, it is only "speculation" to that end) and therefore, the Biblical account cannot be true. But, neither the speculation nor the conclusion can be proved nor borne out. IN TURN, Christians respond to YOUR "shoving this down our throats" and then you cry that we are shoving it down yours.

It's a straw man to say that evolution is the reason atheists are atheists. Evolution is simply science and tells us about the real world. You can accept evolution and believe in a God (most people who accept evolution do). It is creationism that is utterly false and had its claims completely rebutted. If creationism = God for you, well, yeah I guess you would have to reject God to accept evolution. But don't blame me for that.

Saying that "evolution" is the foundation of biology does not offer us the only insight into how the world works. If anything, it leaves us unsatisfied and with improbable explanations, which are the antithesis of reality.


Please give me several examples of what you call "powerful predictive capabilities" of the "tool" of evolution. I hear this all the time but I do not see it as "powerful" or even needful for good science.

First of all, without evolution, we can't really make sense of why DNA is the way it is, why animals are distributed the way they are on the planet, why microorganisms become virulent, etc. We could understand a lot about biology but never understand why.

But if you want specific applications of evolution, I'll give you a couple.

1. Microbial resistance. Pathogens become resistant to therapies rather quickly, which is clearly evolution. We've had pretty good success in combating this because of our understanding of this process. The new flu vaccine every year is because of this, and the new generations of antibiotics.
2. Gene identification and discovery. Looking at the evolution of genetic material gives us clues at protein structure and function. Homology of different genes gives us insight into normal physiology and how to treat pathologic states.
3. Phylogenetics and epidemiology. With evolution, we can learn a lot about populations of pathogens. The evolution of SIV to HIV marked the introduction of AIDS into humans. Currently, a new strain of malaria is brewing in Indonesia, and close surveillance of its epidemiology and diversity will hopefully help us be ready for it if it jumps to humans.
4. Directed evolution breeds new drugs for various diseases, as well as biopolymers and pigments.
5. Evolution is the foundation for many algorithms used in engineering, computer science, architecture, drug design and discovery, etc.

Read up on more if you feel like it
CA215: Practical uses of evolution.

 

[Lion Hearted Man]

Might have to move to the trailer park!! Ha ha!! I'm just too funny!!

I will be financially stable (I'm earning an MD degree right now.) But it doesn't matter, because I'm worried about the future of this country rather than my personal financial situation.

 

[Split Rock]

We 'parkers' are busy looking for an island to get to before Einstein's Cavalry catches us with B's and C's on our report cards.

At least you'll be safe there from evil, lying, incompetent scientists and their "so-called science," that God blesses us with.

 

[mzungu]

We 'parkers' are busy looking for an island to get to before Einstein's Cavalry catches us with B's and C's on our report cards.

Here's one that will do just fine; It belongs to the peri-Antarctic island group:

 

[AV1611VET]

Here's one that will do just fine; It belongs to the peri-Antarctic island group:

How close is that to the Galapagos? I'm not taking any chances!

 

[Ampersand]

Science can take a hike? Seriously? And then fundies wonder why scientists always seem to talk down to them.

 

[AV1611VET]

Science can take a hike?

Where appropriate, yes.

Seriously?

Yes, seriously.

And then fundies wonder why scientists always seem to talk down to them.

Because we don't check our Bibles at the door?

 

[mzungu]

How close is that to the Galapagos? I'm not taking any chances!

It is called Prince Edward and belongs to South Africa. The Galapagos area is unavailable at the present. Could we Perhaps interest you with Mafia Island (Off the coast of Tanzania). Hakuna matata

 

[AV1611VET]

It is called Prince Edward and belongs to South Africa. The Galapagos area is unavailable at the present. Could we Perhaps interest you with Mafia Island (Off the coast of Tanzania). Hakuna matata

Guam will do --

Hafa adai!