Evidence for Design (3)

KTS said:

I've found that this usually means, "It makes no sense, but I believe it anyway."

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But look who I used that reasoning with.....

When in Rome, learn to speak Italian.

Besides, I am one Christian talking to another about an area of theology. I use quite different arguments concerning science.

Mayr, Ernst, “Behavior Programs and Evolutionary Strategies,” American Scientist, vol. 62 (November/December 1974), pp. 650-659.
p. 650
“For the devout of past centuries such perfection of adaptation seemed to provide irrefutable proof of the wisdom of the Creator. For the modern biologist it is evidence for the remarkable effectiveness of natural selection.”

Gould, Stephen Jay, and Niles Eldredge, “Punctuated Equilibria: the Tempo and Mode of Evolution Reconsidered,” Paleobiology, vol. 3 (Spring 1977), pp. 115-151.
p. 125
“… for most ‘phylogenies’ based on fossils rely on flimsy data. Rather, we wish to demonstrate that most cases presented as falsifications of punctuated equilibria are circular because they rely, … not upon clear evidence, but upon the gradualistic presuppositions they claim to test.”



Carson, Hampton L., “Chromosomes and Species Formation,” review of Models of Speciation by M.~J.~D. White (San Francisco: Freeman, 1978, 454 pp.), Evolution, vol. 32 (December 1978,) pp. 925 927. Carson is in the Genetics Department at the University of Hawaii.
p. 925
“To a very large extent, the formation of a species is a phenomenon which has occurred in the past, so that the recognition of the events surrounding the actual division of an ancient gene pool cannot be directly observed. In all but a very small number of cases the biologist must become historian and deal with evidence for the past role of processes rather than deal with these processes in action in contemporary populations. The search for truly incipient species has been difficult and, to a considerable degree, frustrating.”
Alters, Brian J., and William F. McComas, “Punctuated Equilibrium: the Missing Link in Evolution Education,” American Biology Teacher, vol. 56 (September 1994), pp. 334-340.
p. 337
“Gould and Eldredge content that: ‘Phyletic gradualism was an a priori assertion from the start—it was never “seen” in the rocks; it expressed the culture and political bias of 19th century liberalism.’ By the same token, while many feel that punctuated equilibrium postulates how speciation occurs, its occurrence is not based on empirical evidence but on the apparent lack of evidence—gaps in the fossil record…. Bodnar, Jones and Ellis suggested that one would not see intermediate forms in simple eukaryotes in the fossil record because there are no intermediate forms. A single mutation in a regulatory gene caused the change in one leap of evolutionary development.”
Gould, Stephen Jay, “Evolution’s Erratic Pace,” Natural History, vol. 86 (May 1977), pp. 12-16.
pp. 12-14
“(Contrary to popular myths, Darwin and Lyell were not the heroes of true science, defending objectivity against the theological fantasies of such ‘catastrophists’ as Cuvier and Buckland. Catastrophists were as committed to science as any gradualist; in fact, they adopted the more ‘objective’ view that one should believe what one sees and not interpolate missing bits of a gradual record into a literal tale of rapid change.)”
p. 14
“The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils.”
p. 14
“Paleontologists have paid an exorbitant price for Darwin’s argument. We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life’s history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we never see the very process we profess to study.”


More good stuff from gould –leading evolutionist

ould, Stephen Jay, “Is a New and General Theory of Evolution Emerging?” Paleobiology, vol. 6 (Winter 1980), pp. 119-130.
p. 122
“Ever since Darwin called his book The Origin of Species, evolutionists have regarded the formation of reproductively isolated units by speciation as a fundamental process of large-scale change. Yet speciation occurs at too high a level to be observed directly in nature or produced by experiment in most cases. Therefore, theories of speciation have been based on analogy, extrapolation and inference.”
p. 125
“Thus, our model of ‘punctuated equilibria’ holds that evolution is concentrated in events of speciation and that successful speciation is an infrequent event punctuating the stasis of large populations that do not alter in fundamental ways during the millions of years that they endure.”
p. 126
“Macroevolution is, as Stanley argues, decoupled from microevolution.”
p. 127
“The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions in organic design, indeed our inability, even in our imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of evolution.”


OTHER EVOLUTIONISTS THEORIES CLASH >>>>>



Grant, Peter R., “Speciation and the Adaptive Radiation of Darwin’s Finches,” American Scientist, vol.~69 (November/December 1981), pp. 653-663.
p. 653
“The frequent use in textbooks of these and other patterns of variation in Darwin’s finches belies the complexity of the evolutionary processes they illustrate, the ambiguities of the evidence, and the differences of opinion among biologists about just how these birds evolved.”
Griffin, Donald R., “A Possible Window on the Minds of Animals,” American Scientist, vol. 64 (September/October 1976), pp. 530-535.
p. 530
“Language has generally been regarded by linguists, psychologists, and philosophers as a unique human attribute, different in kind from animal communication. But one of the major criteria on which this distinction has been based is the assumption that animals lack any conscious intent to communicate, whereas men know what they are doing. Yet the available evidence is so limited and indirect that it can just as plausibly be interpreted to support the view that there is no qualitative dichotomy, but a large quantitative difference in complexity of signals and range of intentions.”
p. 534
“Likewise, paleontologists do their best to make sense out of the fossil record and sketch in evolutionary sequences or unfossilized morphologies without realistic hope of obtaining specific verification within the foreseeable future.”
1981), pp. 173-176. Scadding was in the Zoology Department, at the University of Guelph.
p. 173
“Abstract. An analysis of the difficulties in unambiguously identifying functionless structures and an analysis of the nature of the argument, leads to the conclusion that ‘vestigial organs’ provide no evidence for evolutionary theory.”
p. 174
“Haeckel makes clear why this line of argument was of such importance to early evolutionary biologists…. It seemed difficult to explain functionless structures on the basis of special creation without imputing some lack of skill in design to the Creator…. It should be noted, however, that presented in this way, the vestigial organ argument is essentially a theological rather than a scientific argument, since it is based on the supposed nature of the Creator.”
EVOLUTIONIST SPEAK OF A LACK OF FOSSIL EVIDENCE FOR THE EVOLUTIONARY THEORY

Boucot, A. J., Evolution and Extinction Rate Controls (Amsterdam: Elsevier Scientific Publishing Co., 1975), 427 pp.
p. 196
“Since 1859 one of the most vexing properties of the fossil record has been its obvious imperfection. For the evolutionist this imperfection is most frustrating as it precludes any real possibility for mapping out the path of organic evolution owing to an infinity of ‘missing links’ … once above the family level it becomes very difficult in most instances to find any solid paleontological evidence for morphological intergrades between one suprafamilial taxon and another. This lack has been taken advantage of classically by the opponents of organic evolution as a major defect of the theory…. the inability of the fossil record to produce the ‘missing links’ has been taken as solid evidence for disbelieving the theory.”
Dunbar, Carl O., Historical Geology, 2nd ed. (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1960).
p. 47
“Although the comparative study of living animals and plants may give very convincing circumstantial evidence, fossils provide the only historical, documentary evidence that life has evolved from simpler to more and more complex forms.”
Anonymous, “Ancient Alga Fossil Most Complex Yet,” Science News, vol. 108 (September 20, 1975), p.~181.
p. 181
“Both blue-green algae and bacteria fossils dating back 3.4 billion years have been found in rocks from S. Africa.”

p. 181
“Do the Harvard paleontologists’ findings shed any light on the origin of eukaryotes [cells with nuclei] from prokaryotes [cells without nuclei]: Probably~not.”
p. 181
“In brief, as Barghoorn puts it, ‘We have no really good evidence from all of the Precambrian records … of a genuine eukaryotic cell.”
Carroll, Robert L., Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution (New York: W. H. Freeman and Co., 1988), 698~pp.
p. 138
“We have no intermediate fossils between rhipidistian fish and early amphibians….”
p. 467
“No specific derived characters have been demonstrated as being uniquely shared between early primates and the early members of any other order.”
LACK OF FOSSIL EVIDENCE MAKES MODERN EVOLUTIONISTS VERY CREATIVE......
Colbert, Edwin H., and M. Morales, Evolution of the Vertebrates (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1991), 510~pp.
p. 99

p. 223
“Unfortunately, the fossil history of the snakes is very fragmentary, so that it is necessary to infer much of their evolution from the comparative anatomy of modern forms.”

GOULD EXPLAINS HOW SOME SCIENTISTS MYTH THE POINT
Gould, Stephen Jay, “In the Mind of the Beholder,” Natural History, vol. 103 (February 1994), pp.~14 23.
p. 14
“But our ways of learning about the world are strongly influenced by the social preconceptions and biased modes of thinking that each scientist must apply to any problem. The stereotype of a fully rational and objective ‘scientific method,’ with individual scientists as logical (and interchangeable) robots, is self-serving mythology.”

OllieFranz said:

Who are we to question any of God's requirements? But in this case we have some of the answers. We are told that only one Man has the authority to judge others, because only He can see men's hearts. We are told that our willingness to forgive is directly related to our own salvation.

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I have written over 30 journals on salvation related issues, believe me if ollie were a threat I'd be referencing some of those.

but I have given you a link here, in which you replied that you wanted to start a thread on it, well I never heard back.

but now here it is again:

we are actually to judge, and this is why...

http://www.str.org/articles/the-scoop-on-judging#.Uqpo9_1NiZQ

http://www.str.org/articles/the-judgment-on-judging#.UqppBf1NiZQ

and here:

http://www.str.org/blog/judging-is-a-necessity#.UqppFP1NiZQ

gradyll said:

they don't

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But they have wings The ostrich has feathered wings just like all flying avians yet it cannot fly! If feathers on wings were "Designed" for flight and not for thermal insulation then your "Designer" whoever he is, is an idiot and a lousy designer. I am an industrial designer and can assure you that there are many bad designs in nature. Thus your designer can take a hike!

Gradyll, let me ask you a question?

Why do you and so many other creationists think that dumping a bunch of doctored quotes like a movie trailer for a 90s flick is a good way to argue a point?

Really, I've never seen anyone else - aside from maybe 9/11 Truthers - argue like this. You haven't read any of the things you posted in context. You probably didn't even compile the list on your lonesome. I think, deep down, in places you don't like to admit are there, you know that few, if any, of the people you quoted are saying what you portray them as saying. For instance, you have this quote:

“The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils.”

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The full context is this:

The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils. Yet Darwin was so wedded to gradualism that he wagered his entire theory on a denial of this literal record:

The geological record is extremely imperfect and this fact will to a large extent explain why we do not find interminable varieties, connecting together all the extinct and existing forms of life by the finest graduated steps. He who rejects these views on the nature of the geological record, will rightly reject my whole theory.

Darwin's argument still persists as the favored escape of most paleontologists from the embarrassment of a record that seems to show so little of evolution [directly]. In exposing its cultural and methodological roots, I wish in no way to impugn the potential validity of gradualism (for all general views have similar roots). I only wish to point out that it is never "seen" in the rocks.

Paleontologists have paid an exorbitant price for Darwin's argument. We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life's history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we never see the very process we profess to study.

For several years, Niles Eldredge of the American Museum of Natural History and I have been advocating a resolution to this uncomfortable paradox. We believe that Huxley was right in his warning [1]. The modern theory of evolution does not require gradual change. In fact, the operation of Darwinian processes should yield exactly what we see in the fossil record. [It is gradualism we should reject, not Darwinism.]

[1] Referring to Huxley's warning to Darwin, literally on the eve of the publication of Origin of Species, that "[y]ou have loaded yourself with an unnecessary difficulty in adopting Natura non facit saltum [nature does not make leaps] so unreservedly." - Ed

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He talking about gradualism. He is not supporting your argument. At all.

But here's the thing that bothers me about this way of arguing things - it wouldn't matter if he was supporting your ideas. It wouldn't matter if Darwin himself rose from the grave and proclaimed evolution to be a lie. None of that - none of these quotes, not a one - do anything to erase the mountain of evidence in support of evolution. It's actually quite pathetic, when you think about it - there are thousands upon thousands of biologists that accept evolutionary theory, and you can only amass a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of them to support you.

It does nothing to erase the fact that the over 95% of all scientists accept evolution, and that your side is part of a small and vanishing minority.

You don't argue things by presenting quotes from people, you argue by actually addressing the data. Now, this sort of thing might impress people who are, to be frank, too stupid to know how fallacious you're being and how limp your argument actually is, but among people who are capable of critical thought? No. So, please, in the future, keep your quote mines to yourself, or save them for any of the dime-a-dozen Christian forums around the internet where you can post it to people who want to dance to your organ grinding.

Black Akuma said:

He talking about gradualism. He is not supporting your argument. At all.

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everyone doubts sometimes, perhaps he was showing a glimmer of doubt while writting, who are we to say this is out of context.

try again.

gradyll said:

everyone doubts sometimes, perhaps he was showing a glimmer of doubt while writting, who are we to say this is out of context.

try again.

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He was not supporting your argument; period!

mzungu said:

He was not supporting your argument; period!

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I quoted exactly, I ddin't make it up.

He actually said it.

like I have said before quote mining isn't an arguement they use in teh judicial system or any other system. It's complete fabrication of evolutionists to defend against the hypocrisy of their own writ.

read it again and tell me, that HE didn't actually state what I said He did.

It was complete sentences, nothing clipped.

gradyll said:

I quoted exactly, I ddin't make it up.

He actually said it.

like I have said before quote mining isn't an arguement they use in teh judicial system or any other system. It's complete fabrication of evolutionists to defend against the hypocrisy of their own writ.

read it again and tell me, that HE didn't actually state what I said He did.

It was complete sentences, nothing clipped.

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How many times must it be pointed out to you that he was not supporting your argument!

here is an example of the folly of quote mining theories.

I was talking about oranges for 10 minutes, but one minute I was talking about bananas.

If you quote the banana part, then you have quote mined because it was not in context of the oranges.

and I can debate you all day quoting the orange portion.

But who is to say HE just didn't change opinions or doubt his orange opinion in the few minutes he debated bananas?


See, quote mining doesn't exist.
It's all a lie of evolutionists.

quote mining doesn't exist as I have just proven.

Misquotes exist. Quoting out of context exist. But not quote mining.

it was made up by evolutionists to debate creationists.

gradyll said:

here is an example of the folly of quote mining theories.

I was talking about oranges for 10 minutes, but one minute I was talking about bananas.

If you quote the banana part, then you have quote mined because it was not in context of the oranges.

and I can debate you all day quoting the orange portion.

But who is to say HE just didn't change opinions or doubt his orange opinion in the few minutes he debated bananas?


See, quote mining doesn't exist.
It's all a lie of evolutionists.

quote mining doesn't exist as I have just proven.

Misquotes exist. Quoting out of context exist. But not quote mining.

it was made up by evolutionists to debate creationists.

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Stop waffling and give evidence for your creationism. You do know what constitutes evidence, don't you?

gradyll said:

here is an example of the folly of quote mining theories.

I was talking about oranges for 10 minutes, but one minute I was talking about bananas.

If you quote the banana part, then you have quote mined because it was not in context of the oranges.

and I can debate you all day quoting the orange portion.

But who is to say HE just didn't change opinions or doubt his orange opinion in the few minutes he debated bananas?


See, quote mining doesn't exist.
It's all a lie of evolutionists.

quote mining doesn't exist as I have just proven.

Misquotes exist. Quoting out of context exist. But not quote mining.

it was made up by evolutionists to debate creationists.

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Show me on the doll where you pull your arguments from.

gradyll said:

here is an example of the folly of quote mining theories.

I was talking about oranges for 10 minutes, but one minute I was talking about bananas.

If you quote the banana part, then you have quote mined because it was not in context of the oranges.

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If you wrote this:

"Some people say that the theory of evolution is true, but I think they are wrong."

And I quote you as saying:

". . . the theory of evolution is true . . ."--Gradyll

Would you be upset if I used your words to make it look like you support a conclusion that you do not support?

Loudmouth said:

If you wrote this:

"Some people say that the theory of evolution is true, but I think they are wrong."

And I quote you as saying:

". . . the theory of evolution is true . . ."--Gradyll

Would you be upset if I used your words to make it look like you support a conclusion that you do not support?

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it's a misquote, I wouldn't invent a term for it. Which is what you (collectively) have done. QUotemining is something people use on the internet mainly and only from debates with creationists. IT doesn't really exist because the term it is replacing is "misquote." Quotemining as a term use is arrogant and haughty. That is another reason why it is not used.

thirdly, you may have read my quote wrong, recited it wrong or any possible amount of things....doesn't mean that you purposefully mined a quote.

gradyll said:

it's a misquote, I wouldn't invent a term for it. Which is what you (collectively) have done. QUotemining is something people use on the internet mainly and only from debates with creationists. IT doesn't really exist because the term it is replacing is "misquote." Quotemining as a term use is arrogant and haughty. That is another reason why it is not used.

secondly you may have read my quote wrong, recited it wrong or any possible amount of things....doesn't mean that you purposefully mined a quote.

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When you are mining for gold, other metal, you have to laboriously dig through tons of rock before you can reach and separate the vein of ore from it. And then you have to refine the ore, burning away anything in the ore vein that is useless to you. The liars who compile those lists of quotes you linked to and later copied, likewise had to dig through litereally thousands of papers to find twenty that had statements they could convince the sheep supported their claims. Then they had to trim the quotes, dropping out sentences and even in some cases phrases within the sentences they saved. The process is analogous.

This is more than one or two misquotes and one or two misreads. It is deliberate and systematic. It is an inherently dishonest practice, and should not be swept away as simple misunderstandings.

OllieFranz said:

When you are mining for gold, other metal, you have to laboriously dig through tons of rock before you can reach and separate the vein of ore from it. And then you have to refine the ore, burning away anything in the ore vein that is useless to you. The liars who compile those lists of quotes you linked to and later copied, likewise had to dig through litereally thousands of papers to find twenty that had statements they could convince the sheep supported their claims. Then they had to trim the quotes, dropping out sentences and even in some cases phrases within the sentences they saved. The process is analogous.

This is more than one or two misquotes and one or two misreads. It is deliberate and systematic. It is an inherently dishonest practice, and should not be swept away as simple misunderstandings.

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just because someone takes time to research quotations and comes up with some, doesn't mean that they are purposefully hiding truth or trying to conceal a real meaning etc. Quotes are just that, quotes, they are samples and never will you have a perfect quote because it is always missing something, namely, the rest of the article. Another reason why quote mining doesn't exist.
it is the same as finding mistakes in an english paper, but this time it's real life. These are real doubts, misunderstandings, and/or controversies that scientists are vocalizing and you want to stop it?

Before we come to the sort of sudden bursts that they [Eldredge and Gould] had in mind, there are some conceivable meanings of `sudden bursts' that they most definitely did not have in mind. These must be cleared out of the way because they have been the subject of serious misunderstandings. Eldredge and Gould certainly would agree that some very important gaps really are due to imperfections in the fossil record. Very big gaps, too. For example the Cambrian strata of rocks, vintage about 600 million years, are the oldest ones in which we find most of the major invertebrate groups. And we find many of them already in an advanced state of evolution, the very first time they appear. It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history. Needless to say, this appearance of sudden planting has delighted creationists. Evolutionists of all stripes believe, however, that this really does represent a very large gap in the fossil record, a gap that is simply due to the fact that, for some reason, very few fossils have lasted from periods before about 600 million years ago. One good reason might be that many of these animals had only soft parts to their bodies: no shells or bones to fossilize. If you are a creationist you may think that this is special pleading. My point here is that, when we are talking about gaps of this magnitude, there is no difference whatever in the interpretations of `punctuationists' and `gradualists'. Both schools of thought despise so-called scientific creationists equally, and both agree that the major gaps are real, that they are true imperfections in the fossil record. Both schools of thought agree that the only alternative explanation of the sudden appearance of so many complex animal types in the Cambrian era is divine creation, and both would reject this alternative.

— Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, 1986, pp. 229-230


here is a good quote, I don't agree with all of it. But it is a revealing of the cambrian ubrupt appearance of phyla at the beginning, and no evolutionary history (signifying a design or other causation-unknown).

What does he do, come up with more quotes.

gradyll said:

just because someone takes time to research quotations and comes up with some, doesn't mean that they are purposefully hiding truth or trying to conceal a real meaning etc. Quotes are just that, quotes, they are samples and never will you have a perfect quote because it is always missing something, namely, the rest of the article. Another reason why quote mining doesn't exist.
it is the same as finding mistakes in an english paper, but this time it's real life. These are real doubts, misunderstandings, and/or controversies that scientists are vocalizing and you want to stop it?

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Yes, you may not have gone into it trying to purposefully quote mine people.... but you did.

The problem is, when that was pointed out to you, the honest thing would be to withdraw that argument and admit you were in error. You are doubling down and trying to cloud the fact that you posted something factually wrong. That is not honest behaviour.

Dave Ellis said:

That is not honest behaviour.

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It is for him.