"I'm not an expert, BUT......."

[FrenchyBearpaw]

Hebrews 13:2 Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

Koran 3:172 "Of those who answered the call of Allah and the messenger, even after being wounded, those who do right and refrain from wrong have a great reward."

 

[AV1611VET]

Hebrews 13:2 Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

Koran 3:172 "Of those who answered the call of Allah and the messenger, even after being wounded, those who do right and refrain from wrong have a great reward."

NASA: Roger, go at throttle-up.

 

[Belk]

NASA: Roger, go at throttle-up.

Bullwinkle: Hey Rockie, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat.

 

[AV1611VET]

Bullwinkle: Hey Rockie, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat.

Dawkins: Hey Creationists, watch me pull a rabbit out of the Precambrian, and evolution will still flourish!

 

[Nathan Poe]

NASA: Roger, go at throttle-up.

Brooks Atkinson: This nation was built by men who took risks - pioneers who were not afraid of the wilderness, business men who were not afraid of failure, scientists who were not afraid of the truth, thinkers who were not afraid of progress, dreamers who were not afraid of action.

 

[Nathan Poe]

Dawkins: Hey Creationists, watch me pull a rabbit out of the Precambrian, and evolution will still flourish!

Aww... poor poor AV -- forgot to be relevant again?

 

[AV1611VET]

Brooks Atkinson: This nation was built by men who took risks - pioneers who were not afraid of the wilderness, business men who were not afraid of failure, scientists who were not afraid of the truth, thinkers who were not afraid of progress, dreamers who were not afraid of action.

Remember: Amateurs built the Ark, professionals built the Titanic.

 

[Nathan Poe]

Remember: Amateurs built the Ark, professionals built the Titanic.

What am I supposed to remember there, AV -- a happy retalling of one of your fairy tales? have you gotten so used to twisting it for your own fearful ends that you're no longer cabable of getting anything else out of it?

Remember something useful for a change: Heroes risk failure in order to succeed, cowards use other people's failures to justify their own inaction.

 

[Belk]

Remember: Amateurs built the Ark, professionals built the Titanic.

One of those we have evidence for. Oh, that's right, evidence means things didn't happen while a lack of evidence mean they did in AV land, right?

 

[AV1611VET]

Remember something useful for a change: Heroes risk failure in order to succeed, cowards use other people's failures to justify their own inaction.

I don't see you building anything.

 

[AV1611VET]

One of those we have evidence for. Oh, that's right, evidence means things didn't happen while a lack of evidence mean they did in AV land, right?

Is that what my Boolean standards say?

 

[Nathan Poe]

Is that what my Boolean standards say?

Your boolean standards say that nothing that disagrees with you or the things you define can be true.

 

[Nathan Poe]

I don't see you building anything.

Keep looking.

 

[dad]

I have all the reason in the world to believe in God.. He forgave me all my sins!

I could sing esoreras and erosos the same way as the original, and i have nurses backing that up... And here i am saved, by grace, and i enjoy my treasure i have in God not only being able to speak in toungs God wants me to speak in, but also the worldy gifts he want to give me to become a respected man... I want you to know that when time is at hand, you are allowed to believe the gospel!

Good for you. Yes. We are allowed to believe the gospel.

 

[dad]

But YOU are the Ultimate Arbiter of The Bible... are you not, dad?

No. But I can read.

 

[dad]

That would be the same bible that says nothing about a split or a different state past/future.

No. The future and past are in the different state camp. Firmly. I dare you to prove otherwise!

 

[Belk]

Is that what my Boolean standards say?

Who cares? Do you think anyone is fooled that your "Boolean standards" are anything other then an ad-hock way to claim you are right no matter what?

 

[Naraoia]

To add, Jesus was 100% God and 100% Man!

Unless all men are 100% god, that's a logical contradiction, I think

Ha ha ha. You kids yourself.

Millions of dinosaur fossils, but only one immature (?) bird fossil?

I think even you would have big problem to believe that.

Only one immature bird fossil? These are only the non-avian dinosaurs with evidence for feathers. Many more species are known in which feathers (or their correlates) are not preserved but which are otherwise nearly identical to creatures on the list.

Add to that numerous well-preserved birds* that lived alongside other dinosaurs. There's no similar Wikipedia list of them, but a fair few pop up among these search results.

The funny thing? It's really hard to tell where "dinosaur" ends and "bird" begins. That's why things like Archaeopteryx move back and forth around the origin of birds when people do phylogenetic analyses.

...'fraid it's a little more than "one immature bird fossil".

*"Birds" is a horribly ill-defined term when it comes to these early forms. I'm using it very roughly in this sense.

You are almost right. You can "almost" argue that whatever we do, at least one animal can also do it. (it is a bad argument any way.)

That was not what I asked. I asked you what defining feature of animals was missing from humans.

You know, like: are we multicellular? Do we move? Do we eat other living things?

That sort of thing. Can you find one that animals in general have, but we don't?

However, I give you a simple one to shut you up:

It's not that simple to shut me up, as you probably know. Nice try, though...

Only human raises fire.

And I guess you do know how important the fire is in the "evolution" of human.

I don't see a connection. Is every animal with a unique feature no longer an animal?

 

[Naraoia]

Your nice little experiment only says one thing: the statistic meaning of "random" is 50%.

You had a problem with trends, I showed you that they spontaneously emerge even from complete randomness, I even showed you why the particular trend we were talking about should go the way it went, and that's what you take away from it? Something it didn't actually demonstrate, and was never meant to?

FWIW, the "statistic meaning of random" is not 50%. "Random" simply means that the exact same starting conditions can lead to different outcomes. It's common for people to think that "random" means "everything is equally likely", but that's most definitely not true.

[Aside: a minor correction to the description of my experiment. There were only 999 generations in which complexity evolved, because I forgot to change some numbers in my code. Doesn't make much of a difference, but I don't like leaving errors in my posts ]

A nice exercise, nevertheless. I still want to go back the bacteria argument. If evolution is random, then bacteria should break through the unknown barrier and evolved into something which is not a bacterium. Why does this not happen in the past 4000 million years? Randomness can not explain it.

You are wrong on more than one point.

(1) I didn't say evolution was random. I said that even IF it were, trends would emerge.

(2) Randomness means precisely the opposite of what you say. If evolution is random, you can (a) never predict a trend with 100% certainty, though the larger your sample, the more certain the prediction; (b) even if the trend you predict goes according to expectations, you cannot predict which specific lineages will create the trend. Just like if you flip 100 coins, you can be reasonably sure there will be about 50 heads and 50 tails among them, but you can't tell which coins will land tails.

(3) Nothing ever evolves into something that is no longer "it", just like you can't just stop being a member of your family by changing your name.

That said, what would constitute "not a bacterium" in your eyes? Nostoc or Anabaena are multicellular organisms with at least 3 different cell types.

Oh, and bacteria contributed hugely to the origin of eukaryotes. Ever heard of these guys? If the eukaryotic cell doesn't constitute "something else", I don't know what does.

 

[Nathan Poe]

No. The future and past are in the different state camp. Firmly. I dare you to prove otherwise!

The future and past are made of Strawberry Custard. I dare you to prove otherwise!