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The Colin Patterson quote: No Intermediate Fossils

Subduction Zone

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In my experience, the "mild" cases tend to manifest as confirmation bias and selective reasoning, but the more severe cases tend to involve personal attacks, aggressive behavior, and irrational claims.

Based on my experiences, I'd have to say that even relatively 'healthy minds' have a very difficult time of letting go of deep seated, long held beliefs, even when the evidence is overwhelming.


Aah, you mean like creationism.
 
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bhsmte

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In my experience, the "mild" cases tend to manifest as confirmation bias and selective reasoning, but the more severe cases tend to involve personal attacks, aggressive behavior, and irrational claims.

Based on my experiences, I'd have to say that even relatively 'healthy minds' have a very difficult time of letting go of deep seated, long held beliefs, even when the evidence is overwhelming.

Everybody has their own limit, of how long they can convince themselves that what they believe does not relate well to known reality, before they have to accept and move on. If folks have a lot of emotional currency in their belief, it becomes more difficult, no question and they will use confirmation bias, selective reasoning to hold on as long as they can. But again, in a healthy mind, they will eventually realize, the risk associated with holding on will eventually be more painful to deal with then accepting another view point as reality.

Everyone is unique, but it gets disordered when you start seeing a lot of projection, false accusations, complete blindness to the obvious and an artificial manufacture of their own reality.
 
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bhsmte

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YEC is *one* example, but not the one that comes to mind in your particular case. ;)

YEC is the most obvious example, just because of the sheer volume of evidence that needs to be ignored and the quantity of artificial reality YEC's need to create in their own minds.
 
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Michael

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YEC is the most obvious example, just because of the sheer volume of evidence that needs to be ignored and the quantity of artificial reality YEC's need to create in their own minds.

It's an extreme example to be sure.
 
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Subduction Zone

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YEC is *one* example, but not the one that comes to mind in your particular case. ;)

Now you are confused. It is your side that is afraid to discuss even basic physics to see if there is any merit at all in your strange beliefs. We all know that you are a plasma nut, but when the experts in the field, who are able to do the math all say plasma is a dead end then it is up to you to prove your point.

You won't even show that you can add 1 + 1 = 2 and you want us to believe you when it comes to your purely religious beliefs about the magic of plasma.

I offered to discuss the subject rationally you and Justa ran away from that.
 
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Subduction Zone

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It's an extreme example to be sure.

OEC is another one and so is ID.

Poor Michael Behe, he kept placing bets that problems on the cutting edge of science would not be solved in his lifetime. Unfortunately for him many of them were already solved before he even placed his bet.
 
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Michael

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Now you are confused. It is your side that is afraid to discuss even basic physics to see if there is any merit at all in your strange beliefs. We all know that you are a plasma nut, but when the experts in the field, who are able to do the math all say plasma is a dead end then it is up to you to prove your point.

You won't even show that you can add 1 + 1 = 2 and you want us to believe you when it comes to your purely religious beliefs about the magic of plasma.

I offered to discuss the subject rationally you and Justa ran away from that.

Take it up in the other thread. You haven't responded to my last few posts in the appropriate thread.

FYI bhsmte, you'll notice that strong emotional desire to attack the person ("nut") tends to transcend any and all topics. When cornered by physics, it's always easier to attack the person than to deal with the actual data. That's one of those "fascinating" aspects of denial IMO. :)
 
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gungasnake

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Real experts on the subject of intermediate fossils...

The Fossils In General

"Despite the bright promise that paleontology provides a means of 'seeing'
evolution, it has presented some nasty difficulties for evolutionists, the
most notorious of which is the presence of 'gaps' in the fossil record.
Evolution requires intermediate forms between species and paleontology does
not provide them ..."

David B. Kitts, PhD (Zoology)
Head Curator, Dept of Geology, Stoval Museum
Evolution, vol 28, Sep 1974, p 467

"The curious thing is that there is a consistency about the fossil gaps;
the fossils are missing in all the important places."

Francis Hitching
The Neck of the Giraffe or Where Darwin Went Wrong
Penguin Books, 1982, p.19

"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."

Stephen Jay Gould, Prof of Geology and
Paleontology, Harvard University
"Is a new general theory of evolution emerging?"
Paleobiology, vol 6, January 1980, p. 127

"...Yet Gould and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when
they say there are no transitional fossils ... I will lay it on the line,
there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight
argument."

Dr. Colin Patterson, Senior Paleontologist,
British Museum of Natural History, London
As quoted by: L. D. Sunderland
Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems
4th edition, Master Books, 1988, p. 89

"We do not have any available fossil group which can categorically be
claimed to be the ancestor of any other group. We do not have in the fossil
record any specific point of divergence of one life form for another, and
generally each of the major life groups has retained its fundamental
structural and physiological characteristics throughout its life history
and has been conservative in habitat."

G. S. Carter, Professor & author
Fellow of Corpus Christi College
Cambridge, England
Structure and Habit in Vertebrate Evolution
University of Washington Press, 1967

"The history of most fossil species includes two features inconsistent with
gradualism: 1. Stasis. Most species exhibit no directional change during
their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the
same as when they disappear ... 2. Sudden Appearance. In any local area, a
species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its
ancestors; it appears all at once and 'fully formed'."

Stephen Jay Gould, Prof of Geology and
Paleontology, Harvard University
Natural History, 86(5):13, 1977

"But, as by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed,
why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the
earth?" (p. 206)

"Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such
intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely
graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps is the most obvious and gravest
objection which can be urged against my theory (of evolution)." (p. 292)

Charles Robert Darwin
The Origin of Species, 1st edition reprint
Avenel Books, 1979

The Abundance of Fossils

"Darwin... was embarrassed by the fossil record... we are now about
120-years after Darwin and the knowledge of the fossil record has been
greatly expanded. We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the
situation hasn't changed much. The record of evolution is still
surprisingly jerky and, ironically, ... some of the classic cases of
Darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse
in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more
detailed information."

David M. Raup, Curator of Geology
Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago
"Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology"
Field Museum of Natural History
Vol. 50, No. 1, (Jan, 1979), p. 25

"Now, after over 120 years of the most extensive and painstaking geological
exploration of every continent and ocean bottom, the picture is infinitely
more vivid and complete than it was in 1859. Formations have been
discovered containing hundreds of billions of fossils and our museums are
filled with over 100-million fossils of 250,000 different species. The
availability of this profusion of hard scientific data should permit
objective investigators to determine if Darwin was on the right track. What
is the picture which the fossils have given us? ... The gaps between major
groups of organisms have been growing even wide and more undeniable. They
can no longer be ignored or rationalized away with appeals to imperfection
of the fossil record."

Luther D. Sunderland (Creationist)
Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems,
4th edition, Master Books, 1988, p. 9

"My attempts to demonstrate evolution by an experiment carried on for more
than 40 years have completely failed. ... The fossil material is now so
complete that it has been possible to construct new classes, and the lack
of transitional series cannot be explained as being due to the scarcity of
material. The deficiencies are real, they will never be filled."

Prof N. Heribert Nilsson
Lund University, Sweden
Famous botanist and evolutionist
As quoted in: The Earth Before Man, p. 51

Evidence for Creation ?

"A circular argument arises: Interpret the fossil record in terms of a
particular theory of evolution, inspect the interpretation, and note that
it confirms the theory. Well, it would, wouldn't it?"

Dr.. Tom Kemp, Curator
University Museum of Oxford University
" A Fresh Look at the Fossil Record"
New Scientist, Dec 5, 1985, p. 66

"Much evidence can be advanced in favour of the theory of evolution -- from
biology, biogeography and paleontology, but I still think that to the
unprejudiced, the fossil record of plants is in favor of special creation.
... Can you imagine how an orchid, a duckweed, and a palm have come from
the same ancestry, and have we any evidence for this assumption? The
evolutionist must be prepared with an answer, but I think that most would
break down before an inquisition."

E.J.H. Corner, Prof of Botany,
Cambridge University, England
Evolution in Contemporary Botanical Thought,
Quadrangle Books, 1971, p. 97

"At the present stage of geological research, we have to admit that there
is nothing in the geological records that runs contrary to the view of
conservative creationists, that God created each species separately,
presumably from the dust of the earth."

Dr. Edmund J. Ambrose
Emeritus Prof of Cell Biology, University of London
The Nature and Origin of the Biological World
John Wiley & Sons, 1982, p. 164
 
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Subduction Zone

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Take it up in the other thread. You haven't responded to my last few posts in the appropriate thread.

FYI bhsmte, you'll notice that strong emotional desire to attack the person ("nut") tends to transcend any and all topics. When cornered by physics, it's always easier to attack the person than to deal with the actual data. That's one of those "fascinating" aspects of denial IMO. :)

I might. Did you post anything new or did you continue your Gish Gallop?
 
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Strathos

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Can we please stop blaming evil acts on scientific or religious philosophies? These things are bad enough by themselves without people trying to use them to justify condemning others. Some people are just plain rotten, and do evil things. That's the way it always has been. Hitler didn't do what he did because he believe in evolution, or because he was a Christian. He did it because he was an insane, racist, horrible person.
 
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gungasnake

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Hitler didn't do what he did because he believe in evolution...

Sorry, but that's totally wrong. I posted a thread on precisely this topic a week or so ago and "lasthero" got the thread locked by pitching a temper tantrum, but it's still three, read the OP, Sir Arthur Keith's "Evolution and Ethics":

http://www.christianforums.com/t7790526/
 
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bhsmte

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Can we please stop blaming evil acts on scientific or religious philosophies? These things are bad enough by themselves without people trying to use them to justify condemning others. Some people are just plain rotten, and do evil things. That's the way it always has been. Hitler didn't do what he did because he believe in evolution, or because he was a Christian. He did it because he was an insane, racist, horrible person.

You got that right!!

The mentally ill come in all shapes and sizes and includes believers and non-believers.
 
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gungasnake

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Sir Arthur Keith:

The leader of Germany is an evolutionist not only in theory, but, as millions know to their cost, in the rigor of its practice. For him the national "front" of Europe is also the evolutionary "front"; he regards himself, and is regarded, as the incarnation of the will of Germany, the purpose of that will being to guide the evolutionary destiny of its people. He has brought into modern life the tribal and evolutionary mentality of prehistoric times.
 
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Loudmouth

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lasthero

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Sorry, but that's totally wrong. I posted a thread on precisely this topic a week or so ago and "lasthero" got the thread locked by pitching a temper tantrum, but it's still three, read the OP, Sir Arthur Keith's "Evolution and Ethics":

http://www.christianforums.com/t7790526/

You're a troll who got marked for trolling. Not my fault.
 
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Heissonear

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Red herring:

"The idiom "red herring" is used to refer to something that misleads or distracts from the relevant or important issue."
Red herring - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Are you going to retract your claim that ALL experts say that there are no transitional fossils?


Promoter of truth, no. Out to win an argument, yes.

And you want us to reply to your posts?

The fossil record shows the process of Evolution never happened. Other knowledgeable people of the subject matter who are still open and seeking the truth ssy the same of the ffossil record after careful examination. What is your problem? Pure contention rather than scientific discussion?

.
 
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