warri0r45

Examples of fish to tetrapod transitional fossils: Tiktaalik roseae: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/04/060406100543.htm http://tiktaalik.uchicago.edu/ Ventastega: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080625140643.htm

This is pretty much why your suggestion wont do much good, Dusqi. If people want to learn they'll go find some good information on these subjects, but the problem with most creationists is that they just don't want to hear any evidence contrary to their beliefs. Some people find it difficult to ignore evidence when it is put right in front of them, others are ignorant and may not even be aware that the evidence exists. Most of the stuff you know had to be presented to you at some stage or you might not even know to look for it. Perhaps, but in my experience I can't even remember hearing creationists be open to any information I've given to them - I think a lot of them are just so blinkered that real evidence does nothing to sway them. That's not to say that there aren't more open-minded creationists out there - I'm sure there are some that will begin questioning what they've been brought up to believe when presented with a scientific perspective. Perhaps posts on formums like this are a catalyst for those people to dig deeper and to start thinking for themselves. What Intriguing said was encouraging, so I thank him for that. Personally, I was driven to learn about these issues almost exclusively by personal curiosity and research. Formal education helped as well, but mostly reinforced what I'd already learnt.

This is pretty much why your suggestion wont do much good, Dusqi. If people want to learn they'll go find some good information on these subjects, but the problem with most creationists is that they just don't want to hear any evidence contrary to their beliefs. I know that posting what I have in this thread is largely useless; I just hope other people can get something out of it and I can clear things up for them.

You need to understand three concepts here. 1) According to the theory, macroevolution occurs through the exact same mechanisms by which microevolution occurs. These mechanisms include point mutations, insertions/deletion, gene duplications, genome duplications and natural selection. There is no limit to which these mechanisms occur (biology isnt perfect, so aberrations will inevitably happen), so there is no limit to which evolution can occur (so long as there is a reproductive advantage to the whole process). Macro/micro are just prefixes to explain the extent of evolution. 2) Dogs and horses are extant species. Extant species don't evolve into each other. Evolution is punctuated by common ancestry and speciation events such that the "family tree" of life looks, quite literally, like a tree. Extant species won't evolve to look like one another unless there is a selective advantage in doing so. We can determine evolutionary relatedness (i.e. common ancestry) in a few ways, for example by common retrotransposon insertions. Retrotransposons are genetic elements, not unlike genes, with the ability to copy themselves and insert the copy randomly into the genome. The chances of two elements inserting at the same location in two species is exceedingly rare, so finding identical insertions between species is a way of determining relatedness. It so happens that many such insertions are found between humans, chimpanzees and other great apes, particularly retroviral sequences, SINEs such as Alu and LINEs, particularly L1 (you can google these terms - there's info out there about what they are). So from this, we can prove beyond any reasonable doubt that we are related to chimpanzees, kind of like how we can prove relatedness in paternity/maternity tests. Not to mention that we have the exact same sequence for many proteins (e.g. cytochrome c) even though this isn't necessary - it's just indicative of recent divergence between the two species. Such relationships (based on cytochrome c sequence, or the sequence of another protein or even DNA sequences), can be worked out, and they often complement what relationships we previously hypothesised based on morphology. This isnt a coincidence if evolution werent true we wouldnt expect to see any pattern at all. 3) Theories don't turn into laws, ever. For example, the germ theory of disease suggests germs cause disease, but we now know this is true despite the theory tagline. Theories are systems of understanding incorporating a wide range of data in order to explain whats going on in the natural world. "Chimps and humans diverged through genetic events x, y, z" is theoretical, and it explains the fact that we are related to chimpanzees. As we continue scientific investigation, theories are refined to explain more and more data, and our understanding of nature grows. Hope this helps.

If I'm right, it dies. If you're right, it goes to either heaven or hell. If the Hindu are right, it is reborn. If there is a purpose, it is to reproduce and to advance our species. Or to glorify God. EDIT: Wow, I've never heard of the faith gene thing. Seems very interesting though, thanks for making me learn something today Zamorakshadow :thumbup: Link for anyone who wants to read a bit about the gene The "God gene" is a very poorly described concept because the idea that one gene can control whether you're religious or not is ridiculous. Religiosity is a complex trait and as such would probably have many genetic and environmental factors affecting it. Phasing it in any other way is unscientific and ignores the full picture of how genetics works and how biological traits can be influenced by environmental factors. Having said that, I think there is a shard of truth the God gene idea, in the sense that religiosity is a completely natural trait and doesn't necessarily mean religious ideas must be true. As an analogy, take arachnophobia. A lot of people are scared of spiders, but does this mean all spiders are dangerous? No, some are harmless. It's just an evolutionary adaptation that makes us scared of anything that looks like a spider, regardless of whether its dangerous or not. The ability to form religious stories for solidarity, comfort and ethical enforcement among a group of people may just be an adaptation for survival.

<3: The blasts in that song are incredible. Illmatic by Nas (album).

Consume The Forsaken by Disgorge (album). If you want your face to be blown away by a wall of sound, this is the band for you.

You're allowed to argue your opinion, but so long as it makes no derogatory comments towards homosexuals. If anything said is rude, inappropriate, or in ill taste, then you're likely to have one of us warning you. Oh ok, but ussualy in a thread you should be allowed to make derogatry comments. For example if I start a thread named "Judaism: right or wrong?" (actully can I start that thread) nearly every post against will be argued against and anything for will be fine. I'm just saying; it's a one sided argument. This is one of the things that really annoys me about internet debates. Invariably someone always has a massive persecution complex because people don't agree with them. Give me one example of someone who has been banned for being against gays.

It could have, but it is next to impossible because it also could have been caused by the flying spaghetti monster, or one of the other infinite number of deity possibilities. As I've said, the only thing that makes the christian god special is that the Christians killed everyone else. Alright, I don't want to turn this in a "Is God real" discussion, but you cannot ignore the amount of miracles that are credited to Christianity. It's not like christians just killed everyone they saw and that's why they rule the world or whatever. So many people who lost cancer or other diseases by the power of prayer alone, there are many examples, even to this day, and all of them are carefully examined by a board of bisshops and doctors. Look, I'm not a devout Christian (hell, I'm close to being no Christian at all), but I do believe in God and this has always been something that made me feel like it confirms my belief. Most so-called miracles can be explained, and for those that have no explanation, it doesn't automatically mean god did it. We don't know how something happens =/= god did it. As for the power of prayer, scientific research has been mixed, and some larger studies have shown no effect. One, in which recovering heart patients were prayed for, showed a negative effect. However, I'd say that's just due to some experimental error (you wouldn't believe that god intentionally hurts people, would you?), just like the studies that have claimed to show a positive effect. If you really want to establish a new idea in science, especially such a controversial one, you need a consistant demonstration of the effect in question, and that's just not happened with studies on prayer. You make prayer sounds like it's a steam engine. It's not something you just randomly turn on, it's not like you pray and *floop* everything just happens. Praying is something that shouldn't be done out of the pure believe that you'll get helped, but should be done to hold up a connection with God. You're the one who made it sound like a "steam engine" Fadooda. I was merely saying that scientific evidence hasn't supported what you claimed. If you now want to say that prayer isn't for healing people but is rather for a connection with God than that's fine. As another poster has said, isn't it convenient how you can say don't pray to expecting being helped, but in the times you are helped it must be God helping you. Frankly, this is the kind of thing that annoys me about religious thinking. Why be so kind to God? Why not question why prayer only works some of the time, seemingly at random (it's not like so called prayer-caused "miracles" are unique to Christianity, you know). It would seem that it's not God helping people get over their diseases, it's nature and cold heartless chance. Not as comforting, I know, but it's always better to accept the world as it really is.

It could have, but it is next to impossible because it also could have been caused by the flying spaghetti monster, or one of the other infinite number of deity possibilities. As I've said, the only thing that makes the christian god special is that the Christians killed everyone else. Alright, I don't want to turn this in a "Is God real" discussion, but you cannot ignore the amount of miracles that are credited to Christianity. It's not like christians just killed everyone they saw and that's why they rule the world or whatever. So many people who lost cancer or other diseases by the power of prayer alone, there are many examples, even to this day, and all of them are carefully examined by a board of bisshops and doctors. Look, I'm not a devout Christian (hell, I'm close to being no Christian at all), but I do believe in God and this has always been something that made me feel like it confirms my belief. Most so-called miracles can be explained, and for those that have no explanation, it doesn't automatically mean god did it. We don't know how something happens =/= god did it. As for the power of prayer, scientific research has been mixed, and some larger studies have shown no effect. One, in which recovering heart patients were prayed for, showed a negative effect. However, I'd say that's just due to some experimental error (you wouldn't believe that god intentionally hurts people, would you?), just like the studies that have claimed to show a positive effect. If you really want to establish a new idea in science, especially such a controversial one, you need a consistant demonstration of the effect in question, and that's just not happened with studies on prayer.

I'm another one that listens to albums rather than songs/shuffle/playlists. Never made a playlist in my life.

Two I can name off of the top of my head - plasma cosmology and steady-state. The Big Bang theory rests on a few things we can't even prove yet, we know - it's just hypotheses that hold it together. Hypothetical inflation fields and so-called "dark matter", for two. It just bugs me that everyone accepts it for fact - well, anything for fact - when it's just the thing that got popular. Other theories are hardly even given funding anymore. And yeah, I like fighting the mainstream period. For anything, really. Rebel without a cause or something like that. Although I'm more apathetic, at least towards my non-causes. Steady state has basically been disproven, particularly by the discovery of CMBR in 1964 (which actually supported BBT). I'm not sure sure about plasma cosmology, so I'll have to look into it a bit more. While I don't disagree in questioning the consensus position on pretty much anything, I'd urge you not to jump to irrational conclutions that a position must be wrong because it's the consensus (or that there must be some elitism going on). It would make more sense to say that a consensus position is more likely to be true, and in many cases they are, but it's always a healthy thing to satisfy yourself that this is the case.

Good point. I'd like to add the possibility that we're one of many universes, each of which is "assigned" natural laws randomly. The consequence of this is that it's by sheer chance that we're the lucky ones that got the natural laws conducive to life. Any arguemnt of earth being the right distance from the sun, etc, can be countered by a similar argument - given how many planets are out there, it's no surprise that one would happen to be the proper distance from the sun. I like to call it the "lotto principle" - sure, it's damn rare to win, but enough people enter the lottery to make the chance of finding a winner quite reasonable.

Could be wrong, but weren't they your favourite band at one point? Anyway, I heard a few songs and they sounded pretty good. Don't think I'll be buying the album, though.

Plenty of theories with empirical evidence. And those would be? I wouldn't be so quick to call scientists elitists because they think BBT is better than the others you claim exist.. scientists just favour BBT because it's the most consistent and has the most evidence supporting it. Also, for someone who doesn't care, you seem to be quite interested in challenging the mainstream scientific consensus. Just thought I'd add that average height increases in a few generations is more likely due to diet than evolution. Evolution works over much greater time scales.

Indeed, humans are very poor when it comes to understanding statistics and the truths it can reveal (or rather the false conclusions it can point out). I encourage everyone to learn a little about statistics and how scientific conclusions are validated with statistics. It's a great tool to use in pointing out and dismissing crappy conclusions.

In a nutshell, Genesis is a myth fasioned by very ignorant, superstitious people thousands of years ago. The big bang theory is a logical conclusion drawn from several lines of astronomical evidence. Which is more likely to be true? That should be pretty obvious to the rational observer.

That's really [bleep]ing horrible. Paul's Botique by the Beastie Boys (album).

[citation needed] I remember seeing it in an article, I'll go and look for it again, but I know that there were studies on it. Homosexuality is natural. It's seen in many other animal species.

Have you heard the Tool cover of No Quarter? Pretty awesome. As for my favourite song, I don't really have one. I'm more of a favourite album kind of guy. Even then, I'm not inclined to single out just one.

Any so-called religion that asks you to pay exorbitant amounts of money for their beliefs is surely a scam.

I wonder if they took it seriously enough to calculate how many moles of sugar they were ingesting with all that Dr. Pepper.

Got the new Paramore album Brand New Eyes the other day. I like it quite a bit.

If drugs are pointless, TV must be pointless as well. Why can't some people grasp the concept of doing things because of enjoyment? It's not that hard to wrap your head around.

In the bigger scheme of things, it's a pretty soft drug. I think it would be better off legal, or at least decriminalised (although I think there should be age limitations like for alcohol). It would free up police to persue real criminals.