02-26-2005, 09:13 AM | #101 | ||
Ring-smith
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And infinity is not as big...
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Thread killer Ring smith Merry Christmas! They'd never say that (Part 2) What happened to the dragon? |
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02-26-2005, 09:16 AM | #102 | ||
Ring-smith
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The most that is allowed is changeing is a blue pengwen. P.S. Even though I and all others onthis side of the argument are right, I STILL CAN'T SPELL!!!
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Thread killer Ring smith Merry Christmas! They'd never say that (Part 2) What happened to the dragon? |
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02-26-2005, 10:31 AM | #103 | |
The Intermittent One
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a note on theories and religion: 2000 years ago, we knew that Jupiter ruled the skies 1000 years ago, we knew the earth was flat, and the centre of the universe 500 years ago, we knew anyone different to us was a savage 200 years ago, we knew that the earth was only 4000 years old at the end of the great war, we knew there would be no more imagine what we will know tomorrow |
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02-26-2005, 12:41 PM | #104 | ||
Elf Lord
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Conflicting arguments
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By the way, your argument "there could be billions of universes" is not a very good one, in my opinion. Allow me to quote you. Quote:
Don't you see the argument is useless? One can explain anything they like using that argument, say anything might be true using that argument. We deal with what we have.
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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02-26-2005, 01:39 PM | #105 | |
Elf Lord
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I really expect that in a few hundred years (if humanity hasn't annihilated itself by then) people will look back at us and make the same remarks as you just did about peoples of history.
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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02-26-2005, 01:53 PM | #106 | |||||
Quasi Evil
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By the way, given your scenario where you walk for billions and billions of years you WOULD wind up in the sun because youd simply be walking around the earth over and over again and eventually the sun will engulf the earth. So one way or the other… bad analogy or not… we can make it work. But then this is neither here nor there… Quote:
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Yer kind of being like the person with their head right up against a dot drawing. From a millimeter away it doesn’t look like it has any pattern to it. just a few out of focus amorphous shapes. When you pull back a little you can see a series of dots but not necessarily a picture. When you pull back even more then you can begin to see that the dots although separated seem to give us a PICTURE of something singular when they are all taken together. Now, if you use certain tools like say a pencil to CONNECT the dots and suddenly you see a wonderfully detailed picture of oh maybe ten very different finches sharing their island habitat and not breeding with each other… Pretty picture eh? I say pull your head back a bit so you can see it. Quote:
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"People's political beliefs don't stem from the factual information they've acquired. Far more the facts people choose to believe are the product of their political beliefs." "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." |
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02-26-2005, 02:00 PM | #107 | |||
Quasi Evil
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And your second notion that evolution may not have happened is preposterous because it means that SO many things we have observed in nature are meaningless and, we are too assume, a part of some fantastically grand divine scheme to fool us into thinking something that isn’t there. God: Hee hee I think ill put genetic code in every cell in their bodies so that they’ll THINK it has something to do with how they came to be. Hee hee I think Ill burry bones in the ground all over the earth with clues on them that will make it seem like they are somewhat related to each other and to current animals. Oh and Ill alter the carbon isotopes within different fossils to make certain ones SEEM older then others Ill EVEN do this so that it parallels quite nicely with half a dozen other ways that they’ll use to study life. Ho! Ho! This will keep them busy for centuries! Its almost as funny as the whole colon thing! Now that was a hoot! Yeah ok thanks a lot god… Quote:
Secondly, doesn’t take much faith to realize of course life comes from non-life. Seeing as how our bodies are composed of the very same ingredients we see in our earth and in the universe in general. At what point does the accumulation of these ingredients in a specific form become “life” to you and at what point are they just a specific configuration of ingredients alone? Is sperm life? Is an unfertilized egg life? Is DNA life? Yet when you get these things together suddenly you see that grand chemical reaction you like to call “life” begin to unfold. Yet the sperm itself was not “alive” in the classic sense you speak of. Nor the egg. So there you have your life from non-life. Happens trillions of times a day right here on our tiny little planet. Brushing it off as some kind of “faith based” belief system is completely ignoring simply a ton of real solid basic science. Quote:
Nice try. But weve given reams and reams of evidence that evolution works in nature and explains a lot of things. Evidence from completely different sciences that ALL parallel each other. If the only evidence that you will accept is a miracle (and a complete perversion of HOW evolution works anyway… but nevermind the details right…) then its not surprising you find more comfort in a biological system that consists of a deity snapping things into existence out of nothing. I nice easy clean miracle approach that’s easier to get your mind around then all this horrible data we have been studying for hundreds of years now. The fact of the matter is that the mechanisms involved in evolution HAVE been demonstrated and verified as REAL. We know this (among other reasons) because we can even MANIPULATE these very same mechanisms if we try. And youll note it takes no FAITH to do this. It simply takes a working knowledge of genetics and biochemistry. Now can you manipulate your creationist mechanisms? Lets see you try that in a lab. Oh wait that’s because there are no creationist mechanisms. Its ENTIRELY a form of religion UNLIKE evolution.
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"People's political beliefs don't stem from the factual information they've acquired. Far more the facts people choose to believe are the product of their political beliefs." "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." |
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02-26-2005, 02:06 PM | #108 | ||||
Half-Elven Princess of Rabbit Trails and Harp-Wielding Administrator (beware the Rubber Chicken of Doom!)
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I can't tell you how often I hear from evolutionists that the fossil record is imperfect, and how hard it is for fossilization to occur, etc. etc., and thus since gradualism isn't reflected in the fossil record, we're changing it to punctuated equilibrium and saying that the intermediate steps we don't see in the fossil record just couldn't fossilize, but they're really there, even tho we don't see them. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. And besides, are you saying that NO type of dog or cat is in the fossil record, or just that a modern house cat is not in the fossil record? I imagine some type of cat and dog are in the fossil record, tho I don't know for sure. I'm not suggesting the modern house cat, complete with a little collar with a bell on it, should be in the fossil record, but I am saying that the modern house cat came from other CATS, as opposed to, say, a fish. EDIT - I just re-read your options b and c, and you might be saying that the earlier species that modern dogs and cats came from were also dogs and cats. In that case, there's no problem. What's the big deal about not being able to breed? That's a human definition of species. It seems like a bait and switch to say, hey, these two types of DOGS are different species now, and DOG species 1 came from DOG species 2 and they can't breed now. So since giraffes and fish can't breed, it's obvious that giraffes came from fish! Quote:
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. I should be doing the laundry, but this is MUCH more fun! Ñá Ă«?* óú éä ïöü Öñ É Ăž Ă° Ăź ® ç ĂĄ ™ æ ♪ ?* "How lovely are Thy dwelling places, O Lord of hosts! ... For a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand outside." (from Psalm 84) * * * God rocks! Entmoot : Veni, vidi, velcro - I came, I saw, I got hooked! Ego numquam pronunciare mendacium, sed ego sum homo indomitus! Run the earth and watch the sky ... Auta i lĂłmĂ«! AurĂ« entuluva! |
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02-26-2005, 02:08 PM | #109 | |
Quasi Evil
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"People's political beliefs don't stem from the factual information they've acquired. Far more the facts people choose to believe are the product of their political beliefs." "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." |
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02-26-2005, 06:10 PM | #110 | |
Elf Lord
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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02-26-2005, 06:17 PM | #111 | |
Elf Lord
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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02-26-2005, 10:02 PM | #112 | ||
Ring-smith
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Thread killer Ring smith Merry Christmas! They'd never say that (Part 2) What happened to the dragon? |
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02-27-2005, 12:12 PM | #113 | |
Quasi Evil
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"People's political beliefs don't stem from the factual information they've acquired. Far more the facts people choose to believe are the product of their political beliefs." "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." |
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02-28-2005, 12:35 AM | #114 | |
Elf Lord
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So tell me young grasshopper. How big is infinity? For that matter, how big is a billion?
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I have harnessed the shadows that stride from world to world to sow death and madness... Queer haow a cravin' gits a holt on ye -- As ye love the Almighty, young man, don't tell nobody, but I swar ter Gawd thet picter begun ta make me hungry fer victuals I couldn't raise nor buy -- here, set still, what's ailin' ye? ... |
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02-28-2005, 12:43 AM | #115 | |||
Elf Lord
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By the way, your argument "there could be billions of universes" is not a very good one, in my opinion. Allow me to quote you. Quote:
Don't you see the argument is useless? One can explain anything they like using that argument, say anything might be true using that argument. We deal with what we have.
__________________
If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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02-28-2005, 12:47 AM | #116 | ||||
Elf Lord
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Then I'd say the argument about multiple universes is at least as useful, if not more so, because there are at least supporting mathemtical theories for multiple universes, based on current understanding of this physical universe. Quote:
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I have harnessed the shadows that stride from world to world to sow death and madness... Queer haow a cravin' gits a holt on ye -- As ye love the Almighty, young man, don't tell nobody, but I swar ter Gawd thet picter begun ta make me hungry fer victuals I couldn't raise nor buy -- here, set still, what's ailin' ye? ... |
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02-28-2005, 01:15 AM | #117 | |||||
Elf Lord
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This is only one argument, of course. Though it is a strong one, it isn't my favorite . I like best going straight back to the scriptures, discussing the overwhelming evidence that they are true. The Old Testament in very clear prophesies predicts what happened in the times of the New Testaments. The probability that Jesus should have so precisely fulfilled the Messianic predictions he did is essentially nil. The evidence that the gospel writers were reliably taking down events is vast, the evidence that the gospels were unchanged by translation errors or infiltrating myths is irrefutable. Anyway, I love discussing those evidences. It takes time, but it is very fun. Quote:
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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02-28-2005, 01:36 AM | #118 | |||||||||
Elf Lord
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I don't subscribe to punctuated equilibrium per se. I'm more a fan of genetic drift accumulating in the genotype and the phenotype changing only in a small locale until it gets a chance to expand it's ecological niche. There's nothing magical about speciation, it happens in VERY small populations, so it's not surprising that direct fossil evidence is scanty. Once you have an ecological niche open however, the species spreads VERY rapidly. Want a modern example? Look at the spread of fire ants in the southern US. It didn't take very long at all for them to take over once they got a chance to spread and wipe out less succesful species. Less than a couple of decades. In the fossil record, it would be very confusing, to say the least. Quote:
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Now unless you want to postulate that someone's been monkeying around with the fossil records, if the population exists, then fossilization should occur at the same ratio when the species is extant. I'm not up on the most current estimates, but I recall that it was somewhere around 1 fossil to 100,000 examples. Oh of course that's it! there must have been less than 100,000 cats for all those millions of years and then boom! suddenly the population exploded! A highly unlikely explination, and much more complicated than cats simply did not exist 60 million years ago, or earlier. So if they didn't exist, then where did all these cats or dogs come from? Oh wait, it's just the dating methods that are all mixed up, they really existed all along... Again that's not the simplist explination, trying to explain why everything we know about physics is wrong makes that option much more complicated.... Quote:
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First, it's not a human definition of species. It's a definition imposed by the mechanics of evolution. IF you can't BREED, you CAN'T pass on genetic heritage, which means that there are NO shared SURVIVAL traits. It's a definition of species MANDATED by the mechanism. Hell, human definitions are arbitrary, they class wolves as a seperate species, but they can certainly interbreed, and therefore the offspring are well within the scope of the evolutionary mechanism. Secondly, Dog or Canis, is the wrong choice to use for this example, since there is only one species of canis, and they can ALL interbreed. That is why they are most commonly referred to as BREEDS of dog, not species. They are however a perfect example of a species undergoing rapid phenotype and genotype change (due to human intervention) and a if we ever do get to observe a genuine example of speciation, it will probably happen in Canis first. Thirdly, Giraffes did not come from Fish. Giraffes came from a long list of pre-cursor species that likely came from an aquatic vertebrate that may or may not have been a fish. If it wasn't a fish, then it was something so like a fish that you'd be arguing that it made no difference, because it LOOKS like a fish... Quote:
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I have harnessed the shadows that stride from world to world to sow death and madness... Queer haow a cravin' gits a holt on ye -- As ye love the Almighty, young man, don't tell nobody, but I swar ter Gawd thet picter begun ta make me hungry fer victuals I couldn't raise nor buy -- here, set still, what's ailin' ye? ... |
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02-28-2005, 01:56 AM | #119 | |
Half-Elven Princess of Rabbit Trails and Harp-Wielding Administrator (beware the Rubber Chicken of Doom!)
Join Date: Sep 2002
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Really, youse guys! Too late for anything else tonite
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. I should be doing the laundry, but this is MUCH more fun! Ñá Ă«?* óú éä ïöü Öñ É Ăž Ă° Ăź ® ç ĂĄ ™ æ ♪ ?* "How lovely are Thy dwelling places, O Lord of hosts! ... For a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand outside." (from Psalm 84) * * * God rocks! Entmoot : Veni, vidi, velcro - I came, I saw, I got hooked! Ego numquam pronunciare mendacium, sed ego sum homo indomitus! Run the earth and watch the sky ... Auta i lĂłmĂ«! AurĂ« entuluva! |
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02-28-2005, 02:38 AM | #120 | ||||
Elf Lord
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Ok. lets find a basic starting point, do you know what quanta are? Most people think of them as sub-atomic "particles" but thats a silly way to think of them, because atoms themselves aren't really "particles". What they are in more precise terms is discrete energy packets. Think of photons, if you have an understanding of E.M. theory. Electrons are exactly the same as photons, but they have a different enrgy signature. Same for any other particle you can think of. The sub-sub-atomic quanta are even stranger. Someof them have mass and no charge, charge bu no mass, and some of them have nothing but "spin" or "attraction". Awfully odd behavior for "particles" don't you think? But they aren't "particles" at all, because they aren't matter. They are energy, quanta. (Thus quantum theory). So how can you have these weird little "stable" energy pockets just "floating" around? The best explination (so far) is that they are anchored by 0 space dimensions. (0 space dimensions are envisioned to be like a long coiled space much like a string or spring- thus "string" theory) The makeup of these 0 space dimensions are what determine the quanta's properties. (and please, PLEASE don't ask me to explain how, because it makes my head hurt thinking about it- I am NOT a math person) IN order for this theory to work however (and it does work, it explains things that quantum physicists have been pulling their hair out over for decades - "bald physcists" theory) you need a frame work of between 11 and 20 odd other dimensions, depending on what mathematical model you want to use, though the one that is getting the most support lately is the one that calls for 16, who knows at this point! Also, something else weird happens, the math demands that these alternate dimensions be kept stable somehow. How do you keep dimensions stable? With a balancing equation. WHich means.... there's another universe out there- the "balancing equation" is another universe. At least one, and probably.. more. They are refered to as "membranes" and I never really do "get" that joke... Anyway you probably have enough information to figure out the rest of the idea. If not, I can explain that part better. But my brain is tired, and it won't matter much if you haven't got that part. Quote:
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So you'll excuse me if I ask you to provide the empirical evidence for a supreme being... after all, witholding such a thing from humanity would be tantamount to a criminal act. Quote:
con't
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I have harnessed the shadows that stride from world to world to sow death and madness... Queer haow a cravin' gits a holt on ye -- As ye love the Almighty, young man, don't tell nobody, but I swar ter Gawd thet picter begun ta make me hungry fer victuals I couldn't raise nor buy -- here, set still, what's ailin' ye? ... |
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