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Darwin's Illusion

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
More unsubstantiated claims. It’s your imagination and wishful thinking.

These facts are well known to anyone who bothered to read up on it. It was kind of hard to miss back when the scandalous movie came out.

Do you seriously believe that Ben Stein fooled Dawkins and asked him to imagine a ludicrous hypothetical?

Do you seriously believe that Dawkins thinks that life on earth was engineered by aliens?

What's more likely?
That a world renown evolutionary biology professor actually beliefs such a ludicrous thing?
Or that a propagandist who created yet another creationist cesspool of a documentary used trickery and deceit - something these people are well-know for?

Having said that, the entire thing has been exposed multiple times.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed - Wikipedia

In Dawkins' interview, the director focused on Stein's question to Dawkins regarding a hypothetical scenario in which intelligent design could have occurred.


That's what I told you. They gave him a hypothetical and then asked questions that assume that hypothetical to be correct. Then they presented his answer as if that is actually what he believes and / or considers a serious potential truth.

Next to that, he was also lied to about the nature of the documentary.

Any one that watches the interview can immediately tell that it was a very serious interview, there wasn’t any humor involved. Here is the link again. See 3:26

Ben Stein vs. Richard Dawkins Interview - YouTube



Yes, this is what Ben Stein’s documentary was about.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (full movie) - YouTube

In other words, his "complaint" is that science is too hard?
He is complaining that people actually have to provide EVIDENCE for their ideas for them to be considered scientific and accurate?
He is complaining that people can't take their religious beliefs and pretend them to be scientific?

Exactly. :rolleyes:

This is not a good thing.
Apparently, you think it is.
You should reflect on that for a second.

As long as you submit to the ruling dogma.


Simply not true. See # 1087

It is true.
If you think post 1087 presents a proper scientific hypothesis, then you are sadly mistaken.
On the other hand, it's not surprising considering how you apparently think that "complaining" about science being not a democracy and instead where evidence decides what is and isn't valid instead of beliefs or opinion.... well....

You wouldn't recognize a scientific idea if it came up and hit you upside the face while wearing a t-shirt saying "I am scientific".


Who is Ben Stein? You’re the one who brought his name to the discussion

You're the one who brought his propaganda nonsense into the conversation.


Did I ever use Ben Stein work as a refutation for the ToE? See # 753 and #781

You have been borrowing extremely from his "work" in his propaganda.
As I have shown.

Again, you brought Ben Stein to the discussion. I’m not using him to refute the theory

They why are the bulk of your posts about nonsense taken straight from that "documentary"? Lies and misrepresentations like "evolution leads to nazi's", "dawkins believes in alien genetic engineers" and other such nonsense?

And with respect to Dawkins claim that the origin of life may have been seeded from outer space. yes, Dawkins indeed said that. It was neither a trick nor a joke. It was a serious interview.

Read the wiki page.
Or look up the clips where dawkins himself explains how what ended up in the "documentary" was pure dishonest lying misrepresenting garbage.

These are the people you listen to.

Yet, your claim about Ben Stein as a lying con-man is totally an unsubstantiated

It's not. It's well known.

I didn’t see any evidence to support such claim.

I gave you the links which you could have very easily looked up yourself.
Not that it would matter.
I'm sure you'll stick to your strawmen guns and keep on doubling down on your willful ignorance.
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
Meaningless denial. These are not my words. This is an exact quote from the link below. See the link again.

Punctuated equilibrium - Wikipedia

The question is not about how long a population of a species stay stable till the next change of selection pressures. The alleged speciation as driven by the transition from one local optimum to another is always gradual regardless of how long was the stasis.

So exactly like I said: evolution is gradual.

Time is irrelevant to the process

As the transition from one local optimum to another is gradual, then clear time is not irrelevant to the process.


Long stasis doesn’t change the fact that predicted transitional forms should exist in the fossil record if the alleged gradual evolutionary process is true.

And they do.
There's plenty to choose from. Like Tiktaalik (found by prediction).

upload_2022-6-28_8-50-26.png


upload_2022-6-28_8-51-10.png


upload_2022-6-28_8-51-59.png



Yes, the assumed evolutionary change doesn’t cease to be a gradual process, which greatly contradicts real world observation. Alleged gradualism is virtually nonexistent in the fossil record.

No, it's not.

“Eldredge and Gould proposed that the degree of gradualism commonly attributed to Charles Darwin is virtually nonexistent in the fossil record”

Note the bolded part.

Darwin was wrong about lots of things. Which is normal. He didn't know about things like PE, genetics etc.
While he had the core / crux of it correct (reproduction with modification followed by selection), evolution theory as it exists today is quite different from what he proposed some 2 centuries ago.

You might want to read up a bit.

I also find it hilarious that you insist on quoting Gould as if his quotes agree with your position, while Gould would be laughing in your face for the things you propose.
Either you are not at all comprehending what Gould actually said, or you are borrowing the playbook from your dishonest heroes like Ben Stein.

See the quotes below. The sudden appearance of fully formed species in the fossil record necessarily means a massive sudden (unexplainable) appearance of new genetic info.

“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.'"
(Gould, Stephen J. The Panda's Thumb, 1980, p. 181-182)


Again, you are misrepresenting what these people said.
Before PE was understood, yes, people thought that evolution was driven by a STEADY gradualism. What PE learned us, is that it rather is more like BURST gradualism. But gradualism still.

Nobody here, except scientifically illiterate creationists, thinks that a land walking mammal suddenly gave birth to a whale or whatever.

EVERY creature ever born, was of the same species as its parents.

What is called "sudden" in evolution, in reality spans millions of years.
The Cambrian explosion was not an event where "overnight" all major clades suddenly found themselves on the planet.

In reality, this process took at least 25 million years
Even upto 60 million years.

This is "sudden" in geological timescales.
It is NOT "sudden" by any means in terms of generations. We are still talking thousands upon thousands upon thousands of generations of accumulated micro-changes. Gradualism.


If we get same results repeatedly,
If the response is very fast and specifically/effectively addressing the pressure,
If the vital areas are always protected and repaired,
If not only we can predict but also know exactly how the bacteria is going to respond/change to address the pressure, Then, nothing is random about this process.

This directed behavior is neither a reflection nor an outcome of a random process.

Selection may eliminate an existing system or keep another but doesn’t create a system (selection has no creation or innovative capacity). How such intelligent behavior came to existence can neither be attributed to selection nor a purposeless random mutation process.

Attributing this non-random behavior to random evolutionary process is only your wishful thinking. Mutations are never random. See#1245

It's like you didn't read the article and also didn't read the responses you got to your strawmanning claims about said article.

It must be, because here you are simply repeating your false claims, as if nobody ever pointed out the falsehood and strawman.

Definitely the Ben Stein playbook. "expelled: no intelligence allowed" indeed.................. :rolleyes:
 

gnostic

The Lost One
Don't tell me. You don't even have one experiment to show "burst gradualism".
You shouldn’t demand for evidence, when you have not presented any evidence yourself that -
  • “ALL LIFE evolve suddenly” or
  • that “ALL LIFE have consciousness” or
  • that “ALL LIFE evolved suddenly because of ALL LIFE are consciously evolving”.

You keep making claims with your sweeping generalizations when you use words “ALL LIFE”, then refuses to show a single evidence for each claims you have made.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Don't tell me. You don't even have one experiment to show "burst gradualism".

Sure we do. But like evidence, experimentation is a concept that you do not seem to understand. When you are ready to learn. Tell me. It needs to be a polite and serious request.

Sure. And they could step into the same river as their parents too so long as they had legs.

Actually that is no problem. It is the water that is different. The general landform that the water flows in is still there.
 

gnostic

The Lost One
And btw, @cladking

When you make claims that are contrary to any field that evolutionary biology have already substantiated with verifiable evidence, then as a claimant of alternative concept, then the burden of proof falls upon you, where you need to support your claims with evidence. You cannot shift the burdens upon others.

Shifting burdens to other when you are the claimant, make you as intellectual dishonest as any Young Earth creationists and Intelligent Design creationists, because they use exactly same tactics.
 

cladking

Well-Known Member
And btw, @cladking

When you make claims that are contrary to any field that evolutionary biology have already substantiated with verifiable evidence, then as a claimant of alternative concept, then the burden of proof falls upon you, where you need to support your claims with evidence. You cannot shift the burdens upon others.

Shifting burdens to other when you are the claimant, make you as intellectual dishonest as any Young Earth creationists and Intelligent Design creationists, because they use exactly same tactics.

Repeating this same error doesn't make it true.
 

gnostic

The Lost One
Repeating this same error doesn't make it true.
What about your errors and all the false and unsubstantiated claims you have made?

The problem isn’t just about your errors; your real problem is your hubris is that you won’t recognize your mistakes, hence you never learn from errors.

Stubborn ignorance isn’t a virtue.

Plus you keep repeating your claims that all the experiments support your claims, but you were never able show any experiments your claims. Making claims which you cannot support, is making false claims.

Intellectual dishonesty isn’t a virtue.
 

cladking

Well-Known Member
Plus you keep repeating your claims that all the experiments support your claims, but you were never able show any experiments your claims.

Let me try a 20th time.

Name every experiment that has ever been performed. Write the names on pieces of paper. Throw all those pieces of paper into a hat.

Now the tricky part. Pull one piece of paper out of the hat at random. That experiment will support my theory better than it supports Darwin every time.

All experiment preferentially supports my theory because Darwin was wrong.
 

gnostic

The Lost One
Let me try a 20th time.

Name every experiment that has ever been performed. Write the names on pieces of paper. Throw all those pieces of paper into a hat.

Now the tricky part. Pull one piece of paper out of the hat at random. That experiment will support my theory better than it supports Darwin every time.

All experiment preferentially supports my theory because Darwin was wrong.
You are still evading, cladking, and I am not at all surprise by your attitude.

Present some evidence or experiments, OR continue to avoid showing evidence, thereby showing that your concept is nothing more than misinformation and wishful fantasy.
 

cladking

Well-Known Member
You are still evading, cladking, and I am not at all surprise by your attitude.

Present some evidence or experiments, OR continue to avoid showing evidence, thereby showing that your concept is nothing more than misinformation and wishful fantasy.

You could have done this. Why are you being so obtuse? If anyone's dense around here it is I so quit asking me to do your work;

Category:Biology experiments - Wikipedia

All experiment support my contention and not Darwin. Change in species is sudden and results from consciousness, not fitness.

You really should study the experiments in neurosurgery, psychology, and medicine as well since they ALL APPLY and ALL support my theory because my theory derives from ALL experiment.
 

LIIA

Well-Known Member

So you were wrong to deny the influence of evolution on eugenics.

That is not the work of Darwin. And why the fixation on Darwin anyway?

I never said that eugenics or social darwinism is the work of Darwin, yet both are indeed influenced by his work.

Yes, he discovered quite a bit with not that much information. But like all of us he made some mistakes.

He assumed quite a bit with not that much evidence.

Darwin’s idea of a spontaneously generated origin "LUCA" that emerged in a "warm little pond" then transformed to millions of a wide variety of organisms is the most ridiculous fairytale in the history of mankind.

Spontaneous generation was disproved by Louis Pasteur on 1859, same year when Darwin published “the Origin of Species”. Changing "spontaneous generation” to “abiogenesis" doesn’t make it any less ridiculous.

But the work of others does not disprove evolution. It does not even harm it. Did the work of David Koresh refute Christianity? By your " logic" it does.

I never said that eugenics or social darwinism disprove evolution, yet both are some examples of the damaging influence of the theory.
 

LIIA

Well-Known Member
Ah, now you move the goalposts. Earlier you were trying to quote Gould as saying there are no transitional fossils at all, but now you've moved to him saying that a "degree of gradualism" isn't present in the fossil record. Those are two very different things.

How is that moving the goalposts? Earlier quotes and the latest one are all by Eldredge and Gould. All quotes are about the same fact that the fossil record offers no support for gradual change.

That is why Eldredge and Gould proposed punctuated equilibrium in contrast with phyletic gradualism.

They did so because they realized paleontologists were interpreting the fossil record via a speciation model (anagensis) that was contrary to how population geneticists had determined most speciation events occur (parapatric speciation). So they raised the question....why are we paleontologists viewing the fossil record through the lens of anagenic speciation, when most speciation that occurs is parapatric?

Whether the alleged evolution model assumes continual interbreeding of a species or branching species “cladogenesis”, it doesn’t change the fundamental assumption that the transformation of one species into different one is a gradual process that necessitates numerous numbers of transitional forms. Real world observations of the fossil record do not support the assumed gradualism.

Richard Dawkins as one of the critics of “punctuated equilibrium” regards the apparent gaps represented in the fossil record as documenting migratory events rather than evolutionary events. According to Dawkins, evolution certainly occurred but "probably gradually" elsewhere. He shifts the problem to “elsewhere” ignoring the fact the search for the alleged transitional forms is not limited to a locality.

But I have to wonder why this matters to you. Whether the dominant mode of speciation is one or the other, that doesn't change the overall conclusion of universal common ancestry via evolution. Whether it happened mostly by A or B, it still happened, so again....what is your point?

Punctuated equilibrium is in contrast with phyletic gradualism but both predict numerous transitional forms to the contrary of real world observations of the fossil record.

Selection is supposed be a slow and gradual process, per the ToE, endless purposeless random mutations would continuously emerge and for every successful transitional form that was filtered/kept by selection, we should find endless other unsuccessful forms that were eliminated by selection. In fact, real world observations of the fossil record neither show numerous successful transitional forms nor the endless unsuccessful forms that were eliminated.

Considering the number of genes in a genome and possible combinations that can be randomly produced in nature for each single species, there wouldn't be enough material or time in the whole universe for nature to try out all the possible interactions (both the successful and unsuccessful ones) even for a single species. (Especially the number of alleged random unsuccessful mutations that got eliminated by selection would be unimaginable)

The human genome alone includes 30,000 genes; number of possible interactions gets to be so unimaginable (ten to the seventy thousand). Imagine the number of possible interactions for every single species on the planet. This is totally ridiculous; we don’t see that in nature neither the enormous number of transitional forms nor the unimaginable number of unsuccessful life forms that supposedly got eliminated by selection.

"When drawing the borderline between the exact sciences and the Geisteswissenschaften, this line would go right through the middle of biology and attach functional biology to the exact sciences while classifying evolutionary biology with the Geisteswissenschaften. This, incidentally, shows the weakness of the old classification of the sciences, which was made by philosophers familiar with the physical sciences and the humanities but ignorant of the existence of biology"
Then in the following paragraph he talks about how philosophers who came up with this division ignored the methodologies used in the historical sciences.

So it seems you've been trying to quote Mayr as advocating putting evolutionary biology in the Geisteswissenschaften, when in reality he was criticizing doing so, just as earlier you were trying to quote Gould as saying transitional fossils don't exist, when in reality he was quite adamant that they do.

Are you familiar with the concept of "quote mining"?

In his book “What Makes Biology Unique?” Ernst Mayr proposed that evolutionary biology is different than the so-called "exact" sciences and that the basic principles of the scientific method are simply not applicable to evolutionary biology.

He stated that evolutionary biology developed its own methodology of historical narratives, where experiments are inappropriate and definitely acknowledged the similarity with the Geisteswissenschaften when he said “Indeed evolutionary biology, as a science, in many respects is more similar to the Geisteswissenschaften than to the exact sciences.". He proposed that evolutionary biology is “Autonomous” and as such is allowed to break free beyond the restrictions of the scientific method. He said:

“The earliest fossils of Homo, Homo rudolfensis and Homo erectus, are separated from Australopithecus by a large, unbridged gap. How can we explain this seeming saltation? Not having any fossils that can serve as missing links, we have to fall back on the time-honored method of historical science, the construction of a historical narrative.”

“Evolutionary biology has developed its own methodology, that of historical narratives, to obtain its answers, particularly in cases where experiments are inappropriate.”

However biology is in many respects a very different science from the so-called exact sciences. Perhaps the most pronounced difference is that biology, in part, is a historical science. In this part of biology, evolutionary biology, the method of historical narratives is the most heuristic approach.”

“For instance, how do species multiply? However, as we will see, to obtain its answers, particularly in cases in which experiments are inappropriate, evolutionary biology has developed its own methodology, that of historical narratives"

“This revealed that some of the basic principles of the physical sciences are simply not applicable to biology. They had to be eliminated and replaced by principles pertinent to biology”

Um.....yes it is. Our understanding of how populations evolve has direct, functional applications in medicine (e.g., antibiotic resistance, new viral strains) and genomics (it helps determine genetic function) for example.

No, you are refereeing to the adaptation ability of organisms as driven by directed mutation see #1245. If the process is random as the ToE assumed, we wouldn’t expect same results to repeat but we do know for a fact that microorganisms do develop antimicrobial resistance (AMR). In fact, latest finds of molecular biology is what disproved all central assumptions of the modern synthesis. See #753 & #781

So? We have evolutionary biologists debating about the primary mode of speciation and how that should be applied to the fossil record. So what?

It's not about primary or secondary mode, these are contradicting modes in contrast with each other as evident in the statements of the critics on each end, and neither of them explain the unbridged gap of the fossil record.

“Critics such as Scott, Richard Dawkins, and Daniel Dennett have concerns that the theory (punctuated equilibrium) has gained undeserved credence among non-scientists because of Gould's rhetorical skills.” This is definitely not an argument about a primary mode.

Punctuated equilibrium - Wikipedia

In fact, the rejection of steady gradualism is necessarily a rejection of theory of evolution itself even if not declared as such, that is why the proponents of gradualism were aware of this issue and were very critical of punctuated equilibrium.

Are you not aware of the history of how German Christianity, and its persecution of Jews, was a major influence on Nazi ideology? Are you not familiar with the writings of Martin Luther, such as "The Jews and Their Lies"? Are you not aware of how Hitler appealed to and built on that?

Christianity neither supports that the Aryan race is the master race, nor that the Jews should be exterminated.

Nazi Germany racial ideology was driven by evolutionary biology at its core. See the links below.

Nazi eugenics
Nazi eugenics refers to the social policies of eugenics in Nazi Germany. The racial ideology of Nazism placed the biological improvement of the German people by selective breeding of "Nordic" or "Aryan" traits at its center.

Nazi eugenics - Wikipedia

Racial hygiene
The term racial hygiene was used to describe an approach to eugenics in the early 20th century, which found its most extensive implementation in Nazi Germany (Nazi eugenics). It was marked by efforts to avoid miscegenation, analogous to an animal breeder seeking purebred animals.

Racial hygiene - Wikipedia

Again, even if true.....so what? Nazism was also influenced by Christianity. ISIS and Al Qaeda were influenced by Islam.

I fail to see your point.

So, that influence proves the point of the specific damaging impact of the the ToE on humanity which totally has nothing to do with the influence of religions or any other ideology.

So by the same token, Islam, Christianity, and pretty much all religious beliefs have been a damaging influence on humanity.

Again, this is a separate irrelevant argument that has nothing to do with the influence of the ToE.

Our understanding of evolution has also provided many benefits, such as better medicine, vaccines, agriculture, and understanding of genetic function.

Not true, the benefits were driven by scientific advancement of epigenetics, physiology, genomics, population genetics, microbiology and systems biology.

In fact, the ToE assumption of random mutation is misleading, contradicts observations and was disproved by latest finds of molecular biology. “Molecular biology can now be seen to have systematically deconstructed its own dogmas” See#781

So is that it? Your only point in all this was "Evolutionary theory has resulted in some bad outcomes"?

With respect to its influence, indeed it’s damaging to humanity. With respect to its refutation, it’s driven by latest 21st century scientific finds of molecular biology, which disproved all the fundamental assumptions of the Modern Synthesis.
 

LIIA

Well-Known Member
That's an assertion made with zero supporting evidence. FYI, things are not so simply because someone says they are.

Is that all you have to support your claim that those advocating for an EES constitute a majority of evolutionary biologists? No actual data?

If the statements of scientist of the highest caliber in these international conferences concerning the latest in the field and with the provided lectures supported by acknowledgments and references, are not credible, then what is?

I would value their statements as credible reference over your opinion. They’re not simply "someone", you are. That said, I'm not suggesting to blindly accept anything they say, you may verify the facts for yourself.

I didn't say "some random regions". Pay closer attention.

You said “some regions”. It’s not some regions but rather very specifically the regions of the genome with the most vital genes essential for survival. It’s not merely “some regions”, is it?

Um....huh? We've known for a long time that DNA repair isn't random. In fact, I'm not aware that it was ever proposed that DNA repair was a completely random process.

Good to hear but it's not only DNA repair, also mutations are directed away from most vital genes essential for survival. Also these mutations are not random in the sense that it benefits the organism.

Again.....huh? The mutations are indeed random, but the subsequent repair and selection processes aren't. This isn't complicated.

No, it’s not. See # 1245

In fact, possible random interactions or combinations that can be randomly produced in nature is totally unimaginable as explained above.

For every mutation that happened to be advantageous, there should be millions of random non-advantageous mutations that got eliminated by selection.

Again, in the real world, we neither see the enormous number of gradual transitional forms nor the unimaginable number of unsuccessful mutations/life forms that supposedly got eliminated by selection.

Those are interesting claims. Let's see your support for them.

See # 1245 especially item 8 for the Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR)

Harvard University experiment showed multiple non-random successive mutations. The mutation happened repeatedly at each band till the accumulating successive mutations adapted to over 1000 fold resistance level against antibiotics in 11 days. The fast adaptation response was driven by the threat to the survival of the bacteria. The experiment showed repeated (predictable) directed mutation. The process is neither random nor gradual.

Scientists reveal the frightening speed at which bacteria can develop antibiotic resistance (smh.com.au)

Organisms don’t develop millions of random irrelevant changes to be purified by selection but rather develop specific purposeful/directed changes to address the variables within its environment.

None of that provides data that shows EES advocacy is a majority view in evolutionary biology. Care to try again?

This is your mere opinion but as I said before, the discussion by these scientists in such conferences are not mere opinions, it’s about the latest in the field whether you accept it or not. That’s what it is.

The article said, “This cannot be dismissed as a minority view but rather a widespread feeling among scientists”. see #911
 

LIIA

Well-Known Member
I already explained to you how you misunderstood what PE was about.
Why are you repeating this falsehood and doubling down on your mistake?

I already explained to you that long stasis has nothing to do with the unbridged gaps in the fossil record. Time is irrelevant to the fact that transitional forms are needed if the ToE is true and more importantly the fossils have to be in order.

Regardless of any false/biased interpretation of the evidence but descendants have to come after ancestors if evolution is correct. The descendants cannot exist millions of years before the alleged ancestors.
 

LIIA

Well-Known Member
This makes no sense.

The theory describes a mechanism.
From this mechanism, testable expectations and predictions.
When we go out and gather real world data and hold them up against these expectations and predictions, they check out.

That makes it evidence in support of the theory, since the data matches the predictions.

I don't know what else to tell you on this particular topic you seem to be hellbend on arguing against.

No, they don’t.
Jumping to ridiculous conclusions per the examples shown in #1252 doesn’t prove anything other than the extremely biased interpretations.

Again, a chronologically ordered series of fossils showing a lineage of ancestors and descendants is a must if evolution is true. The descendants cannot exist before the alleged ancestors.

The assumption of random mutations is proved beyond a shadow of a doubt to be a mathematical impossibility. Possible random combinations of the human genome alone is ten to the seventy thousand. There wouldn't be enough material not only in planet earth but also in the whole universe for nature to try out all the possible interactions even over the long period of billions of years of the alleged evolutionary process.

Let alone that we should find evidence not only for the alleged successful transitional forms but also for the unimaginable number of unsuccessful forms that have been filtered out by selection (If the imagined filtration process ever took place) it’s beyond ridiculous.

I'm skipping the "nebraska man" bs. Yet another PRATT.

You skip or not, that’s your concern.

Regardless, “Nebraska’s man” and “Orce Man” stay as clear examples of biased interpretations and possibly incompetence, dishonesty or both of those who jump to such ridiculous conclusions. See #1252
 

LIIA

Well-Known Member
Do you seriously believe that Dawkins thinks that life on earth was engineered by aliens?

I believe the words that came out of his mouth in a serious interview. It was not a joke.

What's more likely?
That a world renown evolutionary biology professor actually beliefs such a ludicrous thing?
Or that a propagandist who created yet another creationist cesspool of a documentary used trickery and deceit - something these people are well-know for?

I know what he said for a fact. Your opinion of what he may or may not believe is a meaningless biased opinion.

In Dawkins' interview, the director focused on Stein's question to Dawkins regarding a hypothetical scenario in which intelligent design could have occurred.


That's what I told you. They gave him a hypothetical and then asked questions that assume that hypothetical to be correct. Then they presented his answer as if that is actually what he believes and / or considers a serious potential truth.

Next to that, he was also lied to about the nature of the documentary.

Did Ben Stein also trick Dawkins about what he thinks of God of the Old Testament? Dawkins was reading from his own book.

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

Here is the link, see 0:12

Ben Stein vs. Richard Dawkins Interview - YouTube

It was a serious interview. The only one making a hypothetical scenario is you. Dawkins was freely speaking his mind, not only about God but also about the origin of life.

In other words, his "complaint" is that science is too hard?
He is complaining that people actually have to provide EVIDENCE for their ideas for them to be considered scientific and accurate?
He is complaining that people can't take their religious beliefs and pretend them to be scientific?

Exactly. :rolleyes:

This is not a good thing.
Apparently, you think it is.
You should reflect on that for a second.

As long as you submit to the ruling dogma.

Not true, no one is saying to ignore the evidence. Not at all.

He is saying that the freedom to research, to explore, discover and learn shouldn’t be denied as long as scientists submit to the rules of the scientific method not the ruling dogma. To follow the evidence wherever it may lead without the fear of being shunned by the scientific community. Science must never be restricted by biased opinion or picking sides.

It is true.
If you think post 1087 presents a proper scientific hypothesis, then you are sadly mistaken.
On the other hand, it's not surprising considering how you apparently think that "complaining" about science being not a democracy and instead where evidence decides what is and isn't valid instead of beliefs or opinion.... well....

You wouldn't recognize a scientific idea if it came up and hit you upside the face while wearing a t-shirt saying "I am scientific".

Who is talking about a hypothesis?

As I said in post #1087, peer-reviewed articles supporting intelligent design do exist but not allowed to be published in mainstream journals.

Did I ever claim to ignore logic, evidence or the scientific method? Or rely on a mere opinion. Absolutely not, otherwise, anyone can say anything, and everything goes.

What I’m saying is that science must never be restricted by biased controlling dogma, which inevitably lead to biased false interpretations of evidence.

You're the one who brought his propaganda nonsense into the conversation.

What propaganda?

You have been borrowing extremely from his "work" in his propaganda.
As I have shown.

I’m telling you. I’m neither concerned about Ben Stein nor borrowing from his work but I did mention him before in #202 in an argument about dogmatic control.

They why are the bulk of your posts about nonsense taken straight from that "documentary"? Lies and misrepresentations like "evolution leads to nazi's", "dawkins believes in alien genetic engineers" and other such nonsense?

Do you think that Ben Stein is the only one who ever talked about the Nazis adaptation of the social Darwinist take on Darwinian evolutionary theory regarding the “survival of the fittest”. These are the exact words of the Holocaust Encyclopedia. Ben Stein is not my reference; it’s the Holocaust Encyclopedia (the most comprehensive Holocaust resource online). See the link.

Victims of the Nazi Era: Nazi Racial Ideology | Holocaust Encyclopedia (ushmm.org)

Read the wiki page.
Or look up the clips where dawkins himself explains how what ended up in the "documentary" was pure dishonest lying misrepresenting garbage.

These are the people you listen to.

Provide the clip of your hero (Dawkins) explaining his nonsense.

Again, I’m not concerned about Ben Stein, his opinion or his arguments. I’m concerned only about my own.
 

LIIA

Well-Known Member
So exactly like I said: evolution is gradual.

Exactly, except that alleged gradualism is virtually nonexistent in the fossil record.

And they do.
There's plenty to choose from. Like Tiktaalik (found by prediction).

You still insist on this nonsense. As I said multiple times, THE FOSSILS HAVE TO BE IN ORDER. The descendants cannot exist before the alleged ancestors.

1) The 375 mya Tiktaalik cannot be the missing transitional form between fish and the first four-legged creature ever walked on earth simply because evidence of 18 million years older four-legged creatures was found in Poland (395 mya).

Tiktaalik was claimed to have a mix of characteristics that appears to give it the ability of alternating between aquatic and terrestrial habitats and was considered as the missing link between fish and tetrapods.

Amphibians/semiaquatic animals (such as newts and Axolotl) are present species with a mix of characteristics between fish and tetrapods. They can breathe with both gills and lungs and alternate between aquatic and terrestrial habitats. They are no missing link.

If Tiktaalik did have lungs and possibly some sort of four limbs, with the ability to live both on land and under water then it’s as close as it can be to some present amphibians such as the South China giant salamander which is just an amphibian, not a missing link. See #422

Reddit - Dive into anything

The theory entails the existence enormous number of transitional fossils, if hardly any is found and with major problems, it discredits the theory.

2) Are you still talking about the nostrils of these alleged ancestors after I explained to you that the 49 million year old fully aquatic whale (Archaeocete) existed before almost all of the alleged whale ancestors (Ambulocetus, Rodhocetus, Procetus, Kutchicetus, Dorudon, Basilosaurus, Aetiocetus)?

Proposed transformation from Pakicetus into the fully aquatic whale is not possible in such a short time and without any transitional forms.

Fully aquatic whales already existed long before and alongside their alleged ancestors when whales were still supposedly land creatures. Descendants cannot exist before the alleged ancestors.

3) The outdated “horse evolution tree” that claims unrelated extinct animals as the true horse ancestor was debunked more than 50 years ago but still presented in the textbooks and commonly by evolutionists as a proof of evolution. Neither a direct line of descent leading to modern horses was ever established nor one species succeeded the other in some neat, gradualistic direct ancestor-descendant evolutionary sequence as implied.

Erroneous evidence assumed that the horse supposedly used to have four toes. It's one of the many fallacies associated with alleged horse evolution from the tiny, four-toed Eohippus (Hyracotherium) which supposedly lived about 50 million years ago to Equus, the single-toed horse of today.

According to the textbooks, the four-toed Eohippis was the size of a fox, was a meat eater and had 18 pairs of ribs. What they fail to mention is that the next horse had 15 ribs, then 19 ribs then back to 18. It was not the same animal evolving. There is no sound scientific reason for claiming the four-toed Eohippus (dawn horse) as an ancestor of modern horses.

Age of fossils is assigned depending on their relative depth of burial. The three-toed Neohipparion and the one-toed Pliohippus were found in the same layer. They were living at the same time, hence didn’t evolve from each other.

The age range of the single-toed Pliohippus (15.97 to 4.9 Ma) is older than (and also significantly overlapping in time with) the three-toed Protohippus (13.6 to 5.332 Ma) and Neohipparion (13.6 to 4.9 Ma), which are supposed to be the ancestors of Equus (5.332 to 0.0 Ma) that is back to be single-toed once again.

The three-toed Merychippus (15.97 to 5.332 Ma) has almost the same age range as the single-toed Pliohippus (15.97 to 4.9 Ma) and both coexisted for millions of years with the three-toed Protohippus (13.6 to 5.332 Ma) and Neohipparion (13.6 to 4.9 Ma)

Even the three-toed Anchitherium (37.2 to 11.1 Ma) coexisted for millions of years with Merychippus, Pliohippus (single-toed), Neohipparion and Protohippus.

Miohippus (46.2 to 15.97 Ma) actually appears in the fossil record before Mesohippus (37.2 to 30.8 Ma), though it persists after it.

The alleged horse fossils don’t evolve in a straight line, nor do they show a continuous direction of change. They change from three-toed to single-toed and back to single-toed, the number of ribs jumps up and down, The trend toward larger size was not seen in all of the extinct specimens, some of which actually reversed direction and became smaller. These fossils overlapped significantly in time and one species did not “succeed” the other. The implied neat succession of ancestor and descendent species is false.

Alleged ancestral fossils have been uncovered in the same strata side-by-side, similarly wide variety of horses coexist today. Modern horses come in a wide range of sizes with heights from 28 inches fully grown “Fallabella” to 72 inches “English Shire”. Coexisting anatomical diversity can be seen within the horse kind today in the modern world as well as the fossil layers but it doesn’t mean that these creatures evolved from each other.

The info that you got from Khan Academy is inaccurate/misleading. Their inaccurate dates imply a gradualistic direct ancestor-descendant evolutionary sequence, which is false. See the online paleobiology database fossilworks for the age ranges of these fossils.

Fossilworks: Gateway to the Paleobiology Database

Equus: Age range: 5.332 to 0.0 Ma (single-toed)

Fossilworks: Equus

Protohippus: Age range: 13.6 to 5.332 Ma (three-toed)

Fossilworks: Protohippus

Neohipparion (hipparionine horse): Age range: 13.6 to 4.9 Ma (three-toed)

Fossilworks: Neohipparion

Pliohippus: Age range: 15.97 to 4.9 Ma (single-toed)

Fossilworks: Pliohippus

Merychippus: Age range: 15.97 to 5.332 Ma (three-toed)

Fossilworks: Merychippus

Anchitherium: Age range: 37.2 to 11.1 Ma (three-toed)

Fossilworks: Anchitherium

Mesohippus: 37.2 to 30.8 Ma (three-toed)

Fossilworks: Mesohippus

Miohippus: Age range: 46.2 to 15.97 Ma (three-toed)

Fossilworks: Miohippus

Eohippus (Hyracotherium): Age range: 50.3 to 48.6 Ma (four-toed)

Fossilworks: Hyracotherium

4) The alleged hominid fossils are nothing but some meaningless names. Most proponent of the ToE are under the false impression that these fossils fit along a coherent evolutionary developmental line as gradual transitional variants (linear progression) from the alleged common ancestor to modern humans. It couldn’t be further from the truth. None of these fossils can be established as a transitional form / ancestor leading to Homo sapiens. That’s why the word “ancestor” is avoided and replaced with “relative” to imply some sort of unknown relationship.

See # 326 and # 327

Darwin's Illusion | Page 17 | Religious Forums
 

LIIA

Well-Known Member
Note the bolded part.

Darwin was wrong about lots of things. Which is normal. He didn't know about things like PE, genetics etc.
While he had the core / crux of it correct (reproduction with modification followed by selection), evolution theory as it exists today is quite different from what he proposed some 2 centuries ago.

This alleged gradualism is absolutely a fundamental assumption of the ToE, if this gradualism as imagined by Darwin is virtually nonexistent in the fossil record (as stated by Gould and Eldredge), it necessarily means that the theory is false.

I also find it hilarious that you insist on quoting Gould as if his quotes agree with your position, while Gould would be laughing in your face for the things you propose.
Either you are not at all comprehending what Gould actually said, or you are borrowing the playbook from your dishonest heroes like Ben Stein.

As I said many times, all scientists that I quote are evolutionists. You wouldn’t accept quotes from the other side, would you?

Their statements about the fossil records are facts based on the real-world observations. Their position about the ToE is based on (biased) interpretations not solid facts. After all, the proponent of gradualism themselves such as Richard Dawkins didn’t agree with Gould’s position.

The fact remains that neither real world observation in the fossil record support gradualism nor punctuation explains the unbridged massive sudden appearance of genetic info. Both are false.

See the “Criticism” section in link below

Punctuated equilibrium - Wikipedia

Again, you are misrepresenting what these people said.
Before PE was understood, yes, people thought that evolution was driven by a STEADY gradualism. What PE learned us, is that it rather is more like BURST gradualism. But gradualism still.

Except gradualism is virtually nonexistent in the fossil record

Nobody here, except scientifically illiterate creationists, thinks that a land walking mammal suddenly gave birth to a whale or whatever.

EVERY creature ever born, was of the same species as its parents.

What is called "sudden" in evolution, in reality spans millions of years.
The Cambrian explosion was not an event where "overnight" all major clades suddenly found themselves on the planet.

In reality, this process took at least 25 million years
Even upto 60 million years.

This is "sudden" in geological timescales.
It is NOT "sudden" by any means in terms of generations. We are still talking thousands upon thousands upon thousands of generations of accumulated micro-changes. Gradualism.

Sudden is not in terms of time, as we said before “time is irrelevant to the process”. Sudden here means that the transitional forms do not exist as predicted by the alleged gradualism, not that the change itself happened quickly.

Again, punctuation, long stasis or not is irrelevant to the fact that the predicted numerous transitional forms are required if the ToE was true. If hardly any is found and with major problems/challenges, it discredits the theory.


It's like you didn't read the article and also didn't read the responses you got to your strawmanning claims about said article.

It must be, because here you are simply repeating your false claims, as if nobody ever pointed out the falsehood and strawman.

Definitely the Ben Stein playbook. "expelled: no intelligence allowed" indeed..................

Stop the “Ben Stein” Nonsense. I’m not concerned about Ben Stein. If you have nothing to say, you don’t have to. you're free to consider Dawkins as your hero. it's your concern.
 

cladking

Well-Known Member
Organisms don’t develop millions of random irrelevant changes to be purified by selection but rather develop specific purposeful/directed changes to address the variables within its environment.

Indeed! I believe it is very likely that most are caused by or depend on consciousness. Many mutations would occur anyway but consciousness plays a vital role in which occur.

"Consciousness" is a powerful force and it's the most powerful force over every single individual on the planet though its importance in humans is a less dramatic. A rabbit knows what characteristics it would need to have a better chance of eluding a fox. This fact improves the odds its offspring will have this characteristic by some unknown means.

It's all life from day to day changes in species to speciation that is largely dependent on consciousness.

The assumption of random mutations is proved beyond a shadow of a doubt to be a mathematical impossibility.

I'm also coming to suspect there is no such thing as randomness. If true this would go double for all living things.

Look at the fibonocci sequence.
 
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