If Intelligent Design is a scientific theory...

[It Aint Necessarily So]

according to Toe significant design improvements are created purely by blind chance alone, random mutations.

IT predicted a creation event for the universe, deeper guiding forces existing beneath classical physics, that the gaps in the fossil record were real, to name a few biggies

I'm guessing that you meant ID.

I don't see anything there that can be called a prediction of ID. For starters, every creation myth includes a creation event for the universe. And every one including the Genesis account got absolutely nothing else right. They all missed the singularity, the expansion of the universe, the inflationary epoch, symmetry breaking, particle condensation, nucleosynthsis, the decoupling of matter and radiation and cosmic background radiation, the hundreds of millions of years before starlight, the 9 billion year delay before the formation of the sun and earth, the moon-creating impact event, the cooling of the earth with crust formation, and the evolution of life.

Incidentally, when somebody reports how much the Bible got right, which usually requires a tortured interpretation of scripture, they are implicitly deferring to science as the authority on reality and not scripture. You have to filter through pages of words that don't resemble anything that science has uncovered to find something that can be claimed to be a confirmed prediction. One gutold me that the Bible foretold of modern telecommunications with insisted that the Bible foretold of modern telecommunications citing a scripture from Job : "Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go, and say unto thee, Here we are?" - Job 38:35.

If by deeper guiding forces you mean the laws of nature, in the West, rational skepticism was first introduced by the ancient Greek philosophers, whose skepticism about the claims that natural events were punishments from capricious gods led to free speculation about reality. Thales (624 BC - 546 BC) suggested that everything was a form of water, which was the only substance he knew of capable of existing as solid, liquid and gas. What is significant was his willingness to try to explain the order and regular workings of nature without invoking the supernatural or appealing to the ancients and their dicta. The more profound implication was that man might be capable of understanding nature, which might operate according to comprehensible rules that he might discover.

Gaps in the fossil record are consistent with evolutionary theory. Wouldn't it be nice to have a fossilized skeleton or imprint of every creature that ever lived, or even just one from each generation. I don't suppose that anybody expects to ever have that.

As an aside, it would wreak havoc on the taxonomical system having an example of every generation connecting man's last common ancestor with the chimps and bonobos. There have to be large gaps to say that this one is Ardipithicus, that one Australopithecus, and another Homo habilis. It's an interesting oddity that none of these ever had a child that wasn't of its own species, yet new species evolved anyway.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

I'm guessing that you meant ID.

I don't see anything there that can be called a prediction of ID. For starters, every creation myth includes a creation event for the universe.

Several atheist myths explicitly sought to make God redundant by circumventing the creation event altogether (No creation = no creator)

Static, eternal, steady state, big crunch etc. Hoyle and others considered the Priest Lemaitre's primeval atom theory as 'religious pseudoscience'

And every one including the Genesis account got absolutely nothing else right. They all missed the singularity, the expansion of the universe, the inflationary epoch, symmetry breaking, particle condensation, nucleosynthsis, the decoupling of matter and radiation and cosmic background radiation, the hundreds of millions of years before starlight, the 9 billion year delay before the formation of the sun and earth, the moon-creating impact event, the cooling of the earth with crust formation, and the evolution of life.

Genesis also tells us that the universe was entirely light at an early stage, that the entire Earth was ocean, and then one single ocean and one single land mass, that animal life began in the ocean and developed in distinct stages.

lucky guesses perhaps..

Incidentally, when somebody reports how much the Bible got right, which usually requires a tortured interpretation of scripture, they are implicitly deferring to science as the authority on reality and not scripture. You have to filter through pages of words that don't resemble anything that science has uncovered to find something that can be claimed to be a confirmed prediction. One gutold me that the Bible foretold of modern telecommunications with insisted that the Bible foretold of modern telecommunications citing a scripture from Job : "Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go, and say unto thee, Here we are?" - Job 38:35.

I wasn't aware of that prediction, thanks!

- but yes, of course it's open to interpretation- how else do you write a book, a guide for humanity, that will be the most popular widely ready book in history, resonating across millennia, continents, cultures..

But again even the fundamental claim of a specific creation event for the universe was widely rejected until not so long ago- credit where it's due.

If by deeper guiding forces you mean the laws of nature, in the West, rational skepticism was first introduced by the ancient Greek philosophers, whose skepticism about the claims that natural events were punishments from capricious gods led to free speculation about reality. Thales (624 BC - 546 BC) suggested that everything was a form of water, which was the only substance he knew of capable of existing as solid, liquid and gas. What is significant was his willingness to try to explain the order and regular workings of nature without invoking the supernatural or appealing to the ancients and their dicta. The more profound implication was that man might be capable of understanding nature, which might operate according to comprehensible rules that he might discover.

I was referring to quantum mechanics, subatomic physics, before Planck (another skeptic of atheism) some held the 'immutable' laws of classical physics to leave no room for deeper mysterious guiding forces. Many still look at Darwinism the same way, which was a logical extension of the Victorian model of reality when it was conceived

'Nature is the executor of God's laws' (Galileo) and many scientists including atheists, have remarked on how curious it is, that the universe so lends itself to our understanding

Gaps in the fossil record are consistent with evolutionary theory. Wouldn't it be nice to have a fossilized skeleton or imprint of every creature that ever lived, or even just one from each generation. I don't suppose that anybody expects to ever have that.

I take your point, perhaps all the intermediates have been irretrievably lost- but 'the dog ate my homework' does not earn a passing grade!

The theory originally predicted that the gaps would be at least somewhat filled in, instead they have become ever more clearly defined, with less transitional examples today than in Darwin's time, because so many have been debunked since

As an aside, it would wreak havoc on the taxonomical system having an example of every generation connecting man's last common ancestor with the chimps and bonobos. There have to be large gaps to say that this one is Ardipithicus, that one Australopithecus, and another Homo habilis. It's an interesting oddity that none of these ever had a child that wasn't of its own species, yet new species evolved anyway.

And so it remains speculative whether we evolved from apes at all, how long it took, quite apart from how the changes are driven[/QUOTE]

 

[viole]

Several atheist myths explicitly sought to make God redundant by circumventing the creation event altogether (No creation = no creator)

Do you include the myth that lighnings are caused by electromagnetism and not by Zeus?

Static, eternal, steady state, big crunch etc. Hoyle and others considered the Priest Lemaitre's primeval atom theory as 'religious pseudoscience'

Primeval atom? What? Atoms came much later.

Genesis also tells us that the universe was entirely light at an early stage, that the entire Earth was ocean, and then one single ocean and one single land mass, that animal life began in the ocean and developed in distinct stages.

Genesis also tells us that oxygen came before the stars. Which is nonsense.

lucky guesses perhaps..

Yes. Like the unlucky ones.

- but yes, of course it's open to interpretation- how else do you write a book, a guide for humanity, that will be the most popular widely ready book in history, resonating across millennia, continents, cultures..

Hope springs eternal. When you are predisposed to believe in talking sepents, the sky is the limit.

I was referring to quantum mechanics, subatomic physics, before Planck (another skeptic of atheism) some held the 'immutable' laws of classical physics to leave no room for deeper mysterious guiding forces. Many still look at Darwinism the same way, which was a logical extension of the Victorian model of reality when it was conceived

What deeper mysterious forces of QM are you talking about?

'Nature is the executor of God's laws' (Galileo) and many scientists including atheists, have remarked on how curious it is, that the universe so lends itself to our understanding

With "our", do you include yourself?

I take your point, perhaps all the intermediates have been irretrievably lost- but 'the dog ate my homework' does not earn a passing grade!

The theory originally predicted that the gaps would be at least somewhat filled in, instead they have become ever more clearly defined, with less transitional examples today than in Darwin's time, because so many have been debunked since

And so it remains speculative whether we evolved from apes at all, how long it took, quite apart from how the changes are driven

All you have to do to realize that it is indeed speculative, is to take a good look at the mirror. And realize that we did not evolve from apes. We are still apes.

Ciao

- viole

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Several atheist myths explicitly sought to make God redundant by circumventing the creation event altogether (No creation = no creator) Static, eternal, steady state, big crunch etc. Hoyle and others considered the Priest Lemaitre's primeval atom theory as 'religious pseudoscience'

Scientists aren't interested in religious issues or gods. They're interested in observing nature, unifying those observations in explanations that can predict and at times control aspects of nature. You tell it as if God is on their minds, in their telescopes and microscopes, and they're trying to bury the evidence.

You are also misrepresenting the steady state -big bang controversy. That was good science. There were two hypothetical interpretations of Hubble's red shift data, one that involve a universe of constant density and one that saw it as diminishing in density. Each had its champions. The two hypotheses made different predictions. One predicted the cosmic background radiation, a high quality prophecy, which was confirmed and the issue resolved. Consensus, which seems to be a dirty word to many, was achieved.

Once again, you depict all of that in a most uncharitable way. If Hoyle called the big ban religious pseudoscience, then he spoke without justification. It was a hypothesis,nothing more or less, and it turned out to be correct. Science determined that.

What is your larger point? That science is unreliable? That scientists can disagree and some be wrong? That the Bible is a reliable source of information about the world and should be heeded where it differs from the teaching of science?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Genesis also tells us that the universe was entirely light at an early stage, that the entire Earth was ocean, and then one single ocean and one single land mass, that animal life began in the ocean and developed in distinct stages.

The universe was never entirely light. It was all illuminated by a hot, glowing fog, but this fog was material and the source of the glow.

The earth did not have oceans initially.

The single land masses (it happened more than once) arose over deep time.

The biblical description of the formation of life has almost no detail, and what little it has includes error (dust, ribs). There is no mention of the first life, which was microscopic

You're giving us a nice example of how a faith based confirmation bias affects the review of evidence. One begins with an unsupported premise accepted on faith, filters the evidence through a faith based confirmation bias selecting what he thinks supports his premise while rejecting or even not seeing the rest as you have done, affixes his selective evidence before his premise, which he then presents as a conclusion derived from his evidence and argument. In this case, it would be, "the Bible predicted a first moment, light early on, a water world, a single land mass, and life developed in oceans, therefore [implied conclusion here, perhaps therefore God, or therefore the Bible is reliable]"

I call this a pseudoconclusion, meaning an unjustified premise being presented as a conclusion derived by applying reason to evidence. But that is nothing like how it is done.

And look at how much of the story you filtered out.

This is a not a way to arrive at truth. You can always support your premise just like you did. So what is the value. The proper way is to begin by examining all of the relevant evidence impartially and dispassionately with a willingness to be convinced by any valid and compelling argument, and to go where reason applied to evidence takes him wherever that is. That's the method that generates sound and authentic conclusions.

These are radically different ways of arriving at beliefs, and radically different uses for evidence. Not surprisingly, if two people each use one of these these methods each, they will report different beliefs.

We have the means to decide which is the more valid approach: The fruits of each.

If your purpose is to quell the cognitive dissonance of science encroaching on your religious beliefs, then you can comfort yourself with religious apologetics. That's what they're for - people that already believe. You are the consumer.

But if your purpose is to convince unbelievers, your task is hopeless. We have no reason to look at things the way you do. In fact, we learn to try not to. In medical studies, patients and clinicians are each kept in the dark as to who is getting the therapy being tested and who is getting placebo to eliminate that bias. It kills science. Science has to be willing to see what is there, not what individuals want to be there.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

But again even the fundamental claim of a specific creation event for the universe was widely rejected until not so long ago- credit where it's due.

Credit? For what? Science solved the problem, not one culture's creation story. Every creation story has a creation act. And it is science that is the ultimate arbiter of truth about the physical world. If a creation myth makes 200 claims and 6 turn out to be correct if interpreted loosely, then what value is that source? Nobody knows until the relevant science weighs in what parts if any are correct. So it's not knowledge until science confirms it. Until then, it's guesses, with no way to decide which are correct and which are not.

I was referring to quantum mechanics, subatomic physics, before Planck (another skeptic of atheism) some held the 'immutable' laws of classical physics to leave no room for deeper mysterious guiding forces. Many still look at Darwinism the same way, which was a logical extension of the Victorian model of reality when it was conceived 'Nature is the executor of God's laws' (Galileo) and many scientists including atheists, have remarked on how curious it is, that the universe so lends itself to our understanding

There's that "some held" argument again. Why does that matter? Some held otherwise. If there is ever evidence for an intelligent designer, it will be scientists that discover and interpret it, not .

many scientists including atheists, have remarked on how curious it is, that the universe so lends itself to our understanding

That is curious.

The theory originally predicted that the gaps would be at least somewhat filled in, instead they have become ever more clearly defined, with less transitional examples today than in Darwin's time, because so many have been debunked since

That is incorrect.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

And so it remains speculative whether we evolved from apes at all, how long it took, quite apart from how the changes are driven

We are apes, and human from non-human evolution is settled science in the scientific community. The only objections are coming from the part of the religious community that find the science contradicting their faith.

We also know a lot about how the changes were driven. For man, the story begins with the North and South American continents coming together altering the pattern of ocean currents, specifically, an easterly current going from what is now the Pacific ocean into the Atlantic and then to the west coast of North Africa.

The result was the conversion of much of Africa's jungles into savanna, and the apes living there came to the ground exchanging a habitat that they were well adapted to for one that required other skills.

Suddenly, our ancestors had to stand on two legs, run long distances, hunt and eat meat, and use their hands in a new way. Mutations facilitating these changes were selected for. These same mutations would have been selected against in arboreal ape populations.

Had the same mutations occurred in both populations, the ones that were adaptive to mans ground dwelling ancestors would not have helped the arboreal apes, who still benefited from a vegetarian diet, using their feet to grasp rather than walk, using their hand to swing through the branches, etc..

What remains to be elucidated is which of these hominins were ancestors that evolved into man, and which were branches that died out rather than changed form, over what timeline, and the order in which the changes came.

In the time of the Piltdown man fraud, it was believed that bigger brain preceded other changes such as changes in the diet and dentition and bipedalism. So, a big brained, quadrupedal ape with chimp and oranutan teeth was fashioned.

From Wiki: "The Piltdown Man hoax succeeded so well because, at the time of its discovery, the scientific establishment believed that the large modern brain preceded the modern omnivorous diet, and the forgery provided exactly that evidence."

Then Johanson found Austalopithecus afarensis, a bipedal hominin with a smallish brain and reduced canines.

So coming from the trees drove bipedalism which led to hairlessness and persistence hunting, a change in the dentition and cranial musculature to accommodate the new diet, and a bigger brain to articulate hands no longer needed for swinging from branches, but able to fashion and ply spears and hand axes.

These are the issues being discussed in the scientific community, not whether man evolved from lower apes.

 

[viole]

We are apes, and human from non-human evolution is settled science in the scientific community. The only objections are coming from the part of the religious community that find the science contradicting their faith.

We also know a lot about how the changes were driven. For man, the story begins with the North and South American continents coming together altering the pattern of ocean currents, specifically, an easterly current going from what is now the Pacific ocean into the Atlantic and then to the west coast of North Africa.

The result was the conversion of much of Africa's jungles into savanna, and the apes living there came to the ground exchanging a habitat that they were well adapted to for one that required other skills.

Suddenly, our ancestors had to stand on two legs, run long distances, hunt and eat meat, and use their hands in a new way. Mutations facilitating these changes were selected for. These same mutations would have been selected against in arboreal ape populations.

Had the same mutations occurred in both populations, the ones that were adaptive to mans ground dwelling ancestors would not have helped the arboreal apes, who still benefited from a vegetarian diet, using their feet to grasp rather than walk, using their hand to swing through the branches, etc..

What remains to be elucidated is which of these hominins were ancestors that evolved into man, and which were branches that died out rather than changed form, over what timeline, and the order in which the changes came.

In the time of the Piltdown man fraud, it was believed that bigger brain preceded other changes such as changes in the diet and dentition and bipedalism. So, a big brained, quadrupedal ape with chimp and oranutan teeth was fashioned.

From Wiki: "The Piltdown Man hoax succeeded so well because, at the time of its discovery, the scientific establishment believed that the large modern brain preceded the modern omnivorous diet, and the forgery provided exactly that evidence."

Then Johanson found Austalopithecus afarensis, a bipedal hominin with a smallish brain and reduced canines.

So coming from the trees drove bipedalism which led to hairlessness and persistence hunting, a change in the dentition and cranial musculature to accommodate the new diet, and a bigger brain to articulate hands no longer needed for swinging from branches, but able to fashion and ply spears and hand axes.

These are the issues being discussed in the scientific community, not whether man evolved from lower apes.

And being able to sweat. A great way of cooling down and find food while all other predators are in a heat induced siesta.

And the main reason why we lost most of the hair we shared with other apes.

So, next time we disapprove the emissions of someone's sweat, let us not forget that without it, we would not be here.

Ciao

- viole

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Scientists aren't interested in religious issues or gods. They're interested in observing nature, unifying those observations in explanations that can predict and at times control aspects of nature. You tell it as if God is on their minds,

nooo never!

 

[Guy Threepwood]

The universe was never entirely light. It was all illuminated by a hot, glowing fog, but this fog was material and the source of the glow.

The earth did not have oceans initially.

The single land masses (it happened more than once) arose over deep time.

The biblical description of the formation of life has almost no detail, and what little it has includes error (dust, ribs). There is no mention of the first life, which was microscopic

You're giving us a nice example of how a faith based confirmation bias affects the review of evidence. One begins with an unsupported premise accepted on faith, filters the evidence through a faith based confirmation bias selecting what he thinks supports his premise while rejecting or even not seeing the rest as you have done, affixes his selective evidence before his premise, which he then presents as a conclusion derived from his evidence and argument. In this case, it would be, "the Bible predicted a first moment, light early on, a water world, a single land mass, and life developed in oceans, therefore [implied conclusion here, perhaps therefore God, or therefore the Bible is reliable]"

I call this a pseudoconclusion, meaning an unjustified premise being presented as a conclusion derived by applying reason to evidence. But that is nothing like how it is done.

And look at how much of the story you filtered out.

This is a not a way to arrive at truth. You can always support your premise just like you did. So what is the value. The proper way is to begin by examining all of the relevant evidence impartially and dispassionately with a willingness to be convinced by any valid and compelling argument, and to go where reason applied to evidence takes him wherever that is. That's the method that generates sound and authentic conclusions.

These are radically different ways of arriving at beliefs, and radically different uses for evidence. Not surprisingly, if two people each use one of these these methods each, they will report different beliefs.

We have the means to decide which is the more valid approach: The fruits of each.

If your purpose is to quell the cognitive dissonance of science encroaching on your religious beliefs, then you can comfort yourself with religious apologetics. That's what they're for - people that already believe. You are the consumer.

But if your purpose is to convince unbelievers, your task is hopeless. We have no reason to look at things the way you do. In fact, we learn to try not to. In medical studies, patients and clinicians are each kept in the dark as to who is getting the therapy being tested and who is getting placebo to eliminate that bias. It kills science. Science has to be willing to see what is there, not what individuals want to be there.

Lemaitre was correct, and Hoyle and the overwhelming majority of atheists at the time were wrong.

It was the atheists who complained of the theistic/ religious connotations of such a specific creation event, thus basing their conclusions on their personal philosophies, confirmation bias rather than the evidence.

In stark contrast, Lemaitre went out of his way to disassociate his theory from his personal faith, even telling the Pope to knock it off with the gloating.
He separated his belief from his conclusions, because he could. But how does a person separate beliefs they don't even acknowledge having? Blind faith is faith which does not recognize itself.

i.e. it was not his belief in God that let science progress, it was his skepticism of atheism, which allowed him to follow the evidence wherever it led, ultimately answering one of the greatest scientific questions of all time

Yes there were two ways of looking at this and many questions, science v atheism

 

[Guy Threepwood]

We are apes, [].These are the issues being discussed in the scientific community, not whether man evolved from lower apes.

This is a little dated, it used to be believed unequivocally that humans came from apes, dogs from wolves, and birds from Dinos, all are increasingly called into question as clearer scientific evidence continues to emerge, displacing many original Victorian age assumptions of Darwinism.

"Humans did not evolve from monkeys. Humans are more closely related to modern apes than to monkeys, but we didn't evolve from apes, either. Humans share a common ancestor with modern African apes, like gorillas and chimpanzees. Scientists believe this common ancestor existed
5 to 8 million years ago. Shortly thereafter, the species diverged into two separate lineages. One of these lineages ultimately evolved into gorillas and chimps, and the other evolved into early human ancestors called hominids".

 

[Jose Fly]

All the pages of posts in this thread and not one ID creationist can name something in the biological world that was "designed" and describe how they determined it to be so. Instead it's all just been bunch of complaining about atheists, throwing rocks at evolutionary biology, and fundamentally flawed analogies.

And they can't figure out why ID creationism utterly failed, both in the scientific arena and in its political goals.

 

[siti]

Genesis also tells us that the universe was entirely light at an early stage, that the entire Earth was ocean, and then one single ocean and one single land mass, that animal life began in the ocean and developed in distinct stages.

...all in the course of six days about 6000 years ago - was that a lucky guess too?

...the overwhelming majority of atheists at the time were wrong.

Did you ask them or is this another 'lucky guess'?

This is a little dated, it used to be believed unequivocally that humans came from apes, dogs from wolves, and birds from Dinos, all are increasingly called into question as clearer scientific evidence continues to emerge, displacing many original Victorian age assumptions of Darwinism.

What a load of old rubbish - humans ARE, unequivocally, hominid apes, dogs ARE, unequivocally, domesticated wolves and birds are almost unequivocally considered to BE coelurosaurian theropod dinosaurs. They have not evolved FROM these classifications, the are evolving AS members of these taxonomical classes.

...it was not his belief in God that let science progress, it was his skepticism of atheism, which allowed him to follow the evidence wherever it led, ultimately answering one of the greatest scientific questions of all time

What another load of old rubbish - it was following the evidence that lead to his great scientific discovery regardless of his religious beliefs.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

...all in the course of six days about 6000 years ago - was that a lucky guess too?

maybe

Did you ask them or is this another 'lucky guess'?

(wiki)
In the 1920s and 1930s almost every major cosmologist preferred an eternal steady state universe, and several complained that the beginning of time implied by the Big Bang imported religious concepts into physics; this objection was later repeated by supporters of the steady state theory.[44] This perception was enhanced by the fact that the originator of the Big Bang theory, Monsignor Georges Lemaître, was a Roman Catholic priest.[45]

What a load of old rubbish - humans ARE, unequivocally, hominid apes, dogs ARE, unequivocally, domesticated wolves and birds are almost unequivocally considered to BE coelurosaurian theropod dinosaurs. They have not evolved FROM these classifications, the are evolving AS members of these taxonomical classes.

This feels weirdly like debating someone from 19th C. Science has come a long way since Darwin

No Single Missing Link Between Birds and Dinosaurs, Study Finds
Dogs are not Domesticated Wolves | Accumulating Glitches | Learn Science at Scitable
"Humans did not evolve from monkeys. Humans are more closely related to modern apes than to monkeys, but we didn't evolve from apes, either." PBS.org
Evolution: Frequently Asked Questions

What another load of old rubbish - it was following the evidence that lead to his great scientific discovery regardless of his religious beliefs.

exactly, no coincidence it took a skeptic of atheism to make this, like many great scientific breakthroughs. Following evidence, science, not atheism

 

[siti]

Guy - you need to read the stuff you link to before posting - the dinosaur one shows that the reason for their being no "missing link" fossils between dinosaurs and birds is precisely because birds ARE dinosaurs and many dinosaurs have now been discovered to have been feathered. There is no "link" there are many dinosaurs that are variously a little less to a little more bird-like. Of course you don't have to agree with it - but that's what the link says.

You might be (kind of) right about dogs and wolves - apparently the wolf and wild dog lineages diversified before humans began to domesticate the dogs (not the wolves) - if that is what really happened - it is possible that dogs and humans evolved together synergistically - each contributing to the others evolutionary success before humans could really be said to have taken a domesticating role. I find this idea fascinating so I'm glad you brought it up. However, it does not change the fact that dogs and wolves share a common ancestor (probably no more than 20,000 - 30,000 years ago).

On the human evolution question, you are (kind of) right again, we did not evolve from apes, we are evolving as apes (presently) - we share common ancestry with chimpanzees about 6 million years ago and other apes before that and we share common ancestry with monkeys much further back.

Again, I recommend you actually read stuff before you link to it - its a less publicly embarrassing way of addressing our own ignorance.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Guy - you need to read the stuff you link to before posting - the dinosaur one shows that the reason for their being no "missing link" fossils between dinosaurs and birds is precisely because birds ARE dinosaurs and many dinosaurs have now been discovered to have been feathered. There is no "link" there are many dinosaurs that are variously a little less to a little more bird-like. Of course you don't have to agree with it - but that's what the link says.

You are correct Siti- sorry, wrong article/ link!

Scientists: Bird's Ancestors Likely Not Dinosaurs

You might be (kind of) right about dogs and wolves - apparently the wolf and wild dog lineages diversified before humans began to domesticate the dogs (not the wolves) - if that is what really happened - it is possible that dogs and humans evolved together synergistically - each contributing to the others evolutionary success before humans could really be said to have taken a domesticating role. I find this idea fascinating so I'm glad you brought it up. However, it does not change the fact that dogs and wolves share a common ancestor (probably no more than 20,000 - 30,000 years ago).

Yes, it is interesting, and I understand that the new studies do not refute evolution in themselves, but they do, yet again, push the missing link back into the shadowy speculative past. As I said before, 'confirmed' transitional examples seem to be disappearing faster than they are being 'found'

On the human evolution question, you are (kind of) right again, we did not evolve from apes, we are evolving as apes (presently) - we share common ancestry with chimpanzees about 6 million years ago and other apes before that and we share common ancestry with monkeys much further back.
.

Again, fine, we can speculate about a new common ancestor we haven't found yet, but you see the trend here. Not so long ago - daring to question the evidence for dogs from wolves, birds from dinos, man from apes, was met with utter contempt in certain niche academic circles. And these were things I accepted as immutable fact when I was younger also. When you see enough artistic impressions of intermediates you believe they can't all be made up, but they can and are.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Lemaitre was correct, and Hoyle and the overwhelming majority of atheists at the time were wrong.

It was the atheists who complained of the theistic/ religious connotations of such a specific creation event, thus basing their conclusions on their personal philosophies, confirmation bias rather than the evidence.

In stark contrast, Lemaitre went out of his way to disassociate his theory from his personal faith, even telling the Pope to knock it off with the gloating.
He separated his belief from his conclusions, because he could. But how does a person separate beliefs they don't even acknowledge having? Blind faith is faith which does not recognize itself.

i.e. it was not his belief in God that let science progress, it was his skepticism of atheism, which allowed him to follow the evidence wherever it led, ultimately answering one of the greatest scientific questions of all time

Yes there were two ways of looking at this and many questions, science v atheism

Why do you think this matters? Why should anyone care?

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Why do you think this matters? Why should anyone care?

We're curious beings, most of us are interested in knowing the truth

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

This is a little dated, it used to be believed unequivocally that humans came from apes, dogs from wolves, and birds from Dinos, all are increasingly called into question as clearer scientific evidence continues to emerge, displacing many original Victorian age assumptions of Darwinism.

"Humans did not evolve from monkeys. Humans are more closely related to modern apes than to monkeys, but we didn't evolve from apes, either. Humans share a common ancestor with modern African apes, like gorillas and chimpanzees. Scientists believe this common ancestor existed
5 to 8 million years ago. Shortly thereafter, the species diverged into two separate lineages. One of these lineages ultimately evolved into gorillas and chimps, and the other evolved into early human ancestors called hominids".

Humans are apes and evolved from apes. Apes evolved from monkeys. The dates are in dispute. Here's a recent estimate:

Old world monkeys and New world monkeys split about 32 mya

Old world monkeys and great apes (hominoids) split apart about 22 mya

Gorilla, Pan (chimp and bonobo) and Homo’s precursor split from the orangutans about 21 mya

Pan and Homo’s precursor split from the gorillas about 18 mya

Pan and Homo diverged about 13 mya

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Humans are apes and evolved from apes. Apes evolved from monkeys. The dates are in dispute. Here's a recent estimate:

Old world monkeys and New world monkeys split about 32 mya

Old world monkeys and great apes (hominoids) split apart about 22 mya

Gorilla, Pan (chimp and bonobo) and Homo’s precursor split from the orangutans about 21 mya

Pan and Homo’s precursor split from the gorillas about 18 mya

Pan and Homo diverged about 13 mya

That quote was from PBS, not exactly a skeptical source

but there are many more sources

Humans did not evolve from apes, gorillas or chimps
Why Haven't All Primates Evolved into Humans?

It's hardly a controversial assertion nowadays, point being, we can only speculate of this common ancestor now, we don't have any empirical evidence of it as we once thought, And this pattern is emerging across the board, in stark contrast to the original 19th C Darwinian predictions. It's not only intelligent design scientists that are looking for a better explanation.

taking a break here for now, I appreciate the thoughtful discussion..