One of the oldest canards in the creationists' book is the claim that evolution must be false because it violates the second law of thermodynamics, or the principle that, as they put it, everything must go from order to disorder. One of the more persistent perpetrators of this kind of sloppy thinking is Henry Morris, and few creationists today seem able to get beyond this error.
Remember this tendency from order to disorder applies to all real processes. Real processes include, of course, biological and geological processes, as well as chemical and physical processes. The interesting question is: "How does a real biological process, which goes from order to disorder, result in evolution. which goes from disorder to order?" Perhaps the evolutionist can ultimately find an answer to this question, but he at least should not ignore it, as most evolutionists do.
Especially is such a question vital, when we are thinking of evolution as a growth process on the grand scale from atom to Adam and from particle to people. This represents in absolutely gigantic increase in order and complexity, and is clearly out of place altogether in the context of the Second Law.
As most biologists get a fair amount of training in chemistry, I'm afraid he's wrong on one bit of slander there: we do not ignore entropy, and are in fact better informed on it than most creationists, as is clearly shown by their continued use of this bad argument. I usually rebut this claim about the second law in a qualitative way, and by example — it's obvious that the second law does not state that nothing can ever increase in order, but only that an decrease in one part must be accompanied by a greater increase in entropy in another. Two gametes, for instance, can fuse and begin a complicated process in development that represents a long-term local decrease in entropy, but at the same time that embryo is pumping heat out into its environment and increasing the entropy of the surrounding bit of the world.
It's a very bad argument they are making, but let's consider just the last sentence of the quote above.
This represents in absolutely gigantic increase in order and complexity, and is clearly out of place altogether in the context of the Second Law.
A "gigantic increase in order and complexity" … how interesting. How much of an increase? Can we get some numbers for that?
Daniel Styer has published an eminently useful article on "Entropy and Evolution" that does exactly that — he makes some quantitative estimates of how much entropy might be decreased by the process of evolution. I knew we kept physicists around for something; they are so useful for filling in the tricky details.
The article nicely summarizes the general problems with the creationist claim. They confuse the metaphor of 'disorder' for the actual phenomenon of entropy; they seem to have an absolutist notion that the second law prohibits all decreases in entropy; and they generally lack any quantitative notion of how entropy actually works. The cool part of this particular article, though, is that he makes an estimate of exactly how much entropy is decreased by the process of evolution.
First he estimates, very generously, how much entropy is decreased per individual. If we assume each individual is 1000 times "more improbable" than its ancestor one century ago, that is, that we are specified a thousand times more precisely than our great-grandparents (obviously a ludicrously high over-estimate, but he's trying to give every advantage to the creationists here), then we can describe the reduction in the number of microstates in the modern organism as:
Now I'm strolling into dangerous ground for us poor biologists, since this is a mathematical argument, but really, this is simple enough for me to understand. We know the statistical definition of entropy:
In the formula above, kB is the Boltzmann constant. We can just plug in our estimated (grossly overestimated!) value for Ω, have fun with a little algebra, and presto, a measure of the change in entropy per individual per century emerges.
Centuries are awkward units, so Styer converts that to something more conventional: the entropy change per second is -3.02 x 10-30 J/K. There are, of course, a lot of individual organisms on the planet, so that number needs to be multiplied by the total number of evolving organism, which, again, we charitably overestimate at 1032, most of which are prokaryotes, of course. The final result is a number that tells us the total change in entropy of the planet caused by evolution each second:
-302 J/K
What does that number mean? We need a context. Styer also estimates the Earth's total entropy throughput per second, that is, the total flux involved from absorption of the sun's energy and re-radiation of heat out into space. It's a slightly bigger number:
420 x 1012 J/K
To spell it out, there's about a trillion times more entropy flux available than is required for evolution. The degree by which earth's entropy is reduced by the action of evolutionary processes is miniscule relative to the amount that the entropy of the cosmic microwave background is increased.
This is very cool and very clear. I'm folding up my copy of Styer's paper and tucking it into my copy of The Counter-Creationism Handbook, where it will come in handy.
Styer DF (2008) Entropy and evolution. Am J Phys 76(11):1031-1033.
I nominate Teno Groppi for the Order Of *nn. Order Of *nn is named after *nn C**lt*r in honor of her ability to continually spew out nonsense in the face of reason.
wOOt! (May be a temporary victory. Anyway I'm kind of punchy after much travel, so please forgive me.)
I'm quite sure this is proof of something divine...
@998
Somehow I don't think it would be very interesting...
"It's the truth"
"No it's not. This is the truth."
"No it's not. This is the truth."
"No it's not...
SC, Teno just dismissed you out of hand. But I think he is ignoring me now. It is his way of acting like his big sky daddy.
Teno Groppi: I think (like G-d) I'm going to start ignoring you too.
It was not directed at me. But I think it is a perfect example of his stupid arrogance.
show me precisely where it [the Byrd prayer study] was falsified? - Tino Groppi
Byrd himself determined who "did better", and may well have know who was prayed for and who not. That alone is enough to make the study pretty much worthless. Moreover the most objective measures - mortality and length of hospitalisation - showed no effect. Is that really the best evidence you've got for "God", Groppi? Can't he get it on these days, and do us a proper, full-size miracle, like maybe parting the waters of the Mississippi? Or making the stars start flashing on and off in Morse code, spelling out "I AM THAT I AM"? What a worthless, feeble, namby-pamby, underachieving ninny of a deity you worship, Groppi!
I've now accepted the teachings of my childhood church and am a proud millenialist.
Seconded.
I do not recall once the US military marching around city walls for a week.
Bush did however get his tactics from the bible. Just invade Iraq and pray things go well.
Which is why ham is illegal.....er.....
Aren't you at least curious as to whats in the Poetic Edda pertaining to future technology?
Holy shit, this guy is like condensed stupid.
Just give it time, it will inevitably lead to conflict. Also it will demonstrate one fundamental thing, that each of them has the same justifications for their gods and holy books.
Posted by: SC | November 19, 2008
I'm quite sure this is proof of something divine...
Careful, you will give Teno more ideas. He seems to find a lot of divine intervention.
***Too baffled to come up with witty response***
Teno, all you can cite is something that can be explained by natural causes. There simply is no hope for you.
Now, tell me where to find Moses' burning bush, or the equivalent. Anything else means you are a liar. So far you're batting 0.000. One might think you have some mental problems. Keep in mind, you always have the option of just stopping your posts.
Oh, I was ignoring that, since I've already done his experiments (prove I haven't, Groppi).
Then nothing took place
I'm not a believer...
Do you mean to say the bible predicts the brown note?
Or, here's a novel idea, we could get back to science and stop talking about people who take fairy tales too seriously.
NOOO!
@ Nerd 1011
Don't tell him to quit. It's just too entertaining.
I think he's doing it on purpose. Surely a human being couldn't be that stupid and not forget to breathe.
@no one.
I was thinking... there should be an anti-molly. I guess that my prayers have been answered in the Order of *nn.
All in favor say aye...
aye.
Well Pinhead this might be something beyond your means of comprehension. You see G-d clearly works through nature, as in the burning bush. What John K. had discovered was that by putting a basic radio frequency through salt water - it catches fire. Did you also see that the paper towel that was in the flame was not burning (in likeness of the Burning Bush).
Now here is the kicker which I doubt you will understand. As for the rest of the gang here which is clearly a bunch of kindergardeners who hang together looking for acceptance from one another.
Here it is: G-d works through NATURE. The actual Hebrew word for "nature" is the word "Hatevah" which when broken down into Gematria (numbers) it equals the same as the name of G-d (Eloheim). Thus G-d and nature are the same -- working hand in hand. You see not only does the Bible speak in words, it also can be broken down into mathematical code (only by using the Hebrew letters of the Old Testament which was given to Moses by G-d).
Sleep on that one for a while. To be adjourned...
Eeew. An anti-honour would be actively sought and we'd get even more trollish gadflies here. It may be fun to punch them around, but some of them love it. They want to be fed, no matter how feculent their diet.
I vote no, no, no.
That is why I was gone for while. The people who pay me have this nasty habit of wanting some science done for them. It was a good break science wise though.
Don't worry TW, Teno can't quit now. He'll be back for more laughs. The actual question is whether PZ will shut down the thread now that we've reached 1000 or let it go a while. If PZ opens a new one, I doubt if Teno could find it.
SC, I'll third the motion.
I think there is more proof for the Goddess Discordia than there is for jesus or gawd. Certainly the FSM at least shows up for supper.
For a person who thinks that the King James Bible is the supreme version of the bible, he seems to love his ancient Hebrew mixed in with numerology.
I will not be sleeping on it. I have more pleasant things to dream of.
kindergardeners
I'm stealing that unintentionally great word for kids' horticultural programs.
Teno, nothing you say sticks in my brain. I don't need to lose any brain cells to your stupidity.
Again, your religion does not refute science. Only more science can refute science.
Science cannot refute your religion, but it can make it look silly. Your religion is very, very silly.
@JM
yeah. you're probably right.
I think the lesson to be learned here is that there is a clear distinction among people. There are those who are rational individuals, who believe for reasons that can be articulated, and who we should seek to discuss these reasons with.
And then there are those others.
Clearly you guys are what I would call "SCARED"! (having learned the truth).
1000 posts means victory.
Teno, what a liar. You said you were leaving for the night. If you lie about that, what else will lie about (everything based on your previous posts).
Have sweet, rational dreams of no god.
So, some people who invented words for things invented a way of making the word for one thing mean the word for another thing. Yeah, that's a revelation.
Grasp, grasp, Tenuous Teno. You must regrow fingernails at an astonishing rate.
I did not realize that shaking with laughter was a sign of fear.
Reaching over one thousand posts is an arbitrary goal. But it suits Teno Gruppi O* well. All his other proofs of god are similarly arbitrary.
I like the idea of an anti-Molly. There are many people like Teno who don't deserve to be thrown in the dungeon (just yet anyway), but deserve some sort of punishment for wasting everyone's time.
I fourth the motion.
Indeed! Groppi and I alone will be RAPTURED, while the rest of you suckers will be LEFT BEHIND with your so-called reason, intelligence, and evidence.
No, it isn't. The root word is "teva" ("טבע"), no "ha-" ("ה").
(which is a combining article meaning "the", although used differently in Hebrew than in English, such that when used in a Hebrew sentence, "the nature" can be grammatically correct).
In other words, you have to cheat to make the numbers work.
81 ≠ 86
Just like you've been cheating all along.
Stop posting, start praying.
you guys are what I would call "SCARED"!
Sure. Since you use the rest of the language to mean something between whatever the hell you want it to and nothing much at all, go ahead and redefine "SCARED" as "laughing one's ass off at the deluded moron."
I, for one, am "SCARED" as hell in this brash new linguistic regime.
Teno doesn't realize that the 1000 post comment is because of the SB software starts slowing down once 1000 posts are reached (during Crackergate I think one post went over at least 3 X 1200 post threads, or more, so this is nothing). So it is an administrative matter more than anything else. No door prizes, except for PZ. It's money in his pocket.
What are we scared of? You're the intellectual equivalent of a used teabag and you don't even have the most rudimentary knowledge in science. The evidence for a 4.5 billion year old earth and the gradual emergence of life on this planet is overwhelming. So what am I scared off? That a book written by broze-age herders invalidates all scientific progress? pfft. Only the ignorant and the stupid believe in a young earth. The need for apologetics to explain why the science doesn't match the creation story is proof itself that the story is myth written by people who didn't know better.
Indeed grasshopper... but victory for whom?
Teno @ 977: "Wowbagger,
Someone who is more familiar with the bible than I am correct me on this, but isn't this where Moses and co. pour molten gold down the throats of Baal worshippers? I guess it cured their idolatry.
Vaccines have nothing to do with bitter waters.
That's the most honest the troll has been yet.
Nah, it means PZ is exceptionally tolerant, in an enlightened-selfish way.
And Teno Troll epitomises the aphorism "If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning."
I don't know...Teno has really made me think about some things in a new way. The Bible's impeccable archaeology, its trailblazing science content, its prediction of antibiotics and lasers and cell phones, its explicit link between modern physiology and the soul, the fact that it contains all of physics in its first sentence alone, and, of course, the Secret Hebrew Mathematical Code...the demonstrated efficacy of prayer and the ability of nice words to keep rice from rotting...radio waves burning salt water...
It's a lot to think about.
Maybe there's something to this whole G-d thing after all...
Nah.
(Hey Teno, know anything about Near Death Experiences?)
Most antibiotics are made from soil bacteria. Penicillin, from a mold, is more the exception than the rule. Herbs are just used in nutriceuticals (food supplements) these days, and tend to show no activity when properly tested, with a few exceptions.
Another lie for the godbotter.
Maldito sea, DiMilo. You'd better be prepared to round up a posse/mob. :)
Sven, that is not fair. Kenny just had his NDE. Teno has the amusing ability of pulling new shit out of his ass.
No, not this time.
Ex 32:19-20 —
19 It came about, as soon as Moses came near the camp, that he saw the calf and the dancing; and Moses' anger burned, and he threw the tablets from his hands and shattered them at the foot of the mountain.
20 He took the calf which they had made and burned it with fire, and ground it to powder, and scattered it over the surface of the water and made the sons of Israel drink it.
Given that they had just violated God's law, somehow I don't think Moses was trying to do something nice for them.
Teno isn't really familiar with logic is he. It's a trainwreck and kind of hard not to watch.
Teno is a young earth creationist. He could try to point to data that shows the earth is less than 10,000 years old.
Teno @ 913:
Right; the Israelites were the only people in ancient times who grasped a connection between health and sanitation.
And nobody else living at that time had any clue that blood was important.
Comment 164:
The vast majority of fishes -- Actinopterygii.
503:
"I become". I was in the university and didn't have the link handy.
First (e. g. in Psalm 86) there was El Elyon, the Most High God, his wife Ashera, and their 70 sons, each of which was the god of one of the apparently 70 nations. Yahwe was the god of Israel, Chemosh was the god of Moab (source: somewhere in Judges 19), and so on.
Then (e. g. in 2 Kings) Yahwe came to be identified with his father. Had to do with the fact that both Israel and Judah were pwned by Assyria and Babylon -- by the old interpretation that would have meant that Yahwe was a worthless wimp; by the new interpretation it meant one god was in charge of all peoples and was punishing the Israelites for whatever sins. That's a much grander worldview. Much more comfortable.
And then (2 Kings again, Deuteronomy) the priests declared all other gods unworthy of worship -- see "whatever sins" above.
----------------------
This is a blog, not a forum. There is no moderator, there's only a blog owner who only cares when people get extremely obnoxious.
How is it possible that you don't recognize a blog when you see one?
You wish.
:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D
My day night is saved!
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
I'm trying to say that what you wrote is grammatically correct but doesn't make any sense.
Of course not! Living things have enzymes that can only make left-handed amino acids! What did you imagine?!?
Do you actually know anything?
Didn't you just say the following...
Oh well. I have to go to bed. It's a quarter to 2 at night over here.
Just one thing:
:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D
"Heated debate"!
Teno, go here, read, and learn. That's an article specifically written for Christians.
I did the same. I thought his name was an anagram too: I've never heard either name and the "poe" and "ing" in there were inviting that speculation.
Google to the rescue.
He has a number of blogs, and not the kind of one-pager you might set up for a gag. Ladies and gentlemen, this guy is for real. Stupid in the purest and most concentrated form yet known to Pharyngula.
When I found out this guy is not a prankster, I laughed so hard I peed a little.
When I read some of his blogs, I laughed so hard I had to change my shorts.
It's always more Ox and fucking Donkey with these tards.
After having a short look at comments like 977 and 995, I can confidently estimate Teno's insanity at 0.7 Tc. Remember that the TimeCube scale is logarithmic, so 0.7 Tc is ten times as insane as 0.6 Tc.
I never saw anyone before who that desperately wanted to believe.
Doubt is good, Teno. Doubt everything. Doubt the existence of the computer in front of you. Doubt. Or you shall learn nothing.
Re Alcyone being " the hinge in which all gravity in our system (galaxy) seems to axis on. ":
Do you even have to ask?
BTW, here's something for Patricia (from Wikipedia):
"...especially marches."
"...especially marches."
"...especially marches."
"...especially marches."
"Gold has many medicinal values in the body, one of them to relieve pain. "
*BZZZT* Ohhh, wrong again. Gold is chemically inert to human body chemistry, and thus has no value. Really, join the 21st century, Teno, or at least the 19th.
And for crying out loud, type out the vowel in God's name. You're not fooling him with your silly little evasion, He still knows that you're taking His name in vain. And doesn't that strike you as petty and narcissistic behavior for a deity?
No, I solemnly assure you that I am utterly, entirely fooled.
Moi?
I prefer to think of it as protecting My brand or trademark. Can't have dilution; next thing you know, heretics will be saying that nature is Me.
Oh, wait...
Patricia,
How are you feeling?
Rey, Gold itself is physiologically inert, but gold poisoning can occur*, and compounds have theurapeutic potential in some cases.
* From Wikipedia: "Soluble compounds (gold salts) such as potassium gold cyanide, used in gold electroplating, are toxic to the liver and kidneys. There are rare cases of lethal gold poisoning from potassium gold cyanide"
Botanists of a historical bent suggest that Moses' burning bush may have been a gas plant, Dictamnus alba, that was spontaneously combusting. The gas plant, also known as "False Dittany," secretes copious amounts of aromatic, volatile oils, which cover the plant in a sticky, lemon-scented coating. These oils also readily vaporize, hence the name "gas plant." On especially warm, windless days, some gardeners find it amusing to set fire to the plants, as the coating is extremely flammable, causing the entire plants to ignite in a flash. Sometimes, the oils may spontaneously combust without the aid of a match as they vaporize, leading to their other common name of "Burning bush."
Holy shit.
I can think of no troll more deluded than Teno. The shit he is spewing here is beyond loony toon stupid.
it's not even wrong. It goes beyond the definition of wrong.
A numerologist too?
Teno.
You are a fucking moron.
MORON.
Sarah Palin:
Bibles exist, and Sarah Palin's tongue is not connected to her brain, so you can't prove that Teno Groppi isn't God's prematurely cracked up door for Sarah Palin to plow through.
Teno Groppi: having learned the truth
You've made a vast quantity of assertions, but we have not agreed as for any basis of inference between propositions, much less as to the nature of Truth or the relation of your assertions to it. I ask again, would you agree with the Commutativity of Logical Inclusive Disjunction, which states that (P OR Q) is logically equivalent to (Q OR P)?
"Rey, Gold itself is physiologically inert, but gold poisoning can occur*, and compounds have theurapeutic potential in some cases."
Quiet, or Teno will take that teensy little thread and run with it.
Abb3w @1058:"I ask again, would you agree with the Commutativity of Logical Inclusive Disjunction, which states that (P OR Q) is logically equivalent to (Q OR P)?"
I feel that over the last few days that I've come to know Teno oh so well that I am confident that I can answer for him thusly: Uhh... commu logic inclusive... uh communism? logic includes communism? I knew you guys were pinkos!
David at #1044:
That was the single most impressive paper i have ever read! I think they should hand those things out like friggin' leaflets outside churches! So J worked on the idea that THWH was meta-ashtar, and P on the idea that he was meta-El. i know, major over-simplification, but i just want to bring it back to bare-bones postulates before progressing further... I follow you now?
Actually, i did a mock essay one time (from my ethnocentric perspective) on how God was getting younger, not older, and it was because he isn't old enopugh with a proper grasp of his powers to actually do anything of substance in the Apostollic Age. Similarly, the book of Revelation would refer to him as a toddler who destroys the world in a fit of rage. As he gets older, he gets meaner and more fed up with his impatient and increasingly primitive creations, trying to work backwards to fix his mistakes.
Jesus? The produst of teenage fornication, most likely. He takes time off to mentor his Son in the ways of godhood, but the predictable mess follows. As an old man, God forms man like an old potter working clay (the tinkering type, who obviously forgets, which is why there are something like 3 versions of the creation story in the very first parts of Genisis (We make man and woman in our image, and so he created them man and woman, and the "dust from the earth being the final form)
before his existance is supplanted by Jesus and all the souls that have arrived in heaven with him, which would then operate according to his time (backwards). Fun to discuss, but don't take it too seriously lol.
Stanton @1055: ok, but why is it Talking? I'm pretty sure That is the point of contention. Is it some sort of halluconogen? I have heard such claims to be made, but never have seen any real data behind that assertion, as much fun as it is lol.
me at 1061:
grr, YHWH, not THWH, for His sake! lol
Rey, teensy little thread nothing, I'll give him a cable.
He took the [golden] calf which they had made and burned it with fire, and ground it to powder, and scattered it over the surface of the water and made the sons of Israel drink it.
[If Teno could maintain coherence, it would go thus:]
YOU fools, it got BURNED! And then is was GROUND and SUCCUSSED!! Then it was DILUTED and AQUIFIED!!!! And the burning made SALTS! And the SALTS are poisonous!!! So really, the bibble predicts HOMEOPATHY! And GOLD cures IDOLATRY!@
I wouldn't know: I do know that gas plant's essential oil is not hallucinogenic: it's still used as a stomach tonic on occasion, but, as far as I know, its acrid taste is off-putting, and there are plenty of more affective and more pleasant-tasting stomach tonics available, i.e., peppermint oil.
Aside from Jehovah using it as a mystical telephone, I wouldn't know how to explain why it would talk otherwise: Unlike Teno Groppi, I have absolutely no desire to use my faith to make a malicious, gibbering idiot out of myself; it is impolite, and I don't think God would approve, either.
"God wouldn't approve"? From what i've seen of godbots is that God very much approves, he takes very good care of idiots. That's why they have become so numerous and powerful(after all, Palin had a shot at VP and will run again in 2012 - oh wait, then she'll get completely stomped and be forced back into obscurity). Teno i think, is beyond reproof; God wouldn't even bother with him, even if he were a good believer. Stupid of his caliber is a liability, period.
Alas, I'm a bit hard up for believers nowadays. But you're right, he's not a good believer. He doesn't believe in Me; he believes in making a nuisance of himself.
But if he were a good believer, his stupidity would not matter in the slightest. Indeed, it would probably help. Stupid people are naturally more conservative, and would stick by Me no matter what.
I can see which way the wind is blowing in this modern age, though. People are better fed and longer-lived than in the past; infant mortality rates keep dropping; even natural disasters are no longer quite as deadly as they were, with modern infrastructure and support and recovery efforts.
Modern life has led to greater contentment, and people that are content stop needing Me, and believing in Me, and worshiping Me.
I'd smite a bunch of them to keep them on their toes, but for some reason I seem to have manifested as a turtle recently, and My smites have lost their mojo.
Bah.
God (may i just call you andy?), i'm sorry. i feel for your plight. Look somewhere else, and i'm sure you will find some underdeveloped species somewhere that needs the violent nurturing that you can give. All is not lost. Unless as said turtle you cannot travel the intersteller distances. That would indeed be a shame.
Posted by: God | November 20, 2008 1:28 AM
I'd smite a bunch of them to keep them on their toes, but for some reason I seem to have manifested as a turtle recently, and My smites have lost their mojo.
Say. Is that an eagle off in the distance?
Turtles?
There's good eatin' in one of those....
But the Golden Turtle God has at least one sword...
"Did you know that many of the military tactics that we use today all stem from the Bible."
Say what?
<*meaningful look*>
<*meaningful look*>
Sigh. See what I'm reduced to?
Owlmirror @1048 - Thanks for that tip on Freya's hens. I'll look that up.
SC - Thanks for asking. I'm sorta OK, but really off my usual energy. The ER didn't give me anything but a tetanus shot and ice pack. I've been using the hemp on my arm from the elbow to the hand, and I'll be darned if it isn't working. My friends were right, so now I have to eat crow on that. I thought it was just a hippy myth. *wink*
De Chelonian Mobile.
The only one worth answering is Sven DiMilo. He asks me if I know anything about Near Death Experiences?
Yes, I could tell you lots! But first I must tell you that there is no reincarnation or dead peoples ghosts roaming the earth. Hebrews 9:27 - Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment.
However, there are certain circumstances where individuals can experience a near death experience. Although not to be confused because this is not an actual death. Some scientist say that this experience is conjured up by the body's defense system which creates chemical hormones that aid death. But this does not explain how one can still hear, see and feel things when there is no brain activity at all, and when they awake they report things that were actually said and seen when their eyes were taped shut and the auditory cells in their ears should technically not be working. Some of these instances have been confirmed by doctors and nurses.
But this is nothing new. Events like these have happened in the Bible as well as still happening today. Sleep and meditation can even bring on a type of paralysis that elevates the spirit out of the body. This is recorded in the Bible as the Merkabah vehicle. It is also talked about in the Oral Torah as well as the whole aspect of the Cabalistic Tree Of Life (diagram). But this is not in any way an actual death. It is only a temporary condition.
As for whoever it was that had mentioned the medicinal values of herbs used in the Bible compared to modern medicines. If you guys only knew the ingredients to some of the cholesterol drugs, pain relievers and such. They are patented secrets, but if you truly delve into it you will find out they are nothing more than a combination dosage and derivative of certain plants and herbs.
For all those who have further questions and are to afraid to ask on this forum please email me at: CAT9999_4@hotmail.com
Teno, back to confirm the inverse intelligence/belief in god correlation? So far you are off to a good start.
Teno Groppi: The only one worth answering is Sven DiMilo.
Why? Is my question about whether you agree with the Commutativity of Logical Inclusive Disjunction too difficult?
Thanks.....
Teno is the FSTDT equivalent of a gold mine.
Don't be fooled by liars who pretend to know Hebrew. "Merkava" (מרכבה) just means "chariot".
But it looks like he's winding down.
By the way, besides the fact that physically and astronomically and cosmologically this is absolute bullshit from back to front and from one end to the other, the interpretation and understanding of Hebrew is wrong again.
The word for the Pleiades, "kima" (כימה), does not mean "pivot or hinge". It is interpreted in the Talmud as actually meaning "k'mea" (כמאה), meaning "like a hundred", which suggests that some of the sharper-eyed Rabbis (or astronomers/astrologers they were getting their info from) saw hints that there were indeed many stars in what we now understand is a large cluster.
Following a hunch, I checked the Hebrew translation of "Polaris", which does, unsurprisingly, include "ha-tsir" (הַצִּיר) — "the pivot" — as one of its names, because of course, the apparent motion of the stars as they appear to rise and set, following the rotation of the Earth, all go around Polaris (or more precisely, a point very near Polaris).
Alcyone and Polaris are nowhere near each other in the sky (or physically), of course.
Alcyone: Right ascension: 03h 47m 29.1s , Declination: +24° 06' 18"
Polaris: Right ascension: 02h 31m 48.7s, Declination: +89° 15' 51"
(SIWOTI!!)
SI really, really, really WOTI!
Tenuous Teno, it was me - and so what? Every Pre-christian human society used plants for healing. Ever read The Clan of The Cave Bear? You should; it's far more interesting - and about a billion times more informative about the real history of the human race - than your bible, and its author doesn't pretend it's anything other than fiction - fiction based on extensive research, that is; pity your lot didn't do a bit more of that.
And you still didn't answer the question about why biblical medicine stops at herbs, oil and praying while contemporary christians are allowed to use non-biblical methods such as prosthetics, heart transplants and so forth.
SI Fractally WOTI!
Poor Teno, didn't pick up on Sven DiMilo was actually mocking you by seeming to agree with you. This guy is just a mental basket case.
SIWOTI is thirded.
Oh damn it. Where'd I put that roach spray again....
Which has exactly zero bearing on any truth in the bible. Mankind has been using herbs for healing way before you little book of stories was coddled together by goat herders R us.
SINEWOTI
HT: Wolfgang Pauli
What an idiot, seriously I don't think I've ever come across a believer so deluded as that one.
Clan of the Cave Bear?! What utter tripe.
I concur with you Kel, the man is an idiot.
I think my request for evidence of a young earth should of been answered.
Teno Troll... where is it?
If Teno "Troping Poe" Groppie hasn't learned any Hebrew from Owlmirror, he's certainly learned the meaning of "pwned".
I think that he thinks he is answering it. By trying to show the bible has divine insight, he then can appeal to the bible as proof of a young earth; even if all physics and biology says that's a crock of shit.
Patricia, are you sure you haven't absorbed a little too much hemp?
I mentioned Clan of the Cave Bear - not Tenuous Teno. And yes I didn't say it was good, I just said it was better than the bible (I know that's not much of an achievement, but it's still true), and based on research - to an extent at least.
Tripe, yes. But still indicative of prehistoric humans using herbs for healing purposes - meaning that god, as usual, isn't good for anything.
Damn elbow. Grrr... sorry about the double post.
Perhaps he will answer them after he points out where in the Book of Genesis its authors mention vetulicolians, placoderms, dinosaurs and ground sloths.
Owlmirror, I was ignoring you, up to the point I caught wind of your posting on the Pleiades. I never though I would see the day that you stop spinning! :D
You wrote: By the way, besides the fact that physically and astronomically and cosmologically this is absolute bullshit from back to front and from one end to the other, the interpretation and understanding of Hebrew is wrong again. The word for the Pleiades, "kima" (כימה), does not mean "pivot or hinge". It is interpreted in the Talmud as actually meaning "k'mea" (כמאה), meaning "like a hundred", which suggests that some of the sharper-eyed Rabbis (or astronomers/astrologers they were getting their info from) saw hints that there were indeed many stars in what we now understand is a large cluster. Following a hunch, I checked the Hebrew translation of "Polaris", which does, unsurprisingly, include "ha-tsir" (הַצִּיר) -- "the pivot" -- as one of its names, because of course, the apparent motion of the stars as they appear to rise and set, following the rotation of the Earth, all go around Polaris (or more precisely, a point very near Polaris). Alcyone and Polaris are nowhere near each other in the sky (or physically), of course.
I follow up: Kima is actually pronounced in Hebrew Chimah, but basically its the same as kee-maw (just different ways to spell it in English.
You also bring up a very good point about Polaris also being a pivot. But here is what Job actually meant when he said: "Canst thou bind the sweet influence of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?". We know that the Pleiades is a small cluster of stars that make themselves more visible in the springtime. When the Pleiades become more visible, it is obvious to the ones who know the stars and know the bright cluster of stars that springtime is coming soon. Now Orion is a constellation that announces the coming of winter.
So the Lord is saying, Job, there is nothing you can do about the stopping of spring or the coming of summer. There is nothing you can do about preventing the snows of winter or the chill of the winter winds or the deadness of the autumn. Job, you're going to have to take the spring, the summer, the autumn, the winter. They're going to come. There's nothing you can do about them.
So in a sense these cosmological signs are a sort of hinge in determaning their rotation with the earth and thus the seasons. IT IS THE CENTER OF GRAVITY IN A SPIRITUAL SENSE. But thank you for your research on the subject, there may still be some hope for you yet :D
Too bad there is no hope for you, reading the bible doesn't make you anything more than a Christfag. If you want to convince others, at least get some rudimentary knowledge on the natural sciences.
Stop it Teno, you're embarrassing Jesus.
Are you sure it's the lord saying that, Tenuous Teno? Are you sure it's not...nothing? Oh, and I like the implication that you're 'ignoring' posters - rather than cowering in the corner like a frightened kitten.
Teno, I'll echo there is no hope for you, until you learn the difference between biblical evidence and scientific evidence.
Biblical evidence is all mental masturbation as the words never change, unless you go to a different version of the bible. The bible is at best, fiction stories, at worst bad history. The bible is not and never will be scientific.
Scientific evidence requires some physical proof to back up the claims. That makes it much harder to lie, which is why it is better at the end of the day. Also, theories change as the evidence requires them to change, which doesn't happen with religious ideas.
You keep saying you are going away. When are you finally show us you can tell even a minor truth and do so?
I can tell tonight is going to require lots of beer.
When one doesn't understand the basics of cosmology and astrophysics, when they don't understand basic biology, when they don't understand the basics of earth science, how is it they think they are capable of teaching other people? Surely Teno should recognise that any attempt to get people to God has to be coupled with God being a compatible entity with science. Preaching that science is nothing but a conspiracy theory is just going to show everyone here how much of an idiot Teno is.
Get an education damn it!
But that's the problem, Kel: Teno Groppi, as with all others who use their piety as a license and aegis for their stupidity, believes that by getting an education, he becomes damned.
Fools, the lot of them! Let them bask in their ignorance elsewhere, here an unwillingness to understand science is a hinderance.
I don't need to tell anyone that he's still spewing bullshit, right? Except now it's geocentric bullshit, which is indeed how the human writer of Job thought of the stars and the seasons.
This, though, is bullshit about Hebrew:
Inasmuch as "ch" usually represents in Hebrew transliteration a voiceless velar fricative, as in German "Bach", it most certainly is not.
The initial letter of (כִּימָה) is a kaf with a dagesh, "כִּ". This is always pronounced as a voiceless velar plosive , or "k".
Anyone who says: IT IS THE CENTER OF GRAVITY IN A SPIRITUAL SENSE. is obviously spewing bullshit. Just more apologetic tripe in order to make an incredulous book more palletable.
Comment 714:
He doesn't even understand what the words "electron" and "molecule" mean!!!
Teno, electrons (elementary particles) from beta-decay destroy right-handed amino acids (molecules -- consisting of several atoms, each of which contains lots of elementary particles), leaving the left-handed ones over. That's how you can go from a racemic mixture to left-handed amino acids only. That's what the abstract says.
The electrons crash into the molecules and destroy them! Was that so hard to grasp!?!
...and lo & behold, life only uses right-handed sugars (D-sugars), just how it only uses left-handed amino acids (L-amino acids) except in bacterial cell walls and certain poisons.
Except when they don't.
Moron! My grandmother was born the other way around! It was a completely natural birth. Sometimes, you see, the fetus simply fails to turn itself around.
For land-living mammals, it's a disadvantage when that happens. For water-living ones, it's a great advantage. Suppose the failure to turn around is, even if only to a small degree, heritable. After a couple generations you should see most births in a water-living mammal happen tail-first, because more of them survive being born that way. That's called natural selection.
No. Induction is often used to generate hypotheses, but never to test them. After all, that's something induction simply can't do.
Psychologically interesting how you can't even conceive of the idea of someone being honestly wrong, making an honest mistake. Or should I say "psychiatrically". How is paranoia defined...?
So you didn't even know that the Bible says the Earth is flat? Several times? That it has four corners*, stands on fundaments, and does not move?
* Well. Some books of the Bible say that. Others say it's circular.
If the Bible is reliable in toto, then the Earth is flat.
First Rule of Holes, Teno: if you're in one, stop digging.
And I think that spelling is deliberate. :-D :-D :-D
What brain?
----------------------------------------------
Hmmm... as far as I understand it, J worked on the idea that Yahwe was the youngest son of El Elyon and Ashera, responsible for Israel the same way Chemosh was responsible for Moab*, while P worked on the idea that Yahwe was El Elyon. You should probably read the article again.
* And apparently Molech and/or Milcom was responsible for the Ammonites. I wonder what the difference is between MLK and MLKM, though. 1 Kings:
(Keep in mind that "LORD" is the King James spelling of "Yahwe".)
Incidentally, 1 Kings 11:18-22 has yet another "Pharaoh king of Egypt" whose name is Pharaoh! ROTFL! Check it out!
Then there's Jeremiah 48, which consists mostly of Yahwe taunting Chemosh by boasting on how Moab is going to be pwned.
Numbers 21:29 calls Moab the "people of Chemosh" again. (On the occasion, naturally, of Moab being pwnz0red, though by the Amorites, not by the Israelites, who get to smite the Amorites a few verses later.)
What I talked about yesterday is not Judges 19, but Judges 11:
Chemosh thy god, Yahwe our god.
Though, actually, the addressee of this convoluted speech seems to be "the king of the children of Ammon", not Moab. Confusing.
1 Kings 11:33 is repeated in 2 Kings 23:13:
That king being Josiah, introducing monotheism by death & destruction because of 2 Kings 22:8-11, where "Hilkiah the high priest" suddenly and utterly conveniently "found the book of the law in the house of the LORD", probably Deuteronomy. Incidentally, 23:29-35 have "Pharaohnechoh king of Egypt": note how, as soon as a real pharaoh is mentioned, he almost gets a real name!
Owlmirror, does "Pharaohnechoh" do what I think he does in 23:34? That is, turning Eliakim's name into Jehoiakim, that is, YHWiakim?
I wonder if Teno has ever met Mr. TimeCube
I had his number way back when he responded to the paper I cited on the destruction of D-leucine by carbon-14 decay. He had no idea of how chirality works in the real world, whereas I have a good background in that subject. At that point, I figured everything he said was a lie until proven otherwise. I'm still waiting for some proof of his truthfulness.
Shorter Teno Gruppi O*; If it is from the bible yet does not fit into any known facts, it is spiritual.
Teno, Sven was not agreeing with in any way. The bit about near death experience is an in joke. Look up Kenny and NDE. The funny thing is, you probably would find Kenny insightful.
I agree with on one thing, finally. But the reasons are different. I, too, do not think that there is reincarnation. But that is because I do not believe that there is a soul.(But I do believe in soul music.)
The desperation is palpable. Comment 1098 says it best.
Hm.
I have no idea why "Pharaohnechoh" is written that way; in the Hebrew version, it's clearly two words, "פרעה נכה". And I see that it's only the KJV that does that. Why, I wonder?
Absolutely.
"אליקים" — the bold part is "El"
"יהויקים" — the bold part is "Yhw"
I would transliterate the names as "El-yakim" and "Yeho-yakim", to emphasize that. I'm pretty sure that the "yakim" part means "will raise [up]".
You folks are having way to much fun with this idiot. *smirk*
I'll pretty much be MIA on the weekends for the next three weeks. The christmas madness bazaars take off. I sell snake oil, hand sewn toys and eggs.
We've decided to donate a weeks worth of egg production to the local old folks home, veterans home and homeless food basket, for thanksgiving, christmas and new years. Guess they can make eggnog, or hangover beer/egg/tabasco. *grin*
There is so much juice being pressed out of Teno. Such a great vintage whine.
So am I going to have to do extra flouncing in order to cover for you? SC! Help!
The only reason I am not shrieking and wailing in despair "Oh, please, dear God-that-does-not-exist, noooooooo! Don't encourage such a cataclysmic combination of stupid!!!" is that I am absolutely certain that Teno has never looked up anything in his life, and is not about to start now, and furthermore, if he did, he wouldn't have a clue on how to do so.
So there's that averted. Whew!
Patricia, hope your sales are successful. Make sure you get the needed assistance carrying things so your elbow can heal. We want you to get your flounce back.
Janine, no need to do any extra flouncing on my account. The normal amount is fine.
PZ, you might want to close this thread before another IDiot appears.
Owlmirrow, I have to encourage Teno to read some Kenny. I want to have uncomfortably funny stuff like this. Yes, I know I am a disturbed person.
Hey, Owlmirror, how good are you with Greek and or Latin etymology?
David at 1107 (wow, this post is staggeringly huge now, and will probly {my abbreviation for probably, don't you dare correct me [and no complaining about the nested parenthesees either lol]} overtake the Mormom meddlers post. *fingers crossed* lol: wow, so why do you only have ONE molly? You should seriously be ordained to the second or third eschelon of the OM.
Owlmirror, same to you in regards to 1112; i have heard before that it Was to be taken as "El Will Raise up" though probly from you in another post.
"Hmmm... as far as I understand it, J worked on the idea that Yahwe was the youngest son of El Elyon and Ashera, responsible for Israel the same way Chemosh was responsible for Moab*, while P worked on the idea that Yahwe was El Elyon. You should probably read the article again." I have the article in my faves. So, it would appear from this construction that there was in fact, a "proto-Christ" aspect to the construction as well. Very fascinating.
I have heard before the idea that Jesus was the one walking in the Garden with Adam/ Eve.This lends some credance to the idea, but nonetheless, we get In John, i beleive chapter 7, the whole "temple rage" episode, there is often one greatly overlooked detail, and that is that Jesus fashioned for these hypocrites a scorge, not unlike the one(s) used on him. There is this very nice guy on youtube that did a Godless Bible Study, and this was a particular point that was good to make. here's the 1st video, if you are interested http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBMV1RARDQU.
Don't get the wrong impression, he's not doing a proper exegesis -he isn't using a study Bible or anything like my fave, Zondervan, but a KJV
unbelievable. Damn. This is what i get for always posting so late at night.
edit: "*finger's crossed* lol):wow, so...."
Wowbager: "Oh, and I like the implication that you're 'ignoring' posters - rather than cowering in the corner like a frightened kitten."
Don't you mean more like a frightened little crack-baby gremlin? honestly, don't insult the kittens.
Oh and Ten[year]o[ld], in regards to this: "So in a sense these cosmological signs are a sort of hinge in determaning their rotation with the earth and thus the seasons. IT IS THE CENTER OF GRAVITY IN A SPIRITUAL SENSE."
BURN THE WITCH!!! God Damns repeatedly the use of astrology, and so your horoscope readin', bible totin', scripture misquotin', brain dead, uneducated ass can BURN like your religion loves to endorse. Turnabout is fair play, jackass.
Teno wrote: Did you know that many of the military tactics that we use today all stem from the Bible.
I replied: Really? What infantry tactics used by the U.S. Military can be definitively derived from the Bible?
to which Teno responded (in italics):
Josh, The first person in recorded history to demonstrate sophisticated tactical warfare was "Abraham" when he rescued his nephew "Lot" from the Mesopotamian army as well as free Israelite captives. Genesis 14:15.
Okay, that's interesting, but do you have a citation to support the assertion that this is the first time in recorded history that "sophisticated tactical warfare" is demonstrated? I'm a geologist, not a historian or a biblical scholar. Sources would be helpful.
This was a nighttime surprise raid from two different direction. Abrahams raid is a classical standard model night time maneuver which is taught in military academies throughout the world.
Well, I have no direct experience with military "academies," but I've attended my fare share of combat schools and have heard a billion OPORD briefings. The U.S. Army Ranger Handbook (pretty much the standard for non SF small unit tactics) defines a raid as "a combat operation to attack a position or installation followed by a planning withdrawal" so okay, I guess we can use your term "raid" and be on the same sheet of music.
Do you have a chapter and verse to cite as to the tactics Abraham employed here? I can't find anything in the Ranger Handbook or in FM 3-2 (the Infantry Battalion), FM 17-98 (the Infantry Scout Platoon), FM 7-85 (Ranger Operations), FM 7-93 (LRSD Operations), or my Special Forces small unit tactics information, that suggests the modern Army ever conducts a dismounted raid from two directions (unless you're considering the team/platoon on overwatch duty as being "from a direction"). So it without more detail as to what exactly Abraham did, it seems at first glance as though we do not employ this sort of tactic anymore. I certainly have never been part of an OP where we conducted a raid from two directions (and it seems to be that it's a great plan to end up getting your joes shooting at each other--not generally a goal of the raid...).
So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered, and Moses, Aaron and Hur went to the top of the hill.
High ground is (often) a good thing, but that tactic has been around for a long time. Evidence that its use comes first from the Bible?
We read about Joshua and his battle at Jericho. Joshua 6:3-4 - And ye shall compass the city, all ye men of war, and go round about the city once. Thus shalt thou do six days. And seven priests shall bear before the ark seven trumpets of rams' horns: and the seventh day ye shall compass the city seven times, and the priests shall blow with the trumpets.
We tend not to march around urban areas so much. And trumpets are not very tactical.
Today the military has developed devices that use high frequency sound waves to cause nausea and disorientate an enemy.
Really? Do you have intel on these weapons? I serve in a USASOC combat unit. You'd think at the very least the guys in my group would have heard of this stuff. It hasn't trickled down to my team yet. Insight?
Than we read about Joshua when he burns the city of Ai, Joshua 8:28-29.
We might burn a city, but we're absolutely not going to tell anyone about it.
He used the mountains with the sun rising in the east shinning right in the eyes of the Canaanites and attacking downhill the Canaanites couldn't see fighting in the face of the sun, nor did they eat or prepare since it was early morning.
Early morning (after dawn) is a terrible time for an assault, for a number of reasons (not the least of which is that we prefer to operate at night because it's much safer). I can find no place in the aforementioned tactical resources where placing the rising sun at our back is something that we have put into doctrine. A mountain range or mountain is a geographical feature that is simply too large to employ in a tactical sense, but if you scale it back to a small hill, then I cannot see why would you want to grab the high ground and then assault down. On the modern battlefield, there's really no advantage in assaulting from a topographically higher point than your objective. Defending high ground sure, but assaulting dismounted from a high point is not the smartest thing in the world to do. Soldiers have a much harder time conducting IMT (individual movement techniques) on an incline than they do on flat topography, and if anything goes wrong and you end up needing to break contact, then all of the sudden you have to turn around and run uphill. Yeah, I'm not going to be so happy about that. Even using mechanized infantry assets I don't want to force my unit to move uphill to get to a rally point if they have to break contact. That's dumb and is going to get a lot of joes dead. Put your overwatch team on the high ground, sure. Put your snipers on high ground, absolutely. Throw mechanized forces up there, yeah, to overwatch. But actually assaulting from high ground with the rising sun at your back? That's tactically really stupid.
The next hero of the bible is Gideon, he rises up against the midianites. He chooses "300" soldiers... they carry torches, clay pots and shofers (ram horns) and at midnight Gideon strategically separates his 300 men and positions them around the midian camp on 3 sides leaving the southern part open. Judges 7:20 - And the three companies blew the trumpets, and brake the pitchers, and held the lamps in their left hands, and the trumpets in their right hands to blow withal: and they cried, The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon. The torches are seen by the midianites and in a panic they flee. The midianites are also blinded by the torches and they start fighting themselves... its a state of confusion and complete chaos! While the remaining Israelite army in the southern part is waiting in ambush for the fleeing midianites and slaughter them.
Okay, yeah. Torches, trumpets, oil, fire. None of this is stuff we're going to use in an assault (unless you count softening the objective with CAS or artillery to be a modern analog). We use the night as a tactical ally. The situation you describe above removes the night as our friend. We cause chaos and confusion with ordinance, not music.
The next military hero of the bible is woman named "Deborah". The Philistines had taken over the Jezreel valley. It also happened to be during the rainy season which made the ground muddy so the enemy could not get there military up the muddy slopes without getting bogged in the mud. Than the Israelites attack down hill with a victorious victory. Judges 4:4-7.
Again with the downhill assault. Again, I cannot find mention of this in tactical doctrine.
Than came King David when he took out the Philistine giant "Goliath" 1 Samuel 17:44-45 with a rock and sling as a military weapon.
My primary weapon is a SOPMOD M4. My secondary weapon is a 9mm pistol. My tertiary weapon is a second 9mm. If I'm to the point of using rocks, I'm not going to be trying to sling them at people. I'm going to be crushing orbits.
The bible it seems was even used as a guide book by the Greeks during the reign of Leonites. They seem to have applied the same strategy of using "300" Spartan soldiers by way of the narrow Thermopolis pass to hold back nearly 300 thousand Persian soldiers.
There isn't enough detail here for me to evaluate what the actual tactic was.
And as mentioned earlier that many of these strategic maneuvers that were used by the Jews in ancient times are still being taught in militaries throughout the world and are still winning wars and securing territories.
Well, again, the question was about which of these methodologies have been incorporated into US military doctrine for use by modern ground forces. It doesn't seem like many.
Hmmmm. Perhaps they remembered Exodus and 1 Kings, got confused by the following "king of Egypt", and didn't know any better than the writers of Exodus or 1 Kings that "Pharaoh" was a title...
Though -- when was word separation introduced in Hebrew?
There's a good reason for it: there are so many worthy people that it'll be a long time till we need to make people double-members of the Order! Have you seen the latest Molly thread? A dozen nominees, and almost all of them clearly worthy.
What?
The text says YHWH in no uncertain terms... Jesus was only invented several hundred years later!
Sure, if you start from the concept of the trinity, you can retcon anything, and plenty of Christians (especially Mormons, AFAIK) have tried.
Huh? I mean, how many different ways are there to make a scourge, and that in a culture that considered that an everyday item?
Oh yeah, that one. That story is impossible for three reasons:
- taking on such an army with just 318 men would require, well, a miracle, which may of course be the point of the story, see below;
- the Mesopotamian powers would never have formed an army together, they were enemies of each other and kept fighting among themselves -- it's completely ridiculous, it's like saying that in the middle of the Cold War the US, the Soviet Union, and China ganged up on a sheikh somewhere in the desert of Oman;
- the name of the king of Elam is made up. Neither does it fit into the Elamite language, nor (apparently) is it an obvious translation of any Elamite name.
The whole story is just a parable. "The whole fucking world ganged up on Abraham-our-father, but the Lord was with him, and so he almost singlehandedly pwnz0red them all, praise the Lord": that's the take-home message. That's the whole point. It's a fairytale that teaches a lesson.
Like basically all of the Bible up to 2 Kings, where the interpretation of actual, real history starts.
I rarely step down to the L337 speak but the pure pwnage going on here is impressive...
Well it would be more impressive if the target wasn't so dense.
But still, impressive none the less.
It took a while to draw poor Teno from his initial defensive position criticizing science, to actually putting out his ideas. But once that was accomplished everybody came in force. I am always amazed at some arcana people here know. For example, Owlmirror citing the original Hebrew. That alone will scare away most godbots.
RickOll, I am always frustrated at Molly nomination time. I look at my list of notable posters and have to cross off a large chunk of the list due to prior awards, including several posters who made very significant contributions to this thread. Since I can't nominate them again, I'll just have to raise a libation in their honor tonight.
I think the claim that the Spartans at Thermopylae were "inspired by the Bible" to be the single funniest claim so far, but it has a lot of competition.
*Obligatory note as we're in the crush-Teno-with-real-world-detail mode: per Herodotus, the army holding the pass at Thermopylae initially consisted of contingents from multiple Greek cities. After the position was outflanked, the Spartan commander sent away the other cities' contingents and some elements of his own force, retaining 300 Spartan hoplites (heavy troops, Spartan citizens) and 900 helots (Spartan serfs, light troops) who apparently didn't make it into the movie, so the "300" thing was a last stand in an already doomed position.
Hi Josh,
Everything that you want to know about military strategies can be found in the Bible. If you know how to use the concordance it would be very beneficial in looking these things up quickly.
A message to the others: Look, the facts remain the Bible is a documented valid piece of historic evidence in so many ways. Just to name a few -- science, medicine, archeology, military strategies, spirituality, and supports a source of divine intervention. Now if you want to bow down to the holy science books that are not subject to G-d then be my guest. Hmmm, if I recall it was famous British mathematician and physicist Lord Kelvin that said, "there is nothing in science which teaches the origin of anything at all". What don't your Teflon brains understand about this?
1127 posts, and just to think that you have devoted the best years of your life to preparing for these impromptu speeches.
You may have a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit. But please already... your conventional views serve to protect us from the painful job of truly thinking.
Sadly, most of you continue to drift aimlessly in a sea of delusions and willful ignorance while desperately clinging to a false sense of buoyancy of your sinking mind.
All- I realize you're probably going to see the following for the futile exercise that it is, but I've got some newly brewed coffee here, so why not? Sometimes poking the bear is fun.
The term "missing link" is an incredible underestimation, the whole CHAIN is missing! There are NO links they are ALL missing.
A. You do realize that "missing link" is a term that you guys and the press like to use, right? We tend not to use that phrase so much, mostly because it's a rather crude and innacurate description of what we're actually hunting around in the rocks for.
B. I realize that this is asking you to prove a negative in some sense, but: evidence that "all links" are missing? a paper that says this? something other than a blog? This would be a great opportunity for you to set yourself apart from pretty much every other creationist who has ever commented on this blog and actually respond to a specific question with actual evidence that relates to that question.
There should be numerous transitional life forms between every species (thousands if not millions of different ones),
A. What's a transitional life form?
B. Where do you get this number of "thousands if not millions?"
but there is NOT even ONE indisputable link! Some evolutionists will try to claim one or two are, but they are highly suspect.
A. The data are highly suspect according to you, perhaps, but guess what? We don't answer to you. You'd probably also assert that all sedimentary rocks represent water-lain flood deposits too, so I don't think I'm going to worry too much about your view that the known record of transitional features (that's what we're actually worried about, by the way) is suspect. You don't get to tell me how to do my job. And since you probably have no problem using petroleum products in your life, the base substances of which are prospected for, quite successfully I might add, using the principles of evolution, I'd be careful about the ice of hypocrisy under your feet, which appears to be thinning.
In other words, do you have anything to back up that statement?
If I made an assertion that you're wrong, and none of the letters Paul wrote were actually written by Paul, but where instead written by Stu, you'd ask me to back up the statement, wouldn't you? It seems perfectly fair for me to ask to some backup for an assertion that our data are suspect.
B. Nothing in science is ever indisputable. Period. That's simply not how it works. Let it go. This characteristic of science doesn't stop you from using your car, does it? Your microwave oven? Your radio? The engineers who design these things base their designs on principles of science. I strongly suspect this aspect of the nature of science doesn't cause you to run screaming from those products. Well, does it? If not, then there's that darn ice of hypocrisy again.
All that have been proposed so far (Archaeopteryx, the horse series, Lucy, et al) have been thoroughly discredited.
By whom? Support this assertion. Pick just one of the three examples you list above and demonstrate to me, an active publishing earth scientist, that the chosen example has been "thoroughly discredited." You have no problem throwing this statement out there as fact. Back it up.
Teno, you are still a liar since you can't seem to stay away as promised. What's the matter, you ran into logical buzzsaws, and lost every argument, so you are trying for even a minor victory to save face.
The easiest way to save face would have been to never have posted here in the first place. Now you have to live with the consequences of your stupidity due to your bad choice.
Are you ready to show us the physical evidence for your imaginiary god yet?
Remember the first law of holes. When in over your head, stop digging. Time to stop digging.
Teno wrote: Hi Josh, Everything that you want to know about military strategies can be found in the Bible. If you know how to use the concordance it would be very beneficial in looking these things up quickly.
Morning Teno,
I think it's highly unlikely that the answers to the questions I asked you above are going to be found in the Bible. I was responding to specific things you asserted. I would think that it's your job as the Bible expert to explain to me how my replies to your assertions either fit or don't fit. Additionally, how is it that I'm going to find intel on the "developed devices that use high frequency sound waves to cause nausea and disorientate an enemy" in the Bible? You offered that one up. I was just asking you to provide some detail since I hadn't heard about it.
Oh, and I forgot to add "astronomy" to the list of historic Biblical evidences.
The nature of genius is to provide idiots with ideas 4,000 years later.
Teno, deeper, deeper, deeper.
There is no science in the bible that wansn't forced into it by interpretation by idiots like yourself. The bible itself is a botched history book, and an attempt to define social cohesion amongst a bunch of Canaanites. It contains contradictory laws and commandments depending on the author of that section. Your inability to see the reality of the situation is laughable.
Your doesn't exist until you show proof positive he does. Where is your physical proof for god?
Last paragraph #1132
Your god doesn't....
Holy crap on a cracker! I quit reading this thread when it seemed to be petering out, and then I saw it under "most active" and came back. I'm gobsmacked!
The absolute crowning perfection of idiocy has manifested itself! The glint of light off the facets of its brilliance catch my eye in dazzling, hypnotic coruscations!
The universe was created in the big bang with a net angular momentum (say what?) so how can Venus and Uranus, here in our one solar system, rotate retrograde? The gravitational fulcrum of the solar system is Alcyone in the Pleiades? Each new species that arises to the present day has to spontaneously select L-amino acids anew to construct its proteins? Wow!
I was going to call Poe on Teno Groppi. Then I began to speculate that this entire blog had been created from the beginning as an elaborate Poe just to exhibit this one perfect example of imbecility.
But that's not enough: the entire sidereal universe, from the big bang on, must have been created to bring forth this final product. Such crystalline, adamantine stupidity could not possibly have arisen by chance. I've been converted, I believe! There is a God, and he is an absolute numbnuts!
Pinhead, man you throws dirt is loosing ground! :D
Josh, try looking up the walls of Jericho. Hebrews 11:30 -
By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the people had marched around them for seven days. (Some suggest this caused some kind of vibrational frequency (sound) that collapsed the walls of Jericho).
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=a+glass+breaking+by+sound&www_goo…
Additionally, when the ark of the covenant was carried the wrong way by people, they were killed by something similar to being zapped by electricity.
In Numbers 3 we read about Aaron's 2 sons being killed by the ark of the covenant for defiling it.
Here is a website I quickly got off of a Google search. Scroll down toward the bottom for some good details supplied with where this information can be found in the Bible.
http://www.plim.org/arkofcovenant.html
Here is also a Google search on military weapons that use frequency and sound:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=military+weapons+that+use+frequenc…
What, do you guys actually think I'm just pulling this stuff out of my butt?
Sigh, Teno the bible is also wrong on alot of things.
1. Exodus 12:7
There is no historic evidence for this. Also, it's doubtful 600,000 people can survive 40 in a desert with ancient technology.
2. 1 Kings 7:23
Pi=30/10=3. Now if you say that's just an approximation, the Egyptian Ahmes had pi at about 3.16 and he was born before the Book of Kings was written. The bible was behind 1600 BC mathematics!
3. Pslam 93:1
Psalm 96:10, and I Chronicles 16:30 also state that "the world is firmly established, it cannot be moved." This was partly why the Church hated heliocentrism so much.
4.Leviticus 11:6
Rabbits don't chew cud.
5. Leviticus 11:13-19
A bat is a mammal, not a bird.
Let's not even get into making 2 of every animal fit into a boat.....
Hardly a source for "future technology" the bible seems to even be behind ancient science! It also has been used to oppose scientific discoveries (Galileo, stem cell research, theory of evolution etc.). These errors can easily be explained if you think of the bible as a book written by ancient man who had very limited knowledge of the world around them.
The episode of Joshua and the walls of Jericho is fiction, Teno, like the rest of the book. Quoting fiction earns you no points.
The ark of the covenant thing is quite interesting, actually, as the ark (per description) would be a wooden box lined within and without with metal foil. In a hot dry environment. I think we would call that a capacitor. Its tendency to zap people, as if by electricity, is attributable to electricity. Anyone up for building a model version?
@ Stephen Wells
Don't forget the 700 Thespian.
@1138: A mighty force of thespians, led by Ian McKellen...
Teno, deeper, deeper, deeper.
Just another Liar for JebusTM who couldn't think their way out of a wet paper bag.
You bore me. YAWN!
I think The Myth Busters did a show about the ark as a capacitor. I don't remember what conclusion they reached.
your conventional views serve to protect us from the painful job of truly thinking - Teno Groppi
Groppi, the fact that you find thinking painful - indeed so painful you avoid it entirely - is abundantly obvious. Most of us here enjoy it.
What form of christianity follows the Jewish tradition of not typing the o in God?
Like god would give a shit if it existed.
So Teno, how old is the earth and what's the evidence?
I've only asked this about 4 or 5 times.
Well?
Posted by: Teno Groppi | November 21, 2008
Josh, try looking up the walls of Jericho. Hebrews 11:30 -
By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the people had marched around them for seven days. (Some suggest this caused some kind of vibrational frequency (sound) that collapsed the walls of Jericho).
Teacher...Teacher... I am confused. If faith brought down the walls, why was all the marching and blowing of horns needed?
And if the vibrations of the seven days of marching and the blowing of horns was able to bring down the walls, those walls had to been very flimsy. Could this be the result of stupid engineers and incompetent laborers?
Why, it seems that all that was needed was for the Big Bad Wolf to come by and huff and puff and BLOOOOW that wall done. I am sure he could have provided enough vibrations to tear down such a poorly constructed object.
All that I learned of military tactics, I received from fairy tales.
Teno Groppi @ #1127:
This from the asshat who not long ago was caught copy&pasting reams of plaigarized bullshit. Or how about this:
Teno Groppi, earlier in the very same post:
ARGUMINT FRUM AUTORITEA: U R DOIN IT RONG!!11
Now, Teno, we all know you don't have the slightest speck of evidence to back up any of your idiotic claims. If you did, you would have provided it by now. You haven't. You haven't even tried, after being specifically asked to multiple times. You promote your precious handbook of bronze-age myths as the source of all knowledge, but you won't say WHERE any of the specifics you claim exist actually are. Nor will you address the many contradictions and outright falsehoods in your precious bible. Where is the evidence? Where? Put up or shut up! Show us the facts, which would be easy if they're really all in that book you worship, or fuck off and stop making such an ass of yourself.
Of course, you're a creationist, so you don't have any facts. You're terrified of the very idea of evidence. And you would rather die than learn anything at all. But none of that will stop you from lecturing people on subjects you know nothing about, and making it painfully obvious what an idiot you are.
Janine,
You don't have enough brains to BLOOOOW your nose! :D
If safe to say you didn't even read the cited articles.
phantomreader42,
A simple Google search highlights evidence for Jericho:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=proof+the+walls+of+Jericho+fell+by…
Teno Gruppi O* has stopped emulating his god. He has stooped down to noticing me and insulting me. 'giggle'
Nerd, I think I have just been placed in the stage of stupidity as you. I am honored.
You're an idiot babe
It is a wonder you still know how to breath.
Teno, if the bible is such a great source for science why does make the fundamentally simple errors I listed in comment #1136 (e.g, the Earth stands still, Pi is exactly 3, calling a bat a bird, etc.) ?
Feynmaniac, please keep in mind, if anything in the bible does not match the material world, it is meant to be spiritual. A bat is a bird in the spiritual sense. Your questions are answered.
Teno, deeper, deeper, deepest. All the shit you throw up is falling back on your head.
We keep telling you the bible is not evidence. Your failure to learn says a lot about you, nothing good.
I am probably not the one to ask, there, for anything more than the most basic. I would probably just end up using this:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/search
David Marjanović is actually pretty well versed in various of the Indo-European languages, I think including Latin. And I think I've caught several of the other regulars arguing about Latin.
Groppi@1147,
It's no good linking to a google search item. If you want to put forward what you claim is evidence that the walls of Jericho were caused to collapse by sound, you need to link to exactly where you claim that evidence is, numbskull. If you don't, we can justifiably conclude that you don't have any.
Teno, Janine doesn't have to BLOOOOW anything. Moron.
Owlmirror - Thanks for the tip on Freya's hens, nice stories. I make some snake oil from the plant version, which I have always sold as 'Thor's Beard', after the proclamation of Charlemagne.
Off to peddle eggs, and set up my booth at market. See ya'll later!
So a early bronze age city has it's walls fall down...
what's more likely people yelling knocking them down or an earthquake?
That's a tough one.
For those who are interested in how (no longer a question of if, of course) Teno is full of bullshit as usual on the matter of Jericho:
http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/otarch3.html#jericho
(This was also covered in the Nova special on the Bible)
NIce. Civilizations NEVER exaggerate their victories, right? Nice find Owl.
More evidence that the bible isn't history. It's mythology.
In reply to my remark, "The scientific method is, broadly speaking, inductive," David Marjanović, OM, corrected me:
I was speaking far too broadly. I only meant that inductive claims can only be strong or weak, and scientific claims are stronger than any other sort. You could have taken issue with many things I said in conversation with abb3w, so I'd appreciate hearing your take on any other part of that excahnge, David. I've even got my symbolic logic instructor engaged in a discussion of philosophy of science, and he's got me reading Feyerabend. The point I was trying to make was that science uses whatever tool is at hand and does the job, which can also include any flavor of math and logic and computing and modeling.
I'm just trying to get at the consensus here around the notion of proof in science. I'd propose that rather than being rooted in any philsophical or mathematical proof, in science, proof is more like Gould's explanation of a fact:
Some choice Lewontin couldn't hurt in the context of this thread's onslaught of creotardity:
Carry on poking at the pure concentrated stupid in the toaster oven at your own risk, Time Bandits.
Not dead yet?
Since we're dealing with Joshua, I'll also note that the Nova special (Program transcript, or Watching on-line) indicated three of the cities allegedly conquered are dated as separated by a span of a thousand years.
Nerd of Redhead: We keep telling you the bible is not evidence.
Errr... it is evidence; it just is not evidence inherently different from any other historical writings. Which means it probably has mistakes, lies, propaganda, addenda, et cetera.
The Bible is not, however, some perfect authority of absolute Truth... unless, of course, you take it so as primary philosophical Tenet, which then leaves the question of to what extent the philosophy resembles reality.
While I'm cribbing quotes used by Wilkins and Moran in the talk.origins FAQs (timeless yumminess!) I should pop this one out there too:
The honest scientist, like the philosopher, will tell you that nothing whatever can be or has been proved with fully 100% certainty, not even that you or I exist, nor anyone except himself, since he might be dreaming the whole thing. Thus there is no sharp line between speculation, hypothesis, theory, principle, and fact, but only a difference along a sliding scale, in the degree of probability of the idea. When we say a thing is a fact, then, we only mean that its probability is an extremely high one: so high that we are not bothered by doubt about it and are ready to act accordingly. Now in this use of the term fact, the only proper one, evolution is a fact. For the evidence in favor of it is as voluminous, diverse, and convincing as in the case of any other well established fact of science concerning the existence of things that cannot be directly seen, such as atoms, neutrons, or solar gravitation ....
So enormous, ramifying, and consistent has the evidence for evolution become that if anyone could now disprove it, I should have my conception of the orderliness of the universe so shaken as to lead me to doubt even my own existence. If you like, then, I will grant you that in an absolute sense evolution is not a fact, or rather, that it is no more a fact than that you are hearing or reading these words.
- H. J. Muller, "One Hundred Years Without Darwin Are Enough" School Science and Mathematics 59, 304-305. (1959) reprinted in Evolution versus Creationism op cit.
Lewontin couldn't hurt in the context of this thread's onslaught of creotardity: It is time for students of the evolutionary process, especially those who have been misquoted and used by the creationists, to state clearly that evolution is a fact, not theory,...
and Lewontin was wrong to state this, at least in that way. As Gould stated, facts and theories are different things. Facts are observations with an associated error tied to them. Theories are devised to explain those observations. No matter how good a theory is in explaining a given set of observations, it will remain a theory. Lewontin's text is walking in the same neighborhood as that oft-repeated misinterpration of science that if you test a scientific theory long enough, at some point it will become a law. That isn't the way it works. As Gould offered, there is a fact of evolution (the observation that life has changed over time) and there is a theory of evolution (the theory which explains that observation). But no matter how much data we collect, we're not going to overturn the theory of evolution in favor of the fact of evolution. And we shouldn't be expecting to. It isn't because of any sort of weakness or nebulousness in this particularly area of study. It's because science works this way. The theory and the fact are different and complimentary. If it weren't for the fact, we wouldn't need the theory.
No, Teno, a simple Google search highlights a bunch of apologetics websites without a speck of evidence between them. First result cites a Time article and glosses over the fact that of four biblical events, nothing resembling a speck of evidence could be found for three of them, then fiddles around with biblical dates, talks about the walls falling down, but doesn't even TRY to establish that sound was involved, just baldly asserts it. they don't bother citing any source that isn't already taking their delusions as fact, because independent sources would disagree with them and show they're full of shit.
And why are you quoting other people's work? To substitute for your complete lack of wit? :P
Here's the thing, Teno. YOU are the one making outrageous, insane claims like "Teh bibble iz teh source of all military tactics" or "all science is a vast conspiruhcy1111" or "teh creatur of teh universe talks to me". That means YOU are the one who is obligated to provide credible evidence to support those claims. You don't even try, just link to google searches for delusional garbage.
You're trying to establish a book of mythology as an authoritative source on every subject imaginable. This is idiotic, especially when you don't even understand the language it's written in. But even if you could prove that the Jericho fable were true (and you haven't even come close), it wouldn't mean that your god exists. The way to prove your god exists is to prove your god exists. It's just stupid to claim, as you're trying to:
Pick up a Tom Clancy novel. His books are set in the US, in the 20th century, and he gets the geography of 20th century America right! Therefore, the President must REALLY BE JACK RYAN!!!!!11 That's just fucking stupid, accuracy in one area does not make a work of fiction fact, no matter how much you want it to. And your precious bible doesn't even have as good a track record on events actually going on at the time it was written as Clancy does! I find the man unreadable, but at least he understands that grashoppers have more than four legs! But your supposedly all-powerful, all-knowing god can't even get THAT right!
1149 and 1150 (Janine verses Feynmaniac). Now we have the stupid telling the stupid'r about what constitutes a bird. WOW!
As for Jericho, where did you guys get your education from? A crackerjack box?
It was recently just on NOVA! (I think these people out there doing the hands-on archeological work certainly know better). Though even they don't know all the answers and still speculate however there is a clear defining of archeological evidence that matches up with the what the Bible tells us.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/bible/apsell.html
Errr... it is evidence; it just is not evidence inherently different from any other historical writings.
It's not evidence, first, because it can't be considered a primary source, unlike, say, a field dispatch to Joshua in his seige camp at Jericho would be, or an anonymous ostraka written in 10th century Hebrew about events that could be associated with the court of David or something.
Also, there's a distinction to be drawn between "historical writings" and "writings ostensibly about historical events." The work of Herodotus, for instance, while it certainly does contain mistakes, lies, and propaganda, was written for the primary purpose of recording history. It's not at all clear that this was even a secondary or tertiary rationale for the great majority of the bible. It is a theological document, first and foremost, and so there is every reason to denigrate its status as evidence in comparison to "any other historical writings." Of course we're agreed that to elevate its status above primary sources and historical writings, as creationists do, is flatly absurd, which I do realize was your point.
abb3w, you are correct, I did not speak properly. I meant to say scientific evidence. Trying to do too many things at once. My mind works much faster than my fingers. And if I don't properly edit....
Teno, the Nova show proved most of the historical bible to be a bunch of lies. Time to get off your admiration for such a bogus book. It may help your sanity.
If you don't believe me ask the experts:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/bible/ask.html
One more time Teno; stop it you're embarrassing Jesus.
Let's see: Evidence of scientific sophistication in the bible turns out to be items that are either bullshit knowledge that was common to many other cultures at the time and before. Using the stars as a calender? EVERYBODY DID THAT!
Jericho? A myth. Your rebuttal? A Google page. I guess the existence of sound proofing (the first few hits on that page) is proof.
You have given no sign that you understand-even at a high school level- anything about physics, chemistry, geology, astronomy or biology. You clearly do not understand the Theory of Evolution. You show absolutely no knowledge of the evidence for Evolution or any understanding of why it is so widely (nearly universally) accepted by life scientists. (Hint: it's not a conspiracy, there really is an enormous body of evidence from many disciplines all pointing to the same conclusion.) Yet you feel sure that this idea you don't understand and know nothing of, is wrong and that you are capable of effectively arguing against it.
Then there's this:
Your vocabulary word for the day is: Projection.
Teno, you did not answer my question. Why does the bible say things that are clearly false like bats are birds and the Earth stands still?
OR do you suggest that these things are indeed true, i.e. bats are birds and the Earth stands sill?
Josh at 1162
Teno, the Pharyngula take on the show:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/11/watch_tv_tonight.php
LIes, lies, and even more lies. Jebus is weeping at your ignorance.
Pinhead tells abb3w: Trying to do too many things at once. My mind works much faster than my fingers.
I think it should read every time you open your mouth your tongue bayonets your brain! :D
What Nova DID PROVE is clearly that these archeological sites are indeed THERE and match up to what the Bible tells us about them. That was my only point in referring the Nova segment.
please ignore the bad blockquoting in 1171. I've got to remember to preview before posting.
"bullshit knowledge"? That's bullshit or Knowledge.
And i did preview.
Posted by: Teno Groppi | November 21, 2008
1149 and 1150 (Janine verses Feynmaniac). Now we have the stupid telling the stupid'r about what constitutes a bird. WOW!
Dumbass, you cannot even tell when people are making fun of you. I was not attacking Feynmaniac, I was parodying your technique.
Ah, but I almost forgot, you are the same idiot who thought that Sven DiMilo was supporting you.
Funny thing, even if most of the people here were not laughing at my attempt at humor, they still know that there was no conflict between Feynmaniac and me. Hell, Feynmaniac knows so much more then me on this subject; I would not even try to tell him anything on this subject.
Teno Groppi, do you have a care taker? This is a half serious question.
Teno, either you silly book is absolute truth, or it is a work of fiction. We are waiting for your proof of absolute truth, and we keep showing that it is a work of fiction that may some an iota of historical accuracy. But nowhere near enough to be considered absolute truth.
Once your infallible book was shown to be fallible, you should have run away with your tail between your legs. But you weren't smart enough. We'll keep laughing at your inane posts until they cease.
The distinction needs to be drawn as you did, Josh. Sagan repeated the Lewontin line the same way in Cosmos,
Crazy, isn't it? I've heard Sagan say it that way too. That's part of the danger of argument from authority, right? It's discussed incorrectly (with authority) all over the interwebs. I was far into graduate school before the distinctions finally got beat into my head. Heck, I went all the way through college thinking that theories evolved into laws if you successfully tested them long enough, and I was a science major from the first day. We need to spend far less time teaching young students of science facts and far more time teaching them process.
This is off topic but I am sure all most of the people here will find this funny.
Teno @ 1127:
Neither does Christianity.
lol....probably not. I was told some those examples in my Catholic high school (of all places!). It took me 10 minutes on google search and an online bible to find them, as well as others.
P.S. I laughed at your parody, Janine.
P.S.S. Teno, you still haven't answered my question.
Humorous, Janine is now laughing at here own joke! :D
Pinhead, there is no evidence for evolution either (which you strongly adhere to). It is just as frail as asking the the question of me, "where is G-d?"
Except there is one problem... There is evidence of G-d and its found within the actual "no evidence clause" of evolutionary theory. Since we can find no evidence for where life originated from, it fall back into the light of supernatural origins.
Now we can keep going round and round with this if you like?
Teno, god is not found in any scientific theory. To say so shows your lack on knowledge on how science works. God and science divorced a couple of centuries back. Science can neither prove nor disprove god, and god can't be used to explain something. Science ignores god. And god doesn't exist. Teno, you are an atheist toward every god man invented but the Abrahamic god. We just remove that one last god and become rational. Your irrationality is showing.
There are probably 1,000,000 scientific papers that back up the theory of evolution. Proofwise, it doesn't get much better. There are zero papers that back creationism/ID. It doesn't get any lower than that.
Dumbass, I am laughing at you.
Now you are back to the tired and long discredited meme "evolution is just a believe". You also cannot get it through your head that the theory of evolution does deal with how life began, just how it changes. You are being just as ignorant as Ben Stein when he asks, "How does Darwinism explain gravity."
So you think that Chiconahuiehecatl was responsible?
Groppi,
Here are two extracts from your link @1164:
"The experts we interviewed, who are among the foremost biblical scholars in the world, tell us that there is no evidence to support the account of Exodus as described in the Bible--a massive outpouring of some 600,000 men and their families. However, these scholars don't deny the possibility that an exodus in some form might have occurred. In fact, many of them think that a smaller departure from Egypt did take place.
There's another twist in this view of the Exodus that may surprise people. Many biblical scholars now think that it wasn't Israelite slaves but rather Canaanite slaves who escaped from Egypt. As these former slaves made their way back to Canaan, they stopped in a place the Bible calls Midian, where they underwent some type of religious transformation, adopting a god perhaps known as Yahu."
"First, many viewers may not know that since the 1700s, biblical scholars have pointed to evidence that the Bible was written by human hands, and that it likely had several different authors. This is now accepted as fact by many mainstream religious organizations, seminaries, and rabbinical schools. Yet it might surprise some people.
Second, although the Bible tells us that the ancient Israelites came from lands outside of Canaan, archeology suggests that the Israelites actually were themselves Canaanites"
so, the bible was written by many people, and is grossly inaccurate. Case closed.
SIWOTI!!
LIAR.
"But when archaeologists date the destruction, they discover it occurred about 2200 B.C. They date the destruction of Jericho to 1500 B.C., and Hazor's to about 1250 B.C. Clearly, these city-states were not destroyed at the same time; they range over nearly a thousand years. In fact, of the 31 sites the Bible says that Joshua conquered, few showed any signs of war." (emph mine)
Looking at the transcript, it looks like one of the pandering things they did was fail to emphasize that the destruction of Jericho could not have occurred at the hands of Joshua and the Israelites.
But no-one sane watching the show could have failed to notice that the dramatization they did of the "Exodus" was a very, very small band of people.
"While there is no evidence to support a mass migration, some now believe that a small group did escape from Egypt; however, they were not Israelites but, rather, Canaanite slaves. " (emph mine)
Again, the accuser is accusing the accused.
You say: There are probably 1,000,000 scientific papers that back up the theory of evolution. Proofwise, it doesn't get much better. There are zero papers that back creationism/ID. It doesn't get any lower than that.
Lets get the facts right! What science has is only a theory which cannot thoroughly be back up by the process that started it. Moreover there are not zero papers on creationism since we have a documented recorded piece of historical evidence -- the Bible!
Additionally you say: Science can neither prove nor disprove god, and god can't be used to explain something.
Why not, evolutionary theory has yet to supply one.
Should we continue down this path to reveal whose thinking is logically correct?
I have dim memories of a Dr Who episode where an explosion that the good Doctor caused during an early stage of the Earth's development provided the organic material in the primordial soup. I will buy that before Chiconahuiehecatl. And Jehovah. At least the Doctor is not out to punish humans.
Teno @1182: "Pinhead, there is no evidence for evolution either..."
I don't expect you to answer this question,your baramin never does, but, hypothetically, what would you consider to be evidence for evolution? That is, what could we show you that would cause you to say that "OK there is some evidence for evolution"?
Lies do not count as science.
Pinhead, there is no evidence for evolution either...
You assert this, Teno, but yet you've made no attempt to address any of the questions I asked you in 1128.
Teno Groppi O*. A theory in the scientific sense is not a vague notion. It is an explanation of documented facts.
The bible is not a treasury of documented facts. It is stories collected over thousands of years in multiple languages, translated various times and edited in order to fit different mindsets.
And I ask, do you have a care taker? You are not showing you have the sense to take care of yourself.
Teno @1188: "... only a theory..."
Teno you've gone beyond embarrassing Jesus to actually humiliating Him.
Only a Theory
Teno Groppi, psychotic creationist troll @ #1188:
AH, so in addition to not understanding Hebrew, you also don't understand ENGLISH!
The "only a theory" canard is classic creationist bullshit. All it shows is that creationists don't have the slightest idea what the word "theory" means in a scientific context, and as usual creationists would rather die than learn anything.
Get this through your thick skull: "Theory" does not mean "wild guess", no matter how desperately you want it to!
As to your worship of a book of mythology, what you have in the bible isn't even a theory, it isn't even a hypothesis, it isn't even a hunch. It generates no testable predictions. It tells us nothing useful about the world. It doesn't even accurately report obvious facts like the number of legs on a grasshopper. It's a work of fiction. A listing of absurd rules on appeasing an imaginary tyrant. A record of the feverish dreams of the insane.
Evolution is real. It happens. It has been observed, in real time, in the real world. There are mountains of evidence, some of it available through this very blog. The fact that you cover your eyes and plug your ears and scream does not make the evidence go away.
Yet another creationist who doesn't understand the very simple idea of a scientific theory.
Since we can find no evidence for where life originated from, it fall back into the light of supernatural origins.
Nope. It doesn't have to at all. At one point there were only supernatural explanations for lightening. Even at that time when we believed this, lightening does not appear to have had a supernatural cause. We now have a natural explanation for lightening. The simple fact that we puny humans cannot figure something out right now today, does not in any way support a supernatural explanation for anything.
I'd like Teno to demonstrate one thing that through out history we believed to be caused by natural forces but now know through experimentation and observation is caused by supernatural forces.
Owlmirror,
You fail again to see the significance of archeological evidence! The times may be iffy, but the city of JERICHO was found and identified as such, along with Solomon s Temple, the city of AI, inscriptions that specify the Canaanites as well as the Jews. Inscriptions indicating the "house of David". Even the store houses of Ramses and pithim. The city of Sodom and Gomorrah. Even the mountain name in which Noah's ark is mentioned is in the Bible and found to be a real mountain still in existence. How about
Nazareth Where Jesus grew up? Capernaum, Peter's house and the synagogue found there, Tiberias and the "Jesus boat",
The city of Jerusalem which include the temple warning notice, the pool of Bethesda, the stone water jars, the pool of Siloam and the burnt House - AD70. How about Caesarea, Herod's capital, Derbe in Turkey, the city of Derbe, Ephesus in Turkey, worship of Artemis, Demetrius the silversmith, Corinth in Greece, the synagogue, the judgment seat, meat sacrificed to idols, ancient writings, a letter of divorce, a promissory note, legal documents, Greek text,
evidence in the Bible, evidence & Paul's journeys.
Additionally, there is a growing mass of evidence from archaeology that the Bible accounts deal with real people living in real places.
The conclusion here is that recent archaeological discoveries have tended to confirm the accuracy of many background details in the Bible narratives. This in turn tends to support both their historical reliability, and the claim that they are based on the testimony of eye-witnesses. (It is very difficult to fake the appearance of being an eye-witness if you do not really know first-hand what you are writing about).
Case closed!
So, Teno, how much less accurate than Tom Clancy can your precious book of myths be and still be the source of all truth?
Moreover there are not zero papers on creationism since we have a documented recorded piece of historical evidence -- the Bible!
Hm. Who did the peer review on that one? Ba'al and Satan?
Teno, still confused about science and how it operates. The Theory of Evolution is proved as good as it gets in science, up there right next to the Theory of Gravity. That is because for something to be a scientific theory, it must explain observations. The more observations and predictions the theory explains, the better the scientific proof for the theory.
You are trying to pretend that since evolution is not mentioned in your highly falsified holy book, that the evidence doesn't exist. There are other things than your falsified holy book that describe the world. Science just does an awful good job of describing the world without any need for holy books. And that is where you, not us, have trouble.
More plagiarism. Puh-thetic.
Check it
CJO, it is alright. I am sure that David Couchman is a friend of Teno's. Maybe Teno will invite David Couchman over here.
CJO @ #1203:
And plagiarism from someone who said this not long ago:
Why is it that the guy who disdains quotes from competent scientists for emphasis can't offer any evidence besides plagiarising apologetics websites? Oh, yeah, because he's an idiot.
I see the most important significance of all!
None of the archeological evidence shows that God exists, or ever existed, or ever acted.
The archeological evidence shows that people living in the area made up stories about places in the area. Not true stories. False stories.
Wrong again Pinhead! Science does not teach the origin of anything!
The Bible explains it very implicitly how life came about in very simple terms. Plain and simple... G-d created it! And every creature after its same kind. Isn't this what we find in the fossil record? There is no way to prove that those "transitional intermediate forms" (that you speak of existing) are "related" SINCE THERE IS NO WAY OF TESTING THE DNA! Zilcho zero proof, so off with your preposterous explanation for evolutionary theory!
So what? There's really a mount Olympus does that make Greek mythology true?
There's a city of Nippur does that make the Epic of Gilgamesh true?
There's island named Sri Landa does that make the Ramayana true?
There's a Dunder Mifflin in Scranton, PA does that mean Michael Scott and Dwight Schrute are real people?
SINCE THERE IS NO WAY OF TESTING THE DNA!
So much for all of those scientists working all of the various genome projects.
Teacher... Teacher... Where did God come from?
Teno Groppi @ #1207:
Teno Groppi @ #1127, showing he doesn't have much imagination:
Teno Groppi later in 1127, demonstrating his talents at projection:
The "origin of life" in the bible is false. It is not true. It is a made-up, imagined story. It is a lie, and it is a lie to say that it is true.
And we know that it's a lie, even before we found all of the scientific evidence that disproves it, because in the story of Genesis, it says that there is morning and evening before the sun is created. With no sun, there cannot be morning and evening.
Owlmirror says: I see the most important significance of all! None of the archeological evidence shows that God exists, or ever existed, or ever acted. The archeological evidence shows that people living in the area made up stories about places in the area. Not true stories. False stories.
Wrong again Owl, being that the Bible is supportive of historical evidences, IT THEREFORE HIGHLY ELEVATES THE
ACTUALITY OF A DIVINE ENTITY INTERVENING ON ITS BEHALF.
Oh the door is wide open here now! :D
Teno, still not an original thought in your head. TSK, TSK.
The ragtag collection of myths in you holy book describe nothing. Deal with it.
Now, the collection of facts shown in the scientific literature is not something you can dismiss with a wave of the hand. You need to refute each individual article in order to make the knowledge go away. Last I knew, Chem. Abs. was abstracting over a million articles a year. And that is just one arm of science. Time to get busy is you want to refute science.
Oh, yes, the refutations have to be published in the scientific literature. You have quite a job ahead of you. Quite wasting your time here.
Owlmirror, I would disagree with you on this point.
Not true stories. False stories.
We really do not know the intent of the these people collecting these stories. They could have been rather truthful at the beginning. But details changed over the centuries through retelling and changes in language and reasons for the events are added. Over time, they are made false.
There is no way to prove that those "transitional intermediate forms" (that you speak of existing) are "related" SINCE THERE IS NO WAY OF TESTING THE DNA!.
Teno, why would you accept that DNA testing is a valid means of discriminating bewteen taxa if you cannot seem to grasp that WE DON'T PROVE THINGS IN SCIENCE? Why do you accept that DNA resolves relationships?
What about comparative anatomy Teno?
Why don't you read a book that is not full of lies.
"Your Inner Fish" by Neil Shubin is quite good.
It explains quite well how we know what we know.
phantomreader42,
Oh I have imagination alright, but it stops when I start dreaming.
Still no physical proof for your imaginary god? I'm disappointed in you Teno.
Wrong again Owl, being that the Bible is supportive of historical evidences, IT THEREFORE HIGHLY ELEVATES THE
ACTUALITY OF A DIVINE ENTITY INTERVENING ON ITS BEHALF.
Even though the cities that were supposedly conquered by Joshua happened over the course of a thousand years?
Can we stop now?
Anyone who says evolution is just a theory should just be ignored.
He's a completely blinkered creotard.
Actually it's explanation is not plain and simple, it's contradictory,
Gen 1: 24
Followed by,
Genesis 1:26
Contrast this with,
Genesis 2:19-20
Again, this is simply explained if the bible is a collection of works made by man.
Teno Groppi, psychotic creationist troll @ #1212:
WOW!
So, according to Teno, it's impossible for a book to get historical evidence even partly right without being written by ALMIGHTY GAWD!!!!111one!!
I see the light now. The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has no conflict with historical evidence. Such a book could not have been written by the hand of mere mortals, for it is absolutely impossible for human beings to observe or record anything! All praise His Noodly Appendage!
Yes and the The Silmarillion explains the universe of the Hobbit.
So people in the Middle East thousands of years ago knew the names of places in the Middle East thousands of years ago therefore God.
On the subject of Jericho, would Teno be willing to describe what happens after the walls came down as an example of God's loving mercy?
THERE IS NO WAY OF TESTING THE DNA!
Teno the Tenuous, Tenacious Torturer of Truth, may actually have answered a direct question, however obliquely. Someone upthread asked the question: what would Teno accept as evidence for evolution, and here, by implication, we seem to have an answer.
So, Teno, perhaps you can explain why it is that when we TEST THE DNA of extant organisms, we find not only that all life falls into a nested heirarchy, exactly as predicted by common descent, but also that the phylogenetic trees constructed based on morphology are almost perfectly congruent with the trees constructed from multiple independent molecular studies. If the explanation is just "G-d did it," then the question is, why did G-d do it in such a way as to be completely indistinguishable from the predictions of basic evolutionary theory?
The bones and shells and bodies of the fossils were made by way of DNA. We can compare those to the the bones and shells and bodies of living organisms, and to each other. We can then compare the DNA of one set of living organisms with another set of living organisms, and show the similarities and differences. We do not need to test the DNA of the fossil ancestor itself, any more than we need to test the DNA of Thomas Jefferson in order to test the DNA of two people who claim to be descendants of him, and show that there is (or is not) a particular genetic similarity in the Y chromosome.
Oh please. So any book that uses historical references makes the rest of it true?
Teno, your brain is suffering from what I call acute dumbfuckery.
Spurge, who told you that book wasn't full of lies?
Josh, DNA is certainly good for revealing many things like paternity issues. But we cant abstract DNA out of dead dinosaur bones to determine their nearest common ancestor. But even if we could, do you think it would really prove anything other than the fact that we all share a "tool box" of the same genetic makeup.
Pinhead, if your going to refute Biblical historical documentation against today's discoveries that clearly reveal to us that they are there, WHICH AS I SAID POINTS TO THE ACTUALITY OF A DIVINE ENTITY INTERVENING ON ITS BEHALF.
Surely your scientific evidence does not gain status anymore than all the burned books of knowledge in the library of Alexandria. I had told you all the wars of the world, all the Caesars, have not the staying power of the Bible. The Bible is the best selling book of all time. Millions of people are still buying them.
One has to wonder why?
LIAR.
It does no such thing.
Anyone at all can make up a false story about a real place.
Rev BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM:
Exactly why I brought up the Tom Clancy example. Teno doesn't seem to be able to answer how much less accurate than a known work of fiction his precious bible has to be before he'll consider the possibility it might not be absolute truth.
Apparently his reasoning is: people in the Middle East thousands of years ago had some vague idea where things were in the Middle East thousands of years ago, even if the dates were off by several centuries, so therefore EVERY SINGLE WORD OF THIS BOOK IS TRUE!!!!11 AND ALL SCIENCE IS A VAST CONSPIRACY TO SAP AND IMPURIFY MY PRECIOUS BODILY FLUIDS!!!11ELEVENTYONE!!!!
Teno, you have been proven to be a liar and plagiarist. Why would we take your word for anything? You have reached the point where if you say the sun will rise in the east, we will all go to other sources to verify if this is indeed true. Most of what you say is rubbish.
You can witness all you want. It doesn't effect us. What you have to do is to supply the information backing up the fact that god exists and the bible is his word from sources outside of yourself. Sources we consider reliable. You have failed miserably to date.
One more time Teno: What would you consider to be evidence for Evolution?
Now you are just getting boringly wrong ( look up "Argumentum ad populum"). Come on, be funny wrong. Say we are under Satan's control and are imitating Hitler. Or that the bible has stuff about future technology. Something that makes you worth arguing with.
I would suggest that, at least in the case of Joshua and similar books, that these stories about conquest were made up as political propaganda. And I would contend that propaganda, at least, is a deliberate and maliciously-motivated false story.
From the Diamond Sutra, Chapter 4 {the Buddha addresses an assembly of 1,250 monks):
Clearly, the Buddha and his disciples grasped the infinite nature of the universe, long before modern astronomers and astrophysicists determined this to be the case.
Thus, by his own logic, Teno Groppi has no choice but to conclude that the Sutra is true and that the humility of the Bodhisattva is morally and ethically superior to the evangelical Christian. After all, the Buddha himself says so, and the understanding of the universe that even his unenlightened followers share with him THEREFORE HIGHLY ELEVATES THE ACTUALITY THAT THE SUTRAS ARE ACCURATE DESCRIPTIONS OF REALITY.
The problem with science, you see, is that it doesn't make enough assertions. People don't want evidences and probabilities and theory, they want a book with flowery language spelling it all out. And if that book has a few place names that match up with actual place names, well that's just icing on the cake.
CJO asks: Why does all life fall into a nested hierarchy, exactly as predicted by common descent.
All it truly signifies is that G-d had used a method of sharing similarity (using the same ingredients) just like an artist who uses the same primary colors and mixes them into different shades.
Science will eventually work its way back to understanding G-d. We cannot even create a color that doesn't already exist in the rainbow.
And since all organisms inherit their "tool box" from their parents, WITH CHANGES, it logically follows that all organisms inherited their "tool box" from a common parent.
That's common descent, right there. And the "WITH CHANGES" part is the explanation of evolution.
Teno, the divorce between god and science is complete. Science will never debase itself with god again. Get over it.
Tresmal asks: One more time Teno: What would you consider to be evidence for Evolution?
NOTHING! It simply doesn't happen. A dog is still a dog last time I checked.
Rey Fox: The Galapagos Islands are real places. :)
Of course we can't (if we're limiting ourselves to light), you fucking moron. You don't actually know anything about rainbows, do you?
So, are you home schooled, or did you merely skip every fucking science class since Grade 4?
What a fucking idiot.
And Teno is still unknowing on how evolution works. Poor guy. It isn't that hard. PZ's students manage it.
And the "method of sharing similarity" is natural common descent.
QED
He doesn't know anything about anything.
Why don't you check to see if a dog is still a wolf, you fucking sack of stupidity?
Posted by: Teno Groppi | November 21, 2008 3:52 PM
"Spurge, who told you that book wasn't full of lies?"
No one told me. I figured it out on my own.
Unlike you Teno. I can think for myself.
Teno @ #1240, demonstrating his level of commitment to the facts:
Yes, Teno, if you close your eyes, plug your ears, and scream at the top of your lungs, you can convince yourself that the evidence isn't real. Luckily, your willful self-delusion doesn't actually make the evidence go away. No matter how much you deny reality, reality doesn't disappear. Reality is reality. It doesn't care that you're so hopelessly brainwashed you'd rather die than accept the facts. The facts remain.
GOD is spelled with an "o".
Brownian, OM,
When you find a wolf-bear or a werewolf let me know immediately! :D
Teno, and we will alert you if we find your brain.
Teno your idiocy know no bounds.
Josh, DNA is certainly good for revealing many things like paternity issues.
This is where things become confusing for me. You'll accept some science when it resolves a paternity issue for you, but you'll deny that other science works at all if you don't like its implications, while simultaneously USING the benefit of that science (we USE evolution to prospect for oil). That doesn't strike you as slightly hypocritical?
I'll let the evolutionary biologists first, since they and I, unlike you, know why that's never going to happen, you ignorant ass.
Teno, I take your answer to mean that scripture trumps evidence for you and that no evidence would convince you no matter what it was. In other words your mind is closed and you think that's a virtue. It was a very revealing answer.
"but you'll deny that other science works at all if you don't like its implications"
It's what I've been saying all along. He's afraid of evolution. He's afraid that the world/universe may be more complex than can be encapsulated in an ancient book of flowery language. He's afraid of not being special.
He's even afraid to spell "God" with an "o", for crying out loud. It's sad, really.
Teno the hopelessly confused creationist troll:
So, DNA can be used to determine if two subjects are related, but not to...determine if two subjects are related. Thanks, thanks for clearing that up.
And why the hell would a being with supposedly infinite power and knowledge be so unimaginative as to use the same "tool box" for EVERYTHING?
Well, Owlbears are well documented...
Owl in 1238 dealt quite nicely with the other part of that reply to me. I feel no need to augment.
Oh, he's 'special' alright. Fucking short-bus special.
I'd like to hear Teno talk about chemistry. We already know he doesn't have the fucking slightest clue about either physics or biology. In fact, I'd like to hear Teno expound on a subject he's not completely ignorant of. (The guy's even out of his element here in terms of theology, for fuck's sake. Where're David Heddle or Salt when you need them?) I'm not sure what he does for a living, but I can hazard a guess, and I'll bet he can't explain how his Taco Bell sour cream gun works.
From a Christian perspective, the way this guy's wasted his brain is a sin.
Janine ID (etc.), way back at #1189
If it's the episode I'm thinking of - City of Death - it wasn't the Doctor who set off the explosion, it was the Jagaroth. What's also cool about that episode is it featured John Cleese as a museum patron who thought the TARDIS was a sculpture.
Oh, and Tenuous Teno? You're a batshit loon and your grasping has ceased to be entertaining. Do run along.
Brownian, he is ignorant of chemistry too. In fact, it is hard to find something he isn't ignorant in.
GOD is spelled with an "o".
N- it is n-t. Ap-state! Id-lat-r!
Sometimes Teno your wealth of ignorance astounds me.
Just caught up. Teno's become boring. I'm joining the shun-the-dumbshit club.
He reminds me of 'Supersport', the creationist who attacked evolutionary theory on the basis of physics until it was determined that we 'see' by sending beams of light from our eyes and that an observer visually observing an object saw the action in real-time, independent of the distance between the object and the observer. When he was definitively shown to be wrong, he sulked and tried to change the subject. (If you're tired of Teno and instead want to read wrong answers by another creationist who doesn't know anything and doesn't even know that he doesn't know anything, read here.)
So, how about it Teno? Would you like to try to explain how vision and light work? What about sound waves and hearing? Perhaps, since you seem to like DNA, you might be interested in demonstrating to us that you actually know what DNA is, how it's copied, and how it leads to physical structures in biology? What about some simple math? Solve for x: 28x2 + 8x - 20 = 0.
Maybe when you've shown us that you have a basic understanding of these concepts we'll be more willing to entertain your 'thoughts' on evolution.
Posted by: Teno Groppi | November 21, 2008
Brownian, OM,
When you find a wolf-bear or a werewolf let me know immediately!
No wonder Teno Groppi O* is such a growing pain in the ass, he has entered into Curt Cameron territory. Can anyone say crocoduck?
-------------------------------------------------------------
Posted by: Owlmirror | November 21, 2008 4:06 PM
I would suggest that, at least in the case of Joshua and similar books, that these stories about conquest were made up as political propaganda. And I would contend that propaganda, at least, is a deliberate and maliciously-motivated false story.
That I could buy. It is similar in intent to Virgil's Aeneid except it was rewritten a few more times.
So, how about it Teno? Would you like to try to explain how vision and light work? What about sound waves and hearing? Perhaps, since you seem to like DNA, you might be interested in demonstrating to us that you actually know what DNA is, how it's copied, and how it leads to physical structures in biology?
It might be funny to see from where he would plagiarize the answers. Right or wrong, if the answers are in the form of complete, grammatical sentences without egregious misspellings, I guarantee they're lifted from somewhere.
Your brains are as congealed as cornstarch gets.
Brownian, I don't know what your trying to get at here, but a dog whether it is a wolf or a poodle is still a dog no matter how you look at it. There is nothing evolutionary going on here. NOTHING! Only natural selection. But not to get your amoeba brain confused because in the eyes of the creationists "natural selection" is not any sort of evolution. It clearly does not change one species into another, not even over a span of millions or billions of years. If it did where are all the intermediate forms? There should be thousands!
And again, there is a clear difference between existing DNA and non existing DNA. Bones do not have existing DNA left in them showing similar chromosomes. Actually there was a dinosaur skeleton recently discovered that did contain flesh and vesicles. Now how could something as old as evolutionists claim dinosaurs are still be found with flesh. Common sense tells us that after so many years it would deteriorate. So we know it simply cant be! The simple most obvious answer is that it is not that old in the first place, maybe if even, several thousand years old.
Oh I'm waiting to be called a LIAR again! :D
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/article2988373.ece
You people are really lost!
Sounds great, buddy. And you have a good weekend too.
The question was posed, how does vision and light work?
I don't have to do any math to know this answer because it is answered quite sufficiently in the Bible as well.
Light in itself is actually the ONLY thing we do see, since physics says light behaves as a particle and wave, and EVERYTHING is made up of particles that move in waves. Nothing could be closer to the truth, especially when we realize that "G-d is light" Himself mentioned in 1 John 1:5 - This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, THAT G-D IS LIGHT, and in him is no darkness at all.
There you go Pinhead! It has adequately been revealed the connection between G-d and light. Hmmm, I wonder were those 4,000 year old Canaanite Jews got that idea from?
With all these nuggets of pure, concentrated stupid laying around, I'm getting a little nervous. What if there's some kind of critical mass of the stuff?
Hazmat suits, people! She's runnin' hot!
Teno: You want transitional forms? We got transitional forms.More transitional forms than you can shake a stick at.
ohoh, let me! Let me!
28x2+8x-20=0
x=40/56 and x=-1
You're welcome.
I am happy to have contributed to the discusion.
"natural selection" is not any sort of evolution. It clearly does not change one species into another, not even over a span of millions or billions of years. - Tebo Groppi
Liar. The series of intermediates between fish and tetrapods, therapsids and mammals, the land-living ancestors of whales and whales themselves, Australopithecus afarensis and Homo sapiens, along with many, many others, refute your lie.
As to the "tyrannosaur soft tissue", see Dinosaurian Soft Tissues Interpreted as Bacterial Biofilms. Carbon dating shows the "soft tissue" is relatively recent bacterial contamination.
Now, back to the bible. Why does the bible classify the bat as a bird, and claim rabbits chew the cud and pi=3? Oh, and where is the link you were supposed to provide to show that the walls of Jerico were blown down by sound?
"The mummified hadrosaur, a duckbilled herbivore that lived 67 million years ago,
Of course. In fact, you call yourself a LIAR when you link to pages that contradict you directly.
Common sense would not tell us that mummified, dehydrated tissue would deteriorate, since dehydration — mummification — is one of the best ways there is of preserving organic matter. Because we know that there are many-thousands-of-years-old-mummies.
Besides, you have an exaggerated idea of how well preserved it is anyway.
"There is no chance, though, of a Jurassic Park-style resurrection: any biological matter would be too degraded to allow for cloning, "
Teno @ 1270:"There you go Pinhead! It has adequately been revealed the connection between G-d and light. Hmmm, I wonder were those 4,000 year old Canaanite Jews got that idea from?"
I don't know. A good guess that they got it from the Egyptians and their sun god Aten. At any rate a connection between gods and light is hardly unique to ancient Jews.
you know, Teno kind does remind me of old sporto.
Teno You have ignored every question I've posed.
Scroll back up and see what you can do with them.
I know my sexay goodness throws you off, but try and ignore it.
LIAR.
Genesis 1:3 "And God said, Let there be light: and there was light."
Even according to the made-up bible story, God existed before light, and so therefore cannot be something that he made after he already existed.
I can't believe that is has gone 150 posts overnight. The man is grade 'a' stupid, we won't ever learn anything. Shit, he can't even explain why we see a galaxy 2.3 million light years away as measured by several different standard candles. Or he can't even explain why we saw a supernova explode 168,000 light years away as measured by trigonometry.
Rabbits indeed do not chew the cud. I suspect the Wholey Bible only makes that claim because the ancient Israelites were just too prudish to admit what it is that rabbits are actually chewing.
Since creationists are LIARS, they are most certainly lying about natural selection not being the way in which evolution occurs.
LIAR. Evolution has the evidence. Evolution wins.
You LIAR, every living organism that there is is an "intermediate form".
Good point Sven DiMilo: Judging by what comes out of their mouths maybe creationists are evolved from rabbits.
yes you can say these things but unfortunately for you all the evidence points in a different direction.
"Common sense tells us that after so many years it would deteriorate."
"Common sense" tells us that the earth is a flat disk and the sun and moon revolve around it. Common sense is highly overrated. That's why we have science.
And "God" is spelled with an "o".
"Light in itself is actually the ONLY thing we do see, since physics says light behaves as a particle and wave, and EVERYTHING is made up of particles that move in waves. Nothing could be closer to the truth, especially when we realize that "God is light" Himself mentioned in 1 John 1:5 - This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, THAT GOD IS LIGHT, and in him is no darkness at all."
So you're a pantheist then? Everything IS God (spelled with an "o")?
Nick, the presumed dinosaur flesh may indeed just be bacteria,but gain be very careful how you read things since it specifically says in that article that it only presents a plausible alternative hypothesis. This is not any sort of certainty. But Okay, I'll give it the benefit of the doubt.
So what, its just bacteria.
Too funny!
Well, the question wasn't answered, but at least now I know that God disappears from my refrigerator when the door closes, and reappears when it opens.
The troll has heard of DeBroglie?
BTW, TT, for a godbot so familiar with CapsLock, it's weird to see "him" uncapitalised. Tsk. Hellbound Teno for sure.
Actually there was a dinosaur skeleton recently discovered that did contain flesh and vesicles. Now how could something as old as evolutionists claim dinosaurs are still be found with flesh. Common sense tells us that after so many years it would deteriorate. So we know it simply cant be! The simple most obvious answer is that it is not that old in the first place, maybe if even, several thousand years old.
No, I won't throw the liar label out for this one. You're just misinformed. And the media didn't help (they rarely do--many of the science writers about there seem to know about as much science as my cat). The particular skeleton you're referring to was most certainly not preserved with flesh and vesicles (although to my knowledge, the news report didn't actually say it was...). I know a bit about this skeleton. There are soft tissue impressions (sandstone that has been molded into the shape of the dessicated skin envelope) and there is some indication that perhaps some of the original integument material might be preserved in a mineralized sense. That's a long way from flesh. Calling it a mummy is not accurate (although everyone, including the researchers on this particular find, do it all the time), but it is frighteningly well preserved. That being said, however, we've known about (rare) extremely well preserved hadrosaurs from the Hell Creek/Lance sequences for around a hundred years. While it is way cool, there is nothing unbelievable about the finds and the quality of the specimen is nothing that is not already known to happen in these rocks. Sorry, no smoking gun for a young earth in this discovery, despite how much you guys might wish for it. And where are you getting the several thousand year figure from, anyway? Why aren't you asserting that it is several hundred years old? Or less?
Its Friday night and I've got other (more fun) things to do than to keep checking this site.
To be adjourned for another day.
Then why did you make the claim that the Book of Genesis has greater explanatory power than Evolutionary Biology, but, have absolutely no desire to demonstrate your claim by pointing out where the Book of Genesis talks about extinct organisms such as vetulicolians, placoderms, dinosaurs, or ground sloths?
That's shown to have a recent common ancestor with the chicken. Does this satisfy your claim that life couldn't have evolved from bacteria? ;)
The best piece of evidence from DNA is that fused chromosome we have with chimpanzees. Why would that be there if we were made by God unless he just wanted to trick us? That's what I want to know, if the world is 6000 years old, then why does it look 4.5 billion years old? Why is there a gradual emergence of life over that 3.5 billion year period? Why is the universe appearing at least 13 billion years old? Why can we see galaxies with our naked eye that are millions of light years away?
For a world that's 6,000 years old, God has gone to great lengths to not only hide his own hand but make it look very much like it's older than the bible supposes. So either all the evidence is wrong or the mythical tale written by some middle eastern farmers is wrong...
The Bible is the best selling book of all time. Millions of people are still buying them.
One has to wonder why? - Teno Groppi
Well a lot of the people buying them are fuckwits like you, Groppi.
Teno, random question: which version of the creation myth in Genesis is true?
Also, "to be adjourned for another day"? So it isn't, yet? Step away from the thesaurus slowly.
Pinhead?...Holy fuck, Teno Groppi is Bill O'Reilly!
This apologist makes Me want to create an ontological razor so as to slit My incorporeal wrists. I've heard better arguments slurred by drunks after a 4-day bender and gibbered by depraved maniacs in the depths of an ether binge.
Vox Day was way smarter than this loser, which I realize is not saying much at all. A ball of Me-damned lint is smarter than this loser.
Britney Spears is pretty popular too.
Yeah, Kel. Excellent point.
And there's that pesky fucking flood. WHY would the great bearded one NOT ONLY erase all evidence of the great event, but also create another record in its place that absolutely argues against a global flood ever having happened? He's testing my faith? So...the, all those tests we do in sedimentology? Fake? Those results are all fake when it comes to rocks older than the ones we generate now? Even though the features are indentical in both? So the fact that we can actually measure plate divergence at the mid-ocean ridges? Fake too? The fact that we can actually measure how fast the Alps are rising? Fake? I'm glad we have Teno here to decipher the world for us--tell us what science actually works and where we're just deluding ourselves.
You can nominate them again. It's just that most people prefer nominating other worthies who haven't been rewarded yet; there have always been enough of those.
We understand it full well. The piece you're missing is that the good Lord was wrong.
Guess what. Even famous scientists are fallible.
That ain't a series. It's a whole tree.
I've had 6 years of Latin at school, but no Greek, and I couldn't help you with, say, Sanskrit or Avestan at all.
All I can say is that it sounds good but is probably all over my head :-]
The consensus is that proof exists only in mathematics and formal logics, but not in science. Science cannot prove, only disprove, and much of the time it's even limited to the principle of parsimony.
Careful here: Evolution -- descent with heritable modification -- is a fact, observable and repeatedly observed (I've seen it with my own eyes, for example); the theory of evolution is the theory that explains evolution. Theories cannot become facts, they explain facts, see comment 1162.
Same for me. I used to use these definitions, which explain the difference between fact and theory admirably well, and make clear (if not necessarily clear enough) that the difference between "hypothesis" and "theory" is one of size, but get "law" completely wrong.
No.
I am a PhD student in paleobiology, and I can tell you there is no way you could define "kind" in such a way that "every creature after its same kind", unless you include all of life in a single "kind".
Creationism cannot explain a single champsosaur.
How naive. Black and white. Proof and complete ignorance.
Ever heard of "evidence"?
And if you accept shared derived similarities in DNA as "proof" of relationship, why don't you accept that all living organisms have a common ancestor?!?
You misunderstand, as usual. The theory of evolution is an explanation. That's why it's a theory.
Nonsense. Insane ramblings.
Will you at last answer the comparison of the Bible to a Tom Clancy novel?
Listen up, ladies & gentlemen: Teno has asked a real question.
Of course, the answer has been known for decades and has merely escaped Teno's deficient attention. You see, Teno, we share far, far, far, far, far more than we would need to share, and the more closely related we are, the more we share. Creationism cannot explain this. For example, we still carry broken genes for yolk proteins around, and those genes are more similar to those of the platypus than to those of the chicken. This is exactly what we expect based on the theory of evolution. But why would a creator do that?
1) Because they don't know any better.
2) Do you even know that most Christians are not creationists? Not even the Pope.
You failed to answer the question.
Here it is again: If there's a creator who is an artist who mixes primary colors, why do so many mixtures simply not exist? Why is the similarity of life arranged in a tree-shape? Why are there intermediates between humans and gorillas, but not between humans and adelospondyls?
Brown.
Pink...
HERE IS WHY THAT'S NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN:
Caniformia
|--Amphicyonidae (see below)
`--Canoidea
|--Canidae ("dogs" including "foxes" and wolf: Canis lupus)
`--Arctoidea
|--Ursoidea
| |--Hemicyonidae (see below)
| `--Ursidae (bears)
`--+--Pinnipedia (seals, walruses, sea lions)
`--Musteloidea
|--Ailuridae (red panda and extinct relatives)
`--+--Mephitidae (skunks, stink badgers)
`--+--Procyonidae (raccoon, kinkajou etc.)
`--Mustelidae (weasels, otters, stoats etc.)
Sources: Wikipedia article on Carnivora and the paper cited below.
In other words, bears and wolves are not each other's closest relatives; the bears are more closely related to the weasels than to the wolves. And people are far away: we aren't caniformians, we aren't carnivorans, we aren't laurasiatheres...
However, the closest known relatives of the bears are the extinct hemicyonids or "dog-bears". Perhaps you'll also find the likewise extinct amphicyonids or "bear-dogs" interesting, though they are the sister-group to Canoidea. Interestingly, this suggests that the musteloids have shrunk, instead of the dogs and the bears growing!
I'd rather say it's funny: God's name, which you aren't supposed to say in vain, isn't "God". It's "Yahwe".
----------------------------
Gina D. Wesley-Hunt & John J. Flynn: Phylogeny of the Carnivora: basal relationships among the Carnivoramorphans [sic], and assessment of the position of 'Miacoidea' relative to Carnivora, Journal of Systematic Palaeontology 3 (1), 1 -- 28 (24 March 2005)
David @1298, regarding "we all share a "tool box" of the same genetic makeup" and broken genes, I couldn't help remembering the baculum post :)
In other news.
Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout is fucking fantastic.
I'm not among them, of course. (But I'm not bitter, David. Not at all. Really.:))
Well, I'm certain that Thyrsocles, Trossulus, Zaphlegus and Zaphlegulus are neither Sanskrit nor Avestan (never even heard of this particular language, even), but what little information I have managed to dredge up on these prehistoric snake-mackerel-relatives says nothing about what their names mean (or whether or not they're Greek or Latin).
You throw random terms around without understanding what they mean.
When you have selection for heritable traits, you have evolution -- by definition! You aren't Humpty Dumpty. You can't just redefine words as you please. And neither can your ignorant sources.
I repeat: You throw random terms around without understanding what they mean. Amoebas don't and can't have brains.
In other words, creationists simply redefine words as they damn well please.
Ah? Is that so? Define "species".
Hint: There are at least 25 competing definitions of "species" in the scientific literature. They have nothing in common except the word "species"; depending on the definition, there are between 101 and 249 endemic bird species in Mexico, for example. How can that be? Because species don't have clear boundaries. They grade into each other. In a tree shape.
Here we have Teno starting with an actual argument and then spiraling into insanity.
Common sense tells us, so we know it can't be? Humbug. Common sense is just our expectations based on our experiences. It has been wrong before.
In this case, there's probably just a bacterial biofilm growing on it. The rest -- no flesh; just dried-out blood vessels inside bones -- apparently really comes from Tyrannosaurus respectively Brachylophosaurus, but was altered by drying out and reacting with iron minerals (which may ultimately be derived from blood). Proteins are pretty tough chemically, especially when crosslinked as appears to be the case here.
Also, keep in mind that this exceptional preservation is only found inside some places of some bones. The microenvironment had to be exactly right.
I will post three abstracts from this year's Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meeting about ten hours from now.
(DNA, BTW, doesn't survive for longer than about 100,000 years, unless it is frozen. DNA has not been reported from any Tyrannosaurus or Brachylophosaurus bone.)
And why don't you just write 5/7? :-) I'd have started by turning 28x² + 8x - 20 = 0 into 7x² + 2x - 5 = 0...
And the reason for this is that humans have an innate fear of the dark.
And the reason for that is that those who lacked that inherited fear have already all been eaten by the hyenas. That's called natural selection. Evolution by natural selection.
Which is, of course, exactly what the Bible tells us! Several times over.
:-D My ribcage hurts! :-D
Too cool. I didn't know that post. Sometime I'll have to try to look up what that Sumerian ti really means...
Well, this thread demonstrates that you're not a single-issue poster, so... :-)
Everything with y, ph, th, or ch is Greek; Trossulus contains the Latin diminutive suffix -ul-, but so does Zaphlegulus, which is therefore one of the common mixtures. -kles is "glory" or something in Greek; all the rest you'll have to look up in the Perseus dictionary that's linked to somewhere above.
Avestan is the holy language of Zoroastrianism. It's the oldest documented stage of an Iranian language, like how Sanskrit is the oldest documented stage of an Indic language.
...and I can tell you there is no way you could define "kind" in such a way that "every creature after its same kind", unless you include all of life in a single "kind".
What David wrote.
1) Because they don't know any better.
*clapping*
...and I can tell you there is no way you could define "kind" in such a way that "every creature after its same kind", unless you include all of life in a single "kind".
What David wrote.
1) Because they don't know any better.
*clapping*
I don't know what Teno is doing other than having some fun with us. He is too inane with his arguments to convince anybody that he has a point. It's also becoming obvious he is too stupid to acknowledge he has been shredded, diced, and pureed into a fine pulp and washed down the sewer of rationality with real facts.
PZ, we're already up to 1300+ post, and this IDiot is threatening to come again tomorrow. I would suggest closing this thread and opening one on the front page. Otherwise we might be up to 1500 posts tomorrow night. IIRC, this slows things down considerably.
Eek. Hardly my best work, but I'll take the recognition. :)
[personal aside]
John Morales,
I've been meaning to apologize for some of the things I said last week. I had received some correspondence from truth machine that was, well, cruel, and when I saw you praising him a few minutes later I got angry. I stand by my defense of Patricia, but in some of my later remarks I was just lashing out at you unfairly when I was really upset with him. Sorry.
[/personal aside]
"And why don't you just write 5/7? :-) I'd have started by turning 28x² + 8x - 20 = 0 into 7x² + 2x - 5 = 0..."
You're right....that's gonna lose me a point or two I suppose.
I always forget to simplify. Dammit *kicks self*
What Nerd said. This thread is overlarge and long ago lost its focus.
[personal aside]
Thanks SC, and I too apologise for my reflexive contentiousness.
[/]
Well...
Emphasizing that I am just using the translation resource I pointed at above, I note that:
"thyrsos" is Greek for a fennel-staff topped with a pine-cone, associated with Dionysus cult rites.
If "-cles" means glory, well, I couldn't find it in there. The only result that made sense was that it meant something in Greek like "bar" or "bolt" or "latch", or something like that. Maybe it refers to some diagnostic characteristic? Some distinct shape of a bone or bones?
"Trossulus" - I think "tros" might be a form of a Greek word that means "gnawing" or "eating", perhaps with a Latinate diminutive. Little gnawer? Little nibbler?
"Zaphlegus and Zaphlegulus" - the latter looks like it's meant as a (Latinate) diminutive of the former.
"legulus" is Latin, meaning "a gatherer, collector;", which may well be a red herring (if the latter is a diminutive as I suspect).
Hm.
It says here that the Greek term "ζαφλεγής", "ζα - φλεγής" (Zaphleges) means "strongly burning, [metaphorical], full of fire." That might be it.
I think that's the best that I can do.
CJO: It's not evidence, first, because it can't be considered a primary source
While this does increase the uncertainty ("associated standard deviation" would be more exact), not being a primary source does not preclude being "evidence".
CJO: The work of Herodotus, for instance, while it certainly does contain mistakes, lies, and propaganda, was written for the primary purpose of recording history. It's not at all clear that this was even a secondary or tertiary rationale for the great majority of the bible
As above: increases uncertainty values, still evidence.
Nerd of Redhead: abb3w, you are correct, I did not speak properly. I meant to say scientific evidence.
Eh, I'm kind of picky about such semantics matters; it's a by-product of coming at this via a mathematical background. And the Bible even scientific evidence; it just has mammoth "error bars" associated with the data points.
Ken Cope: Creotards serve a useful function here. Swarms of brilliant people flock to eradicate the damage, and I get to read all you guys in one place talking about smart stuff.
You might find Fark amusing; while more reminiscent of a demolition derby than a car bombing, there's still lots more damage to control.
Teno Groppi: What Nova DID PROVE is clearly that these archeological sites are indeed THERE and match up to what the Bible tells us about them.
In what sense did it "prove" that they are there?
As to matching up: "In fact, of the 31 sites the Bible says that Joshua conquered, few showed any signs of war."
Teno Gropi: There is evidence of G-d and its found within the actual "no evidence clause" of evolutionary theory. Since we can find no evidence for where life originated from, it fall back into the light of supernatural origins.
Incorrect. Evidence needs to be explained; a lack of evidence does not require any better explanation than the null hypothesis.
Also, any "no evidence clause" isn't part of any expression of the Theory of Evolution I'm familiar with. I need to dredge up the "points" version of Evolution in a bit.
Nerd of Redhead: Science can neither prove nor disprove god<./i>
It can prove or disprove deities in the same sense that it can prove or disprove that your brain is a piece of cauliflower.
Teno Groppi: What science has is only a theory which cannot thoroughly be back up by the process that started it.
In the usage of science, a "Theory" is by definition better backed up than all other alternative explanation; the word you want is "hypothesis".
In your opinion, what are the criteria needed for "thoroughly" with reference to backing up a hypothesis, and why are these necessary?
Teno Groppi: Should we continue down this path to reveal whose thinking is logically correct?
Only if we can start from the beginning with logical correctness itself. Would you agree with the Commutativity of Logical Inclusive Disjunction, which states that (P OR Q) is logically equivalent to (Q OR P)?
Teno Groppi: The Bible explains it very implicitly how life came about in very simple terms.
I think you mean "simply", not "implicitly". (Parli Italiano?)
When expressed mathematically, a hypothesis has two parts: the conjecture about how evidence relates, and the description of the evidence (sufficient to convey all details) via the conjecture. The formal version of Occam's Razor (doi:10.1109/18.825807) requires minimizing on the log-sum over both parts. While your conjecture is simple, the description of details is not.
Teno Groppi: There is no way to prove that those "transitional intermediate forms" (that you speak of existing) are "related" SINCE THERE IS NO WAY OF TESTING THE DNA!
Again, failure to use the word "proof" in the correct sense that science uses it; what I term the "Proof Equivocation Fallacy" or "Double Standard of Proof".
Josh: you cannot seem to grasp that WE DON'T PROVE THINGS IN SCIENCE?
Actually, we do. It's even proof in a mathematical sense. The catch is, mathematics has two senses (that I know) for Proof: the Euclidean/Godelian, and the Arthur/Merlin.
PS: If this thread be closed, I recommend that the overflow one be called "SIWOTI Syndrome Open Thread". Because, damn, that's what this one has become.
Haw! Haw! It's hard to believe you Ilk are still at this thread.
So, the latest draft of "Evolution Points"; I'd appreciate anyone leaning either pro- or con- who wants to take a swing to find a crack should do so.
VARIATION:
1) Variation exists in all populations.
2) Some of that variation is heritable.
3) Base pair sequences are encoded in a set of self-replicating molecules that form templates for making proteins.
4) Combinations of genes that did not previously exist may arise via "Crossing over" during meiosis, which alters the sequence of base pairs on a chromosome.
5) Copying errors (mutations) can also arise, because the self-replication process is of imperfect (although high) fidelity; these mutations also increase the range of combinations of alleles in a gene pool.
6) These recombinations and errors produce a tendency for
successively increasing genetic divergence radiating outward from the initial state of the population.
SELECTION:
7) Some of that heritable variation has an influence on the number of offspring able to reproduce in turn, including traits that affect mating opportunities, or survival prospects for either individuals or close relatives.
8) Characteristics which tend to increase the number of an
organism's offspring that are able to reproduce in turn, tend to become more common over generations and diffuse through a population; those that tend to decrease such prospects tend to become rarer.
9) Unrepresentative sampling can occur in populations which alters the relative frequency of the various alleles for reasons other than survival/reproduction advantages, a process known as "genetic drift".
10) Migration of individuals from one population to another can lead to changes in the relative frequencies of alleles in the "recipient" population.
SPECIATION:
11) Populations of a single species that live in different
environments are exposed to different conditions that can "favor" different traits. These environmental differences can cause two populations to accumulate divergent suites of characteristics.
12) A new species develops (often initiated by temporary
environmental factors such as a period of geographic isolation) when a sub-population acquires characteristics which promote or guarantee reproductive isolation from the alternate population, limiting the diffusion of variations thereafter.
SUFFICIENCY:
13) The combination of these effects tends to increase diversity of initially similar life forms over time.
14) Over the time frame from the late Hadean to the present, this becomes sufficient to explain both the diversity within and similarities between the forms of life observed on Earth, including both living forms directly observed in the present, and extinct forms indirectly observed from the fossil record.
That's what Evolution IS. If you have a problem with Evolution, you have a problem with one or more of these fourteen points. Which one is it? Provide evidence that any of the points are incorrect.
While the origins of life are a question of interest to evolutionary biologists and frequently studied in conjunction with researchers from other fields such as geochemistry and organic chemistry, the core of evolutionary theory itself does not rest on a foundation that requires any knowledge about the origins of life on earth. It is primarily concerned with the change and diversification of life after the origins of the earliest living things - although there is not yet a consensus as to how to distinguish "living" from "non-living".
Evolution does NOT indicate that all variations are explained this way; that there are no other mechanisms by which variation may arise, be passed, or become prevalent; or that there is no other way life diversifies. Any and all of these may be valid topics for conjecture... but without evidence, they aren't science.
increases uncertainty values, still evidence.
Sure, I get what you're saying. But any discussion of what does and doesn't warrant being called by that name has to involve a consideration of evidence for what? As far as I know, Teno has not marshalled biblical evidence in support of any proposition that calls for it.
Eh, I'm kind of picky about such semantics matters; it's a by-product of coming at this via a mathematical background. And the Bible [is] even scientific evidence; it just has mammoth "error bars" associated with the data points.
At some point, quantity becomes its own quality. I'll dive into the semantics of it thusly: "Scientific" precludes error bars above some (perhaps arbitrary) threshold. I'm trying not to disagree with you in principle (because I do understand your point), but, in the practice of science, depending on what it is you study, it's pretty common to acquire data too noisy to be useful.
Patricia: Come back tomorrow, Teno has promised to return.
David M:
"HERE IS WHY THAT'S NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN: [table]"
Pearls before swine, my friend. :)
"Will you at last answer the comparison of the Bible to a Tom Clancy novel?"
You might as well ask him why he drops the vowel out of the word "God". I think he'll never explain it because if he does, it would break the magical spell, and the man behind the curtain will be revealed.
Teno Groppi: But even if we could, do you think it would really prove anything
Proof equivocation.
Teno Groppi: The Bible is the best selling book of all time. Millions of people are still buying them. One has to wonder why?
A mix of Charles Darwin and P.T. Barnum is involved.
tresmal: One more time Teno: What would you consider to be evidence for Evolution?
More important, evidence for anything?
Or even more important: the general rules which allow inference between any two agreed on propositions to a third?
And one more time, would you agree with the Commutativity of Logical Inclusive Disjunction, which states that (P OR Q) is logically equivalent to (Q OR P), and thus that either may be inferred from the other?
Rey Fox: The problem with science, you see, is that it doesn't make enough assertions. People don't want evidences and probabilities and theory, they want a book with flowery language spelling it all out.
Yeah, I'm working on that. Anyone care to help me along with a definition of "society" involving minimal assumptions about the nature of the society in question? (In particular, human-only is right out.)
Teno Groppi: When you find a wolf-bear
So, a fossil Caniformia?
Rey Fox: He's afraid that the world/universe may be more complex than can be encapsulated in an ancient book of flowery language. He's afraid of not being special.
He's Italian?
Owlmirror: You LIAR, every living organism that there is is an "intermediate form".
(Wave) I'm likely not. No wife, no kids, and damn few prospects of either. Why else would I be on ScienceBlogs on a Friday night? =|
God: This apologist makes Me want to create an ontological razor so as to slit My incorporeal wrists.
I can teach you how to make one, if you'd like. I need about a dozen base axioms and one extra philosophical premise for a handle.
Josh: And there's that pesky fucking flood.
Persian Gulf innundation, end of the last ice age. Note the location of the Euphrates and Tigris, and the two fossil riverbeds adjacent.
David Marjanović, OM: The consensus is that proof exists only in mathematics and formal logics, but not in science. Science cannot prove, only disprove, and much of the time it's even limited to the principle of parsimony.
Not quite correct. "Prove" has two senses, as noted; parsimony may be used for Arthur/Merlin sense "proof", and is itself Euclid/Goedel sense "proven".
David Marjanović, OM: HERE IS WHY THAT'S NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN:
What? Technically, all he's asked for is a Carniforma fossil, right?
CJO: At some point, quantity becomes its own quality.
I'd agree, though I usually hold out for multiple orders of magnitude, such as between the timescales for Abiogenesis versus Spontaneous Generation -- a factor of 10^(10±2) for that.
Even so, at least one PhD philosopher has disagreed with me on that point.
"An elephant is a mouse built to government specifications."
Just to amuse y'll, I've knitted half a sock while reading this thread in the last few days. Pffft. Teno is such a complete blithering idiot he hasn't inspired a slutty remark from anyone except Chimpy (you sexay thing) which is unusual.
Thanks OwlMirror for the Jerico post, I didn't know that. Thanks Serena for the math post, it could equal sour chicken shit for all I know, but I liked it.
Thanks John Morales for burying the hatchet somewhere else besides my head. *grin* And now I've lost track of everyone else... more sangria.
David (1122):
"'I have heard before the idea that Jesus was the one walking in the Garden with Adam/ Eve.'"
"The text says YHWH in no uncertain terms... Jesus was only invented several hundred years later!"
============+
I wasn't arguing that it wasn't saying this. In regards to the 'proto-christ' idea: there was a father/son duality that was already inherant to the scripture at that time; but then it was, as the essay dealt with, completely glossed over and misrepresented, forever denegrating YHWH to the status of an impetulant immature despot. That Christ was pulled out of this confused notion of a schizophrenic God i feel to be perfectly true to the nature of the beast. Never mind how much later this occured. A bigger questtion was why call him by the same name? that would only later serve to be a disaster to God's identity. After all, if they had mad up the notion of a spiritual manifestation of Christ earlier, they would have saved themselves alot of trouble, right? I'm sorry if any of this is unclear, i'm just trying to get at a specific point.
================+
"'the whole "temple rage" episode, there is often one greatly overlooked detail, and that is that Jesus fashioned for these hypocrites a scorge, not unlike the one(s) used on him.'"
"Huh? I mean, how many different ways are there to make a scourge, and that in a culture that considered that an everyday item?"
=====+
How "everyday"? Why would a carpenter (or even a rabbi) have a scourge? It would be like having a big-ol' knife hanging off your belt in plain sight. It's just not done.
Not to say that making one wouldn't have been simple enough, but if it were anything like a proper scourge, it would imply a great deal of intentional menace and a very deep-seated anger that was not singularly that of a rightously-angered individual. It implies more of an obsessive, sadistic Jesus than the peaceful healer and mentor many picture. I know you are already past that stage, but i thought i might as well highlight it anyway, for the sake of conversation.
Bah.
As any phylogenist will point out, you represent your species, genus, and clade (etc), regardless of whether or not you as an individual organism reproduces.
/obviouspedantryisobvious
SIWOTI Syndrome can be a terrible thing...
Nah. He wants a chimera; something utterly freakish. If you point out that there is indeed a common ancestor of all bears and all canids, he'll switch back to arguing that such transformations have never been reproduced in laboratories and therefore blah blah blah...
Or quite possibly, he'll spout something even stupider than that.
SC and John Morales,
Good to see you making up!
I agree that Tenacious Groper has outstayed his welcome. He hasn't said anything new in his past hundred or so comments; and one can only marvel at his stupidity for so long.
abb3w wrote: Josh: And there's that pesky fucking flood. Persian Gulf innundation, end of the last ice age. Note the location of the Euphrates and Tigris, and the two fossil riverbeds adjacent.
I'm not really sure what you're getting at here. Are you trying to offer Teno an explanation for the flood myth? Using the inundation of Persian Gulf? For example:
Teller, J., Glennie, K., Lancaster, N., and Singhvi, A., 2000, Calcareous dunes of the United Arab Emirates and Noah's Flood; the postglacial reflooding of the Persian (Arabian) Gulf. Quaternary International 68-71:297-308.
OR
Teller JT, Glennie KW, Lancaster N, Singhvi AK. 2000. Noah's Flood and its impact on the Persian Gulf region. Geological Society of America Abstracts With Programs 32(7):A276. (which is the same research as the QI article)
I think that's a fine idea except:
A. I don't think that most YECs are going to accept a proposed solution such as this, because the Bible specifically mentions a worldwide deluge. In my experience, anything less is not satisfactory.
B. Directly tangential to A, these articles don't address things specifically mentioned in the Bible with respect to the flood and thus will probably be looked upon as unsatisfactory. For example, here is a reaction by a young-earther to the GSA abstract I cited above:
James Teller et al. (2000) proposed that Noah's Flood is to be identified with the inundation of the Persian Gulf. Dunes in United Arab Emirates are composed of carbonate grains derived from the floor of the Persian Gulf at a time when the Gulf was water-free. Following formation of these dunes, the Gulf was filled with water from the ocean conventionally dated between 14,000 and 6,000 y.b.p. Teller et al. suggest that the sea level rise might have exceeded 1 km per year at times so fast as to require boats to rescue people stranded on islands. Although geographically superior to recent proposed identification of Noah's Flood with the flooding of the Black Sea (Ryan and Pitman 1999), this explanation fails to explain a) the breaking up of the fountains for the great deep (Gen. 7:11); b) unusual rain (e.g., "windows of heaven" vs. rain in Gen. 8:1); c) the great wind (Gen. 8:1); d) the falling of the waters (e.g., Gen. 8:5); e) the covering of all the high hills under the whole heaven (Gen. 7:19); f) the death of all humans and animals on the face of the earth (e.g., Gen. 7:23); etc.
C. This particular example of the Teller research is specifically referring to multiple events over about 6,000 years that occurred a rates of perhaps a kilometer of advance a year. This is going to violate the biblical need for a single quick event.
D. There is the whole problem with age. Whereas YECs tend not to "believe" in geological dates, I suspect they'll have no issue arguing against this proposed scenario because it happened too far in the past for the accepted flud model (consistency not being one of their strong points).
E. Whereas young-earthers never seem to have a problem telling me how to do my job with respect to interpretations of sediments (EVERYTHING'S A FLUD DEPOSIT!), I suspect that this case would be found unsatisfactory because the deposits being discussed are distinctly aeolian dunes (consistency not being one of their strong points), and inferences apparently make the baby Jesus cry.
These sorts of reasons are why I wrote comment #1297 in the manner I did. Of course there is geological evidence of "floods" and other events that might offer an explanation of this myth. There is, however, no evidence of The Flud (i.e., some worldwide deluge) and is very likely to have been waved away with a flippant hand gesture.
I wrote (to Teno): you cannot seem to grasp that WE DON'T PROVE THINGS IN SCIENCE?
abb3w replied: Actually, we do. It's even proof in a mathematical sense. The catch is, mathematics has two senses (that I know) for Proof: the Euclidean/Godelian, and the Arthur/Merlin.
Okay, I guess you could go there if you like, but we tend not to see mathematical proofs as the same as proving something in science to be True. I'm going to think about this one for a bit, though.
I wrote (to Teno): you cannot seem to grasp that WE DON'T PROVE THINGS IN SCIENCE?
abb3w replied: Actually, we do. It's even proof in a mathematical sense. The catch is, mathematics has two senses (that I know) for Proof: the Euclidean/Godelian, and the Arthur/Merlin.
Okay, I guess you could go there if you like, but we tend not to see mathematical proofs as the same as proving something in science to be True. I'm going to think about this one for a bit, though.
The etymologies in comment 1311 all make sense (except of course that legulus is indeed a red herring).
Way over my head.
The way I understood the proof you presented is that it proves the principle of parsimony works with high probability, but not (or at least not necessarily) with p = 1, so I'd still say science cannot prove...
Correct, but of course it only applies to eukaryotes ( = beings with meiosis = beings with more than one chromosome).
I'd mention that this is simply random and most easily happens to neutral alleles (which may no longer be neutral once the environment changes).
Whether this is speciation depends on the definition, on the "species concept", of which there are about 25 out there. Under most, though, speciation is even easier.
I intend to flood him with pearls till he either drowns or figures out how to swim.
That one is obvious: he shall not take the Lord's Name in vain, and hasn't quite grasped that that name isn't "God".
Any fossil caniformian? I don't think a fossil seal would impress him all that much...
The Boy God Hypothesis together with the Documentary Hypothesis makes a lot more sense, IMHO.
Oh, that's your point. Yes, interesting.
...so I'd still say science cannot prove...
And I would continue to agree with David on this. Happy to hear more thoughts on it, however.
Timothy Cleland & Mary Schweitzer (2008): Preliminary investigation of microscopic integrity and molecular preservation in newly excavated dinosaurs, Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 28 (supplement to issue 3), 64A
"Soft tissue has been recovered from [L]ate Cretaceous dinosaurs of Montana, indicating the presence of a depositional facies conducive to preserving organic material on the molecular level. The mode of preservation is unknown; however, iron-induced crosslinking has been proposed as a possible mechanism for preservation of these components. To test the hypothesis that iron is part of the chemical pathway of preservation of these tissues that may be responsible for the persistence of these soft tissues, additional dinosaur bony elements were collected without preservatives, using a field collection protocol designed to reduce chances of contamination or artifact. These specimens were demineralized within days of collection to verify the presence of soft tissues, and either embedded and sectioned, or chemically extracted, then subjected to multiple analyses to characterize these components. Histochemical [analysis?] and immunostaining were performed to detect and identify remnant endogenous organics preserved within the soft tissues. The sections were examined using analytical transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to determine the presence and elemental compositions of high-density minerals associated with the preserved tissues. The microstructures preserved within the dinosaur were then chemically compared to extant ostrich vessels derived from long bone elements. The vessels were incubated in a concentrated solution of hemoglobin, as a proxy for naturally occurring processes proposed to occur during death and degradation. Comparing the chemical changes in ostrich vessel[s], including resultant mineral precipitation in vessel walls, provides a model for early diagenetic chemical pathways that may have assisted in the preservation of dinosaur soft tissue structure. Developing testable models of rates and processes that may result in the preservation of cells and vessels is critical because current understanding of fossilization and/or degradation does not allow for the persistence of these soft tissue structures across geological time."
I'll post the other two later.
The way I understood the proof you presented is that it proves the principle of parsimony works with high probability, but not (or at least not necessarily) with p = 1, so I'd still say science cannot prove...
Dealing with high probabilities sounds inductive to me, which can give us high confidence but not proof. This section of the inductive reasoning wikipedia essay discusses Bayesian inference at the end, and sounds similar to what abb3w is describing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductive_reasoning
Owlmirror: As any phylogenist will point out, you represent your species, genus, and clade (etc), regardless of whether or not you as an individual organism reproduces.
My point is, there is an alternative to being a transitional form: being a dead end. Which may apply to humans in general, as well as myself in particular. =|
Owlmirror: Nah. He wants a chimera; something utterly freakish.
However, what he wants and what he asked for are two different things. =)
Josh: Are you trying to offer Teno an explanation for the flood myth?
No; I'm offering anyone who cares an conjecture for a root of the myths of both Eden and Flood. Not that I expect Teno to accept the explanations, but I thought others might find it of interest. I'd think finding out what varieties of flora and fauna may have originated in that area might be especially interesting; cf. Diamond's GG&S.
Most of the points of B are conjecturably addressable (EG, sill collapse at the Strait of Hormuz, triggered by climate shift induced unusual rainfall), but would need more sub-aquatic geology research done in an area now prime for piracy to move even to a hypothesis.
Josh: Okay, I guess you could go there if you like, but we tend not to see mathematical proofs as the same as proving something in science to be True.
Other way around; the method of proof in science corresponds to a particular algorithm, which is an implementation of an Arthur-Merlin proof theorem. So, proof in science is a sub-type of mathematical proof, though not the same as the general concept of proof in mathematics.
It is still, however, proof.
David Marjanović, OM: The way I understood the proof you presented is that it proves the principle of parsimony works with high probability, but not (or at least not necessarily) with p = 1, so I'd still say science cannot prove...
Ah, but p=1 is not the requirement for Arthur-Merlin proofs. The requirement is p>0.5, although for convenience p≥2/3 is preferred.
David Marjanović, OM: Correct, but of course it only applies to eukaryotes ( = beings with meiosis = beings with more than one chromosome).
An excellent point. Is there any corresponding process in the Archaea and/or Bacteria?
David Marjanović, OM: I'd mention that this is simply random
So perhaps, a stochastic process known as "genetic drift"?
David Marjanović, OM: Whether this is speciation depends on the definition, on the "species concept", of which there are about 25 out there. Under most, though, speciation is even easier.
However, my understanding is this is sufficient under the two dozen or so; also, it's mathematically useful to model speciation this way within the Eukaryota and Archaea. (In bacteria, speciation is a lot fuzzier.)
David Marjanović, OM: Any fossil caniformian?
Prior to the break point, anyway.
Ken Cope: Dealing with high probabilities sounds inductive to me, which can give us high confidence but not proof
Again, there's more than one sense of proof. It does not give proof in the sense of Euclid and Godel; it does in the sense of Arthur-Merlin proofs.
My point is, there is an alternative to being a transitional form: being a dead end.
But the form is still transitional. Extinction is the end of evolution. The members of a species do not know they are headed toward a dead end; the form is continuing to evolve until it winks out. Even though the species dies out, it is still "attempting" to become more "fit" up until the point at which it ceases to be a species. Sort of a raging against the dying of the light. The form isn't aware of the raging, but it rages nonetheless. The last individuals of the species will still be "transitional;" they'll just never reach the next "point." Even if we couldn't decipher certain transitional features in those last individuals (not having the advantage of hindsight that we normally have when viewing organisms), this wouldn't mean that the organism lacked them. Nature couldn't care less if we understand what's going on.
Transformation (picking up random DNA fragments from the environment), conjugation ("bacterial sex")... to some extent, yes.
Bingo.
No, most use different criteria, like distinguishability or ecological niche or phylogenetic distinctness (however reversible)...
Where's the difference between bacteria and archaea here?
David 1328:
"The Boy God Hypothesis together with the Documentary Hypothesis makes a lot more sense, IMHO."
What most interests me is the incredable blasphemy of the P texts when you compare them. They are nothing alike, the Two Yahwehs! I fail to understand how they worked in that their god had become some sort of King in his castle, as opposed to a champion of the people. What the Redactor Did was create a Jekyll & Hyde when he concluded his work, and the father/son duality would make for some very interesting Fruedian analysis. I was hoping that the conversation would have led to that. After all, i am more or less interested in the position of P's Yahweh as compared to the younger, and the relationship that is presented by looking at the finished work. I do not doubt the Document Hypothesis or Dr. Leonard's work to be up to scratch, and indeed, it was the most fascinating read i have come across in a great while. the only way i saw for P to make that fantastic leap is to A. create a new god and tack an old label on him, or B. begin thier work in the concept of a Royal family in their religion, something which (if you were to take God as the plural sense -there are rare occasions of this- and make YHWH as emblamatic, a Family possesion) greatly ties together the seemingly two disseparate entities. After all, Jesus in any part of the OT would not be referred to as such. He had not assumed a proper identity on earth. Perhaps it was this very conception that enabled Early Christians to make the leap from a prophet Lord who was not in his own right divine (which was the idea behind him before a Church was formed) to the further blasphemy of calling him the Son on God. The issue of human sacrifice however, remains completely unresolved lol. That is my forty-two cents. I do not consider it to make perhaps as much sense as the work of proffesionals, but to be merely a conversation piece, and something that in in of itself, to be a new consideration.
David Marjanović, OM: Where's the difference between bacteria and archaea here?
From what I (mis)understand from the biology amateurs I listen to, slightly reduced degree of lateral gene transfer (transformation/conjugation). I could easily be wrong, however. Bear in mind, I'm coming at this from a math/CS angle, which is why I try to see what gets shot at most. Really, this is Not My Field. That doesn't I'm not better than most of the "cdesign proponentists", but take the biology I throw out with a gram or two of salt.
The philosophy of science and mathematics? I'm pretty solid there.
Elizabeth Johnson & Mary Schweitzer (2008): The microbial role in early diagenetic mineralization of vertebrate soft tissue within bone, Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 28 (supplement to issue 3), 97A
"Microbial processes assist in preserving soft tissues by inducing anoxia, chemically altering the pH of local microenvironments, and acting as passive nucleation sites through either cell bodies or biofilm secretions to induce mineral precipitation. These microbially mediated processes greatly increase the rate of mineral precipitation compared to abiotic conditions, and therefore, [sic] may play a role in early diagenetic mineralization correlated with exceptional preservation. Here, we report the results of actualistic experiments designed to test the hypothesis that microbes play an important role in early diagenesis to preserve vertebrate remains. Extant chicken tibiae were de-fleshed and either chemically degreased (simulating pre-burial exposure) or untreated (simulating rapid burial). Bones were subsequently buried in pure quartz, medium grained sand and allowed to degrade for approximately four weeks. This process resulted in differential sand cementation directly adjacent to bone fragments. Cemented and unconsolidated sediments were examined for authigenic minerals and microbial biomarkers, supporting the hypothesis of microbial involvement in early diagenesis and forming the basis for a predictive model for vertebrate bone entrance into the fossil record. To test this model, we examined sediments associated with dinosaur remains from which soft tissues (vessels and cells) were recovered. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to test for the presence of microbial morphotypes in sediments, and X-ray diffraction (XRD) was used to identify authigenic mineral phases in sandstone cements and/or microbial bodies to verify these were mineralized, and not recent contaminants. Finally, chemical extracts of sediments surrounding exceptionally preserved dinosaur bones were examined by mass spectrometry for the presence of muramic acid, a biochemical fingerprint of microbes [ = bacteria and archaea], and other biomarkers to verify the role of microbes in early cementation resulting in exceptional preservation."
Mary Schweitzer, Chris Organ, Zheng Wenxia, John Asara & Timothy Cleland (2008): Exceptional preservation of Brachylophosaurus canadensis (Campanian, Judith River Formation, USA), Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 28 (supplement to issue 3), 139A
"The presence of apparently original soft tissues in demineralized Tyrannosaurus rex bone (MOR 1125) was unexpected. We demonstrated the persistence of these components (transparent vessel-like structures, two populations of cell-like microstruc[t]ures, and flexible, fibrous matrix) in a variety of fossils spanning several continents, time periods, and taxa, and we showed, using immunochemistry, amino acid sequence data, and a variety of other methods, that collagen fragments were preserved in matrix tissues and chemical extracts of bone fragments in extremely low concentrations. Recently we showed that sufficient molecular signal was retained in these sequences to generate phylogenetic hypotheses that are consistent with other lines of evidence supporting the close relationship of birds and dinosaurs. Here, we present the results of multiple analyses conducted on the femur of an ~80 Ma [old] hadrosaur (Brachylophosaurus canadensis, MOR 2598). Hind limb elements of this dinosaur were collected specifically for molecular analyses, using a protocol designed to optimize the chances of such recovery, while minimizing introduction of contamination or artifact. We show preservation of the above endogenous components in skeletal elements of this dinosaur, and present evidence for the presence of proteins, including collagen, osteocalcin, hemoglobin, and elastin. Multiple phylogenetic analyses of amino acid sequence data place this hadrosaur well within Archosauria, closer to birds than crocodylians."
I'd have loved to hear this talk, but it was at the same time as my own...
MOR is the Museum of the Rockies, here followed by specimen numbers.
This thread is closed. Go here if you must continue to batter that idiot, Teno Groppi.