Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion General Science Discussion Forum DARWIN Assaulted & Science misrepresented: Reply?

Oct. 29, 2009- Look at this tripe:

http://www.coloradoan.com/article/200910...+with+the+facts
"Darwin's ideas conflict with the facts"

The local paper printed this "soapbox" on their opinion page. Should they print anything that comes across their desk, or focus on well-considered opinions? The timing of this printed soapbox turns it into an advertisement; they should have delayed the printing until after the event, to keep this as a strictly "opinion" piece, IMHO. I did call them to suggest they might be obligated to now cover this event as a news story--but I know that is reaching far with thin justification.

But....
Check out this piece from the newspaper! Should this have been printed? This poorly disguised tea-bagged logic seems more like cleverly diguised hate speech to me. Am I reading too much into this, or is it simply an opinion piece? Probably it's somewhere in between, but please look at the logic and "facts" in this peice of work.

In addition to the horrible logic--conflating the origin of life with the origin of species--there are all sorts of factual error and misrepresentations. I need help in writing a response to this piece that seems to be nothing more than an inflammatory advertisement for the speaker mentioned.

I'm not an expert on Darwin, but I'm sure some corrections need to be made regarding this soapbox author's characterization of Darwin as seeing "his theory as being a comforting replacement for a belief in God because he didn't like the idea of hell...."
The soapbox also conflates Darwin's legacy with Naturalism--which may have a thread of validity--but again I think I could use some help from philosophy majors. I'd like to address the poorly written sentence that links Darwin with Stalin and Mao, through Naturalism, so any help with a reply will be welcome.

"Scientists have imposed atheistic presuppositions on the explanation of origins--a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment." This is the sentence where I had to stop reading and go have a little fit. I'm sure I can address the science part of that ridiculous sentence, but any constitutional scholars out there are welcome to help with that part of this ridiculous comment.

That comment was followed by "The teaching of evolution as fact in science classrooms is also wrong because observational data do not support the theory." Again, any experts on the "observational data" are welcome to help me compose a response.
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In the end, this "soapbox" turned out to be nothing more than a poorly disguised add for a Dr. Rob Carter, who will be speaking at our local university tomorrow, talking about his "latest findings in the human genome and how the story of creation, the catastrophe of the flood and the dispersal of the people all line up consistently with the data of human genetics and fit much better than the evolutionary scenario." Yikes! All this in just 6006 years? Well we'll see how that timeline goes....

Anyone who knows about this Dr. Carter--and can offer some revealing perspectives on his work--is also welcome to share, and help me compose a reply to this guy--or a reply of some sort.

Rather than respond directly to this soapbox author, or Dr. Carter's ideas, I'm thinking of chastising the newspaper themselves for their lack of editorial discretion in facilitating this freely biased advertisement--rather than covering the advertised speaker as some sort of news/event story or announcement--but I'm still debating about that....

Please let me know what you think about any of this, and if possible, help with the information needed to expose this perversion of logic and wisdom for the tripe that it is.

What Mr. Scott Elder "knows" about evolution and science that is actually true about evolution and science could barely fill one side of a postcard. I would expect a real newspaper to have a simple idiot filter to ferret out stupidity like this. Maybe they're desperate.

samwik

Did you know it has been found that the Mayan peoples wrote of the year that they believe to be the begining of days.

and that year is about 4000 B.C. !!!

The documentary I watched was about the mayan language and the many people that worked very hard to decipher the language.

The mayans believe that caves are the entrance to the UNDERWORLD , would people living in caves for millions of years due to the environment outside , that were suddenly removed from those caves because of flooding begin to remember the moving out of caves as the begining of days?

there may be more to the common beliefs around the world that dates the beginings of days or the birth of man , or the begining of time that corresponds to the 4000 B.C. timeframe
than we realize.

I think its very interesting that so many cultures from around the globe use the same timeframe.

have you ever wondered what the lowest level of the ocean might have been?
and have we explored caves located at or near that elevation.

We bicker more than we investigate and point our fingers at people that dont believe the same exact way that we do , claiming that they are idiots or crazy people because they have an idea that is new , or one that is not mainstream science.

I suppose what Im trying to say here is that we dont really know what happened but the emphasis is on how we think it happened.

and not on trying to find out.

Bible stories are all plagerised from older Sumerian legends.

That's because that is when writing was invented Paul, it's very simple.

I found the name of the documentary those of you who have netflicks can watch it on your computer.
or you might find it in your local video store.

Breaking the Maya Code

I find it amazing that writting suddenly appeared all over the globe at apx the same time , even though people from central america , egypt , etc ... were not interacting --- traveling to each others countrys.

theres more to it than simplicity ed.

here is a link that shows that there were apx 25 cultures that have FLOOD legends similar to Noahs Flood.

the sumarian account only dates back to 1700 BCE

thats before AD in case you didnt know or apx 3700 years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_%28mythology%29#Sumerian

Platos account of the Ogygian flood is said to have covered the whole world and was so devastating that Attica remained without kings until the reign of Cecrops

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_%28mythology%29#Greek

the Mediterainian has been dry three times over the ages which corresponds to the three greek accounts of the Floods.

another interesting point is the mayan account that paralells the biblical accounts of the flood and later on the tower of babel



Huracan / huricane?

the first humans angered God by not worshiping him.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_%28mythology%29#Maya

all of these accounts could not be coincidental
especially when considering the distances between the cultures.

it points me to think that people went underground because of the ice age and that people did interact with each other around the globe before that time.

otherwise how could so many different cultures have similar legends.

I think I saw a version of this documentary or another similar one on history channel or pbs or natgeo. Was very interesting. I don't recall them saying anything about the Mayan myths referring to a world origin of 4000 BC. Even if their "history" includes that date, their civilization developed around 2000 BC, so there's not evidence that their language or their civilization started at 2000 BC. If you watched the documentary, you would realize that their language is strikingly different from any other known written language AND no other mesoamerican culture had any written language. Why would any culture LOSE written language? It's reasonable to assume that the Mayans developed their language independently of any other group - that they or their predecessors discovered or invented it on their own.

Humans go back much further than 4000 BC, but we do not go back millions of years, either. Our species probably came about maybe a couple 10s of thousands of years ago. (That is, "cro magnon" was probably us.) Our cousins, the neanderthals, go back hundreds of thousands of years.

I read something interesting the other day. It might have been in "Your Inner Fish" by Neil Shubin which I've almost finished. (Highly recommend it based on the first 8 chapters!) The last glacial period ended about 10,0000 years ago.

The earliest known human structure comes about at almost 9,500 BC. That is a place called Gobekli Teppe which I first read about here on SAG. Let me repeat this: the glacial period ends at 10,000 BC. The first evidence of a structure built by a community of humans is about 500 years later. So shortly after the ice age, human society emerged.

The literal story of a global flood is just myth. It's interesting, but it's myth. It may have "some" inspiration from reality. But it's still just myth. There wasn't any Noah's ark.

Just for the heck of it, here's one of my favorite YT videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWjtRFNSl2s

Gosh FF-- Silly me! I didn't know that the strapless fur bikini pre-dated the Sphinx!

Darwin vs Mao, Stalin, Hitler:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCNftnJZX1Y

Observational data supporting evolution:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1fGkFuHIu0

The idea that Darwin developed OOS because he didn't like the idea of Hell is outright stupid. It's a bogus claim unsupported by any facts - and refuted by Darwin's own words.
He developed his theory because it made sense of the data he observed.


The left recurrent laryngeal Nerve:
http://www.youtube.com/evobiologist#p/u/1/slA5I3tcJR4

Modern genetics absolutely does not support creationism or the idea of design. If we were "designed," we were designed in such a way as to make it appear as though we had evolved.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUxLR9hdorI

Info on Dr. Robert Carter. His bio suggests he has a real degree in science from a real university.
http://creation.com/dr-robert-carter
If he's a YEC, you can be sure of one thing: he's an idiot.

Thank you very much TFF; I have my work cut out for me now....

I did get to the speech on Friday afternoon. Saturday evening I posted a few comments about the talk on the article's blog.
~ "It was a very interesting lecture, and a good example of how you can prove just about anything with statistics."
More later... maybe.
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...on a tangentially related note (speaking of religious nuts and science wonks):

E. O. Wilson, renowned evolutionary biologist and the father of sociobiology, spoke at the dedication of a "biophilia center" named in his honor. The Florida Education Channel has a video of this speech...
http://www.fec.tv/ProgramDetails.aspx?pID=3567
...that I just caught most of.
Dr. Wilson is always such a joy to listen to--and always brings a few tears to my eyes--as he brings up images of life's granduer and breadth... and detail, as well as images of several very different futures for humanity... and the creation in general.

I think it was on Charlie Rose (PBS-TV) that I first heard Dr. Wilson speak at length. He had just come out with his book, The Creation. I suppose it was that show--and that book (and my own long education that allowed me to so fully appreciate his message)--that set me on this path of trying to rescue humanity's future.

His basic message--or last best hope--is to combine the powerful knowledge of science with the powerful passion of spirituality (often organized as religion) in a desperate attempt to get us through this looming bottleneck of civilization's current century.

Successfully emerging from that bottleneck would lead us into a relative paradise for all, but that is threading a fairly narrow window. An only slightly larger window sees us--and the rest of this corner of creation--limping along for centuries more. Outside of that window are the more unpleasant possibilities and consequences of any bottleneck.

Please check out the new E. O. Wilson Biophilia Center, and see what you can see of the creation's future:

http://www.eowilsoncenter.org

emerged from the caves they were living in?

I wonder if Gobekli Teppe would have been under ice durring the ice age they emerged from?

the earths total water content is 67% ice and glaciers today.

in a warm climate !!

in a ice age type climate that percentage would be much greater.

perhapos as high as 80% , with the remaining water locked up in the ground mostly , and in frozen rivers and lakes.

with very little vapor or atmospheric water.

I suspect that the only inhabitable parts of the surface of the earth would have been the equatorial areas of the globe where temperatures would have been higher.

I also suspect that sea levels were also much lower than the 180 meters that is commonly refered to , and I would think that the peoples of the earth before the last ice age would have migrated with the lowering seas due to the availability of fish.

and eventually as temperatures decreased the peoples of the earth would seek a warmer climate such as the constant warmth that the caves would provide for their existance.

any cities that they would have built would now be covered up by thousands of feet of silt over the millions of years that they were underground.

any cities that were built before the glaciers covered then up would have been carried away into the oceans as the glaciers flowed to the seas.

wiping the slate clean.

the only places that we can find our history past the ice ages is under water.

the caves that people used to live in before the end of the last ice age are probably still mostly intact if they were not subjected to flowing water.

when the methane began to explode from the oceans due to lowered pressure from lowering sea levels there was a almost instant climatic responce that warmed the earth very rapidly , this warming would have flooded the caves from meltwater and torrential rains that would have drowned those living in the caves.

I imagine that back then the natural selection would involve people that were selected to live closer to the entrances of the caves because they would be the ones that would go out in the cold every day and gather what ever food that was available and those who were the leaders of those people lived further inside the caves where they ruled from.

and as natural selection goes the ones living closer to the caves entrances were the ones that got out , LOL.

there are many things to think about , and many ways it could have unfolded , but to decide that something happened a certain way because of the evidence we currently have found is sort of like calling an inch a mile.

"emerged from the caves they were living in?"

I meant "emerged" in the more general sense of coming about.


"the only places that we can find our history past the ice ages is under water."

It might be true, but I'm not aware of any evidence of this.

the Maltese caves might be a great place to start looking.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic



http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/UFOs/tunnels.html

The Maltese Cave









If the caves mentioned above are real and not just legend and they continue further from the Island of Malta to Italy or even if they are deep enough and large enough to support a large population , these caves might be an execelent place to find evidence that could date modern man beyond any known findings.

the 30,000 skeletons found in the cave shows evidence of a large population or a large grave site perhaps.

that might lead to places even deeper where people would have lived out their lives through / durring the last ice age.

http://www.ufos-aliens.co.uk/cosmicunder.html

I'm not sure what you're suggesting. It seems likely that humans often lived in caves or other sheltered areas before they learned how to make shelters themselves. Are you suggesting that they lived entirely underground? Grew food there? Never came up? What exactly?

There are thousands of spelunkers the world over and thousands of geologists, paleontologists and anthropologists. If anyone were interested in making a name for themselves and seriously thought these ideas had merit, then someone would put together an expedition.

Note: I'm not going to a conspiracy site or UFO site to get information about anything.

I'll have to answer later , I just spent an hour on a reply that just dissapeared because I reached for my glass of tea and accidentally hit the function keys at the top of the keyboard.

but the ufo and conspiracy sites are not the type of sites that anyone should refer to to find factual information , its just that there arent any scientific sites that have any information on this cave system.

anyway , Im tired , I worked all day on the solar collector and it works well now that Im using copper pipes.

There are some good replies (online comments to the piece) at the original link.
The actual speech relied on a statistical "analysis" to "prove" evolution untenable, but as is pointed out in the online comments, the speaker only addressed single-point mutations - not the whole array of different architectural mechanisms for mutation.
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Paul,

I googled:
Levantian caves "Biblical Archaeology"
...and found:

http://www.um.u-tokyo.ac.jp/publish_db/Bulletin/no29/no29004.html
from...
http://www.um.u-tokyo.ac.jp/publish_db/Bulletin/no29/no29000.html
from...

"Paleolithic Site of the Douara Cave and Paleogeography of Palmyra Basin in Syria. Part IV"
at:
http://archnet.asu.edu/regions/neareast/topics.php

...or of course there's:
http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2009/06/06/Biblical-Archaeology-in-2009-Still-Going-Strong.aspx
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...but isn't this cool!
http://archnet.asu.edu/regions/neareast/topics.php

~