Evolution

[Ronin]

Where are the fossil records of the animals that we see today? If all living things evolved to something different then how they started, where are their fossils? In museums today there are billions of dinasour bones that we have collected, yet there is not one transitional fossil. For example if we all evovled what did a lion look like before it became what it is today? There should be examples of all the animals that are alive today. And there should be several examples for every animal. Darwin himself admitted if we can't find transitional fossils,for they should be everywhere, then evolution is wrong!
So where are the fossils?

[palmera]

jcrawford wrote

goat wrote:

Marx was not a scientist.. and his 'social theories' are just philosphy.

Why were his theories put into practice by millions of social scientists, political scientists, economic scientists and military scientists all over the world to the detriment and destruction of millions of other people then?

(A) Your rebuttal in no way means that Marx was a scientist. (B) What evidence are you basing such bold claims on?

Sounds like you at least graduated from high school. Can you point to one species which has ever been OBSERVED to have evolved from another species or give us a demonstration of variation and natural selection at work in some species alive today?

Your arrogance here is rather ironic considering your ignorance of the numerous experiments done in which viruses, bacteria and flies have been observed to evolve.

Of course, since the scientific method is self-correcting and all of the damage done during the 20th Century as a result of 19th Century scientific or philosophical humanism is just swept under the rug of history with no modern scientist or enlightened humanist taking any responsiblity for the social catastrophe which 19th Centuray humanism wreaked on the world of the 20th Century.

What are you talking about? Are you linking proponents of evolution and/or humanism to catastrophes which were directly the result of their beliefs in either? Support for this claim? Also, don't you see the hypocrisy of this last statement?

[Jacurutu]

One of the most compelling examples of evidence for evolution appears in bacterial resistance to penicillin. When it was released, penicillin was one of the most effective treatments at handling bacterial infections, particularly during wartime when battlefield wounds would become infected and oftentimes kill whomever had contracted them. Penicillin was like a miracle. However, penicillin-resistance bacteria soon developed. This is not to say that the bacteria already in existence simply "evolved" themselves because that's not how the process works. There existed a minority of bacteria containing a gene that conveys penicillin resistance. As bacteria without the penicillin resistance died out, a niche within nature and those bacteria with the penicillin resistant genes survived and eventually filled those niches. Penicillin itself is derived from nature (do not think that some bacteria were randomly imbued with this resistance for no reason). Over time, penicillin became ineffective against numerous strains of bacteria.

You must think that examing people's mental states is an example of good science, and since psychologists and psychiatrists claim mental health and illness to be their scientific specialty, the mind must exist in some way for it to be examined and diagnosed as being mentally ill as opposed to the brain being injured or diseased in some way.

You are extremely ignorant of modern psychology. First of all Freud is in fact considered mostly obsolete at this point by most in the field of psychology, although some of his techniques and theories still exist today and have been empirically measured and reported. The new DSM-V, slated to be released within a few years, tends to view disorders more along a continuum of illness. Disorders result largely as the result of a combination of organic and cognitive causes -- to argue that there is no science behind understanding these processes is simply idiotic. Anyway, this is something of a digression from the debate at hand, so lets reel it back into a discussion about evolution.

[Furrowed Brow]

(A) Your rebuttal in no way means that Marx was a scientist. (B) What evidence are you basing such bold claims on?

Karl Marx was a politcal writer and thinker. It would probably be true to say Marx saw himself as a political and economic scientist. He saw himself the equal of Darwin. Where Darwin had discovered the principles of nature, he saw himself as discovering the principles of economics and society. He wrote to Darwin asking him to endorse Das Capital. But Darwin declined.

Karl Popper had Marxism in his sights when he introduced the falsification principle. Popper was desperate to identify the demarcation between science and doctrines like Marxism, Freud and Astrology. The problem with these doctrines and particulary Marxism is that whatever phenomena/evidence it is offered to interpret it has an interpretation to fit the evidence. Always. The is no point in principle upon which a marxist can point to and say that will falsify my doctrine.

The Falsification principle stands as the standard criteria for separating science from non science. It says that if some set of circumstance were to occur this theory would be falsified. That is why evolutionists fall over themselves to offer falsification criteria for evolution. It is also why Marx was not really a scientist.

[jcrawford]

jcrawford makes the faith based claim that fossils are the result of an instantaneous burial due to a global flood.

We are trying to figure out whether it is possible to truly know and say with any sense of firm conviction and belief that the fossils evolved from each other or were all buried as the result of a cataclysmic deluvial and tectonic catastrophe which once engulfed the entire earth and killed every living creature on land, since millions upon millions of fossils have been found in what appear to be mass burials and fossil graveyards.

Earlier, jcrawford claims we should not make faith-based presuppositions.

Once we have theoretically decided and established what all the "valid" data should consist of and be limited to, and have confirmed that the principles which we are basing our hypotheses on concerning the data which support them are neither faith-based presuppostitions or unjustified scientific hypotheses

Perhaps jcrawford would like to explain this contradiction.

Any contradiction you observe is created by your own claim that "fossils are the result of an instantaneous burial due to a global flood," is a faith based claim, when in reality it is the the claim of many scientists who study where and how the fossils are buried.

An interesting aspect of scientific claims from a multi-faceted cognitive POV, is that one needs have faith in one's cognitive abilities in order to believe in them in the first place.

[jcrawford]

Why were his theories put into practice by millions of social scientists, political scientists, economic scientists and military scientists all over the world to the detriment and destruction of millions of other people then?

(A) Your rebuttal in no way means that Marx was a scientist.

Marx and Engles were social scientists.

(B) What evidence are you basing such bold claims on?

The fact that "scientific materialism," is based on their social science.

]Sounds like you at least graduated from high school. Can you point to one species which has ever been OBSERVED to have evolved from another species or give us a demonstration of variation and natural selection at work in some species alive today?

Your arrogance here is rather ironic considering your ignorance of the numerous experiments done in which viruses, bacteria and flies have been observed to evolve.

Bacteria and viruses may mutate forever but never evolve into anything other bacteria and viruses. What flies have you observed evolving?

Of course, since the scientific method is self-correcting and all of the damage done during the 20th Century as a result of 19th Century scientific or philosophical humanism is just swept under the rug of history with no modern scientist or enlightened humanist taking any responsiblity for the social catastrophe which 19th Centuray humanism wreaked on the world of the 20th Century.

What are you talking about? Are you linking proponents of evolution and/or humanism to catastrophes which were directly the result of their beliefs in either? Support for this claim?

The rise of Social Darwinism, eugenics and Scientific Materialism in Western politics led to the First and Second World Wars and all the barbaric atrocities committed in the name of humanistic communism and fascism. Who do you think was responsible for gulags and the holocaust - the rabbis, imams and priests?

Also, don't you see the hypocrisy of this last statement?

No. Point it out to me.

[jcrawford]

One of the most compelling examples of evidence for evolution appears in bacterial resistance to penicillin. When it was released, penicillin was one of the most effective treatments at handling bacterial infections, particularly during wartime when battlefield wounds would become infected and oftentimes kill whomever had contracted them. Penicillin was like a miracle. However, penicillin-resistance bacteria soon developed. This is not to say that the bacteria already in existence simply "evolved" themselves because that's not how the process works. There existed a minority of bacteria containing a gene that conveys penicillin resistance. As bacteria without the penicillin resistance died out, a niche within nature and those bacteria with the penicillin resistant genes survived and eventually filled those niches. Penicillin itself is derived from nature (do not think that some bacteria were randomly imbued with this resistance for no reason). Over time, penicillin became ineffective against numerous strains of bacteria.

As pointed out on a previous post, bacteria never evolve into anything other than bacteria any more than finches ever evolve into anything other than finches or roses evolve into anything other than roses despite the great diversity of color and form within each species due to genetic mutations.

You are extremely ignorant of modern psychology. First of all Freud is in fact considered mostly obsolete at this point by most in the field of psychology, although some of his techniques and theories still exist today and have been empirically measured and reported.

Freud based his psychological constructs regarding the ego, id and superego on Darwin's views of how animal instincts for self-preservation evolved into human consciousness and mental states governing irrational emotions and aggression. (Freud, by R.J.Rushdoony)

The new DSM-V, slated to be released within a few years, tends to view disorders more along a continuum of illness.

Christian scientists and therapists like myself tend to view mental disorders in psychologists and psychiatrists as purely mental and cognitive, unless of course they have been medically diagnosed as suffering from a brain injury, neurological disease or other neurotic malfunction.

Disorders result largely as the result of a combination of organic and cognitive causes --

The cognitive problems of psychologists and psychiatrists which are not the result of neurological malfunctions, chemical imbalances or other brain deficencies can be mentally treated by cognitive therapists and Christian scientists like me.

to argue that there is no science behind understanding these processes is simply idiotic.

The sciences are simply specialized forms of knowledge, and there is more than one method of attaining to scientific knowledge.

Anyway, this is something of a digression from the debate at hand, so lets reel it back into a discussion about evolution.

Psychological investigations and discourse are as much a part of evolutionary theory, faith and belief as are paleoanthropological studies of human and sub-human ape fossils since Darwin was as much of a psychologist as he was a naturalist, humanist and racial theorist.

[jcrawford]

(A) Your rebuttal in no way means that Marx was a scientist. (B) What evidence are you basing such bold claims on?

Karl Marx was a politcal writer and thinker. It would probably be true to say Marx saw himself as a political and economic scientist. He saw himself the equal of Darwin. Where Darwin had discovered the principles of nature, he saw himself as discovering the principles of economics and society. He wrote to Darwin asking him to endorse Das Capital. But Darwin declined.

Darwin had nothing to gain by endorsing a theory which would eventually deprive his aristocratic family of their lawful property rights and inheritence. Darwin may have been a pathetic humanist but he was no fool.

Karl Popper had Marxism in his sights when he introduced the falsification principle. Popper was desperate to identify the demarcation between science and doctrines like Marxism, Freud and Astrology. The problem with these doctrines and particulary Marxism is that whatever phenomena/evidence it is offered to interpret it has an interpretation to fit the evidence. Always. The is no point in principle upon which a marxist can point to and say that will falsify my doctrine.

Of course there is, although faithful Marxists and other humanists would deny it - the Principle of God's Intervention in World Affairs in Order to Establish His Kingdom of Private Property.

The Falsification principle stands as the standard criteria for separating science from non science.

Absolutely! If the plane don't fly then back to the drawing boards. That is what I like about Christian science.

It says that if some set of circumstance were to occur this theory would be falsified.

Evolution is falsified then, since God and His people are not dead or headed for extinction, but people suffering from Darwin's and Dawkin's Delusion soon will be.

That is why evolutionists fall over themselves to offer falsification criteria for evolution.

You must be referring to creation scientists, since evolutionists can offer no evidence which would falsify evolution.

It is also why Marx was not really a scientist.

At least he tried, like Darwin and Freud did.

These days, anyone can be a scientist as long as they have a scientific theory of knowledge which proves what they know to be real and just not a humanist delusion.

Nice post. FB. Very intelligent, informative and on topic.

[micatala]

jcrawford makes the faith based claim that fossils are the result of an instantaneous burial due to a global flood.

We are trying to figure out whether it is possible to truly know and say with any sense of firm conviction and belief that the fossils evolved from each other or were all buried as the result of a cataclysmic deluvial and tectonic catastrophe which once engulfed the entire earth and killed every living creature on land, since millions upon millions of fossils have been found in what appear to be mass burials and fossil graveyards.

Earlier, jcrawford claims we should not make faith-based presuppositions.

Once we have theoretically decided and established what all the "valid" data should consist of and be limited to, and have confirmed that the principles which we are basing our hypotheses on concerning the data which support them are neither faith-based presuppostitions or unjustified scientific hypotheses

Perhaps jcrawford would like to explain this contradiction.

Any contradiction you observe is created by your own claim that "fossils are the result of an instantaneous burial due to a global flood," is a faith based claim, when in reality it is the the claim of many scientists who study where and how the fossils are buried.

This comment seems to be suffering from delusional redefinition of words. There are no scientists who make this claim. There are only creationist confounders who claim to be scientists making this claim. They might like to call themselves scientists, but any resemblance to scientists is only in the confused cognitive cogitations of their own creationist cro-magnon craniums.

Honest creationists who make this claim would never say anything other than the claim is ultimately based on their faith in a particular interpretation of the book of Genesis.

[Wyvern]

Darwin had nothing to gain by endorsing a theory which would eventually deprive his aristocratic family of their lawful property rights and inheritence. Darwin may have been a pathetic humanist but he was no fool.

Darwin was not an aristocrat, his father was a doctor, so yes he was well off but by no means a noble. Come up with a new excuse please.

Of course there is, although faithful Marxists and other humanists would deny it - the Principle of God's Intervention in World Affairs in Order to Establish His Kingdom of Private Property.

Kingdom of private property? Have you ever actually read the bible?

The Falsification principle stands as the standard criteria for separating science from non science.

Absolutely! If the plane don't fly then back to the drawing boards. That is what I like about Christian science.

I don't think you understand, god is not falsifiable and thus christianity or any other religion for that matter is not science.

It says that if some set of circumstance were to occur this theory would be falsified.

Evolution is falsified then, since God and His people are not dead or headed for extinction, but people suffering from Darwin's and Dawkin's Delusion soon will be.

Does this mean you think christians are a separate species from the rest of humanity?

[Jacurutu]

First, let me apologize for the manner of my last message, jcrawford. I was in a really bad mood (hooray for relationship problems), and I was out of line. However, I have to disagree with you when you say that psychological problems are purely cognitive in origin. For example, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder have been linked very strongly to genetic origins. For example, if you have a schizophrenic identical twin, the probability that you yourself will develop schizophrenia is ~50%. This is also the case if both of your parents are schizophrenic. Probabilities decrease as genetic influence decreases (for example, the probability of developing schizophrenia if a fraternal twin or sibling has schizophrenia is approximately 13%). Schizophrenia has also been linked to exposure to the influenza virus during the second term in utero, a phase in which a large amount of basic neurological development takes place. This exposure quadruples the likelihood that the person will develop schizophrenia. All of this is part of a general model that accounts for stress and predisposition to acquire a disorder. While genetics influence many psychological disorders, I would not argue that genetics alone determine whether or not someone will develop a disorder (nor would I argue the same for stress exposure).

As pointed out on a previous post, bacteria never evolve into anything other than bacteria any more than finches ever evolve into anything other than finches or roses evolve into anything other than roses despite the great diversity of color and form within each species due to genetic mutations.

You cannot realistically expect a process that took millions (or billions) of years to occur to happen within your lifetime. Evolution is not instantaneous.

The cognitive problems of psychologists and psychiatrists which are not the result of neurological malfunctions, chemical imbalances or other brain deficencies can be mentally treated by cognitive therapists and Christian scientists like me.

Honestly, that eliminates almost every serious mental disorder. However, empirically tested methods have been proven to be more effective than humanistic or psychoanalytic techniques for numerous issues -- for example, the use of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for the treatment of phobias, anorexia nervosa, suicidal behavior, and numerous other issues

Finally, I would like to point out the evolutionary/social psychologist's explanation of emotion is fairly simple. Emotions work very similarly to heuristics -- they are shortcuts that allow us to react to stimuli without much thought because thought is effortful. However, problems arise if the reactions are in fact not a viable response to the stimuli (the heuristic essentially bungles up the problem). CBT helps someone examine those emotions rationally and practice techniques that avoid running into these aberrant emotions again.