For Evolutionists and a Few Open Minded Creationists

nPeace said:

I had looked at this fish before.
Is this a "living fossil"?
What does it tell us about evolution, and Tiktaalik for example?

Click to expand...

"Living fossil" is a term that creationists do not understand. It simply means a clade that has shown limited change over a long period of time, or even a group that still exists long after it was thought to have gone extinct. The coelacanth is one such group. It is not a species of fish, it is not a genus of fish. It is an entire order of fish. Modern coelacanth are quite different from old ones.

And Tiktaalik is a clear transitional form. Why did you even bring that up?

As to the "walking fish" it only demonstrates how traits can evolve again and again. There is no reason that because one group of fish left the water that another group could not do so separately.

Subduction Zone said:

"Living fossil" is a term that creationists do not understand. It simply means a clade that has shown limited change over a long period of time, or even a group that still exists long after it was thought to have gone extinct. The coelacanth is one such group. It is not a species of fish, it is not a genus of fish. It is an entire order of fish. Modern coelacanth are quite different from old ones.

And Tiktaalik is a clear transitional form. Why did you even bring that up?

As to the "walking fish" it only demonstrates how traits can evolve again and again. There is no reason that because one group of fish left the water that another group could not do so separately.

Click to expand...

Why bring it up? Creos generally have a very
limited vocab to use here. "Living fossil"
"Missing link" "uniformitarianism" are some of
them.

Amusingly, most of them seem to be relics
of the Victorian age, though the
get the occasional Edwardian
one, like, "Piltdown."

nPeace said:

I had looked at this fish before.
Is this a "living fossil"?
What does it tell us about evolution, and Tiktaalik for example?

Click to expand...

As far as I can see, it is not an example of a living fossil. It does, however, show what a transitional stage would look like between fins and legs.

Polymath257 said:

As far as I can see, it is not an example of a living fossil. It does, however, show what a transitional stage would look like between fins and legs.

Click to expand...

Certainly shows it is not the huge "leap" it is said to be in creoland.

Skwim said:

A quick search only brought up four. From a National Geographic web site the four (with photos) are the:

1) Pink handfish
2) Spotted handfish
3) Red handfish
4) Ziebell's handfish
source

.
​

Click to expand...

Thanks.

Misunderstood said:

OK, I watched the whole thing and found out I am an "Ignorant fool". So if I am so ignorant, what would you like to enlighten me with?

Click to expand...

Why would anyone think the bible is infallible?

Do creationists really think the earth is flat, and fixed, and the center of the universe? Because that's what the bible says ─ >here, check it out<.

(And since that's what everyone thought back when and where it was written, why would anyone expect it to say anything else?)

Polymath257 said:

As far as I can see, it is not an example of a living fossil. It does, however, show what a transitional stage would look like between fins and legs.

Click to expand...

So handfish are living transitionals?

Skwim said:

This is only posted for debate between evolutionist and those creationists who won't take offense at a few irrelevant, but insulting names and remarks. It's a video of a compilation of creationists memes. If you're a creationist and can do this then I invite you to watch the video in the SPOILER and give us your thoughts.


If you don't think you can do this please do not open the SPOILER and watch the video.

YOU HAVE BEEN ADVISED​

Spoiler: Creationist Meme Compilation

.​

Click to expand...

Creationist are very difficult to reason with. They dont have an open mind to listen to anything reasonable because it offends the gospel of Jesus and the holy blood shed, etc... Scientists were burnt at the stake in the 16th century in Galileos time for trying to reason observed truth, in some ways the same mentality exist still today in conservative evangelical churches in the U.S. south.

nPeace said:

So handfish are living transitionals?

Click to expand...

Every group of organisms that successfully reproduce are "transitionals". Handfish are an example of how a specific trait can evolve again and again.

Dell said:

Creationist are very difficult to reason with. They dont have an open mind to listen to anything reasonable because it offends the gospel of Jesus and the holy blood shed, etc... Scientists were burnt at the stake in the 16th century in Galileos time for trying to reason observed truth, in some ways the same mentality exist still today in conservative evangelical churches in the U.S. south.

Click to expand...

I find the opposite to be true.
I find there are many Creationist that are reasonable, and willing to reason, while on the other hand, those who close their minds to the possibility of supernatural beings, are really demonstrating close-mindedness, and at the same time willing to accept, any illogical, unscientific theory that has not been observed, but accept it nonetheless because they think it excuses them from any belief they prefer not to accept - Not because it is unacceptable, but because they find it undesirable.

nPeace said:

I find the opposite to be true.
I find there are many Creationist that are reasonable, and willing to reason, while on the other hand, those who close their minds to the possibility of supernatural beings, are really demonstrating close-mindedness, and at the same time willing to accept, any illogical, unscientific theory that has not been observed, but accept it nonetheless because they think it excuses them from any belief they prefer not to accept - Not because it is unacceptable, but because they find it undesirable.

Click to expand...

The most likely answer is that you see this because you are also highly biased and ignorant of what science is and how it works. Scientists are not close mined, creationists clearly are. I can demonstrate that with even you. Are you game?

And please, don't make false accusations against others. That is a very un-Christian thing to do. Most people that accept reality, at least when it comes to evolution, are also Christians. Why do you bad mouth your fellow believers?

nPeace said:

I find the opposite to be true.
I find there are many Creationist that are reasonable, and willing to reason, while on the other hand, those who close their minds to the possibility of supernatural beings, are really demonstrating close-mindedness, and at the same time willing to accept, any illogical, unscientific theory that has not been observed, but accept it nonetheless because they think it excuses them from any belief they prefer not to accept - Not because it is unacceptable, but because they find it undesirable.

Click to expand...

What does this have to do with evolutionists? The precepts of evolution don't preclude anyone from accepting possibility of supernatural beings. I could just as easily say:

General venting may be good for the soul but it rings awfully hollow doesn't it.

.

Skwim said:

What does this have to do with evolutionists? The precepts of evolution don't preclude anyone from accepting possibility of supernatural beings. I could just as easily say:

I find there are many evolutionists that are reasonable, and willing to reason, while on the other hand, those who close their minds to the possibility of reason, are really demonstrating close-mindedness, and at the same time willing to accept, any illogical, religious belief that has no grounding in reality, but accept it nonetheless because they think it excuses them from any belief they prefer not to accept - Not because it is unacceptable, but because they find it undesirable.
​

General venting may be good for the soul but it rings awfully hollow doesn't it.

.

Click to expand...

???????????
I was responding to Dell.
I'm not sure what you are saying.

blü 2 said:

Why would anyone think the bible is infallible?

Do creationists really think the earth is flat, and fixed, and the center of the universe? Because that's what the bible says ─ >here, check it out<.

(And since that's what everyone thought back when and where it was written, why would anyone expect it to say anything else?)

Click to expand...

Did they think like Job 26:7? No way.

Most of those in your list that supposedly ‘discredits’ the Bible, are written in poetic style.

And most don’t even match your description, “the Earth is flat.” It doesn’t say that! Earth, many times in the Bible, refers to people, like in Genesis 11:1

Hockeycowboy said:

Did they think like Job 26:7? No way.

Click to expand...

"He stretches out the north over the void" ─ what does that mean?

Hockeycowboy said:

Most of those in your list that supposedly ‘discredits’ the Bible, are written in poetic style.

Click to expand...

But they say things that people believed in those days. Why would the authors of the bible think different? And how does it 'discredit' them that they knew the science of their day?

Hockeycowboy said:

And most don’t even match your description, “the Earth is flat.” It doesn’t say that! Earth, many times in the Bible, refers to people, like in Genesis 11:1

Click to expand...

Read the examples again. For instance:

Joshua 10:12+: If the earth is flat, and the center of the universe, you say, "Sun, stand still." If the earth is round, you say, "Earth, cease your rotation". Which did Joshua choose?
Job 38:13: How do you shake the wicked out of the earth by holding its skirts, if the earth is not flat?
Ecclesiastes 1:3 The sun goes down and hastens to the place where it arises. No it doesn't. But if you conceive of the earth as flat, with an underneath, it makes sense.
Psalm 102:25 Of old thou didst lay the foundation of the earth. Why would a round earth need a foundation? A flat earth, like a table, would need one, though.
Daniel 4:10 [...] behold, a tree in the midst of the earth; and its height was great. 11 The tree grew [...] and its top reached to heaven, and it was visible to the end of the whole earth. No matter where you are in the world, you can see the top of this tree. That's because the earth is flat.
Matthew 4:8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. Same again ─ there's a mountain somewhere in or near modern Israel from which you can see China, at least on a clear day. Because the earth is flat.

And you keep not answering my question: since these views reflect the cosmology of their time and place, why would you expect them to say anything different to flat earth, geocentry, hard dome of the sky, stars equidistant from the earth that would fall to earth if detached, and so on, which is what they say in fact?

nPeace said:

So handfish are living transitionals?

Click to expand...

ALL species are transitional. But handfish show what certain transitions (from fins to legs) might have looked like.

nPeace said:

I find the opposite to be true.
I find there are many Creationist that are reasonable, and willing to reason, while on the other hand, those who close their minds to the possibility of supernatural beings, are really demonstrating close-mindedness, and at the same time willing to accept, any illogical, unscientific theory that has not been observed, but accept it nonetheless because they think it excuses them from any belief they prefer not to accept - Not because it is unacceptable, but because they find it undesirable.

Click to expand...

Well it is a bit more nuanced than that.

You are right that there are some people who are philosophical materialists or physicalists. Such people have a worldview in which they have decided that only the observable material world is real, and that anything outside that is fiction or fantasy. A good number of scientists, though far from all of them, hold this worldview.

Science itself says nothing about philosophical worldviews. It is concerned only with finding explanations of nature in terms of nature, by observing patterns and relationships and building predictive models of aspects of the physical world. But, because its job is to explain nature in terms of nature, there is no place in science for the supernatural. The very many scientists who are also religious believers have no trouble with that.

So it is important to distinguish between people arguing to keep supernatural ideas out of science, which is something we should all agree is important, and people who reject supernatural ideas entirely, due to their personal philosophical conviction.

exchemist said:

Well it is a bit more nuanced than that.

You are right that there are some people who are philosophical materialists or physicalists. Such people have a worldview in which they have decided that only the observable material world is real, and that anything outside that is fiction or fantasy. A good number of scientists, though far from all of them, hold this worldview.

Science itself says nothing about philosophical worldviews. It is concerned only with finding explanations of nature in terms of nature, by observing patterns and relationships and building predictive models of aspects of the physical world. But, because its job is to explain nature in terms of nature, there is no place in science for the supernatural. The very many scientists who are also religious believers have no trouble with that.

So it is important to distinguish between people arguing to keep supernatural ideas out of science, which is something we should all agree is important, and people who reject supernatural ideas entirely, due to their personal philosophical conviction.

Click to expand...

I'm going to disagree here. The scientific method could work perfectly well applied to a supernatural. All that is required is testable hypotheses with observations that are publicly accessible. If the supernatural can be approached by such hypotheses, science would be able to deal with it.

The problem is that, so far, there has been no testable hypothesis involving a supernatural. At least, none that has passed the first line of testing.

Polymath257 said:

I'm going to disagree here. The scientific method could work perfectly well applied to a supernatural. All that is required is testable hypotheses with observations that are publicly accessible. If the supernatural can be approached by such hypotheses, science would be able to deal with it.

The problem is that, so far, there has been no testable hypothesis involving a supernatural. At least, none that has passed the first line of testing.

Click to expand...

But that's the point. There cannot, almost by definition, be any testable hypothesis to demonstrate a supernatural effect. The reason, as I outlined in another thread, is that supernatural has to mean not-subject-to-the-laws-of-nature, hence intrinsically impossible to predict. Since any scientific hypothesis has to make testable predictions, any attempt to do it for something supernatural would be doomed.

If it is argued that there may be reproducible phenomena that might be supernatural, for instance something very strange, such as that the "blood" of St Januarius is real blood and that it really does liquefy from time to time, what would be science's reaction? To fall down and worship the one true God? Or to say, "Hmm, that's interesting, I wonder what could cause that?" and go on to research a natural explanation? I think we know the answer.

So I would contend that, if there were to be any reproducible observation that some might take to be supernatural, science would on principle regard it as a new natural phenomenon, to be investigated by the methods of natural science. And it would thus cease to be regarded as supernatural. The scope of "natural" would just expand to encompass the new phenomenon.

exchemist said:

But that's the point. There cannot, almost by definition, be any testable hypothesis to demonstrate a supernatural effect. The reason, as I outlined in another thread, is that supernatural has to mean not-subject-to-the-laws-of-nature, hence intrinsically impossible to predict. Since any scientific hypothesis has to make testable predictions, any attempt to do it for something supernatural would be doomed.

If it is argued that there may be reproducible phenomena that might be supernatural, for instance something very strange, such as that the "blood" of St Januarius is real blood and that it really does liquefy from time to time, what would be science's reaction? To fall down and worship the one true God? Or to say, "Hmm, that's interesting, I wonder what could cause that?" and go on to research a natural explanation? I think we know the answer.

So I would contend that, if there were to be any reproducible observation that some might take to be supernatural, science would on principle regard it as a new natural phenomenon, to be investigated by the methods of natural science. And it would thus cease to be regarded as supernatural. The scope of "natural" would just expand to encompass the new phenomenon.

Click to expand...

And I think I agree with this assessment. But, for example, there is nothing preventing science from investigating ghosts, determining if they are a real phenomenon, and figuring out the conditions in which they appear and the patterns they show.

Even in the 'blood' example above, the first line would be, of course, to find a natural explanation. Just like the first line would be to explain the orbit of Mercury in terms of Newtonian dynamics. But, if such fails, and if patterns of behavior are observed and verified, that is enough to start doing science. The hypothesis of a supernatural agency, isn't in and of itself, a deal-breaker for science *if* it has observable patterns of behavior that can be correlated and compared to other observations.

Now, if supernatural means 'not subject to observable patterns of behavior', then you would be correct. At that point science cannot do anything. But 'having observable and testable patterns of behavior' is enough to do science even if those patterns are not 'natural' (whatever that means).