T-stone is straight out of central casting. Type cast to play the part of the apostate.
99 times out of 100, apostates fit the FBI's psychological profile of your all-American, apostate next door.
Boy comes out of fundy background. Boy turns back on fundy upbringing.
Like a social climber who is oh-so ashamed of his working class family, boy repudiates anything at even 6 degrees of separation from fundamentalism.
Boy grovels to ingratiate himself with the smart set. Goes through ritual hazing rituals to renounce his former affiliations. Never misses a chance to badmouth the backwoodsy, trailer-trashy science he was brung up on.
Boy disses them snake handlin', po' white trashy youngin-earth creationists who wuz his kinfolk and neighbors to impress his newfound frat brothers.
If boy is college dropout who could make the cut, his inferiority complex motivates him redouble his efforts to disown them dirt-po’ fundies he done growed up with.
Boy works hard to drop his lowbred, fundy drawl and learns to talk proper and respectable—in the crisp, Oxbridge accents of Richard Dawkins.
The story has many variants, but the basic plot remains the same. The names of the actors change from sequel to the next, but the character is always the same.
What is T-Stone's position anyway? Typical theistic evolutionist? Evolution is not even a "scientific" theory. When you examine it scientifically it's laughable. Zero evidence of one species changing into another. How did we get from cell division to copulation? It sure takes a lot of faith to believe in evolution. Scant and spurious evidence, impossible to empirically observe, no missing links, cannot account for bird flight, the human eye, sexuality, irreducible complexity, etc etc...
ReplyDeletehAnonymous does not know of any evidence for evolution. But even if there were it is very small and mostly false.
ReplyDeleteConsider human gill slits in the human embryo. Does not this indicate that the embryo manifests the fish stage in which humans were developed from? Or that the fact that life comes only from life show that all of life is related by ansestry?
I don't believe that this is evidence for evolution, but I am just pointing out that there are evidences that are claimed for evolution.
There is no evidence for evolution that we cannot dismiss.
ReplyDeleteDyed-in-the-wool thinks I dismised evidence for evolution when I mentioned some.
ReplyDeleteMy point was not to examine the evidences for evolution, but to show that there are evidences that people claim for evolution.
I find Steve's post/story very uplifting, actually.
ReplyDeleteThere is hope for everyone brought up in fundyland!
Where did I say that vytautas "dismised evidence for evolution"? All I said was that there is no evidence for evolution that we cannot dismiss. Is vytautas saying we cannot do this?
ReplyDeleteDyed-in-the-wool: Where did I say that vytautas "dismised evidence for evolution"?
ReplyDeleteVytautas: I gave some evidence for evolution, and then I said that I did not believe that those were evidences for evolution. Then you commented that we should not dismiss evidence for evolution, hence I thought you said I was dismissing evidence for evolution.
Dyed-in-the-wool: All I said was that there is no evidence for evolution that we cannot dismiss. Is vytautas saying we cannot do this?
Vytautas: I sure pages and pages of evidence for evolution can be produced. Must I read all of them?
Go here for the proof of macro evolution: http://www.talkorigins.org/pdf/comdesc.pdf
ReplyDelete"Go here for the proof of macro evolution: http://www.talkorigins.org/pdf/comdesc.pdf"
ReplyDeleteHere's a rebuttal from a creationist website:
http://www.trueorigin.org/theobald1a.asp
The problem with the argumentation at TalkOrigins.org is that they just regurgitate all the old arguments for NDET and show no sign of having ever read any Creationist/IDist refutations of those arguments. [In fact, this problem is widespread throughout the Darwinist camp.]
For instance, the guys over at TalkOrigins.org will still use the argument that crystals and snowflakes are proof that nature can form complexity on its own (and therefore, the origin of DNA and the creation of new informational complexity is not a problem).
The problem with this (as creationists/IDists have been pointing out for several decades now) is that crystals and snowflakes form into a.) *repeating patterns* because b.) it is the *nature of their molecules* to do so. DNA and proteins don't have either of those characteristics: a.) if DNA or proteins formed into repeating patterns, there would only be a small handful of cellular machines and functions that could be formed (in fact, probably none) and b.) it is not the nature of G, A, T, or C molecules or proteins to form into any specific pattern (i.e. there are an infinite number of possible combinations of infinite length for DNA).
All the arguments for UCD are the same:
Homology ----> circular reasoning
Unity of Life ----> begging the question
Vestigial Structures ----> argument from ignorance (and is constantly being refuted one organ/structure at a time)
Sub-optimal structures ----> argument from ignorance (and is constantly being refuted one organ/structure at a time)
Parasites ----> this is a dysteleological argument which would only work on the creationism of 19th century, Victorian-era, Anglican theology. As such, it is a straw-man against Biblical creationism which could easily account for evil because of original sin and providence in foresight of original sin.
Pseudogenes, transposons, ERV's ----> another argument from ignorance that is slowly disappearing with new discoveries
functional redundancy ----> a hallmark of true design (back-up systems)
Nested hierarchy ----> NDET and UCD could predict the opposite of NH. As such, whenever a theory can explain result A and ~A, whichever is the result cannot be used as proof for the theory. Also, special creationism can easily account for nested hierarchy as well. Engineers tend to design certain things in certain forms that are easily classifiable. So, why not infer design?
The list goes on.
vytautas: "Then you commented that we should not dismiss evidence for evolution,"
ReplyDeleteIt appears that vytautas has confused me with someone else. I nowhere stated that "we should not dismiss evidence for evolution."
vytautas: "hence I thought you said I was dismissing evidence for evolution."
This is a clue to vytautas' confusion. I nowhere accused him of "dismissing evidence for evolution." Why does vytautas think I was saying anything about him personally?
Vytautas: "I sure pages and pages of evidence for evolution can be produced. Must I read all of them?"
That's up to vytautas, whether or not he wants to do thorough research on the topic. But still this does not answer my question. Is vytautas agreeing, or disagreeing, that there is no evidence for evolution that we cannot dismiss?
Actually, there is no evidence for evolution to dismiss. Just because we have "gill slits" during one stage of our prenatal development doesn't *prove* anything. Does evolution teach that we were fish before we were men? What real evidence can you site to support evolution?
ReplyDeletethe first and true anonymous: "Actually, there is no evidence for evolution to dismiss."
ReplyDeleteBy golly, I think he's got it! You're on your way to apologetic greatness!
The difficulty with many of these folks in reality is that they have never actually left fundamentalism, at least not in their minds. The Manichean worldview remains, the view that all who are not on their side are wicked, as well as foolish
ReplyDeleteAs for the gill slits in human embryos, as far as I am aware, there are not actually gills. And if life comes only from life, surely this is no more proof that all of life is necessarily related than the fact that a number of the books on my desk were printed at the same printer as Harry Potter means that they are gateways to witchcraft (Clays of Bungay print almost everything).
In fact, since life cannot come from non-life, is this not actually an argument in favour of creation of all life by an almighty God, himself possessed of a life that is without beginning and without end?
It always struck me that the atheist argument on this point is a bit lame, being in essence, 'All life comes from life, and life doesn't come from nothing, but at some point it did.' Just how this is a proof for evolution is frankly beyond me.
Vytautas said:
ReplyDelete---
Consider human gill slits in the human embryo. Does not this indicate that the embryo manifests the fish stage in which humans were developed from? Or that the fact that life comes only from life show that all of life is related by ansestry?
---
In a word: no.
These things that look like gill slits are not gill slits. They're never used as gills. Nor are they vestigal. In fact, if you remove these "gill slits" the embryo will not develop correctly. Thus, one would only say that these are "gill slits" in the first place because one already ASSUMES a fish ancestory, not because of their function nor because of their supposed unusefulness.
http://isc.temple.edu/marino/embryology/parch98/parch_text.htm
ReplyDeletethe proper name for "gill slits" is pharyngeal pouches