A slightly biased attempt to discredit evolutio...

Originally posted by Swlabr
He does, however, put his views across in the same bundle as his science. His books are perceived as "popular science". However, I cannot really comment further as I have read nothing by him.

Not really. He has written scientific books. For example, I'm pretty sure his book "The Blind Watchmaker" and "The Selfish Gene" are not about there not being a god, but about science. They both are about popularizing science, yes.

His book "The God Delusion" is his book about atheism and religion and this is the one that has caused the controversy and the vilification of him. This isn't and shouldn't be seen as a scientific book from what I've heard, but I'm sure he may refer to science within it.

I also haven't read any of his books, although I think I want to read the selfish gene and the blind watchmaker because I've heard they are very good. I don't have as much of a desire to read the god delusion.

I don't think he packages his views on theism with popular science, at least I haven't seen him do that.

Originally posted by KellyJay
Is this the post you are concern about, the question you'd like me
to answer?

I dislike the notion you want to bring up the Bible in this forum, when
I don't bring it up first, it is as if you want to some how undermind a
point being made about some other topic, by bringing in scripture.

With respect to directly answering your question, what part o ...[text shortened]... e are faith based, the parts that can, well they can,
and that would speak for itself.
Kelly

I dislike the notion you want to bring up the Bible in this forum, when I don't bring it up first

I don't have time to do a complete reply now, but just wanted to make a note about this point.

This post was in response to your post where you said the following:


Actually, the Word of God tells you how it was all put together, you
reject that and come up with your own version; it isn't God that is
doing any fooling here.
Kelly

If you didn't mean the bible when you were referring to "the word of god" then were you talking about the quran? A hindu book?

I'm sorry if I made a mistake in thinking that, but I've never seen you refer to anything other than the bible as the word of god so that's what I thought. If I was wrong, then what were you referring to if you were not talking about the bible?

Originally posted by PsychoPawn
Not really. He has written scientific books. For example, I'm pretty sure his book "The Blind Watchmaker" and "The Selfish Gene" are not about there not being a god, but about science. They both are about popularizing science, yes.

His book "The God Delusion" is his book about atheism and religion and this is the one that has caused the controversy and ...[text shortened]... s his views on theism with popular science, at least I haven't seen him do that.

Surely the title "The Blind Watchmaker" is a nod to the "Watchmaker Analogy", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmaker_analogy.

Originally posted by Swlabr
Surely the title "The Blind Watchmaker" is a nod to the "Watchmaker Analogy", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmaker_analogy.

Yup. It's a reference to the famous Paley claim that if you see a watch you must have a watchmaker.

Originally posted by PsychoPawn
I dislike the notion you want to bring up the Bible in this forum, when I don't bring it up first

I don't have time to do a complete reply now, but just wanted to make a note about this point.

This post was in response to your post where you said the following:

[i]
Actually, the Word of God tells you how it was all put together, you
re ...[text shortened]... f I was wrong, then what were you referring to if you were not talking about the bible?

I again was responding to someone "else" who brought god into the
discussion. I was and now content to stick with data and logic, but
many here cannot have a conversation where simply not agreeing
with them means that God/god/gods have be brought into the
discussion to some how take away from evolution's weaknesses. If you
wish to discuss the subject while staying away from faith issues, feel
free I'm more than willing if you are able to.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
I again was responding to someone "else" who brought god into the
discussion. I was and now content to stick with data and logic, but
many here cannot have a conversation where simply not agreeing
with them means that God/god/gods have be brought into the
discussion to some how take away from evolution's weaknesses. If you
wish to discuss the subject w ...[text shortened]... staying away from faith issues, feel
free I'm more than willing if you are able to.
Kelly

I'm really not exactly sure what point you're trying to make. Ok, you were responding to someone else bringing god into it.

You said that I brought the bible into it first when I think it was not since I'm pretty sure when you say "word of god" you mean the bible. That's all I was saying in that post.

Originally posted by KellyJay
Is this the post you are concern about, the question you'd like me
to answer?

I dislike the notion you want to bring up the Bible in this forum, when
I don't bring it up first, it is as if you want to some how undermind a
point being made about some other topic, by bringing in scripture.

With respect to directly answering your question, what part o ...[text shortened]... e are faith based, the parts that can, well they can,
and that would speak for itself.
Kelly

With respect to directly answering your question, what part of the Bible
do you think needs to be backed up with science

Anything that can be tested by scientific means. I.e. age of the earth, whether the world wide flood of noah happened. A bunch of things.

the parts that can, well they can

The problem isn't the amount that can, it's how many are contradicted by the evidence.

For example, the only way the world wide flood of Noah's could have happened (especially in the time line that young earth creationists put it) is if god somehow supernaturally removed the evidence for it.

Originally posted by PsychoPawn
There's no problem with taking a hypothesis from the bible and seeing if you can prove/disprove it scientifically, although you couldn't do this with every claim in the bible.

For example, you could take the world wide flood and hypothesize that it happened. Then you could make falsifiable predictions based on that and see whether the evidence fits.
...[text shortened]... ligious, it just means you're trying to prove a hypothesis whose source is a religious text.

Do you not see a small problem here? The entire thread was begun in an attempt to bash Creationists views regarding science. This is all fun and games when such views are poorly supported via science. However, provide other ideas such as mine that are not so far fetched based upon what we know about science today and I hear people crying foul!!! In other words, if you want a discussion to be devoid of religion, it might behoove one not to include religion in the opening thread.

As for the world wide flood. I think Archeologists are in agreement that there was an ancient flood of some kind. After all, we have ample evidence from various ancient cultures of that time who all seem to have a "flood story" of some kind. Perhaps they are not in agreement that it was a world wide flood or that a man and his boat and a whole slew of animals were the sole survivors, but that is beside the point. Odds are that something happened along those lines. It is then up to you to decide which story to go with.

Originally posted by whodey
Do you not see a small problem here? The entire thread was begun in an attempt to bash Creationists views regarding science. This is all fun and games when such views are poorly supported via science. However, provide other ideas such as mine that are not so far fetched based upon what we know about science today and I hear people crying foul!!! In other ...[text shortened]... nd his boat and a whole slew of animals were the sole survivors, but that is beside the point.

Well, I didn't include it in the opening thread. I agree that young earth creationists' views on science are crazy and frankly, deserving of pretty harsh criticism. You don't seem to be of that ilk though and you've made that clear in this thread and others.

What I think is funny and worthy of ridicule is the video that was posted having such a dishonest title. I've looked at a lot of videos about evolution (for and against) on youtube and there are a lot that lie like this in their titles. I think a lot of this is primarily to get more hits, but is that a good reason for intellectual dishonesty such as that?

As for the world wide flood. I think Archeologists are in agreement that there was an ancient flood of some kind.

We have much evidence of various floods, yes. As for a world wide flood as described in the bible, we don't have evidence for a flood that occurred over the whole world.

After all, we have ample evidence from various ancient cultures of that time who all seem to have a "flood story" of some kind.

Absolutely. I do believe that the flood story in the bible comes from a very similar story that is found in the sumerian tradition that predates it. That was very likely drawn from an actual flood for which, from what I understand, we have evidence for it. The thing is, we have no evidence that it came close to being world wide in scope.

Perhaps they are not in agreement that it was a world wide flood or that a man and his boat and a whole slew of animals were the sole survivors, but that is beside the point.

I disagree, I think that is the point. No one is arguing that floods haven't happened in the world. The argument against the flood in the bible is not that there couldn't have ever been a flood at all, it's that there couldn't have been a world wide flood as described in the bible.

I'm also willing to bet there was some guy who built a boat to try to avoid getting drowned in it and probably brought food and some livestock on the boat. This doesn't translate to a worldwide flood nor does it translate to two of every kind of animal.

I don't have a problem when people take the story of Noah and the flood as allegory or recognize that it didn't happen as it says in the bible.

The problem is with people who claim that not only did the flood happen as it mentioned in the bible literally, but that science either proves them right or that any science that proves them wrong is "just a theory" or "based on invalid assumptions".

Originally posted by whodey
As for the world wide flood. I think Archeologists are in agreement that there was an ancient flood of some kind.

There is no thing such as a World Wilde Flood younger that 6000 years. There would be massive observations about such an event.

Like - no observations in the Amazonas. No layer in the ice in Greenland. The existance of Kangaroos in Australia. The existance of fresh water fish. So there is massive observational data that the WWF has never occurred.

Forget that old beduine story. Don't even try to scientifically proove WWF if you don't know how to prrov anything scientifically.

Simply - there was no WWF, observations shows that.

Originally posted by FabianFnas
There is no thing such as a World Wilde Flood younger that 6000 years. There would be massive observations about such an event.

Like - no observations in the Amazonas. No layer in the ice in Greenland. The existance of Kangaroos in Australia. The existance of fresh water fish. So there is massive observational data that the WWF has never occurred.

F ...[text shortened]... w how to prrov anything scientifically.

Simply - there was no WWF, observations shows that.

Not totally true. There is a theory that the entire earth was covered in water and that water froze but not recently, but something like 600 million years ago. It is said the end of that world wide ice age is what kickstarted the cambrian explosion of new lifeforms.
But that is not even close to being in human times, even homo habilis.
I imagine even then there was land mass above water or ice though.

Originally posted by PsychoPawn
Yup. It's a reference to the famous Paley claim that if you see a watch you must have a watchmaker.

...Which is considered by some as a philisophical "proof" for God. I it does not specifically touch on religion, it certainly hints at it.

Originally posted by sonhouse
Not totally true. There is a theory that the entire earth was covered in water and that water froze but not recently, but something like 600 million years ago. It is said the end of that world wide ice age is what kickstarted the cambrian explosion of new lifeforms.
But that is not even close to being in human times, even homo habilis.
I imagine even then there was land mass above water or ice though.

We are talking about the time when Noa experienced the World Wide Flood. He didn't lived 600 millions ago. 😵 We're talking of some event that the creationists think happened not more than 6000 years ago.

Are we talking about World Wide Flood, then we have to stay on that topic.

Originally posted by Swlabr
...Which is considered by some as a philisophical "proof" for God. I it does not specifically touch on religion, it certainly hints at it.

(Dawkins book, that is)

Originally posted by PsychoPawn
With respect to directly answering your question, what part of the Bible
do you think needs to be backed up with science

Anything that can be tested by scientific means. I.e. age of the earth, whether the world wide flood of noah happened. A bunch of things.

the parts that can, well they can

The problem isn't the amount that can ...[text shortened]... oung earth creationists put it) is if god somehow supernaturally removed the evidence for it.

A bunch of things, how about lets get specific in our charges and our
proof? It is unacceptable to say evidence shows something is wrong
without, A. stating what is wrong with what specifically B. going into
detail on what pieces of evidence shows it is wrong! If you are just
willing to make non-specific charges with non-specific backing of those
charges we have nothing to debate.

I submit to you no one knows the age of the earth anyone who does
make that claim is delusional. If they make the claim they know they
are only doing so because they trust something, be it a document,
something others have told them, some test they can preform
themselves or the work of others all of which can be wrong. How bad
they are of will be a matter of degrees, but how much can only be
known if all the necessary information available is known.

A world wide flood, you have seen one to know what happens so that
you can understand it all? You want to get more specific again on the
complaints you have instead of just making the claim science does
not back it up?
Kelly