Scientist finds evidence of "hobbit."

[CGM]

Well clearly the story came first. Evolutionary belief has been around since the days of the ancient Greeks and Anaximander. Prior to Darwin Lamark was already postulating on it and Charles own grandfather Erasmus was part of some cult think tank called the Lunar Society that tried to create an evolutionary explantion for our origins.

...

If you believe in evolution that's fine for you, I have no interest in trying to 'convert' or dissuade you. I will just maintain however that as someone who has studied the debates on both sides for the last 15 years or so that evolutionary belief is the biggest myth of modern times with not a single piece of real evidence to support it.

Well then, that would mean that the story came first on "both sides" then.

I'm sure I said a few posts back that there were holes in the theory. But it's the best we have.

Obviously we disagree about what constitutes evidence, but so be it.

I also am familiar with both sides. I'm not sure we can limit this to two sides, but I wouldn't say the evidence of "your side" is any more convincing. But then again we don't agree about what is evidence, so that's a moot point too.

Life goes on.

[Andre]

Very sane and interesting debate between you two gentlemen.

[Kev]

Well clearly the story came first. Evolutionary belief has been around since the days of the ancient Greeks and Anaximander. Prior to Darwin Lamark was already postulating on it and Charles own grandfather Erasmus was part of some cult think tank called the Lunar Society that tried to create an evolutionary explantion for our origins.

...

If you believe in evolution that's fine for you, I have no interest in trying to 'convert' or dissuade you. I will just maintain however that as someone who has studied the debates on both sides for the last 15 years or so that evolutionary belief is the biggest myth of modern times with not a single piece of real evidence to support it.

Well then, that would mean that the story came first on "both sides" then.

I'm sure I said a few posts back that there were holes in the theory. But it's the best we have.

Obviously we disagree about what constitutes evidence, but so be it.

I also am familiar with both sides. I'm not sure we can limit this to two sides, but I wouldn't say the evidence of "your side" is any more convincing. But then again we don't agree about what is evidence, so that's a moot point too.

Life goes on.

I don't have a side though really. There are many theological problems that I have and as I said I'm not a church goer.

I reject macro evolution purely for scientific reasons, it's simply not science.

The problem is most laypeople are confused as to what is the difference between macro evolution and natural selection.

Everything Darwin found on the Galapagos Isles and his assertations about finches, lizards and tortoises adapting to fit their enviroment I agree with completely.

Organisms adapt over time to fit their enviroment, and successful traits are passed on, it's absolutely proven and beyond doubt, we witness it happening all the time.

However that is NOT macro evolution. All of the information required to make those changes was already present within the DNA of that species. Nothing new was added.

It's like a computer game or piece of software. The user can tinker around with all kinds of settings to customise it the way he wants, change the fonts, colour layout, add or remove certain features, change the resolution etc.

But unless he adds new material, i.e new lines of programming code he won't be able to add anything new or change the program beyond what the already preexisting code will allow.

DNA is exactly the same. A dog can be bred to be all different size and shapes, to exhibit different kinds of behaviour etc but it can never ever ever grow wings because there simply isn't any coding in its DNA for wings, it will always, no matter how much it changes, remain a dog.

The fossil record literally screams this at us. When a creature appears in the fossil record it appears complete and fully formed, and identical to its descendents today with no trace of any evolutionary lineage whatsoever.

The best examples they have are whales or snakes with tiny bones they try and claim are vestigial legs or a bird that has teeth and is hence reptillian.

These just highlight how much they are clutching at straws.

Imagine if dinosaurs really did evolve over millions of years into birds. So we have 200 million years worth of dinosaur fossils, and 150 million years worth of bird fossils.

But for all the millions of years in between we have nothing. An entire animal group of dinobirds that must have lived on this planet for millions of years all over the world is completely missing.

And now they are going to any lengths possible to try and find this missing dinobird even to the extent of falling for the biggest hoax of modern times when the National Geographic unveiled to us Archaeoraptor in the nineties, the missing link proving beyond doubt that dinosaurs are birds. Then it turns out it was actually two seperate fossils glued together by a Chinese man selling hoax fossils for profit. In fact its a huge industry now, especially in China and Liaoning where every villager is now skilled at finding fossils and 'enhancing' them to sell to the Paelontologists.

We are told that there was once a bear like creature that went back to the sea and became the whales. Again sadly this entire millions of years period has left no evidence and we can't find the bear or any of his descendants.

The whole thing is a big bust. The more we learn about molecular biology the more we know things can't just spontaneously develop new information in their DNA.

We scoff at the idea that the ancients used to believe maggots and flies spontaneously appeared from decaying flesh and carcasses but we still believe in the spontaneous generation of life becuase scientists have somehow convinced us it did happen, but just once and billions of years ago.

None of this is science, and the evidence you keep talking about (for macro evolution) simply doesn't exist.

This has nothing to do with a religious stance, it's a purely scientific position.

Show me the actual scientific evidence that proves evolution and we can discuss it piece by piece.

[CGM]

OK, interesting post, but too much to tackle at once.

Again, and again, we seem to keep butting heads on issues of what is theory, proof, evidence, etc. I have never said Evolution can be proven, any more than you can call it disproven. Which you can't. And you haven't proven or even come up with a better alternative, as far as I can see.

Two points:
I don't agree with the way you have rejected scientific dating out of hand, it's a little more than pure fantasy I would say.
Your apparent claims that DNA cannot change (evolve, mutate) is certainly debatable.


Shall we try and resolve these issues, or move on to whether or not birds evolved from dinosaurs?

Birds from Dinosaurs.
What exactly will satisfy you? Do you want absolute proof? Or just evidence. What about the following.

Dinosaurs are extinct,
Birds are not extinct,
Dinosaurs layed eggs.
Many dinosaurs had three toes and walked upright,
As far as I know, there are no lizards that have three toes and walk upright, but there certainly are birds with three toes that walk upright.
There is evidence of dinosaurs with feathers. (Intermediary evidence)

I would say that constitutes evidence, but maybe not proof.

[Kev]

OK, interesting post, but too much to tackle at once.

Again, and again, we seem to keep butting heads on issues of what is theory, proof, evidence, etc. I have never said Evolution can be proven, any more than you can call it disproven. Which you can't. And you haven't proven or even come up with a better alternative, as far as I can see.

Two points:
I don't agree with the way you have rejected scientific dating out of hand, it's a little more than pure fantasy I would say.
Your apparent claims that DNA cannot change (evolve, mutate) is certainly debatable.


Shall we try and resolve these issues, or move on to whether or not birds evolved from dinosaurs?

Birds from Dinosaurs.
What exactly will satisfy you? Do you want absolute proof? Or just evidence. What about the following.

Dinosaurs are extinct,
Birds are not extinct,
Dinosaurs layed eggs.
Many dinosaurs had three toes and walked upright,
As far as I know, there are no lizards that have three toes and walk upright, but there certainly are birds with three toes that walk upright.
There is evidence of dinosaurs with feathers. (Intermediary evidence)

I would say that constitutes evidence, but maybe not proof.

Sorry but how is that anything more than conjecture, where is the science in that?

How about this.

Flies lay eggs
Flies actually fly
There are types of fly that are extinct
Are they related to birds?

There are so many different kinds of creature on this planet that it is inevitable that many share similarities.

A platypus also lays eggs like a bird.
It also has a beak

Is that a link between bird and mammal?


Plus a common build pattern doesn't indicate shared ancestery any more than it indicates a common designer.

If you believe that God created all life on earth then if things share a similar design its because the same God designed them.

In fact if you believe that one God created all life on earth you would expect them to share similar structures would you not?

We cannot prove or disprove either theory by looking at the similarities of organisms as both creation and evolution would predict such similarites.

[CGM]

OK, interesting post, but too much to tackle at once.

Again, and again, we seem to keep butting heads on issues of what is theory, proof, evidence, etc. I have never said Evolution can be proven, any more than you can call it disproven. Which you can't. And you haven't proven or even come up with a better alternative, as far as I can see.

Two points:
I don't agree with the way you have rejected scientific dating out of hand, it's a little more than pure fantasy I would say.
Your apparent claims that DNA cannot change (evolve, mutate) is certainly debatable.


Shall we try and resolve these issues, or move on to whether or not birds evolved from dinosaurs?

Birds from Dinosaurs.
What exactly will satisfy you? Do you want absolute proof? Or just evidence. What about the following.

Dinosaurs are extinct,
Birds are not extinct,
Dinosaurs layed eggs.
Many dinosaurs had three toes and walked upright,
As far as I know, there are no lizards that have three toes and walk upright, but there certainly are birds with three toes that walk upright.
There is evidence of dinosaurs with feathers. (Intermediary evidence)

I would say that constitutes evidence, but maybe not proof.

Sorry but how is that anything more than conjecture, where is the science in that?

How about this.

Flies lay eggs
Flies actually fly
There are types of fly that are extinct
Are they related to birds?

There are so many different kinds of creature on this planet that it is inevitable that many share similarities.

A platypus also lays eggs like a bird.
It also has a beak

Is that a link between bird and mammal?


Plus a common build pattern doesn't indicate shared ancestery any more than it indicates a common designer.

If you believe that God created all life on earth then if things share a similar design its because the same God designed them.

In fact if you believe that one God created all life on earth you would expect them to share similar structures would you not?

We cannot prove or disprove either theory by looking at the similarities of organisms as both creation and evolution would predict such similarites.

I read this post and quite frankly I think we are wasting our time. No mate, the theory of evolution is a little more than just conjecture. But I sure as hell ain't goona spends hours and hours assembling a scientific thesis for this thread. For starters, I ain't a scientist, and neither are you.

For the umpteeth time, I can't prove evolution, and you can't disprove it, nor can you prove anything else. In fact some of the evidence you have presented is just plain false. Your flood evidence for example I have already shot holes in that.

Your rejection of scientific dating is wrong from a logical point of view. A couple of counterexamples does not reject the validity of a technique, or series of techniques, any more then 100% perfection is required to validate those techniques.

You reject something because it does not fit your notion of science, but neither is the concept of an omnipoptent, all knowing, all seeing creator science either.

[Kev]

OK, interesting post, but too much to tackle at once.

Again, and again, we seem to keep butting heads on issues of what is theory, proof, evidence, etc. I have never said Evolution can be proven, any more than you can call it disproven. Which you can't. And you haven't proven or even come up with a better alternative, as far as I can see.

Two points:
I don't agree with the way you have rejected scientific dating out of hand, it's a little more than pure fantasy I would say.
Your apparent claims that DNA cannot change (evolve, mutate) is certainly debatable.


Shall we try and resolve these issues, or move on to whether or not birds evolved from dinosaurs?

Birds from Dinosaurs.
What exactly will satisfy you? Do you want absolute proof? Or just evidence. What about the following.

Dinosaurs are extinct,
Birds are not extinct,
Dinosaurs layed eggs.
Many dinosaurs had three toes and walked upright,
As far as I know, there are no lizards that have three toes and walk upright, but there certainly are birds with three toes that walk upright.
There is evidence of dinosaurs with feathers. (Intermediary evidence)

I would say that constitutes evidence, but maybe not proof.

Sorry but how is that anything more than conjecture, where is the science in that?

How about this.

Flies lay eggs
Flies actually fly
There are types of fly that are extinct
Are they related to birds?

There are so many different kinds of creature on this planet that it is inevitable that many share similarities.

A platypus also lays eggs like a bird.
It also has a beak

Is that a link between bird and mammal?


Plus a common build pattern doesn't indicate shared ancestery any more than it indicates a common designer.

If you believe that God created all life on earth then if things share a similar design its because the same God designed them.

In fact if you believe that one God created all life on earth you would expect them to share similar structures would you not?

We cannot prove or disprove either theory by looking at the similarities of organisms as both creation and evolution would predict such similarites.

I read this post and quite frankly I think we are wasting our time. No mate, the theory of evolution is a little more than just conjecture. But I sure as hell ain't goona spends hours and hours assembling a scientific thesis for this thread. For starters, I ain't a scientist, and neither are you.

For the umpteeth time, I can't prove evolution, and you can't disprove it, nor can you prove anything else. In fact some of the evidence you have presented is just plain false. Your flood evidence for example I have already shot holes in that.

Your rejection of scientific dating is wrong from a logical point of view. A couple of counterexamples does not reject the validity of a technique, or series of techniques, any more then 100% perfection is required to validate those techniques.

You reject something because it does not fit your notion of science, but neither is the concept of an omnipoptent, all knowing, all seeing creator science either.

I'm not attempting to prove the existance of God, just saying that there is no actual evidence for macro evolution.

I've not attempted to convinve you that God exists I'm merely pointing out that there is no evidence, or even body of evidence that proves that evolution has happened.

The dating methods I reject because I reject the geologic column.

You believe in the principle of uniformitarionism, i.e that all of the geologic features we see in the world today are a result of the same gradual processes that we see at work in the present day.

So gradually over many millions of years rock layers and strata have been built up to represent a nice neat timeline for us to explore.


I however view the world through the prinicple of catastrophism, i.e that the geologic features we see today are borne out through catastrophic events over short periods of time.

Look at the Grand Canyon. Science tells us that was created over hundreds of millions of years by the gradual erosion of the Colarado river.

I don't believe that. I believe it was likely carved out in a few weeks or months due to some catastrophic force of nature.

When Mount St Helens erupted 11 years ago it created a canyon, tiny compared to the Grand Canyon for sure, but it still displays similar features to the Grand Canyon and it created it in a single afternoon.

And Mount St Helens is just one tiny volcano of little significane geologically.

A whole series of eruptions or some kind of massive seismic upheaval could have led to the Grand Canyon being formed over a period of a few months rather than the hundreds of millions of years it is supposed to represent.

That's why I reject the timelines and radiometric dating, because I simply believe an alternative explanation for how the geological rock strata's were laid down.

And then you have polystrate fossils, inconvenient things like for example a fossil tree that has somehow managed to grow through several layers of the geologic column.

Of course the scientists will attempt to explain them away but the problems still remain and are visible for all to see.

Anyway there is no need to get annoyed. You are perfectly entitled to your belief just as I'm entitled to mine.

[CGM]

I'm not attempting to prove the existance of God, just saying that there is no actual evidence for macro evolution.

I will agree to disagree on this point.

I've not attempted to convinve you that God exists I'm merely pointing out that there is no evidence, or even body of evidence that proves that evolution has happened.

If you are now saying that evolution has not been proven, then I agree. I always have, obviously.

The dating methods I reject because I reject the geologic column.

Kind of begs the question, I would say. Agree to disagree.

You believe in the principle of uniformitarionism, i.e that all of the geologic features we see in the world today are a result of the same gradual processes that we see at work in the present day.

I don't accept that this claim of yours necessarily follows from anything I have argued in this thread. Nor do I accept that it is a prerequisite for anything I have stated that I believe

So gradually over many millions of years rock layers and strata have been built up to represent a nice neat timeline for us to explore.

The timeline is not nice and neat. But it does represent a timeline, for the most part. Obviously we are far apart on what that timeline is.

I however view the world through the prinicple of catastrophism, i.e that the geologic features we see today are borne out through catastrophic events over short periods of time.

I think it is likely that yes, some features are borne out through catastrophism, and some are gradual over long periods of time.

Look at the Grand Canyon. Science tells us that was created over hundreds of millions of years by the gradual erosion of the Colarado river.

I don't believe that. I believe it was likely carved out in a few weeks or months due to some catastrophic force of nature.

When Mount St Helens erupted 11 years ago it created a canyon, tiny compared to the Grand Canyon for sure, but it still displays similar features to the Grand Canyon and it created it in a single afternoon.

And Mount St Helens is just one tiny volcano of little significane geologically.

A whole series of eruptions or some kind of massive seismic upheaval could have led to the Grand Canyon being formed over a period of a few months rather than the hundreds of millions of years it is supposed to represent.

Based on what I know, definitely possible, I suppose. No big disagreement here.

That's why I reject the timelines and radiometric dating, because I simply believe an alternative explanation for how the geological rock strata's were laid down.

Hmm, previously you had quoted some poor results as a reason for rejecting scientific dating, but I'll accept that the above is your reason instead. I can accept the possibility alternatives in some cases, but not all. And I don't accept that scientific dating came about as a means to justify a theory. Therefore, agree to disagree on part of your post.

And then you have polystrate fossils, inconvenient things like for example a fossil tree that has somehow managed to grow through several layers of the geologic column.

Of course the scientists will attempt to explain them away but the problems still remain and are visible for all to see.

That's interesting. But I can think of a few ways this might happen. No issue with this point.

Anyway there is no need to get annoyed. You are perfectly entitled to your belief just as I'm entitled to mine.

Not annoyed, maybe a little frustrated. Because not only do we disagree on the "science" we also disagree on what is logic. And I find myself having to repeat my arguments because some of my points don't seem to be acknowledged.

I can prepared to leave it at this. It depends on how you respond.

p.s. don't quote this entire post if you can avoid it, it'll get too messy