Bread_of_Life

smiles, Yes, essentially it is. It certainly isn't, from creationists that is, scientific evidence. I think people need the security of absolutes - absolutes are simple and cut and dried. Science is iterative - theories are likely only to contain a portion of the truth - a large portion mind you - but they are an approximation to truth nevertheless. That means they do change, because the evidence changes - and people, because they don't understand the refining process that is science, might mischaracterise this as a weakness rather than an essential strength of the method. But that's because they're epistemologically naive, not because science is genuinely poor. There is no scientific evidence against it, currently. That's probably why evidence against it isn't presented. The real problem is though, nor is evidence for it, a lot of the time. It's just kinda taught as fact, which is extremely poor practice in scientific education. Evolution and humanism are different. Evolution is a theory about the origin of species of life, humanism is a moral theory. I doubt you have difficulty distinguishing these though, not genuinely? Evolution is not opposed in any sense to the idea of a creator. Many people believe in both, evidence that creation and evolution are not ideas that are opposed necessarily. The fact that people believe in creationism over evolution can only be because they do not understand or know the evidence, because they deliberately reject that evidence, or because they are so stupid, and this is a small minority of cases, that they literally cannot move from evidence to conclusion - they cannot form valid logical syllogisms. The latter is very rare, in my experience.

Anne, Natural deforestation in Africa, probably. I don't suppose we'll ever know for sure. it's probably not just one factor either.

To anyone on the boards who doesn't know me By the way, just as a clarification to anyone on the boards who doesn't know me, and hasn't read the topic to which horizoneast refers - I have never, would never, and cannot even if I tried defend or morally justify the Stalinist regime, or the Maoist regime. To all those who know me, this should be obvious. Nor indeed did I boast that I could name good atheistic regimes - rather I argued that there had been so few regimes not based on religion, and that since all had been communistic, that it was unfair to link atheism with atrocity - rather than blame that on totalitarianism and communism. This reasonable point, as with all reason, seems to escape Horizoneast. I have also never claimed that evolution was my area of expertise, not at least in academic terms. I read physics at university, and this if anything is my area of expertise - although I rarely use the word "expert" in the same sentence as myself! I have had since that time an amateur interest in evolutionary biology and paleontology - but it has never extended to professional qualification. I also have a strong interest in geochronology, and have read a lot on the subject, and have become somewhat of an amateur expert, although again, I boast no professional qualification in this field, nor any practical work outside a few experiments on radioactivity in the physics lab. Also, just in case you are new here, I have never directly been asked if evolution is falsifiable - although I have been asked related questions by artsylady especially recently. I have always given the unequivocal answer - all scientific theories are falsifiable - evolution is a scientific theory. Evolution is falsifiable. I have never "hidden" from answering straight questions when they've been asked of me, nor have I been slow is saying "I just don't know" when I don't know the answer - especially on the topic of abiogenesis, of which I have only a passing interest, and I am not a very good source of information. To the rest Now that I have answered Horizon's question, which apparantly I have been dodging for months (although I doubt Horizon can produce any evidence of this, since none exists), horizon should be free to answer my questions, which I can document that he has dodged for over 15 posts now. However, i theorise that Horizon's pride will prevent him, perhaps for the rest of his stay on this board, from ever admitting that he was wrong, and from admitting that he pretended to know about something he didn't. All good theories ought to make predictions - especially scientific ones - and I predict that, after 15 posts in which the same questions were asked of him, Horizon will again fail to answer my questions - despite my straight answer to his. I also predict that Horizon will now attempt to start a discussion on the falsifiability of evolution - a subject I am happy to discuss (and that I am discussing with members such as artsylady) - but one unrelated to his ignominious failures on the recently shut thread concerning the age of the earth - where he left questions repeatedly unanswered. Unfortunately, I will not be able to engage Horizon on this topic, or any other which he/she brings up to try to change the subject - not because I am dodging the question, but because now I, and you, understand the futility of attempting to engage Horizoneast on any subject at all. Numerous times now I have reached out a hand of consiliation - I have given Horizoneast, even in my previous post, a chance to show some humility and redeem himself in front of us all. His failure to do so is sad, both for himself personally and for the discourse herein. However, it is a fact of life. Because of it, I'm afraid that I'm going to have to stop responding to Horizon until he answers my questions. The door is always open to him - although I suspect he will have difficulty walking through it, and that his response to this thread will be equally or more venomous than the last, sadly attempting to ape this post and accuse me of what I accuse him, and worse.

Smiles, Awful, but the problem is more complex than that. It's the teachers, the ammount of Christian homeschooling (eurghghg), the extent of Christian propaganda against evolution in the evangelical community, a general mistrust of science growing in society, and to a great extent kids just don't want to believe in it, because it contradicts their religious indoctrination. So you've got a variety of issues in play here, but yes, evolution is taught very very poorly in schools.

Gerioke Ahhhh, so now there's evidence! I thought it was all faith? Anne 2 simple to answer questions! They are! Natural selection is going on all the time - either to change or to conserve a species as it is. However, evolution is an extremely slow process - acting over many thousands of generations - I wouldn't expect to see massive changes in the chimp population within your lifetime (that's if they ever survive that long as a species). Because they didn't evolve into humans! Rather, an ape-like ancestor evolved into both humans and chimps. Chimps are our cousins, not our grandfathers.

Ian, I'll try to find them, there was an article about it in New Scientist as I recall. Essentially there's an orbitting satellite taking a very very precise measure of gravitational mass over several months, it's up there now. I'll try to find it. Nik

Hey horizon, It's been 15 posts now, I am counting them. I think you may be living in some sort of alternative reality when it comes to my: a) defending Joseph Stalin's regime (which I did not) and b) me promising to return to that thread (which I do not recall doing) and c) the relevance of that thread to the fact that you claimed that zircons were more likely to display closed system behaviour because they initially excluded lead. I think now that every single person on this board knows full well that you are unable to defend the claims that you make, yet you continue to make them. Why? If you don't know what Uranium Concordia/Discordia methods - noone is holding a gun up to your head and forcing you to post - yet despite ruining your credibility, you continue to do so. Not only do you post, but you pretend such authority and certainty in what you are saying. Why? I really really don't get it. I mean, I'm likely the only guy on this board who actually understands Concordia/Discordia dating - doesn't that tell you something - it's no disgrace just not to know about it - it's really very specialist, the only reason I know is a lot of in-depth research. Noone expects you to know, so why pretend? Why pretend to know about annealing temperature, and close system behaviour, and fission track annealing, and chemical exclusion of lead, and Argon-Argon plateaus? Noone expects you to know about these thing. I don't either. I won't think any less of you. Noone will. The only reason people here think less and less of you is that you continue this facade, and continued over the space of 30 pages to insist that you knew what you were talking about, whilst dodging simple questions of clarification, now 15 times. It honestly just takes a tiny ammount of humility to say "I don't know, teach me", or "I was wrong" or "I wasn't as expert as I thought I was". I reaching out to you, once again, as I did on that thread - you don't have to post as you do, you can come back into the fold and be respected as a poster horizon, all you need to do is put your pride aside for just a second, and admit that you don't know everything about everything. There's an excellent story from the bible you might want to study. Mark 7:25-29. It's all about the reward of humility. Take care in your travels, Nik

My pleasure

Smiles, See when you push an object, heavier objects are harder to push? This concept is called "inertial mass" - it's the mass of an object when you push it. This mass is governed by the equation: Force = Mass x Acceleration Or more commonly used: Acceleration = Force / Mass How fast an object accelerates is governed by how hard you push it (force) and how much inertial mass it has. But there's a different kind of mass - gravitational mass. When you fall toward earth, the more gravitational mass you have, the more force will push you. In fact, to be precise, for every kilogram of gravitational mass, gravity on earth with exert 9.8 newtons of force on you. This is governed by the equation: Force = Mass x gravitational constant (there is a more thorough equation for gravitational attraction, but it'd take too long to explain) This is gravitational mass. Most people just assume gravitational and inertial mass is exactly the same - equivalent - but there is no theoretical reason why the two should be linked, no reason at all. But, every measurement we have shows them to be exactly the same, up to an accuracy of 1 part in 10^14. However, recently, some physicists have been questioning whether the two really are the same - they've been saying that the difference might be smaller than 1 in 10^14 - but could well be there. The reason they think this is that physical laws allow for a concept called "anti-gravity" - a repellant form of gravity. The electromagnetic force can attract and repel, so why not gravity? So they predict that, if we measure M(g) and M(i) really accurately, to within 1 part in 10^18, we should be able to see anti-gravity if such a thing exists., otherwise we will confirm once again that inertial and gravitational mass are equivalent, the same thing.

We are currently testing whether gravitational mass is equivalent to inertial mass. It seems that they are, but some people predict they may not be absolutely the same if there exists some ammount of "anti-gravity". We are currently testing this to 1 part in 10^18 just to make sure.

Ian, Careful. Idicy isn't a nice word. People on here are rarely idiots, but they're often deeply ignorant of the claims that science makes. They have trusted people who were either ignorant themselves, or have deliberately duped them into believing that science makes claims it doesn't really make. In their ignorance of the actual claims of the theory of evolution, they then believe by some awful "common sense" reasoning that an implied prediction of evolution is that Monkeys should not exist. No such prediction is made by evolution, but people that assert this rarely know the first thing about the theory, and have never had it taught to them by an authority on the subject. Some are wilfully ignorant of course, but many we should pity and educate, not condemn. Our presence on this board should be to give a hand up, not a put down, to those who have not had the chance to be enlightened by the great subjects and theories of science - an opportunity for people to learn what they might otherwise never have known!

Hey horizon, It's been 14 posts now, but do you feel like admitting that the exclusion of lead from zircons makes open system behaviour more not less likely? And are you now willing to admit that the annealing temperature has nothing to do with open system behaviour of zircons towards lead? Also, are you now willing to explain what a discordia plot is, and why it doesn't assume closed system behaviour? All the best, Nik

Ian, This is a fairly typical response. (b) mischaracterises my argument as an appeal to authority - whereas actually in reality I appeal to evidence that is available for each of us to view, and tests that we are able to repeat - and have never asked anyone to believe in evolution, or an old earth, or anything else, only or in any way because of my say-so. Clearly some people would rather argue against strawmen, which are by definition easier to argue against, than deal with the actual evidence for an old earth. This sort of mentality is impossible to assail, the beliefs impossible to erode - not because they are right, but because logical argumentation against it will be twisted to a state in which it is unrecognisable, and evidence will be disregarded in favour of imaginary appeals to authority.

Indeed. The point is though, in any healthy scientific field and theory there is always disagreement. This does not signify a weakness of the theory, but rather the strength of the field, and the rigour with which scientists are testing the predictions of the theory in question. Scientists would have been forgiven for ceasing to test the theory of gravity given the predictions it has made and have come true - and indeed given the levels of technology that Quantum Physics has generated, you'd have thought the arguments and tests would have stopped. It is the mark of enquiry and of a healthy and vibrant scientific community that real and serious academic debate continues even in well established theories, including evolution.

Myth 1 - Christianity is true. There's a head start lololololol Seriously, I think you might get punished, cos the powers that be seem not to tolerate flippancy so much

Leonard, The work is yours mate, you post up "big" claims on the boards about the genetic similarity of different creatures - you should really be doing the referencing of that - after all - how do you know without a peer reviewed paper to back it up? Sorry, but you really can't rely on other people to back up your "facts" for you. Nik

Well Lenny, if his work's been peer reviewed, then it should be easy to go to Pubmed or numerous other sites that list academic papers and search for them so you can reference them for me. It should also be fairly easy to go down your local library with some of these references to look up papers, to make sure you're getting your facts right...

Phil, I'm afraid that putting it in context of an argument would: a) make it more complicated and less clear cut, which would bend against the creationist mindset and b) actually make it possible argue against, which would bend the creationist mindset.

Ian, what did I tell you? By the way, where is Nebula, I'd like to hear her thoughts on my original response.

Not that I know of - it is generally applicable - it just so happens that there is no way yet to quantise gravity. More than that - there will not be a way, quantum theory seems to be incompatible with GR in such a way that the two theories are mutually exclusive.

It may be funny, but it's by no means true. No scientifist has ever stated, in any peer reviewed paper that I have ever read, nor even implied, that man may have walked the earth hundreds of millions of years ago. The earliest bipedal tracks we have are of australopithecus afarensis (lucy!) - they are only a few million years old. It is becoming typical of your posts Artsylady that you are presenting rumour as fact - rather than presenting actual evidence, research and papers to support your assertions. I say again, could it be that you'll believe any old website you read, so long as it supports what you want to believe - that evolutionary science is flawed?

By the way, FYI, you might be interested in this phylogeny: http://www.whozoo.org/fish/fishtaxa.htm Tetrapods is bascially land animals - us! Catfish are up there with Sharks and Rays, in other words, they diverged from other fish a long time ago - that's why there is a reference in your article to this category having a history as long as 500 million years. Also, btw. you seem keen on predictions at the moment. Notice the implicit predictions on this phylogeny. According to this, all land animals are more closely related to lungfish than, say Paddlefish. That means that a genetic comparison between, say, a whale and a paddlefish should yield the same result in terms of genetic difference as the same comparison between a human and a paddlefish. It also means that a genetic comparison between a human and a paddlefish will yield the same result as between a human and a Sturgeon, but these two will yield more difference than between a human and a lungfish, and less difference than between a human and a shark. The same goes for elephants in comparison with these creatures. I could go on all night. The predictions are endless.

artsylady, I read the story about the ratfish (Hydrolagus colliei). What's the problem, exactly? What do you want me to comment on? Here's a bigger picture of this type of fish: http://www.elasmodiver.com/spotted_ratfish.htm What's the issue?

IanC, I disagree - we don't know that general relativity is wrong - we know that Quantum Physics and general relativity are mutually exclusive - they cannot both be true. Yet, in their magesteria (the macro and micro scale respectively) they have both made extraordinarily consistent predictions. Either could be wrong. One must be, both may well be. I actually have a certain fondness for Einstein's idea of hidden variables as an explanation for quantum theory - I am frankly unhappy philosophically with the idea of randomness - being essentially acausal - as a scientific explanation of anything. But in time, through experiment and evidence, we'll find out who was right. Nik

Quite. Without the context of a peer reviewed paper, a quote from a website is worth, well, just about nothing.