BS: Alternative to Science??

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 14 Nov 12 - 02:04 PM

"Hey, to some of the others..don't let your bigotry get in the way of collecting scientific data."

I used to collect "scientific data" for a living. As far as I can remember this activity never involved watching plonky, over-dramatised, over-extended videos about dubious old bits of cloth. What sort of lab did you work in, GfS?

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 14 Nov 12 - 04:19 PM

Nimrod: "I used to collect "scientific data" for a living...."

Then you know that what I was saying was true.

Amos said about the same...Amos: "You never know what you'll find if you start looking without prejudice."

So, when you worked in a lab, did you keep testing the same thing over and over again, and not look at any new data???
Sorry, you trying to 'qualify' yourself, by saying 'you worked in a lab', and then turn around and display nothing but 'anti-religious' bias is staggering! I, myself am NOT religious...but if a new piece of evidence/data comes in, I certainly wouldn't rule out checking it out, before I offered a blathering opinion..wouldn't you??..oh never mind, you've already answered that!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 14 Nov 12 - 07:21 PM

For those who may be interested:

What you see aimed at the public in a video, on a TV show, on the Internet, or read in the Enquirer, etc., is not "scientific evidence."

What *is* scientific evidence? Evidence that results from rigorously conducted experiments or observations by people who know what they're doing. This evidence is then written up in a professional manner, with a highly detailed description of the procedures involved, including a mathematical calculation of the likelihood that the results are due to pure chance. A team of researchers, all with advanced degrees in a relevant to their research, is considered to be more reliable than just one. The completed article is then submitted for publication to a professionally edited, refereed scientific journal.

"Professionally edited" means that the editor is also a scientist, and "refereed" (or "peer-reviewed") means that the article is scrutinized for errors and bad procedure by other experts in relevant fields. An article may be returned to the authors with further questions, or it may be rejected for sloppy methods and conclusions that are unwarranted by the evidence.

It is an editor's duty to print cogent criticisms of a published article from other scientists and to allow the original authors to reply. Discussion provides a further protection from false conclusions.

If the findings survive all of that, they're still not established until some other team (or teams) confirms them through better experiments, or looks through a different telescope, or whatever. At that point, the scientific community generally accepts the findings as reliable - unless and until new, equally rigorous evidence appears calling them into question. If that happens, it means more research.

What's more, believable findings are consistent with older, even better established findings. If something new and contradictory appears, countless scientists will be looking at it, many of them in hopes of winning a Nobel Prize for discovering something or extraordinary significance.

If the creators of sensational commercial videos have the convincing evidence they claim to have, they should submit it to one of the hundreds of refereed scientific journals, all of which are eager to publish important and reliable data.

If they haven't submitted their evidence for this kind of review, ask yourself why not. One reason may be that it's easier to persuade the public than it is to persuade the scientific community, because video audiences, TV viewers, readers of tabloids, etc., know very little about how science works.

In fact, it's rather more rigorous than this outline alone might suggest.

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 14 Nov 12 - 08:29 PM

Thank you Lighter. You saved me a lot of wasted time trying to get through to Goofus the idea that no real scientist would rock up with a new theory and say "This is what I believe, and you can find my evidence by ploughing through a four hour video made by somebody else".

Any who tried that one would get damn short shrift.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 14 Nov 12 - 08:47 PM

My pleasure.

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Nov 12 - 09:34 PM

Empirical v. emotional...

Age old conflict...

I have never figured out how people will believe stuff that has been proven to be wrong???

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 14 Nov 12 - 10:19 PM

That's funny..you believe in your political party, don't you??...no matter how many times they've been proven wrong!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Nov 12 - 10:22 PM

GfS,,, your reply to Bobert is an **equivocation**

The words are not used the same way.... maybe you knew that, but it doesn't read like it.

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Nov 12 - 10:30 PM

Where is it that I have ever said that I believe in any political party, GfinS???

I have said that, at least for now, that Dems will hold off the loony right, you included...

That ain't exactly an endorsement of the dems...

They are, at best, a stop gap against the complete destruction of the New Deal and the somewhat civilized society that it insures...

You can side with the folks who would shred Social Security and Medicare... That's your right and prerogative... That ain't me...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 15 Nov 12 - 01:29 AM

Bobsie: "I have said that, at least for now, that Dems will hold off the loony right, you included..."

I'm not on the right..nor the left...neither have enough truth, nor free from corruption for me to identify with either of them.
Simple as that!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 15 Nov 12 - 05:04 AM

There's not much to add to Lighter's excellent summary of the nature of scientific evidence and how it is published - except to note that a scientific paper invariably begins with a summary or 'abstract' which allows the reader to decide whether or not there is anything to be gained by reading the whole publication. In addition scientific papers do not usually take the form of a series of endlessly drawn out 'cliffhangers' - the form taken by the 'Shroud of Turin' video cited by GfS. Of course YOU could have provided an abstract, GfS and then we could have decided whether it was worth our while to sit through the whole melodramatic, grossly over-inflated thing!

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: Musket
Date: 15 Nov 12 - 05:24 AM

So.. demanding evidence and not accepting peoples' word is exhibiting bigotry now?

Well, bugger me, I'm a bigot after all. Thanks, I often wondered.

zzzzzzzz

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: sciencegeek
Date: 15 Nov 12 - 05:41 AM

thank you, Lighter for that fine summary.

I will occasionally watch shows on the History Channel or Discovery on interesting topics... but get really annoyed with the phoney "drama" they insist on adding... as if this is the "entertainment factor" that needs to be added to "dry facts". yuck!

And when they finally get to their conclusion... you can practically hear the drumroll as they "spring" it on you. They drag out 15 minutes of info into an hour's format. And then we wonder why the general public has no clue about what constitutes a scientific investigation. sigh...

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Nov 12 - 07:43 AM

I'm not on the right..nor the left..

Too right you're not. In fact, you appear to be on a completely different planet to everyone else.

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 15 Nov 12 - 09:36 AM

Shimrod, sciencegeek, Don T: thanks. And I'm not even a scientist.

One more point: if scientists were as arrogantly dogmatic as some would claim, why did they bother to investigate the shroud in the first place?

They could have just laughed it off.

The reason they tested it was that spectacular claims had been made accompanied by photographic and historical evidence. They knew that a the provably genuine shroud of Christ with a possibly inexplicable image would be the greatest scientific discovery in history.

They didn't test it to debunk it; they tested it because they wanted to see if it really was a miraculous artifact from the first century.

And the weight of the scientific evidence says that it isn't.

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: Stu
Date: 15 Nov 12 - 10:10 AM

"or am i missing something here?"

Well, yes. The work you refer to was by Schweitzer et al and remains controversial, and although I was cautious about these findings I heard her present on her recent work on these results a few weeks ago and found the argument convincing (in that they're probably not bacterial films). The proteins that have been detected are collagen and are virtually identical to some extant birds; this is not so much of a surprise as the bone studies is from a _T. rex_, a close relative of birds. As far as I'm aware these findings haven't been reproduced by other labs, so some caution is still required.

Thing is, it doesn't matter. If these structures are the remains of blood vessels then we've discovered that some soft tissue can survive for long time periods in certain circumstances. If it turns out the structures aren't part of the original fossil then finding out how they got there will inform our understanding of the process of fossilisation. Science moves our understanding on another step.

So finding proteins in dinosaur bone might be unexpected, but not perhaps as befuddling to science as you might think. In fact, it opens up whole new areas of possible research and understanding. Palaeontology is becoming a multi-disciplinary science and many very sophisticated techniques are being employed to extract information from fossils. We now know the colours of some feathered dinosaurs thanks to new work on synchrotrons and mass spectrometry.

No need for a supernatural explanation for any of this.

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 15 Nov 12 - 11:17 AM

One thing that recommends the findings as true is that bird-like DNA makes sense in the light of what we already know. If human-like DNA had been found, for example, it would have seemed impossible.

Not that it would have required any less investigation.

My point, though, as SJ already knows, is that gut-level appeal and sheer plausibility don't rule out error or make a finding true. More study is needed to make preserved dino DNA a fact. We'll see.

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Nov 12 - 03:30 PM

Aargh! The next person who types "dino" for dinosaur may very well find themselves having their botty spanked good and proper!

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 15 Nov 12 - 05:53 PM

well bill- if the "hard evidence" is really that birds come from [in whatever complicated and inexplicable gradualistic pathway]dinos it strikes me as strange that there are evolutionary avian experts who reject such interpretation.telling me that something is hard evidence tells me little more than what you believe or accept, since the creationist can do just the same.they have the same evidence to interpret as the darwinist.

jack- your learned post did still indicate that what has always been thought impossible is now considered more than just possible by virtue of the supposed fact of dino extinction 65 million yr ago.
i do however note the priviso that somehow the blood residue might not be part of the original fossil.

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Nov 12 - 08:42 PM

if the "hard evidence" is really that birds come from [in whatever complicated and inexplicable gradualistic pathway]dinos it strikes me as strange that there are evolutionary avian experts who reject such interpretation.

It is not inexplicable. Current gaps in understanding or evidence (which are forever closing, thanks to hard-working people who are curious and like to explore with eyes open, unlike you) mean that the full explanation may be deferred for now. That is not the same thing as the defeatist "inexplicable." And no bloody Gods of Gaps, please.

telling me that something is hard evidence tells me little more than what you believe or accept, since the creationist can do just the same.they have the same evidence to interpret as the darwinist.

Of course, but you won't look at that evidence, will you, let alone "interpret" it (aka, in your case, reject it out of hand and take the piss out of scientists, as ever). You can but you won't. Evidence scares you lot. Have you read "Origin" yet, for example? And stop saying "dino." Go and kick your own arse for doing that.

"Evolutionary avian experts" is rock-solid weasel words, by the way. Name names and describe their views that give you so much comfort.

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 15 Nov 12 - 11:33 PM

Just so long as nobody asks about the 'missing' links..where are they?
No 1/2 fish 1/2 amphibian? No 1/2 ape 1/2 man? No 1/2 amphibian 1/2 mammal??..Hey I want my money back!!.. This book stinks!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 16 Nov 12 - 04:12 AM

" ... it strikes me as strange that there are evolutionary avian experts who reject such interpretation ..."

Not strange at all, pete. As many of us have told you over and over and over and over etc. again, absolute certainty is an extreme rarity in science; differences of opinion go with the territory. A difference of opinion, on a particular subject, does NOT represent a gap into which you can shovel creationist claptrap!

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: Stu
Date: 16 Nov 12 - 05:39 AM

"bird-like DNA"

It's not DNA, it's collagen and although that might seem picky it's a very important distinction.


"your learned post did still indicate that what has always been thought impossible is now considered more than just possible by virtue of the supposed fact of dino extinction 65 million yr ago."

Not sure what you're getting at here. If you mean we're learning, then yes we are. If you mean we've revised our ideas in the light of new data, then yes we have. If you mean the new data somehow negates what we understand about the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs, then no it doesn't.


"if the "hard evidence" is really that birds come from [in whatever complicated and inexplicable gradualistic pathway]dinos it strikes me as strange that there are evolutionary avian experts who reject such interpretation"

You're referring to people like Feduccia who ply a very individualistic furrow, and are essentially fighting a lone rearguard action against scientific orthodoxy. Not a bad thing you might think, but these people (and they are very few) are essentially ignoring a mountain of evidence, sort of evolutionary flat-earthers. Interestingly, Thomas Huxley (a personal hero of mine) first recognised a relationship between birds and dinosaurs way back in 1868, but it took 100 years for his ideas to start on the road to acceptance.

Also, your statement that the evolutionary developmental pathway of birds is inexplicable is wrong, full stop. Although the exact origin of birds is still unresolved we are homing in on it. The main issue here is to stop thinking of birds as separate to dinosaurs; they are dinosaurs and clade aves sits firmly within the dinosauria. Look it up. They share many characters with non-avian dinosaurs, including all the features that make a dinosaur a dinosaur, as well as derived characters such as feathers, which almost certainly evolved before birds did.

I doubt there are many palaeontologists who would place birds outside dinosauria (I've never met one) and in all honesty the debate within the field moved on long ago, even if public perception hasn't. With over 10,000 extant species we are still in the age of the dinosaurs, and I for one are glad they are still here in all their incredible diversity of form. Wonderful.

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Nov 12 - 05:58 AM

It's not DNA, it's collagen and although that might seem picky...

Heheh. Masterly understatement there, Jack. I was once having a cup o'char in the prep room behind the lab from which I could hear the head of science telling his top year 11 biology group that chlorophyll was a protein. After he'd finished I informed him that he was in error telling them that. After arguing fruitlessly that he had been right, he conceded, but claimed he'd had to tell them that in order to keep it simple, that it was a half-truth he'd used to get a difficult point across. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Nov 12 - 07:15 AM

Just so long as nobody asks about the 'missing' links..where are they?
No 1/2 fish 1/2 amphibian? No 1/2 ape 1/2 man? No 1/2 amphibian 1/2 mammal??..Hey I want my money back!!.. This book stinks!

Oh God, ignorance is such bliss. If you would care to read On The Origin Of Species you will find that Darwin himself agonised at length over the apparent lack of intermediate forms. Far from "nobody asking", the main man himself asked and asked, and evolutionary biologists have addressed the question ever since. Science does not sweep under carpets. Do yer homework before posting such twaddle, and take science-blind pete with you.

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 16 Nov 12 - 08:07 AM

Thanks, SJ. Not picky.

The unscientific TV news reports left me thinking it was DNA.

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Nov 12 - 11:18 AM

"Just so long as nobody asks about the 'missing' links..where are they?"

They are there.... just not ALL of them! There was no automatic mechanism to have several die each year in a 'convenient' spot, so we could have a continuous line to study...... and if they had, we'd need a museum the size of the Pentagon for each species!


However..... at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, there is a building where one wing is dedicated to cabinets containing multiple thousands of mouse skins, all carefully documented as to generation & heritage. They are learning things about how ONE species changes.

Also, certain insects which breed rapidly, like the fruit fly, have been studied for years. There **IS** clear evidence in some areas of evolutionary changes in a micro environment which helps us understand how it works over longer time spans.

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 16 Nov 12 - 11:31 AM

And in terms of pointing people to YouTube videos here's one that *does* contain usfeul information, in a clear, concise manner. It shows yet another piece of evidence that humans and chimpanzees share a common ancestor....well, either that or the fact that there's an intelligent designer who's actively deceitful:

Human-Great Ape Common Ancestery

This one's only 4 1/2 minutes long and it's pretty well all relevant, so I don't feel the need to direct people to a particular segment of it! :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 16 Nov 12 - 05:35 PM

as i understand it the claim of dinos with feathers is open to other explanations but even if some of them did it does not follow that they began turning into birds [by what ever inexplicable pathway].i k now that word was challenged and i have not checked a dictionary but assuming that "inexplicable" means being incapable of explanation i think it appropriate.gaps in the theory are admitted and no explantion is offered except the assurance that it is still being sewn up.
darwin may well have agonized over a lack of transitional forms and he would still.he just expected that time would validate him and he died in blind faith because over 150 years and probably tons of fossils later there is only a handful of debatable candidates. micro changes in rodent fur hardly accounts for the aquisition of new info in dna needed to facilitate mouse to man evolution.
rob-i did watch the vid-twice.a bit tech so i have no comment,at least not yet.pete

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Nov 12 - 05:55 PM

he died in blind faith

This marks you out as as completely useless, insulting waste of space, only I could never get you to realise it because you're too bloody stupid and dishonest. Why don't you just spend your life in prayer and keep yourself off the streets.

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 16 Nov 12 - 06:16 PM

Pete that vid clip isn't very technical at all. If you consider it "a bit tech" then I have abetted understanding of why your misconceptions seem so impervious to rectification!

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 17 Nov 12 - 12:09 AM

Now I'm reading this thread, and come across this 'gem':

From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Nov 12 - 05:55 PM

(GUEST,pete from seven stars link)... "he died in blind faith"

Steve Shaw: "This marks you out as as completely useless, insulting waste of space, only I could never get you to realise it because you're too bloody stupid and dishonest. Why don't you just spend your life in prayer and keep yourself off the streets.


OK..Now does that sound like an honest rebuttal of anything regarding the rest of the first post commented on??
Can you say 'o-b-n-x-i-o-u-s'?

First it was supposing Beethoven didn't know what he was talking about when asked about his source of inspiration......

Next it was supposing how stupid and full of lies the Shroud documentary was/is...that he never watched......

Next is nobody ever experienced a real OBE or supposing there is no one who got a glimpse of the 'other side'....so he supposes them to be either dishonest or wrong......

Next is supposing any time someone speaks of an 'afterlife' he must be nuts...

Next he is supposing that "This marks you out as as completely useless, insulting waste of space, only I could never get you to realise it because you're too bloody stupid and dishonest."

So with all this SUPPOSING going on..I KNOW!!...I GOT IT!!...In your previous lifetimes you were a suppository!.....and 'we've got to ourselves back to the garden'......
Play yo' hah-monick-uh, Boy!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: GUEST,Musket with cookie growth
Date: 17 Nov 12 - 03:04 AM

See, I'm evolving. ..

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 17 Nov 12 - 04:02 AM

Musket with cookie growth: "See, I'm evolving. ."




Well aren't we??..Oh boy, I could go 'off' on that one!...

Wouldn't you think that the first primordial slime, to evolve to something higher, would 'try to get higher'?...I mean like from one thing to another, the big thing was adapting to a new 'environment', as well, and be 'equipped' to survive.....you know like when that first fish thought there might have been something out there, that would be cool...so he worked his shit till some of them 'started evolving' to 'amphibian-hood'...well cool..no problem at all....OK, let's examine that scenario... fish in water...outside water is death..it's air..to the fish it's a different dimension than water...hmmm adapt?..or say it isn't there??

Ya' listening, Steve?

Maybe that's why we have some of each.....

OK..Recap:.....Mankind to 'evolve' higher has to overcome or adapt to what two things?...umm..death....and perhaps enter a new 'environment'..you know..maybe like a dimension, of sorts....I mean, we should have something flashed 'built-in', in our fish gene..or DNA.......

..and maybe it ain't just got anything to do with 'religious', either!

...just LIFE evolving...

Anybody come to mind..yet?

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 17 Nov 12 - 05:21 AM

rob.so this prof on the vid [and his follower?]thinks that he had the magic bullit to shoot down the" pesky creationists".maybe he was tackling the lesser minds like myself when he claims creationist silence before his evolutionary interpretation of the data..the answer is in the following which did make the issue clearer to me.i wont highlight any part as its a fairly short article!
http://creation.com/human-ape-fused-chromosomes-paradigm
it is a direct critique on the vid.

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 17 Nov 12 - 12:23 PM

"Oh boy, I could go 'off' on that one!..."

And true to form, GfS, you did! Boy, did you ever!

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 17 Nov 12 - 04:23 PM

Well thank you!...(Takes a bow)....because if it stimulated an interpretation.....the perception is in the reader....I did not offer an interpretation, and then comes the question to you, "Why did I automatically perceive it this way?"
I know my examples we 'far less than precise, for every step"....but the concept (minus all the centuries) is there...and even Darwin wrestled with it....but following the 'theory', we CAN play it out and 'bottom line it'!

Besides, IF man has evolved, shouldn't his intelligence capacity grow with it..? ..or did we lose something else? ..maybe certain response to instinct?.... maybe being tuned in on a little higher frequency for communication...maybe not...but the fact remains, the next step for man in the evolutionary process is going to include overcoming death in this form, that we know as 'normal'....fair enough?

....then why were the first aquatics, evolving to be on land?
If you have a theory..play it out both ways....and of course ask "WHY".....and be open for the input.

Do you think that man has 'evolved' beyond listening to his instincts... to even detect that changes are being made?...and to adapt..and use his brain in the processing of ALL the input?..so it's not all unconscious....?.......maybe somewhere the two get better acquainted...and be aware of a larger picture?....
The possibilities are wide open.....and that's not even saying evolution or creation is the 'one'...or maybe both happened...maybe not...

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 17 Nov 12 - 05:10 PM

And then you went and went off on another!

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 17 Nov 12 - 07:40 PM

...or maybe ON to another possibility...not so negative or closed minded'...as some 'others' on here!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: Bobert
Date: 17 Nov 12 - 08:05 PM

So, why are my tax dollars going to schools that teach "creationism"???

Huh???

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 18 Nov 12 - 04:28 AM

So many questions, GfS, and so few answers. Your speculations must give you great pleasure (!)

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: Stu
Date: 18 Nov 12 - 05:15 AM

"as i understand it the claim of dinos with feathers is open to other explanations but even if some of them did it does not follow that they began turning into birds [by what ever inexplicable pathway]"

Then you misunderstand Pete. The proof of dinosaurs being feathered is unequivocal. I know one of the palaeontologists who has done much work on the structure of dinosaur feathers using a synchrotron. We now know the internal structure of the feathers (identical to birds, no surprise there), we can infer colour from them and indeed we now know what the plumage of several dinosaurs and early looked like.

I wrote a rather more lengthy post yesterday which included a broad phylogeny of the derived theropods including birds, but the post went awry, and I don't have time to write it all again. Suffice to say the position of birds within clade Paraves is known with some certainty, but the precise location will almost certainly change as more data comes to light.

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: GUEST,Musket sans cookie
Date: 18 Nov 12 - 05:59 AM

Well done Goofus. Almost managed to confuse me. Then I realised you were being irrational so I don't need to understand after all.

The argument for creationism is based on medieval superstition and their agenda ridden translation of older texts used to control people. Not exactly a basis for a rational hypothesis?

Evolution however is a rational exploration of finding out why and where. The difference is that it doesn't have the stipulation of having to accommodate an imaginary friend.

Nothing wrong with faith, nothing wrong with being a member of a cult. Just not relevant to scientific discovery.

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Nov 12 - 06:36 AM

The possibilities are wide open.....and that's not even saying evolution or creation is the 'one'...or maybe both happened...maybe not...

Now just look at the equivalence in there. Heheh. Creationism and evolution juxtaposed as equals! Well, Guffers, that simply won't wash. There is a mass of evidence for evolution, so much that evolution has long since passed the point at which it stopped being just theory and became, in its main tenets, incontrovertible. But there is not a shred of evidence for creation by a supernatural being. Despite the efforts of billions of believers down the millennia, God has never been persuaded to show his hand (naturally, I exclude attempts by believers to insert him into "explaining" anything they find a bit mysterious). Not only that, science (unwittingly, because it isn't science's job) relentlessly closes in on him. There is no point between the Big Bang and the evolution of modern humans which requires the intercession of a creator to make things possible or to explain what is going on. It's all there in the science. So your valiant attempt to give evolution and creationism equal billing is, I fear, yet another of your big failures.

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 18 Nov 12 - 08:19 AM

> Not only that, science (unwittingly, because it isn't science's job) relentlessly closes in on him.

An important point.

Science never started out to discredit God, and has spent zero time in trying to do doing so.

So any doubt cast by science on His existence should be blamed on the nature of the universe (which He is said to have created), not on science.

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Nov 12 - 09:15 AM

Do you suppose that *IF* there is a god up/out there, watching over us and caring about what goes on, that 'it' is concerned about whether UPPER CASE letters are used for reference? Or whether it is sacrilegious to spell out the whole word? (G*D)


Oh, never mind

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Nov 12 - 10:14 AM

ask pete hell tell you

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 18 Nov 12 - 11:30 AM

Didn't mean to 'confuse' you, Musket...you take it that I'm a strict 'creationist'..and that came from the medieval times...wrong on both counts. The Biblical account of 'creation' was written thousands of years before the medieval period...(you can check that out yourself)...and the premise I laid out in my post,

"Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 17 Nov 12 - 04:23 PM "

uses evolution as the premise, not creation, and points out a few questions worthy of thinking about....or at least to answer, in regards to where we are at now.

To say man is nothing more than a physical being, in turn, must encompass MORE than thought of, in relation to intelligence, love and a few other 'unseen' phenomenon, that we as humans seem to have access. To say that these 'unseen' attributes do not exist, is the premise for human chaos..because it is one of the common traits found in every culture, from industrialized countries to aboriginal societies. It is when these attributes are either violated or ignored to we see the 'injustice' of it all for our fellow humans..by the way, where did we get that sense of injustice?
It has been noted that humans void of these attributes become self-centered psychopaths, who do offenses to their fellow man, without ANY cognizant empathy, or remorse for their behavior.
Those who Do tap into it, in like fashion have performed some of the greatest deeds to benefit mankind as a whole......go figure.
If we were to follow your model of human behavior, everything would be in an upheaval, and that would be just fine..because there is nothing higher, to inspire or correct us with.
Could it be that our minds are just 'modems' tapping into a higher collective consciousness? Does a higher form of intelligence even exist?...and if it was comprised of love, don't you think it would be open to being communicated with?
...oh yeah, we can't prove there is love...or intelligence...nor that it is part of a larger living being....which comprises the WHOLE...unless, of course one wishes to exclude themselves...but would that mean they don't have access to love, or intelligence?

Would it be futile to suggest, "Think about it?"

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Nov 12 - 12:36 PM

Not if you explain exactly what you want us to think about. Go on, have another go.

Subject: RE: BS: Alternative to Science??
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 18 Nov 12 - 12:46 PM

Who has ever demanded that 'love' has to be 'proved'?