A Question which Atheists could not answer

[~Zaria~]

Over the last year you've posted a number of highly dubious videos and articles. But you have excelled yourself with this one. There isn't much in it worth keeping. However (as it is anything but concise) contradicting so many errors is no small task. Although instead of checking out your own material, you will doubtless demand I waste my time for you.

I particularly like the conclusion, which itself tells you just how little this idiot understands his subject. He actually goes out of his way to quote example of Mitochondrial Eve, under the mistaken impression that this supports his argument - even though it is powerful evidence against!

One of the worst articles I have ever read on this forum. Congratulations Zaria.

What does one do when the evidence starts mounting against him/ his ideals?

Try to discredit the author or text - without any direct refutations, despite how well-referenced or how much unanimity exists amongst leading scholars in the field.

Expected response.

Its a difficult position to be in when a 'science' rests on fraudulent material and chimpanzee bones; the actual mechanism of the theory is unknown (in fact, impossible); and the theory itself has never been witnessed, and hence there is no possibility of reproducibility.

Now may be a good time to bow out gracefully - unless you can reveal to us EVIDENCED-BASED INFORMATION, that is VERIFIABLE and REFERENCED.

We are yet to see this.

Truly, nobody here cares for an individual's opinions/ interpretations on this subject - and this is all that we have been subjected to in this thread.

By the way, this article is extensively referenced:

59. Howells, Mankind So Far.
60. Donald Johanson and Maitland Edey, Lucy: The Beginnings Of Humankind, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1981, pp.40.
61. Michael Brown, Lucy, pp.18.
62. Anthropology Today, Communications Research Machines, Inc., Del Mar, Ca., 92014, 1971, pp.161.
63. Weaver, Nat'. Geo., November, 1985, pp.575, 599.
64. For the recent age of Taung see T.C. Partridge, "Geomorphological Dating of Cave Openings at Makapansgat, Sterkfontein, Swartkrans and Taung," Nature, 246 (9 Nov., 1973, pp.75-79; K.W. Butzer, "Paleoecology of South African australopithecines: Taung Revisited," Current Anthropology, 15, 1974, pp.367-382. See Mary Leakey, Footprints in the Ashes of Time, National Geographic, April, 1979.
65. Sherwood L. Washburn, Tools and Human Evolution, Scientific American, September 1960.
66. Sally R. And Lewis R. Binford, Stone Tools and Human Behavior, Scientific American, April, 1969.
67. Lawrence H. Keeley, The Function of Paleolithic Flint Tools, Scientific American, November 1977.
68. Sherwood L. Washburn, Tools and Human Evolution, (note 72).
69. (ibid)
70. (ibid)
71. Alan Walker and Richard Leakey, The Hominids of East Turkana, Sci.Am., August, 1978.
72. Philip L. Stein and Bruce Rowe, Phys. Anthro., pp.307-312.
73. (ibid)
74. (ibid)
75. C. Loring Brace, Biological Parameters and Pleistocene Hominid Lifeways, Primate Ecology and Human Origins, I.S. Bernstein and E.O. Smith Eds., N.Y., Garland Press, 1979.
76. Walker and Leakey, The Hominids of East Turkana, Sci.Am., August, 1978.
77. (ibid)
78. (ibid).
79. Mary Leakey, Footprints In The Ashes Of Time, Nat'l. Geo., 1979, pp.453.
80. From a quote of Richard Leakey from Michael Brown's The Search For Eve, Harper and Row, 1990, pp. 142.
81. National Geographic, March, 1992, Apes and Humans; Bonobo's: Chimpanzees with a Difference.
82. Mary D. Leakey, Footprints In The Ashes Of Time, Nat'l. Geo., Apr. 1979, pp.456.
83. Ernst Mayr, A History of American Physical Anthropology, 1930-1980, New York, Academic Press, 1982, pp.231.
84. Richard Leakey, The Weekend Australian, 7-8 May, 1983, Magazine, pp.3.
85. Johanson, Lucy, pp.279.
86. (ibid)
87. "Myths and Methods in Anatomy," Journal of the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh, vol., ll, pp.87-114, 92.
88. Greg Kirby, Senior Lecturer at Flinders University in Population Biology, from a lecture to the Biology Teachers Association in South Australia, 1976.
89. Howells, pp. 94.
90. Howells, Mankind, pp. 95-96.

EDIT: Independent, you've just brushed past posts which give you information which throws your ideas into the wastelands... why? Thought you wanted a good discussion which helps to get to the bottom of this ToE crap... you should at least try to read Zaria's long and funny post which puts Neo-Darwinists on the back foot BIGTIME easy as pie to do that.

Indeed akhi, we are still awaiting sound refutations to this post....

- there is fossil evidence for TOE

Great, you have mentioned this numerously.

Please link us to this 'fossil evidence'.

All I ask is that you give TOE the benefit of the doubt, as you ought to do without genuine scholarship.

Seriously?
You may think that your ancestors are monkeys in a tree......but please, dont treat the rest of us as such.

The participants in this thread are all knowledgeable, intelligent individuals....some of whom have some form of experience in this field.

For myself, I have been to the 'Cradle of Mankind'/ Maropeng/ Sterkfontein on multiple occasions - this is a site in South Africa, where mankind is thought to have evolved from.
My first visit was a compulsory tour as part of our studies (otherwise known as 'tertiary indoctrination').....the muslim students decided to have a braai on this day - its a great picnic spot
TOE is included in Biology 101 (because how can one understand the human body without studying the apes that we arose from? )....and to this day, Im still subjected to the odd lecture about how we arose from something that resembles a fish with gills.

So please, all that we are requesting is an intelligent discussion.

We need evidences to all that you propagate.

Without this, your defense is meaningless.
(I'm unfortunately not able to waste any more time on a discussion that lacks this).


Thanks.

 

[جوري]

Without this, your defense is meaningless.

in fact his defenses are tirades against the members nothing substantive that hits the crux of the issue - I wonder why he continues to get away with it whilst our posts are being deleted? Unfortunately, when he can't answer the tough questions, he either bypasses them or reports them - I am rather appalled at how he addresses the members here and for some reason he's given a carte blanche to do so!

 

[Eric H]

Greetings and peace be with you Independent;

Creationism in principle is not a problem.]

But you seem to be trying your best, to destroy creationism.

In the spirit of searching for God.

Eric

 

[observer]

But you seem to be trying your best, to destroy creationism.

Supporting TOE is not the same as trying to destroy creationism. Independent, and all other TOE advocates here, has said many times that TOE does not destroy the idea that god started everything. It never will.

I personally think that creationists do more to damage themselves than any atheist / TOE advocate could ever do by supporting and espousing views which at best misunderstand TOE and at worst dishonestly attempt to claim that it is not science and has already been disproved.

 

[observer]

I'm afraid this is far from being simple. The giraffe is another example of irreducible complexity.

Hi Muhammed - it may be complex, but why irreducibly so? It would be bizarre indeed if one day a creature had sprouted an 8 foot neck, but TOE does not say that this happened.

 

[M.I.A.]

ok i know im asking for it but

thats not how it works is it?

not only does the giraffe neck stretch because its used specifically to stretch but its actually a beneficial trait that passed on during mating?

that gives us all reason to go to the gym right?

or is it that the giraffes that can stretch are naturally better at stretching and so the next generation will stretch just a little but further.


..and also its a dominant trait, that becomes fixed in dna.


anyway im sure there is a better explanation.


but omg those legs.


and...

which at some point might have been counter intuitive.


but its still just a laymens opinion and i know for sure there is a valid explanation.. maybe lack of predators for a certain time or prioritising water or food.

it is very complex but its probably on the scale of big bang theory for all the conditions to be right.

 

[observer]

ok i know im asking for it but

thats not how it works is it?

not only does the giraffe neck stretch because its used specifically to stretch but its actually a beneficial trait that passed on during mating?

that gives us all reason to go to the gym right?

or is it that the giraffes that can stretch are naturally better at stretching and so the next generation will stretch just a little but further.

Hi MIA - you've got 2 things there: Lamarck's idea of inherited characteristics said that you could pass on changes to your offspring which occurred during your lifetime (like a giraffe stretching, getting a long neck then passing that on). We know this is not true.

The other view is the Darwin-Wallace view (much built and improved upon now) which is agreed upon.

 

[M.I.A.]

i can understand passing on genetic traits.

but ending up with a variable group of giraffes.. 5-6 meters on a wiki..

would lead me to question natural selection and survival of the fittest.

although it is reasonable to assume such things play a part.

anyway i figured it out, its not a behavioral change that led to the evolution of a long neck.. its a genetic change firstly, that is required.

...which is kind of obvious.





but i would expect that the average height of the giraffe would increase continuously, given current conditions. unless everybody can reach the trees.


in which case you would expect some divergence from the current giraffe.


i guess it is a case for evolution of sorts, although like i said before..

it would seem the giraffe and related family have already done all the evolution they were going to do.


i know its not ideal creationism but it would make sense for god to use a template to produce different varieties, rather than making each cookie individually.. and then throwing away the ingredients. ?



its interesting to think that allah swt created adam pbuh and then taught him the names of all the creatures...


its a physical, biological and chemical system, lego works predictably.. the day it does not is finally proof of god. (which is a different thread altogether)

but like i said before, the main contention is using scripture thats thousands of years old to enforce belief in a constantly changing world..

thats why creationism is such a struggle.

is there a difference between the literal truth and the truth.

i mean you go to a museum and see evolution and you go to a zoo.. you get the picture.

 

[Muhammad]

Hello observer,

Hi Muhammed - it may be complex, but why irreducibly so? It would be bizarre indeed if one day a creature had sprouted an 8 foot neck, but TOE does not say that this happened.

The key issue is that it would necessitate multiple, simultaneous mutations. This is what one website said:

The list of what must have evolved “in sync” with the rest of the giraffe’s anatomy is lengthy and impressive. Evolutionist Robert Wesson stated:

The protogiraffe had not only to lengthen neck vertebra (fixed at seven in mammals), but had to make any concurrent modifications: the head, difficult to sustain atop the long neck, became relatively smaller.... Big lungs were necessary to compensate for breathing through a tube 10 feet long; many muscles, tendons, and bones had to be modified harmoniously; the forelegs were lengthened with corresponding restructuring of the frame; and many reflexes had to be reshaped (1991, p. 226, parenthetical item in orig.).
Wesson, Robert (1991), Beyond Natural Selection (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).
​

 

[Eric H]

Greetings and peace be with you observer;

Supporting TOE is not the same as trying to destroy creationism.

Followers of Dawkins almighty, may not agree with you, and I do look on atheist forums, where destroying creationism is considered a sport.

Independent, and all other TOE advocates here, has said many times that TOE does not destroy the idea that god started everything. It never will.

People use TOE to try and destroy people's faith, again, I see this on atheist forums.

I personally think that creationists do more to damage themselves than any atheist / TOE advocate could ever do by supporting and espousing views which at best misunderstand TOE and at worst dishonestly attempt to claim that it is not science and has already been disproved

Again, I mention the supposed path for the evolution of the eye, TOE supporters are willing to overlook the fact that the brain, nerves, limbs etc, would also have to evolve alongside the eye. It seems naïve at best, or dishonest at worst, when this is overlooked and offered up as science.

Again, I mention the evolution of a full skeletal system, from the time the first bone came into being. You mention a chemical change which may account for the introduction of bone, but there is no mention of how all the separate shapes and sizes came into being, and how coincidently, they just happen to be the right shape for movement.

It seems to come across that TOE supporters, are the new fundamentalists, in the way they keep pushing their beliefs. Atheists often use the word freethinker, theists use freethinking, in ways that make sense to us.

In the spirit of searching for God

Eric

 

[Eric H]

Greetings and peace be with you Muhammad;

The key issue is that it would necessitate multiple, simultaneous mutations. This is what one website said:

The list of what must have evolved “in sync” with the rest of the giraffe’s anatomy is lengthy and impressive. Evolutionist Robert Wesson stated:

The protogiraffe had not only to lengthen neck vertebra (fixed at seven in mammals), but had to make any concurrent modifications: the head, difficult to sustain atop the long neck, became relatively smaller.... Big lungs were necessary to compensate for breathing through a tube 10 feet long; many muscles, tendons, and bones had to be modified harmoniously; the forelegs were lengthened with corresponding restructuring of the frame; and many reflexes had to be reshaped (1991, p. 226, parenthetical item in orig.).
Wesson, Robert (1991), Beyond Natural Selection (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).
​

Thanks for sharing, the devil is always in the endless boring detail, and there is just too much of it, only Allah has the power to make all this happen.

In the spirit of searching for God

Eric

 

[M.I.A.]

it would seem evolution suffers the same as religion...

most people only know about it, what they have been told about it.


...and its a real disadvantage.

apparently some words by darwin himself..

And we don't need a microscope to observe irreducible complexity. The eye, the ear and the heart are all examples of irreducible complexity, though they were not recognized as such in Darwin's day. Nevertheless, Darwin confessed,

"To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree."

Charles Darwin, "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life," 1859, p. 155.

unfortunately its from a biased website so for counterbalance here is a link to an interesting website.

http://www.livescience.com/474-controversy-evolution-works.html



i have to admit irreducible complexity is still a problem.. even more so when you look at biological systems.



but if gradual change is the way then, you would expect to see trends within these irreducible systems at "present"..

if you looked hard enough.. or looked in the right places.


anyway what i wanted to find out about was overfishing and how it had effected the fish populations.. what remained of it and if any evolutionary processes were to be thanked.

but i think that predation.. predators? are not so important in natural selection

what this implies against toe.. i have no idea?

 

[Independent]

By the way, this article is extensively referenced:

A long list of references won't save this article from the ignorance of its author. Nor do your trips to 'the Cradle of Mankind' seem to have helped you much.

Let's have a look at his grand conclusion.Like many Creationists, Foard cherry-picks his science. He thinks he's onto a winner with the notion of Mitochondrial Eve. With excitement, Foard announces that 'science' has actually confirmed the existence of an Eve seemingly straight out of scripture:

In fact, the Biblical story of Adam and Eve created in a perfect world in all it's primaeval grandeur is a much more fascinating (and scientific) story than the fantastic claim that man descended from some rodent scurrying around dodging dinosaur feet. Based on recent biochemical analysis of the mitochondrial DNA in human cells and calculations of population genetics, scientists have discovered that all modern humans come from one single female, and they have called her "Eve." (The Search For Eve, By Brown, 1990).

So who or what is Mitochondrial Eve supposed to be? She is correctly defined as 'the most recent common matrilineal ancestor of all modern humans'.

We all have two parents. But we get our mitochondria and mitochondrial DNA from the ovum, and hence from our mothers only. Our mothers got their mitochondrial DNA from their mothers and so on. So while our nuclear DNA is a mix of the DNA of all four grandparents, our mitochondrial DNA is an almost exact copy of the DNA of our maternal grandmother.

The match may not be exact due to mutations. And it's the occasional mutations in the mitochondrial DNA that provide the molecular clock which allows us to determine how much time has elapsed since the Mitochondrial Eve lived.

By this method, it's possible to extrapolate back to a single woman from which everyone on Earth is descended. That woman is calculated to have lived about 200,00 years ago in Africa.

All this sounds like good news for Creationists and that's why Foard has latched onto the idea. What he doesn't realise is that a single ancestor is also predicted by TOE.

And in fact Mitochondrial Eve has nothing to do with the Scriptural Eve.

Firstly, it doesn't mean she was the only woman in existence at the time. There could have been other women, it's just that none of their descendants lived to the present day, while Mitochondrial Eve's did.

Nor was she the first woman in existence. Humans were around for a long time before she lived.

Plainly, Foard does not realise that Mitochondrial Eve is not even one person. Who has the title depends not on the past but on the present. If one of the two most ancient branch lines dies out, the accolade of most recent common matrilineal ancestor will move to a new, more recent woman. Even the name 'Eve' is just a journalist's nickname that caught on.

Foard hasn't a clue what he's talking about.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100817122405.htm
http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/ingman.html.

 

[Independent]

Greetings Muhammad

he key issue is that it would necessitate multiple, simultaneous mutations. This is what one website said:

The list of what must have evolved “in sync” with the rest of the giraffe’s anatomy is lengthy and impressive. Evolutionist Robert Wesson stated:
The protogiraffe had not only to lengthen neck vertebra (fixed at seven in mammals), but had to make any concurrent modifications: the head, difficult to sustain atop the long neck, became relatively smaller.... Big lungs were necessary to compensate for breathing through a tube 10 feet long; many muscles, tendons, and bones had to be modified harmoniously; the forelegs were lengthened with corresponding restructuring of the frame; and many reflexes had to be reshaped (1991, p. 226, parenthetical item in orig.).
Wesson, Robert (1991), Beyond Natural Selection (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).

As I understand it, Wesson is not rejecting evolution, he is supporting it. However, he says that Darwin's proposed process for evolution (natural selection) is not the key mechanism. But he doesn't look for a divine explanation to replace it.

Instead he argues that a version of chaos theory accounts for what we see more accurately. Chaos theory seeks to explain through mathematical analysis how patterns and order can emerge from random, natural conditions - derived ultimately from the basic structural tendencies of matter. (For instance, chaos theory is used in analysing complex weather patterns.) Wesson argues that natural selection does play a role, but only in honing what has already resulted from chaos theory.

In other words, far from rejecting TOE, Wesson is offering an explanation that entirely sidesteps all the usual Creationist objections listed in this thread - eg how evolution can make big jumps to more complex structures as opposed to a stage by stage process. It's one of the reasons why it's wrong to reject TOE on the grounds of the 'how', because there are so many possible avenues for solutions.

 

[Independent]

But you seem to be trying your best, to destroy creationism.

That depends what variety of Creationism you mean.

Creationism is not religion. In the time that I was a Christian I believed that the Bible could be read metaphorically rather than literally. Many Christians are not Creationists as far as evolution is concerned.

To reiterate: I am saying that TOE is a better explanation for the history of species than Creationism. In order to make that claim, I have to say something about Creationism.

I am applying the same criteria that is being applied to TOE. And why not? How else can they be meaningfully compared? I don't think it's reasonable to have a debate in which only one side is allowed to ask difficult questions.

 

[M.I.A.]

so whats the difference in giving importance to chaos theory rather than any guided evolution.. god for example.

in islam the power and attributes of allah swt are well documented, as well as fate and universal control.

replacing luck with allah swt is not so much different in outcome but rather so in implication.


but it would rapidly become a debate for another topic, one which has often had threads posted on the matter.



sure its still not in line with creationism.. but only on the mechanism.

lastly, believing in an unseen force that guides the entirety of creation may seem really far fetched for scientists and yet is an underlying concept in monotheism.. that more than supposes an almost alternate reality taking place.

i know its not going to sway your opinion on the matter but it would be foolish to think you would even want to see things that are not there.

the quran is literally the truth, its concepts and scope are so far ahead of anything that you have to marvel it was written 1400 years ago...

and take into account how its still relevant today after 1400 years of progression.


i think thats a good point to finish on for me so, see you all another time.

 

[Muhaba]

But why limit long necks to giraffes? I assume long necks would be an advantage to many herbivorous animals. Why haven't other species evolved to have long necks as well?

I think that is proof in support of the creationist view. God created the giraffe with long neck and long legs (and all other parts to go with it) and God created other animals like cattle with ordinary length necks and legs.

 

[Muhaba]

Eve must have been a similar height, and their children, down through the generations for some time. Otherwise we are not descended from Adam and Eve.

Just because we don't have the fossils yet doesn't mean it's untrue. Remember, you yourself said that there are only some 1% of fossils of all the creatures that ever existed on earth. There is also the possibility that extra-large human fossils are overlooked to be partial fossils of other creatures / dinosaurs. Not every dinosaur fossil find is a complete skeleton.

Stonehenge was built by ordinary men: http://www.stonehenge.co.uk/history.php

Another after the fact theory. You need to look into whether such means of building with huge stones was practiced by people or was it that after the Stonehenge mystery was looked into, people started trying to explain just how it could be done and tried different methods until they found that one could be used. But that doesn't make it true. It's highly possible that huge men made the Stonehenge (and others such things that may have eroded since).

It's also at the completely the wrong time for Adam, which needs to be about 1.8mill years earlier.

I didn't say that Prophet Adam (A.S) made the Stonehenge.

 

[Independent]

Just because we don't have the fossils yet doesn't mean it's untrue. Remember, you yourself said that there are only some 1% of fossils of all the creatures that ever existed on earth

Of course this is possible. But whereas there are millions of fossils to support TOE (in the sense that every fossil so far discovered is consistent with TOE), there are none to support the idea of large men.

It's highly possible that huge men made the Stonehenge (and others such things that may have eroded since).

They have found their villages where they lived, the tools they used, the tombs they were buried in and indeed their physical remains. It's beyond doubt.

I didn't say that Prophet Adam (A.S) made the Stonehenge.

Yes, but it would mean that large men were still in existence just 4,000 years ago which is very recent. Human remains from this era are very common and are not fossilised.

 

[Muhaba]

This is a recent discovery: http://www.theguardian.com/science/2006/apr/06/evolution.fossils

This website has some refutations to the missing link between fish and land animals. http://creation.com/tiktaalik-roseae-a-fishy-missing-link

We have to remember that what was found was a fossil. It's possible that it wasn't the fossil of one animal but two, something with an alligator-like head and another of a fish. Another thing is that fossils can be misleading. Evolutionists believed that the coelacanth was the missing link because it had fins that seemed to enable the fish to walk but when a living coelacanth was found, it was shown that the fish couldn't walk at all! Likewise, it is very possible that just like the coelacanth, the tiktaalik can't walk at all.

I think that those who study the fossils are biased. Maybe there is a need for creationists believing in intelligent design to become paleontologists and to describe the fossils from scratch including proper more accurate dating. The dating of fossils also seems to be biased.

Even more importantly, the order is not right! Compare Fig. 4 (right): Panderichthys is dated earlier than its supposed predecessor, Eusthenopteron. And all are earlier than the undoubted fish, the coelacanth. This is yet another parallel with alleged bird evolution—undoubted beaked birds like Confuciusornis are 10 Ma older than their alleged feathered dinosaur ‘ancestors’. Evolutionists would argue that it is not a problem, for the same reason that sometimes a grandfather can outlive his grandson. This is correct, but one of the major ‘evidences’ of evolution is how the evolutionary order supposedly matches the fossil sequence. So the mismatch of claimed order of appearance with claimed phylogeny undermines the evolutionary explanation.
http://creation.com/tiktaalik-roseae-a-fishy-missing-link