And the award for top species goes to....



... the blue whale!

I'm voting for tardigrades. They've colonized the moon, you know.

No one should deny the existence the ''atheistic element'' in the theory of evolution. The most vocal proponents of evolution are atheists. This is not a coincidence. ToE fulfills the needs of those who do not fancy the idea of intentional design. Evolution is the secular equivalent of ancient origin stories. The concept of common descent should be investigated carefully with an open mind. We should admit that many atheist automatically evolution is true beacuse it is the only alternative to special creation. ''since god is not real evolution must be true'' This is circular reasoning. The concept of common descent is actually unproven. It is based on interpretations.

Photocopy wrote:No one should deny the existence the ''atheistic element'' in the theory of evolution. The most vocal proponents of evolution are atheists. This is not a coincidence. ToE fulfills the needs of those who do not fancy the idea of intentional design. Evolution is the secular equivalent of ancient origin stories. The concept of common descent should be investigated carefully with an open mind. We should admit that many atheist automatically evolution is true beacuse it is the only alternative to special creation. ''since god is not real evolution must be true'' This is circular reasoning. The concept of common descent is actually unproven. It is based on interpretations.

Well, nothing ever gets proven in science, and so we go with the weight of the evidence, something I am sure you already know, so you're going to have to find something else to complain about in the way of offering the Classics Illustrated Comic Book version of "Teach the Controversy". If you're worried about open-mindedness, consider how open your mind has to be in order to consider all the evidence for evolution as opposed to whatever the (limited) evidence is for any alternatives.

Photocopy wrote:No one should deny the existence the ''atheistic element'' in the theory of evolution. The most vocal proponents of evolution are atheists. This is not a coincidence. ToE fulfills the needs of those who do not fancy the idea of intentional design. Evolution is the secular equivalent of ancient origin stories. The concept of common descent should be investigated carefully with an open mind. We should admit that many atheist automatically evolution is true beacuse it is the only alternative to special creation. ''since god is not real evolution must be true'' This is circular reasoning. The concept of common descent is actually unproven. It is based on interpretations.

I expect your tenure here will either be brief, or short lived.

There is ample repeatable empirical evidence, which has undergone extensive testing that returns positive results which supports the theory of evolution without a REASONABLE doubt. It is ever so easy to claim such and such is so, but around these parts folks want to see your work. The work has been done on this forum, so it is not our burden to spoon feed that same information to you. It is, however, your job to back up your insightful assertions. Can you? Will you? Do we really want you to try?

Since it is an absolute fact that special creation never happened, and that complex life arose over billions of generations across huge spans of time only to be nearly wiped out 5 times (leading edge of 6th right now) what you call origin stories are well studied aspects of the fossil a geologic record. Just because you cannot grasp the intricate detailed work involved doesn’t mean all of are so encumbered.

When several avenues of examination of a particular aspect of the observable universe all reach conclusions based on their own empirical evidence the possibility of error goes down with each additional positive test result. When tree rings agree with lake varves which agree with coral growth rings which agree with sediment depositional rates which agree with tectonic movement which agrees with pollen counts which agree with ice cores which agree with volcanic ash deposits which agree with an array of radio metric isotope decay rates which agree with supernova shockwave/light reflection speeds you have a mass of data that reaches conciliatory status. Evolution has tons of conciliatory evidentiary support. There is no sign of special creation in any of those things, so what are you on about?

RS

Photocopy wrote:Evolution is the secular equivalent of ancient origin stories.

It really is not. The theory of evolution is not about where life originally comes from, but how it evolves. It is for that reason that the majority of Christians have no problem accepting it while still believing in a god, an uncaused cause that brought life, the universe and everything into existence.

If you're looking for secular equivalents of ancient origin stories you'll need to familiarise yourself with what some scientists in the fields of biology and chemistry are working on.

Photocopy wrote:No one should deny the existence the ''atheistic element'' in the theory of evolution.

Everyone should deny it because it's factually nonsensical. Evolution is no more 'atheistic' than gravitation, or cell theory, or atomic theory. None of them posit gods either.

Rather, the fact is that the theistically inclined want a special little narrative that has a divine agency specifically create them and thus they're the purpose of the entire universe. Thus evolution is perceived differently by theists than the other scientific theories (although some have started getting the hump with cosmology too). Rather than acknowledge their own motivations and thoughts, they inevitably try to project all manner of bollocks onto non-believers and scientists who are competent enough to put aside their theistic inclinations when conducting science.

Photocopy wrote:The most vocal proponents of evolution are atheists.

Absolute rubbish. There are literally tens of thousands of theist biologists, and some of the most famous proponents of evolution are theists.

Photocopy wrote:This is not a coincidence.

It certainly isn't a coincidence: it's not even an incidence.

Photocopy wrote:ToE fulfills the needs of those who do not fancy the idea of intentional design.

That's arse-backwards. Evolution isn't a fairy tale concocted to satisfy those who don't want to believe in gods. Evolution is a scientific theory explaining the diversification of life on Earth.

Creationists, of course, don't understand that and think it's some kind of quasi-religion, in exactly the same way they try to claim that atheism is a religion. It's woolly thinking all the way down.

Photocopy wrote: Evolution is the secular equivalent of ancient origin stories.

You clearly either haven't given this much thought, or you don't really know anything about evolutionary theory.

Photocopy wrote: The concept of common descent should be investigated carefully with an open mind.

Or it should be investigated robustly with a relevantly educated mind, as it in fact has been by many, many, many minds engaging the mountains of evidence.

Photocopy wrote:We should admit that many atheist automatically evolution is true beacuse it is the only alternative to special creation.

Who is 'we'?

You're expounding a claim that doesn't conform to reality, so there's no requirement for admitting something that's manifestly untrue, and manifestly motivated reasoning.

Photocopy wrote: ''since god is not real evolution must be true''

Again, sorry to say, but that just shows a paucity of thought.

Even if God is real, even if ALL the gods are real, evolution is still true insofar as all the empirical evidence and observation shows.

Photocopy wrote:This is circular reasoning.

It's also a contrived argument you've made up to knock down.

Photocopy wrote:The concept of common descent is actually unproven.

Not a good look to make your first post and exhibit startling hubris and ignorance in one foul swoop.

Common descent is established beyond credible doubt. What your sentence really signifies is that you haven't invested any time educating yourself about it.

Photocopy wrote: It is based on interpretations.

Go interpret your burning bushes and talking snakes and leave the real world to people who don't demand reality genuflects to their fancies.

Photocopy wrote:The concept of common descent is actually unproven.

Awwww.

That's priceless.

Another one who believes they are completely unrelated to their own mother.



I can hardly wait for the podcast.

"How Atheist Ideology messed up childbirth."

Subtitle: "No Orificer, i never saw this woman before in my life, now she insists on wiping my arse."

Photocopy wrote:No one should deny the existence the ''atheistic element'' in the theory of evolution.

One cannot deny something that hasn't been demonstrated to exist in the first place.
You need to demonstrate there is an atheistic element, not just assert it.

Photocopy wrote:The most vocal proponents of evolution are atheists.

Completely irrelevant fallacy of association.

Photocopy wrote: This is not a coincidence. ToE fulfills the needs of those who do not fancy the idea of intentional design.

Nope, it's just the only evidentially supported and most accurate model available.
ID is neither science nor supported by evidence.
Are you aware that a great number of theists also accept evolution?

Photocopy wrote: Evolution is the secular equivalent of ancient origin stories.

Thank you for demonstrating you don't know what evolution is.
It's about the diversity of species, not the origin of life.

Photocopy wrote: The concept of common descent should be investigated carefully with an open mind.

Translation: You should ignore evidence and science and just believe what you want.
Nope, doesn't work that way.

Photocopy wrote: We should admit that many atheist automatically evolution is true beacuse it is the only alternative to special creation.

So you assert, but fail to demonstrate.
And even if it were true that doesn't make ToE atheistic. It stands on its own, regardless of whether or how many atheists accept it.

Photocopy wrote: ''since god is not real evolution must be true'' This is circular reasoning.

It is also a straw-man.

Photocopy wrote:The concept of common descent is actually unproven. It is based on interpretations.

And another demonstration that you are getting your information from your posterior, rather than the available data.

Well, now, Photocopy. We've had lots of words from JJ, none of which has offered any insight into the nature of 'Atheist Ideology'.

Could you, perhaps, fill in his gaps?

Photocopy wrote:No one should deny the existence the ''atheistic element'' in the theory of evolution. The most vocal proponents of evolution are atheists. This is not a coincidence. ToE fulfills the needs of those who do not fancy the idea of intentional design.

If that need is evidence, then yes, it certainly fulfills those needs, and intentional design does not. At all. It doesn't even begin to approach those needs. It just asserts, as you do here.

Evolution is the secular equivalent of ancient origin stories.

Except for all the evidence for evolution, and the complete lack of any for ancient origin stories, and for evolution not addressing origins, compared ancient origin stories' merely naked assertions about them.

The concept of common descent should be investigated carefully with an open mind. We should admit that many atheist automatically evolution is true beacuse it is the only alternative to special creation. ''since god is not real evolution must be true'' This is circular reasoning.

It certainly would be, if anyone said it. Since nobody does, that's called a straw man.

But even if we accepted your baseless assertion that people just accept evolution because they don't want god to be real, it doesn't change the fact that evidence is impartial to belief. In terms of the mountains of evidence for evolution, and the complete lack of evidence for whatever your favorite deity is (and this does apply to all of them), it doesn't really matter if anyone wants god to exist or not. The evidence stands on its own.

The concept of common descent is actually unproven. It is based on interpretations.

So you don't understand how science works, and you also hold science to standards ("proven") to which you'd never hold your own beliefs. Stop the presses!

Photocopy wrote:No one should deny the existence the ''atheistic element'' in the theory of evolution. The most vocal proponents of evolution are atheists. This is not a coincidence. ToE fulfills the needs of those who do not fancy the idea of intentional design. Evolution is the secular equivalent of ancient origin stories. The concept of common descent should be investigated carefully with an open mind. We should admit that many atheist automatically evolution is true beacuse it is the only alternative to special creation. ''since god is not real evolution must be true'' This is circular reasoning. The concept of common descent is actually unproven. It is based on interpretations.

=
Hi Photocopy, welcome here!. I agree that evolution had a common origin with ancient origin stories, the story of its splitting off or speciation had a lot to do with atheism, and its subsequent growth also does.

It appears JayJay is also unrelated to his own mother.

Of course that's just silly, microrelatedness, like to one's own parents, is fine and perfectly proper. It's macrorelatedness, like to your parents parents parents parents, or (almost as bad) monkeys, that is offensive. Can't be having none of that, what would the neighbours think.

Jayjay4547 wrote:
Hi Photocopy, welcome here!. I agree that evolution had a common origin with ancient origin stories, the story of its splitting off or speciation had a lot to do with atheism, and its subsequent growth also does.

Let the circle jerk of nonsense commence.

You can agree with each other on ideological grounds that up is down, left is right, and black is white all you like, but the facts still inescapably show you're talking hogwash.

Just another person labouring under an ideology which makes them also believe that not possessing that ideology is itself an ideology.

Banal.

THWOTH wrote:
You seek to criticise Wilson and Morris for what they did not say and/or for what they should have said on the presumption that what was left out is far more important and significant than what was left in.

Yes

THWOTH wrote:All your argument amounts to is a plea that humans are the most human species of all, and therefore by that measure humans are superior, humanly speaking, to all other apes or mammals, and no doubt to all other animals, insects, plants and bacteria generally.You seem to have a great desire for other to acknoledge this on your behalf, so I have obliged you. But it is still a silly argument, one that proceeds entirely from its conclusion, and where that conclusion rests on an arbitrary condition that assumes that measuring every other organism against the metric of our singular species is both appropriate and relevant. One might as well criticise the Frenchman for not being a dressing table, and the dressing table for not being a liverwurst for all the good it will do.

It would indeed have been circular to claim that humans are the most human species of all; having declared that was my argument, you declare it circular. That is circular. Here is what I do claim:

The creation of the human faculty for rapidly parsing and producing sentences containing an indefinite amount of precise information (“speech”) and especially in human infants, the faculty for picking up languages, has been and is currently, the greatest game changer for life on this planet maybe since the Cambrian explosion.

The manner in which this faculty was created over the last million years or so, is a guide to how the creation works. And it should have been really clear since 1925, that the creation of speech was enabled, partly, by an apparently irrelevant habit, that is, by our ancestors using hand held weapons instead of biting as our hairy cousins do. Because that habit released constraints arising from using the same head for thinking and fighting. To spare you tearing your hair out, I won’t re-post a comparative pic of primate skulls to demonstrate that.
.
A description of this creative, enabling process will naturally involve (1)relations between our ancestors and other species; primarily their predators and also (2) basic facts about how the world is. It’s just a better idea to hit a hyena on the head than to bite it, provided you are very good at hitting.

When the enabling of speech is described along these lines, it draw attention to creative structures in the world:

Life is like a glass aquarium
with extra planes of glass like low ceilings and here and there in them a smallish hole
We cannot see the planes, only the water-plant growing against one ceiling trapped
and then feeling out a hole, emerges into a new space.

I said, this should have been really clear since 1925, but obviously, it hasn’t been clear even to Raymond Dart, who discovered and named the genus Australopithecus and who became deeply invested into the notion of man the violent tool user. The more I have looked at this strange feature of misdirection of the human origin narrative, the clearer it has seemed to me that interest has been focused inwards, towards within-species relations and away from external factors and that the driver for that focus is dialectical; it lies in antithesis to the earlier Genesis narrative. That ideological influence on the way the human origin story is told is wide ranging, under-investigated and really interesting in its own right.

You say I have a great desire for others to acknowledge that humans are superior to all other animals. Not so. Like other posters, I think ideas are important. And that as expressed in psalm 8, mankind has dominion over all the works of the creation, unworthily and as a gift, not through our own achievement. If we mess it up as it seems we are enabled to do, we will have made ourselves the least of all species.

Jayjay4547 wrote:

Photocopy wrote:No one should deny the existence the ''atheistic element'' in the theory of evolution. The most vocal proponents of evolution are atheists. This is not a coincidence. ToE fulfills the needs of those who do not fancy the idea of intentional design. Evolution is the secular equivalent of ancient origin stories. The concept of common descent should be investigated carefully with an open mind. We should admit that many atheist automatically evolution is true beacuse it is the only alternative to special creation. ''since god is not real evolution must be true'' This is circular reasoning. The concept of common descent is actually unproven. It is based on interpretations.

=
Hi Photocopy, welcome here!. I agree that evolution had a common origin with ancient origin stories, the story of its splitting off or speciation had a lot to do with atheism, and its subsequent growth also does.

Still mindlessly regurgitating the same lies I see.

I'm genuinely at the point that I think JJ is intrinsically unable to have an honest conversation on any topic.

Spearthrower wrote:I'm genuinely at the point that I think JJ is intrinsically unable to have an honest conversation on any topic.

Jayjay4547 is being sincere. Just because his errors are so obvious to us does not mean he sees them at all.

I would summarise his activities at Ratskep slightly differently to your take: JJ is intrinsically unable to have a conversation on any topic other tan creationism. 98.61% of his 1010 posts are in that section of this forum. This suggests an obsessive streak, and people's minds who are obsessive are trapped by an idée fixe rather than dishonest. "An idée fixe is a preoccupation of mind believed to be firmly resistant to any attempt to modify it". These people cannot be reasoned with.

Hermit wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:I'm genuinely at the point that I think JJ is intrinsically unable to have an honest conversation on any topic.

Jayjay4547 is being sincere. Just because his errors are so obvious to us does not mean he sees them at all.

I would summarise his activities at Ratskep slightly differently to your take: JJ is intrinsically unable to have a conversation on any topic other tan creationism. 98.61% of his 1010 posts are in that section of this forum. This suggests an obsessive streak, and people's minds who are obsessive are trapped by an idée fixe rather than dishonest. "An idée fixe is a preoccupation of mind believed to be firmly resistant to any attempt to modify it". These people cannot be reasoned with.

The thing is that, even if the above is true, his idée fixe isn't specifically about Creationism, but about the motivations of the atheists, how they've done this or that, and what they think, etc. So it's still firmly dishonest because he's talking to atheists and non-believers, telling them what they think, and when they disagree that's what they think, he spends dozens of pages arguing that it is.

But on the point about obsessiveness; sure, it's hard to see a near 10 year membership of a forum, wherein you've written over a thousand posts nearly entirely on one topic as being anything else. Some posts from a couple of months back about how JJ can't give the impression that the atheists had the last word is even more enlightening in this regard.

Hermit wrote:... life, the universe and everything ...

Bzzt! What is "42", Alex.