asyncritus wrote:To all and sundry:

I presented a case one or 2 pages back, stating that the glass eels could not have got to the state of a 3000 mile migration in little steps of say, 500 miles. You have to invoke Lamarck to do that.

Vacuous trolling is vacuous. Answer given ,,,

You're lying. Prove otherwise.

asyncritus wrote:Please note that no refutation of that proposition has occurred, apart from a few unintelligent swipes.

Bollocks - you ignoring rebuttals does not constitute there being no refutation - what you mean is that none has crept past your Morton's Demon.

I ask you again, where have you refuted my argument about the leptocephali on this thread?

You say you have, and your blood-crazed mob is braying too - but you're lying through your teeth. Show us all where you have refuted this on this thread. I'm sure you know how to cut and paste and create links to other page, since you have mastered the quote function.

I say you're lying, and you keep on doing so.

If you can prove that you're not lying, then prove it instead of this asinine braying of lying accusations. That's a picture of your case, by the way: dead as a dodo, and stinking just as badly..

asyncritus wrote:So I'm waiting to hear, particularly from ST, who directed me to the paper in the first place.

Further, I have answered all your questions factually in this thread.

You're a liar. Prove otherwise, if you can. AND RELEVANTLY, if you know the meaning of the word.

Further, you have fully exposed your complete disdain for actual science by acting as a mouth-piece for your preferred Creationist propaganda institute.

I have no such thing.

But you have shown your complete inability to read a paper critically, and determine the relevance to a particular discussion. There's a word for that, but I'm not permitted to use it.

Just quote a paper and hey presto, all your difficulties are gone! Yeah - here's a paper, and a long quote that proves anything! Yee har! Never mind what the paper says - but hey, it's a PAPER, A PAPER. Woo-hoo! Gotta be right!. Well, I've written a book! Not a paper. That's gotta be right too - but it slags off evolution theory.

So do you believe what I say? It's a BOOK! A BOOK mind you!! Woo hoo!

Who are you even talking to? Fix your quotes, genious.

asyncritus wrote:But you have shown your complete inability to read a paper critically, and determine the relevance to a particular discussion. There's a word for that, but I'm not permitted to use it.

Just quote a paper and hey presto, all your difficulties are gone! Yeah - here's a paper, and a long quote that proves anything! Yee har! Never mind what the paper says - but hey, it's a PAPER, A PAPER. Woo-hoo! Gotta be right!. Well, I've written a book! Not a paper. That's gotta be right too - but it slags off evolution theory.

So do you believe what I say? It's a BOOK! A BOOK mind you!! Woo hoo!

The difference is that you have zero qualifications and your book wasn't peer reviewed. You really have zero clue how this science thing works...

asyncritus wrote:

asyncritus wrote:To all and sundry:

I presented a case one or 2 pages back, stating that the glass eels could not have got to the state of a 3000 mile migration in little steps of say, 500 miles. You have to invoke Lamarck to do that.

Vacuous trolling is vacuous. Answer given ,,,

You're lying. Prove otherwise.

The irony... the explanation has been given to you several times over even in links and quotes.
The only one lying here is you Async.
And ffs learn to use the quote function properly.

asyncritus wrote:
You say you have, and your blood-crazed mob is braying too

Who says so? You're failure to use the quote function properly makes it unclear who you are referring to and quoting here.
Pointless and childish ad-hominem that won't change the fact that the answer has been given, several times already.

asyncritus wrote:- but you're lying through your teeth.

You do know this is a reportable offence?

asyncritus wrote:Show us all where you have refuted this on this thread. I'm sure you know how to cut and paste and create links to other page, since you have mastered the quote function.

HAHAHAHA Yes he's mastered the quote function, unlike you, and, unlike you, he's also mastered addressing the arguments of other people.

asyncritus wrote:I say you're lying, and you keep on doing so.

And since this evidentially false, you're threading the FUA here.

asyncritus wrote:If you can prove that you're not lying,

That's not how it works Async, you claim he's lying therefore you have to show that he's not given an answer/explanation, in other words, you have to actually address his explanations.

asyncritus wrote:then prove it instead of this asinine braying of lying accusations. That's a picture of your case, by the way: dead as a dodo, and stinking just as badly..

Again, you really, really need to take a good long look in the mirror.

asyncritus wrote:So I'm waiting to hear, particularly from ST, who directed me to the paper in the first place.

asyncritus wrote:You're a liar. Prove otherwise, if you can. AND RELEVANTLY, if you know the meaning of the word.

Oh the hypocrisy.

asyncritus wrote:I have no such thing.

DOES NOT!

asyncritus wrote:But you have shown your complete inability to read a paper critically, and determine the relevance to a particular discussion. There's a word for that, but I'm not permitted to use it.

No because if anyone, it applies to you, not ST.

asyncritus wrote:Just quote a paper and hey presto, all your difficulties are gone!

Just ignore the paper or dismiss it out of hand and presto all your problems are gone!. See the stupidity of your behaviour yet Async?

asyncritus wrote:Yeah - here's a paper, and a long quote that proves anything!

And hand-waving still doesn't refute diddly squat. Unless you can refute the quote you're just dismissing things out of hand, but then that appears to be your MO.

asyncritus wrote:Yee har! Never mind what the paper says

Yes, that seems to be your instinctual reaction to any argument or piece of evidence that refutes your ludicrous notions.

asyncritus wrote:- but hey, it's a PAPER, A PAPER. Woo-hoo! Gotta be right!. Well, I've written a book! Not a paper.

Neither the quantity nor the difference in publication form between books and papers makes on more valid, true or accurate than the other. Your book could be a 1000 pages long and in hard-cover, if it contains nothing but logical fallacies it's. scientifically, worth as much as Playboy magazine.

asyncritus wrote:That's gotta be right too - but it slags off evolution theory.

Exactly how many successful peer-reviews did your book get again? O yes that's right, zilch.

asyncritus wrote:So do you believe what I say? It's a BOOK! A BOOK mind you!! Woo hoo!

Yes, your obtuse ranting does nothing to hide the fact that you have failed to address, much less refute the article or any of ST arguments and explanations, not the mention the questions and arguments posed by other members.

Oldskeptic wrote:Here is a map of the world. It looks like Alaska is far from China Russia, but that is because they are at the edges. Join the edges and you see that the aren't that far apart.

Here is the migration path of the New Zealand bar tailed godwit. notice how it follow island chains to china.

Can't you see a vast journey over only ocean? On the right hand side of your nice map?

There are no non-stop overseas flight. There are shorter flights from one place to another.

You didn't read the article either, did you? Here:

"According to Dr. Clive Minton (Australasian Wader Studies Group) "The distance between these two locations is 9,575 kilometres (5,950 mi), but the actual track flown by the bird was 11,026 kilometres (6,851 mi). This was the longest known non-stop flight of any bird."

Not non-stop, huh?

Async makes this all sound so mysterious, but there is no mystery about it. The birds follow a north-south south-north migratory path following islands from one pole to another caused by seasonal change.

As we now know (see above) this island-hopping idea of yours is nonsense. But this doesn't touch the main point I'm making.

It IS, mysterious OS. They are doing all this instinctively. They don't have a guide. So how did that instinct originate? And how did it enter their genome?

I'm fairly certain that there is some evolved instinct involved

You just had to spoil it with 'evolved' didn't you? That's begging the question, which is : How did the instinct evolve?

Meanwhile, here are some renowned and (several) living scientists and their thoughts on the whole god concept:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s47ArcQL-XQ[/youtube]

European eels don't necessarily swim from Europe to the Sargasso Sea and then their offspring swim back to Europe. They ride currents, and as you can see from the illustrations above the currents get rather circular around the Sargasso Sea, and anywhere that eel larvae are laid in the Sargasso Sea they are going to be swept back towards Europe by the currents.

The adult eels are brought to the Sargasso Sea by the Canary current moving south from Europe. They don't need to know exactly where they are going. Neither do the larvae. In fact the larvae can't really have any affect on where they are going since until they transform into glass eels they can't swim at all.

The reproduction cycle of European eels is interesting but it is not a deep gee whiz mystery that requires a god to explain how they "know" where to go.

One thing that troubled me at first is that European and North American eels use pretty much the same spawning ground but they are distinct species. But looking at the last illustration I see that in the the circular pattern of the Sargasso Sea Europe and America are almost equal distances apart when considering the west and east boundary. Timing of larval stage of the two to glass eel stage can explain this. Larvae cannot swim up river but the glass eels can.

Spearthrower wrote:Quite - and when you start figuring in the distribution of the continents when birds arose in the Jurassic, the picture becomes clearer:

Ha hah haaaa ! You can't even read your own map!

The Capistrano swallows fly up the west coast of South America up to California.

There's nothing in their way - so your map changes nothing. It's another entirely idiotic irrelevancy.

Ha ha haaah! Why don't you look at the stuff you post before posting it? And THINK!!!! If that's not too much to ask. Heh heh heh!

asyncritus wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:Quite - and when you start figuring in the distribution of the continents when birds arose in the Jurassic, the picture becomes clearer:

Ha hah haaaa ! You can't even read your own map!

The Capistrano swallows fly up the west coast of South America up to California.

There's nothing in their way - so your map changes nothing. It's another entirely idiotic irrelevancy.

Ha ha haaah! Why don't you look at the stuff you post before posting it? And THINK!!!! Heh heh heh!

I have never met someone who's so blind to the irony and hypocrisy in his own posts.

Oldskeptic wrote:
European eels don't necessarily swim from Europe to the Sargasso Sea and then their offspring swim back to Europe. They ride currents, and as you can see from the illustrations above the currents get rather circular around the Sargasso Sea, and anywhere that eel larvae are laid in the Sargasso Sea they are going to be swept back towards Europe by the currents.

You're not trying to say that ocean currents carry them back to their parents' original starting points, are you? Ocean currents don't go inland into freshwater.

The European eel has a mysterious life cycle.

It spends its early years in our rivers before heading out to sea and across the Atlantic to the Sargasso Sea in the western Atlantic near the Bahamas.

Here, it is assumed they spawn and lay eggs, however this has never been witnessed.

The eggs hatch into transparent larvae called leptocephalus and make the return journey to Europe floating on oceanic currents.

By the time they reach our shores, they have developed into tiny glass eels that swim against the current into Europe's rivers.

While living in our rivers, the eels can grow up to 1m long.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_ne ... 273877.stm

The adult eels are brought to the Sargasso Sea by the Canary current moving south from Europe. They don't need to know exactly where they are going. Neither do the larvae. In fact the larvae can't really have any affect on where they are going since until they transform into glass eels they can't swim at all.

But when they can, they do go against the current - see above quote.

The reproduction cycle of European eels is interesting but it is not a deep gee whiz mystery that requires a god to explain how they "know" where to go.

Look OS, I don't care how thin you slice it, they do something which is often described as 'mysterious'. I call it miraculous.

To get from the Sargasso into any European river in a rowing boat is a major navigational feat without instruments. These little guys have no boats or instruments - yet they manage it in their thousands.

There is no other possible explanation except that GOD did it. None whatsoever. No matter how hard you try to minimise it.

That information is in there somewhere. Instinct, they call it. But how did it get there? That's my question.

asyncritus wrote:
Look OS, I don't care how thin you slice it, they do something which is often described as 'mysterious'. I call it miraculous.

You really don't have much experience with figurative language do you?

asyncritus wrote:To get from the Sargasso into any European river in a rowing boat is a major navigational feat without instruments. These little guys have no boats or instruments - yet they manage it in their thousands.

And your personal incredulity is still a logical fallacy, no matter how many times you regurgitate it, no matter how you phrase it.

asyncritus wrote:There is no other possible explanation except that GOD did it.

That's a cop-out. It doesn't explain anything.
It's just as valid as saying nature did it. It's a nonsensical statement.

asyncritus wrote:None whatsoever. No matter how hard you try to minimise it.

Except of course for the explanations that you have so dishonestly ignored and dismissed out of hand of course.

asyncritus wrote:That information is in there somewhere. Instinct, they call it. But how did it get there? That's my question.

No that's your personal incredulity which is hindered by the blinders you refuse to take off.

asyncritus wrote:There is no other possible explanation except that GOD did it. None whatsoever. No matter how hard you try to minimise it.

God did it isn't an explanation. It's a worthless blind assertion. Odin does it, pixies do it, fairies, leprechauns, noncorporeal lesbians, magic screwdrivers. Any idiot can blindly assert things with no explanatory value and no insights.

asyncritus wrote:That information is in there somewhere. Instinct, they call it. But how did it get there? That's my question.

That question has been answered. That's how "information" controlling behavior, eg. instinct, gets encoded in genomes. It also manages to atomize your incomprehensibly skullvoided "lamarckism" comment.

Come now. Bring more denial, more ridicule and mockery, more ridiculous strawmen,intentional misrepresentations and blind assertions. You're doing so well.

asyncritus wrote:

Oldskeptic wrote:Here is a map of the world. It looks like Alaska is far from China Russia, but that is because they are at the edges. Join the edges and you see that the aren't that far apart.

Here is the migration path of the New Zealand bar tailed godwit. notice how it follow island chains to china.

Can't you see a vast journey over only ocean? On the right hand side of your nice map?

No, I see a long migration that connects islands to main land China to Northern Russia to Alaska over a short sea flight. Do you think that it is just coincidence that the migratory paths follow island chains?

There are no non-stop overseas flight. There are shorter flights from one place to another.

You didn't read the article either, did you? Here:

"According to Dr. Clive Minton (Australasian Wader Studies Group) "The distance between these two locations is 9,575 kilometres (5,950 mi), but the actual track flown by the bird was 11,026 kilometres (6,851 mi). This was the longest known non-stop flight of any bird." Not non-stop, huh?

Are you arguing that any of these birds flew 6851 miles without stopping? Or maybe Minton meant not stopping to nest? Wiki can be your friend sometimes. Sometimes not.

Async makes this all sound so mysterious, but there is no mystery about it. The birds follow a north-south south-north migratory path following islands from one pole to another caused by seasonal change.

As we now know (see above) this island-hopping idea of yours is nonsense. But this doesn't touch the main point I'm making.

How do we see that island hopping is nonsense since that is exactly what they do. The migratory paths give very good evidence for this.

What is the main point that you are making? To me it is just a a bunch of gee whiz questions about how some animal behaviors can't be explained without some sort of god.

It IS, mysterious OS. They are doing all this instinctively. They don't have a guide. So how did that instinct originate? And how did it enter their genome?

What is doing what instinctively? There are instincts in every organism. There are hardwired innate traits, but you are bringing up extreme examples of "instincts" that you seem to think disprove instincts. I'm telling you that instincts are not everything. That no bird has an instinct to go back to the exact same place every year at the exact same time.

I'm fairly certain that there is some evolved instinct involved.

You just had to spoil it with 'evolved' didn't you? That's begging the question, which is : How did the instinct evolve?

Well, you either have to believe that God created all instincts, or go with evolution by natural selection. I tend towards natural selection.

asyncritus wrote:

Oldskeptic wrote:
European eels don't necessarily swim from Europe to the Sargasso Sea and then their offspring swim back to Europe. They ride currents, and as you can see from the illustrations above the currents get rather circular around the Sargasso Sea, and anywhere that eel larvae are laid in the Sargasso Sea they are going to be swept back towards Europe by the currents.

You're not trying to say that ocean currents carry them back to their parents' original starting points, are you? Ocean currents don't go inland into freshwater.

The gulf stream goes close enough to Europe to allow the glass eels to migrate up the rivers. So yes I am saying that the current takes them back to the starting point.

The European eel has a mysterious life cycle.

It spends its early years in our rivers before heading out to sea and across the Atlantic to the Sargasso Sea in the western Atlantic near the Bahamas.

Here, it is assumed they spawn and lay eggs, however this has never been witnessed.

The eggs hatch into transparent larvae called leptocephalus and make the return journey to Europe floating on oceanic currents.

By the time they reach our shores, they have developed into tiny glass eels that swim against the current into Europe's rivers.

While living in our rivers, the eels can grow up to 1m long. http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_ne ... 273877.stm

This is exactly what I was saying. The current takes the larvae to Europe and then the glass eels swim up stream.

The adult eels are brought to the Sargasso Sea by the Canary current moving south from Europe. They don't need to know exactly where they are going. Neither do the larvae. In fact the larvae can't really have any affect on where they are going since until they transform into glass eels they can't swim at all.

But when they can, they do go against the current - see above quote.

When what can? The larvae float on the current. Then they turn into glass eels that can then swim up rivers.

The reproduction cycle of European eels is interesting but it is not a deep gee whiz mystery that requires a god to explain how they "know" where to go.

Look OS, I don't care how thin you slice it, they do something which is often described as 'mysterious'. I call it miraculous.

Call it anything that you want but it is explainable without invoking a god.

To get from the Sargasso into any European river in a rowing boat is a major navigational feat without instruments. These little guys have no boats or instruments - yet they manage it in their thousands.

Stupid analogies are stupid. We are not talking about rowboats.

There is no other possible explanation except that GOD did it. None whatsoever. No matter how hard you try to minimise it.

So you've gone through all your gee whiz it's not possible just so stories where you have lied and misrepresented the facts, and when presented with actual natural explanations you revert to, "There is no other possible explanation except that GOD did it."
I can say that I am extremely unimpressed by your final argument.

That information is in there somewhere. Instinct, they call it. But how did it get there? That's my question.

Natural selection.

I have a proposal for you Async. You can mail me a copy of your book and I promise to read it. I will return it to you with my notes in the margins, and use it to further the discussion here.

I will not pay for your book because it against my principles to further your kind of propaganda with economic support, and my local library does not have it.

PM me for my address.

asyncritus wrote:

asyncritus wrote:
lying

lying through your teeth

I say you're lying, and you keep on doing so.

You're a liar

Since I demonstrated that you quote mined (which is a form of lying btw), I find that all of your own accusations of lying bear remarkably little force.

asyncritus wrote:"Brunitski"

I may have missed something here.

Who the hell are you? And how did you get into this conversation?

That you may have missed something has to rank as one of the all time great understatements, asyncritus. Personally, after reading the thread and your dubious contribution to it, I would rather assert that your misses are legion - it's your hits that are rare.

And who the hell am I?
I am a member of this forum. I got into this conversation because I am drawn to ignorance the way some folk are drawn to car accidents - I feel that sort of horrified fascination when reading your posts.

*ETA: And you haven't answered my question, to whit - Which God are you crediting with all this real-time fiddling? I would like to know which mythical entity is that ok with willful misrepresentation.

asyncritus wrote:

asyncritus wrote:To all and sundry:

I presented a case one or 2 pages back, stating that the glass eels could not have got to the state of a 3000 mile migration in little steps of say, 500 miles. You have to invoke Lamarck to do that.

Vacuous trolling is vacuous. Answer given ,,,

You're lying. Prove otherwise.

asyncritus wrote:Please note that no refutation of that proposition has occurred, apart from a few unintelligent swipes.

Bollocks - you ignoring rebuttals does not constitute there being no refutation - what you mean is that none has crept past your Morton's Demon.

I ask you again, where have you refuted my argument about the leptocephali on this thread?

You say you have, and your blood-crazed mob is braying too - but you're lying through your teeth. Show us all where you have refuted this on this thread. I'm sure you know how to cut and paste and create links to other page, since you have mastered the quote function.

I say you're lying, and you keep on doing so.

If you can prove that you're not lying, then prove it instead of this asinine braying of lying accusations. That's a picture of your case, by the way: dead as a dodo, and stinking just as badly..

asyncritus wrote:So I'm waiting to hear, particularly from ST, who directed me to the paper in the first place.

Further, I have answered all your questions factually in this thread.

You're a liar. Prove otherwise, if you can. AND RELEVANTLY, if you know the meaning of the word.

Further, you have fully exposed your complete disdain for actual science by acting as a mouth-piece for your preferred Creationist propaganda institute.

I have no such thing.

But you have shown your complete inability to read a paper critically, and determine the relevance to a particular discussion. There's a word for that, but I'm not permitted to use it.

Just quote a paper and hey presto, all your difficulties are gone! Yeah - here's a paper, and a long quote that proves anything! Yee har! Never mind what the paper says - but hey, it's a PAPER, A PAPER. Woo-hoo! Gotta be right!. Well, I've written a book! Not a paper. That's gotta be right too - but it slags off evolution theory.

So do you believe what I say? It's a BOOK! A BOOK mind you!! Woo hoo!

Translation: the long response you wrote on the previous page has been firmly ignored. I shall now continue pretending that my opinion formed on total ignorance is unchallenged.

Rumraket wrote:

asyncritus wrote:But you have shown your complete inability to read a paper critically, and determine the relevance to a particular discussion. There's a word for that, but I'm not permitted to use it.

Just quote a paper and hey presto, all your difficulties are gone! Yeah - here's a paper, and a long quote that proves anything! Yee har! Never mind what the paper says - but hey, it's a PAPER, A PAPER. Woo-hoo! Gotta be right!. Well, I've written a book! Not a paper. That's gotta be right too - but it slags off evolution theory.

So do you believe what I say? It's a BOOK! A BOOK mind you!! Woo hoo!

The difference is that you have zero qualifications and your book wasn't peer reviewed. You really have zero clue how this science thing works...

He wrote a book?

And he thinks that lends him credence?

So vanity press is sufficient credentials, is it Async?