Raf

Returning to the subject of what evolution "predicts," I see that there's some misunderstanding on your part of what I meant. I shall attempt to clarify. You asked, "Are there any details to the predictions that we should be on the lookout for? ... how would we know over the course of human history if the predictions came true?" Etc. The problem here is, you are interpreting my use of the word "prediction" as an expectation that we will observe something as it happens. While that is certainly the case on the micro-level (which you do not dispute), it is not the case in the macro-level (which you do appear to dispute, correct me if I'm mistaken). So let's take a step back and explain what I mean in context by "predict." Let's say you have a crime. Murder, rape, robbery. A real ugly scene. The victim, of course, is no longer around to testify about what has happened. But you have a suspicion that the killer is a specific person. Why? Well, this person showed up at a pawn shop trying to sell some of the stolen items. You now have a hypothesis: The Seller is also The Rapist/Killer. Working from that hypothesis, what do you expect to find back at the crime scene and other places? Based on the hypothesis that the Seller is the Rapist/Killer, you can expect (predict) the following: If there's DNA inside the victim it will belong to the Seller. If there are fingerprints at the scene, they will belong to the Seller. If there are footprints at the scene, they will match the Seller's foot size. If there is a recording, it will show the Seller. Note, none of these are predictions about the future. They are predictions about what you will learn about the past. For the sake of argument, now, let's say we have the following: There's no video of the incident, but a closed circuit camera took a photo every 23 seconds. Fingerprints all over the crime scene come back to the Seller. It's his DNA in the victim. The stolen items are all recovered in the Seller's bedroom. After a while, you gather enough evidence so that your hypothesis, "The Seller is the Rapist/Killer" is no longer just a hypothesis. It is now a theory: an explanation of what took place that is consistent with the evidence and that can be used to extrapolate beyond what you have as evidence. In one photo, taken at moment 1:00:00, someone matching the Seller is seen outside a window. At 1:00:23, the figure is still outside the window, but the glass is broken, and a brick is inside the house. At 1:00:46, the Seller is inside the house, on the opposite side of the window. Now, you may look at these three photos and bemoan the fact that there are no transitional fossils photos showing that the Seller threw the brick through the window and crawled through the now broken window to get to the inside of the house. And unless you find those transitional photos, you are simply not prepared to believe that the person inside the house is the same person as the one outside the house. For example, you note, the person inside the house is bleeding, while the person outside the house is not. Clearly not the same person. You could go that route, but you'd be an idiot. You wrote: "The fossil record lacks transitional fossils showing common traits between an ancestral group and its supposedly derived descendants." That is an absolute falsehood, on a number of levels. First of all, ALL FOSSILS ARE TRANSITIONAL. What you are actually saying is that we do not have a complete fossil record of the evolution of any species, and that is, of course, true. But to say the fossil record "lacks" transitional fossils betrays an utter misunderstanding of what fossils are in the first place. All the fossils we have are transitional. That's what fossils are! But here's what happens: I have a picture of myself from 1971 and a picture of myself today. While there are some similarities, we do not look like the same person at all. It's a pretty big gap between 1971 and 2014. But wait, now I find a picture of myself from 1992! Good, right? It shows what I looked like about halfway between 1971 and 2014 (give or take a year). But what happens? Now, instead of ONE gap, we have TWO -- one from 1971 to 1992, and the other from 1992 to 2014. Now we look for more transitional photos. We find pics dating 1983 and 2001. Awesome. We're filling in what we can, but we also now have four gaps. That's a LOT of missing photos. Can't be sure the person in the 2014 photo is a later form of the person in the 1971 photo. Not with so many missing transitional photos. The reason there are so many gaps in the fossil record is simply that there are so many fossils. Biologists have done a fairly decent job of classifying and categorizing these things and showing which fossils are transitional in relation to each other and which are on a different "branch," so to speak. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossils Of course, no list will EVER be complete, because the surveillance camera didn't take a video. It only took intermittent snapshots. So, back to what evolution predicts. Evolution predicts that we will find certain fossils in certain strata. Evolution does NOT predict that we will observe one species for a period of a few hundred or even a few thousand years and observe the transformation of one species into the next. That's what Ross implied, and that was a lie. Etc.

If Ross is talking about observations made during human history, then his comment makes no sense. Let's review the comment in question: Why would anyone expect to observe a measurable change within a species, much less the appearance of a new one, during the FRACTION of human history during which we have been inclined to make the observations we've made? How long have ecologists been observing these things? A couple of hundred years? Let's go to town and say 5,000 years. In evolutionary terms, that's a blink of an eye! BUT WAIT! That's not all we're seeing from Ross (or is it your summary? I'm not really keeping track). This is nothing short of a lie. Not really much more to say about it than that. Unless there's more in context than is provided in summary, it's a whopper of a falsehood. Every scientific theory makes predictions. Evolution is not unique in this regard, and evolution does not predict the sudden appearance of a new species while observing an old one (for example, ecologists observing horses and whales observing the emergence of a new species descended from either in a short period of time, say, 5,000 years). Evolution predicts tiny changes over exceedingly large periods of time, nothing particularly noticeable from one generation to the next. In any event, all of that is far afield from whether Genesis is correct about the order of creation described in chapter 1 versus the progression of earth and life development that we can ascertain from science. So while your discussion of microevolution and macroevolution are rather interesting, they are rather beside the point of this thread. Genesis 1:1 lumps "time/space zero" and the formation of the earth, a period encompassing about 9 or 10 billion years, into "in the beginning." Fine, I guess. Not gonna quibble. Me, if I said something happened "in the beginning of 2014" and you later learned it happened in late August, I think you'd accuse me of being kinda sort of wrong. But again, why quibble. See the part I've highlighted in bold? Yeah, that's a lie. v. 14, God says "let there be..." Unless language is meaningless, before God says "let there be," there was not. v. 15 says "and it was so." It does not say "and it had already been so for a few billion years." Verse 16 says God made two great lights. It doesn't say he revealed two great lights. He wasn't writing from Earth's perspective (why would he? There was no one on Earth to make this observation). He made the stars. Not "they were already in existence." I could go on, but you get my point: what you are saying is decidedly NOT what Genesis is saying. Genesis is pretty clear that the Sun, Moon and stars are made on day 4. You come along, KNOWING that to be untrue, and try to twist what Genesis actually says so that it now says these things were really here all along. Well, that's just not what it says. Sorry. By the way, birds did not precede land creatures. I thought we went over that already.

Actually, by finagling, I mean calling something a matter of perspective when it's clearly and obviously not. Let's again review what the Bible says about the Flood. The purpose of the flood was to wipe out all mankind. All of it. Not all of it in one region. All of it. Genesis 6:7. Genesis 6:13 the end of ALL FLESH is come before me. All of it. v. 17 says all flesh will die, everything under heaven. This is God talking, by the way, not man. God's observation point is infinite. When he says all, we expect him to mean ALL all. Now, what you're saying is, God didn't mean ALL flesh would die. He just said it. He didn't mean he was going to destroy all life. He just said it. He didn't mean he was going to flood the whole earth. He just said it. He didn't mean the flood covered mountains with 15 cubits of water. He just said it. You know, if the Bible said the whole world was covered in water, I'd probably concede your point. But Genesis gets pretty darned specific about what it means when it says the whole world. He doesn't tell Noah to spend 120 years moving his family from an unsafe region of the world to a safer one. There wasn't going to BE a safer one. He told Noah to build an ark, because that was the only way Noah was going to survive! I'm sorry if this offends, but it's the IDEA I'm discrediting, not the person espousing it. Even if we were to concede that the water did not rise as high as the Bible says it rose (an actual error), the point remains that the flood described in the NCSE article didn't cover ANY mountains, much less every mountain. This event, as described in the Bible, did not happen. Something similar might have happened nearby, but it didn't carry a 600 year old man and his child-bearing daughters in law to Ararat, unless you want to define Ararat so loosely that it means "wherever the boat landed." That's what I mean by finagle. Only one of us here is going by what the Bible says. And it's not the one who believes it's true. Ross is not employing scientific reasoning. I'll say more on this further down.

As far as the National Center for Science Education article and the Biblical flood, only one question needs to be asked. Does the article describe a flood that would carry Noah's Ark to an area that could reasonably be referred to as "the mountains of Ararat"? Ararat has two peaks (that's why it's called "mountains." It's not a mountain range like the Rockies, the Alps or the Andes). Supposedly, definitions of "the mountains of Ararat" have been loosely interpreted to the extent that we're talking about a mountain in Cizre, Turkey (Mount Judi, about 60 miles away from Ararat, if I read correctly). For the sake of argument, let us accept Mt. Judi because it is nice and far south of the actual mountains of Ararat. Does the flood described in the NCSE article come anywhere near Mt. Judi? Nope. Not even close. Therefore, by this very article you cited, IF the flood stories of multiple cultures (not just the Hebrew culture) were an allusion to an actual, historical flood, it still does not exonerate the Bible of the actual errors committed in the telling of the story. To wit: The flood did not cover mountains, as the Bible claimed it did. And the flood did not carry the ark to the mountains of Ararat, or to the mountains 60 miles south of Ararat, or anywhere near the Turkish border, because the flood did not extend that far north! Pick your actual error.

Big post, can't answer all of it at once, so please be patient. That's the easiest, so I will tackle it first. A real unbiased scientist would be one who did not BEGIN with his conclusion (that there WILL be harmony between science and scripture no matter how much I have to twist one or the other to make it happen). Ross begins with his conclusion, as do you. That's not how science works.

A writer discovers that the cartoon universe he thinks is a product of his imagination is actually real -- and rapidly becoming overrun by zombies.

Sorry... coming right up...

Maybe Raf was indicating a knowledge of the movie without actually guessing the movie, which sounds to me like Conan the Barbarian

Animal House

Do you want to live forever?

Hill Street Blues Clues

Yes, please, every clue MUST be spelled out for this one. Wow.

You were, of course, correct about Little House. The pilot was actually based on Little House on the Prairie, a sequel to Little House in the Big Woods. The series was loosely based on the third book in the series, On the Banks of Plum Creek. Mary did go blind in real life. She also never married, so her blind husband never recovered his sight. :)

"Do you ever have deja vu?" "Didn't you just ask me that?"

One of the supporting characters went blind from a clunk on the head. He later regained his sight after another clunk on the head. This didn't happen in the source novels, because this character didn't exist at all in the source novels.

The pilot for this series was based on a novel that was actually a sequel. The series itself played a little fast and loose with subsequent novels in the series. For example, the central characters pretty much stayed in the title location throughout the series, but in the books, they moved many times. One other bit of trivia: The person who wrote the theme music for this series also wrote the well known prototypical burlesque theme music known as "The Stripper."

You had me at Danielle Spencer. What's Happening

LOL! I think you just won the game.

"I was in the Virgin Islands once. I met a girl. We ate lobster, drank piña coladas. At sunset, we made love like sea otters. That was a pretty good day."

Really? Wow. Talk about a WAG. Ok, coming up...

"Tutti Frutti" "Do you believe in rock and roll? Can music save your mortal soul? Can you teach me how to dance real slow?"

Body Heat ?

On the whole "whale" diversion, there's something worth noting here. T-Bone has evidently gone to some trouble explaining why Genesis 1:21 mentions whales and whether that's an accurate translation. If you go back over my post, however, you will see that I made no such assertion (completely understandable, as I was not relying on the King James when I ASKED whether whales were included in the verse). I was not claiming that Genesis 1:21 included whales. If it did, it's an error. If it didn't, it's not. Minor point in the scheme of what I actually WAS addressing. The more I review what you're sharing about Ross, the more clear it is becoming that he is absurdly incorrect about whale evolution. That is a REMARKABLE claim. It's also horsehockey, and Ross should know it. He's counting on you NOT knowing it, though. Here's a simple task: Find one expert in cetacean biology and evolution who actually agrees with what you wrote there. If Ross is correct in that statement, then evolution has been actively disproved. That would be a Nobel-worthy achievement in the field of science. It is just an astonishing development, one that would have the entire field of biology shaken to its foundations. Unless, of course, it's bullcrap. It's simply not true. But again, don't take my word for it: check with real, unbiased scientists who have not started with their conclusions. Do whale biologists think whales are an exception to evolution, or that there hasn't been enough time for whales to evolve the way they have? Find one. One. (Psst: Ross is not one). Enjoy.

Mark, I appreciate your endorsement of Ross. If you'd like to apply it to something I've said, I'm all ears. Meanwhile, back to T-Bone: You can SAY that as often as you'd like, but you can only demonstrate it by finagling the Bible until it says the opposite of, or something completely different from, what is actually says. I'm entertained by the amount of effort you've put into examining what I said about whales, by the way. I just threw that in there as an afterthought, and you're acting like you've come across the biggest gotcha against my post. Not even close. First off, Ross is wrong. Ross makes the crucial mistake of beginning with his conclusion and manipulating both facts and scripture to suit that conclusion. Couple of things: one, that there's never been a measurable chance within a species is a flat out lie on its face, but if you expand on the idea a little bit, we might be able to iron it out. On its face, though, that's a howler. Big fat lie. Try again. Second: "much less the appearance of a new one" reflects both a simplistic and a distorted view of what evolution predicts. If Ross is trying to say that the fossil record does not show speciation, he's once again simply lying. Again, the problem here may be the wording. To say there's never been a change within a species, much less the emergence of a new one, is rather oxymoronic. You're never going to see a new species within a species. Because you're within a species. That's like looking for high school graduates among a high school's freshman population. Duh. You've kind of defined them out of the sample population. None of this discussion on whales, horses, speciation, etc, does a single thing to contradict the ACTUAL POINT I WAS MAKING, which is, again: Here's the order of creation in Genesis: Heaven, earth, light, plant life, the sun (moon and stars) water life, birds, THEN land animals) That's an actual error. In reality, it was heaven/light, sun, earth, with plant life not showing up for a couple of BILLION years, AFTER water life, and birds came after (and from) land animals. Now, if you BEGIN with the conclusion that there's no contradiction between scripture and science, then you can harmonize the two, but only by twisting both the scripture and science. The more you distort one, the less you have to distort the other. Ross accomplishes both, distorting science for those who are not scientifically literate, and distorting scripture in ways that, frankly, I'm surprised you guys are allowing. You would never let Wierwille get away with the infractions Ross is committing. But go ahead. I'm not going to stop you.

On the "regional flood" and the article we're debating, I just have this to say: You quoted the point I made but did not refute it. In fact, the information you provided supported every point I made. Namely, that the flood described in the article directly exposes the Genesis flood as an actual error. The Bible doesn't say it "looked like" the whole world was covered in water. Genesis makes explicit statements that the article you cite clearly establishes to be flat out wrong. The Bible says the flood covered mountains. The flood in the article did not. The Bible says the flood carried the ark to Ararat. The flood described in the article would not have accomplished that feat. So in other words, I'm quoting the Bible. You're quoting an article that says the Bible is actually in error. And you're claiming that the article proves the Bible is accurate and not in error. I'm sorry, but you simply cannot have it both ways.