Cofty: like I said in my post - discussion and not judgement or better than thou - so yes please! And to prove Ive read them as per advice Ill answer any questions on the recommended literature.
Richard Dawkins espouses Militant Atheism: "Mock them, Ridicule them." Attack Religious People with Insults!
by MagicMItchJensen 65 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
-
-
opusdei1972
Dawkins: "and make sure you really show them how stupid they are for believing in something they can't prove!"
I disagree with it. Peter Higgs believed in his theory for some decades, then CERN confirmed it. In Physics, you can't prove something unless you show it by an experiment. I think Dawkins is exaggerating his position, although he is essentially right when he criticizes religions.
-
LisaRose
According to evolution birds are the defendants of reptiles. Driven by the need to escape predators on the ground the adapted to the air by developing wings. How does a lizard decide it's time to grow wings? Did one fall off a cliff one day and magically sprout wings? Science would clearly say no. So how many lizards tried to fly off cliffs before their subsequent generations began to show signs of wings? Surely every lizard that tried to fly failed or died trying? How did they pass on the adaptive gene process? And the ones that didnt die, how many times in their life span did they jump off "flyable" heights that genetic memory was passed on to the following generations who followed suit with the same dead end results?
That is not how evolution works at all. No lizard decided he needed wings and then grew them, that would indeed be silly. No evolutionary change happened because of a perceived need on the part of the organism, it's all just minute changes to DNA, over millions of years and generations, that eventually let to the variety of species we see today
Evolution happens entirely by chance because of mutations in the DNA. Any mutation in the DNA of an organism that give that organism a better chance of survival will be more likely to be passed down to successive generations. Most mutation are very small, incremental changes
Your lizard did not sprout wings, however a lizard could have had a mutation that gave him some change that made him better suited to his particular environment at that time. That change was not a fully developed wing, but something that later developed into a wing, after many more mutations and many more generations. There were probably gliding animals before actual winged animals.
How exactly wings evolved is a matter of debate among scientists, but there is enough evidence linking winged creatures to their non winged ancestors to know for a fact that wings did in fact evolve.
For more information see http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/vertebrates/flight/evolve.html
The most difficult question about the origin of flight is "Why?". "Why" questions are the most difficult ones to ask when they concern evolution; evolution does not ask "why?" Evolution has no sense of future; the here and now is the only place where evolution occurs. It is imperative to keep this in mind when considering the origin of flight. Lineages of organisms are not designed for some future purpose; they are changed by opportunities to which they can respond and by the selective processes that their environment imposes on them. Evolution is limited by developmental and genetic constraints. If an adaptation is useful to a lineage, chances are that it will be preserved. If an adaptation is co-opted from a previous use to a new use, it is called an exaptation. The only scientific way to approach why flight evolved in a group is to first figure out how it evolved; what the temporal sequence of exaptations and adaptations was.
Wikipedia is avery good resource for answers to questions on evolution. I found the information above by typing "how did wings evolve". -
cofty
so yes please! And to prove Ive read them as per advice Ill answer any questions on the recommended literature. - SSC
Here are a few suggestions...
"Why Evolution is true" by Jerry Coyne
"Your Inner Fish" by Neil Shubin
"The Greatest Show on Earth" by Richard Dawkins
"The Selfish Gene" - by Richard Dawkins
"Ascending Mount Improbable" - by Richard Dawkins
The Blind Watchmaker - by Richard Dawkins
"Endless Forms Most Beautiful" by Sean B. Carroll
"The making of the fittest" by Sean B Carroll
"Evolution, what the fossils say" by Donald Prothero
"Life Ascending" by Nick Lane
For starters take an hour or so to read the Common Ancestry thread.
-
SecretSlaveClass
Lisa thank you for your imput, I sincerely appreciate it.You are absolutely right and my wording was awful. I could have simply asked "why" instead of my diatribe!
Cofty thank you for the list. Amazon will be recieving some orders from me this very morning. I am always looking for answers and if these books offer them I shall be eternally grateful!
-
Qcmbr
Institutions or people who wish to impose power over other people must have some form of leverage. This will either be legal (you must 'obey' the police or go to jail), physical (I have a knife), resource (they pay you), cultural (she cannot wear that or she will be shunned) or intellectual (he knows something you don't.) Since religion can cross all those boundaries - and regularly does - it can only be weakened by an equal or superior opposite force. Mockery and derision attack the cultural and intellectual forces of religion. If an idea can withstand and triumph over mockery and derision then it is a worthy cultural and intellectual force (it does not make it right, just worthy).
If an idea cannot withstand derision and mockery and can only stand if aided by legal, physical or financial support then it is intrinsically unstable and weak. The true believers of a faith should relish mockery and derision. Only those deeply insecure in their belief seek to be unchallenged and hide behind squeals for respect and politeness because that allows them to continue to impose their will over you.
Religious people attempt to control and impose their will over everyone else by dictating what can be said and what can be done from basic social interactions through to state level laws. It is very rare for a religion to stand up for freedom of thought or to celebrate difference and individuality.