Ah, vanilla, I see that your comments have now degenerated into the standard contentless rhetoric of a dyed-in-the-wool creationist who wants nothing more than to remain undisturbed in her beliefs. You didn't answer a single question I asked. Why is that, do you think?
: Alan, i am also an engineer, a software engineer,
There's a big, big difference between software and hardware engineers. I do both, so I know what I'm talking about. The software engineer only has to deal with a computer, which is far less challenging than dealing with real objects. They tend to be dreamers whereas hardware engineers have both the personality and experience to know that dreams get you nowhere in beating a recalcitrant system into submission.
In any case, you claimed that people don't create things; I demonstrated that they do. Even software engineers create things -- programs -- that accomplish tasks.
: and i have a university education so i dont consider myself to be lacking acedimcally or ignorant.
You may have ten degrees in certain areas, but in the field of biology your statements prove that you are quite ignorant. That's why people are suggesting that you educate yourself. You're acting like an educated English teacher who never took a programming course in her life, who nevertheless read a Readers Digest article about programming and now knows everything there is to know about programming.
: you seem annoyed that i dont accept evolution,
Not at all. I don't care if you believe in tooth fairies. But if you come on a discussion board and put out your opinions, then you can expect to be challenged by people with other opinions. And when you set forth opinions that are not backed by facts, you can especially expect to be challenged both to provide facts that support your opinions, and to be presented with arguments and facts that disprove your opinions. If you don't like it, go to a less challenging discussion board.
: but it is my belief, not yours, are you just annoyed i dont agree with you?
I'm annoyed intellectually whenever someone claims objective support for beliefs or claims that have none. That doesn't mean I'm annoyed emotionally. Sometimes I'm annoyed in both ways, such as when JW leaders make claims and set forth beliefs that cause great harm to people. Similarly, strict creationist beliefs sometimes lead to actions that harm people.
: what i said about scientists is that they have not created 1 living organism. not one, not even a nano thing that has 1 leg, nothing, no plant, no blade of grass, nothing.
So what? The fact that biologists are as of now too ignorant to make a living organism says nothing about what they might be able to do in the future. Your argument is like that of someone a couple of hundred years ago arguing that man could never fly because so far he had been unable to do it. If in a hundred years biologists are able routinely to make living organisms, would that not negate your argument? Of course it would. Until Crick discovered what DNA does, a lot of creationists argued that life was too wonderful a mystery to understand. Now that geneticists have mapped the human genome, and people are cloning even mammals like sheep, do we hear such arguments anymore? Of course not. But I have no doubt that creationists will come up with other reasons not to accept science, because of their prior religious beliefs.
: when i talk about evolutoin, you say you wouldnt be able to see any changes in the fossil. sure you would, if you have a species growing wings and turning into a bloody elephant sure you would see it change! you would find a fossil with half a trunk at least no? a feather perhaps?
Here is a fine example of a spectacularly lousy argument. Having never seen a "full trunk", how would you know what a "half a trunk" was? You wouldn't. You'd see a fully functioning trunk that's half as long as the ones we see now. But you wouldn't know it's "half a trunk" because it would be "half a trunk" only with respect to a "full trunk" that did not exist.
As for feathers, surely you've read something about the famous Archaeopteryx. This creature was a curious combination of reptile and bird features. It had teeth and a long, bony tail -- features common in reptiles but never seen in modern birds. Teeth are found, though, in other ancient fossil birds. An amazing fact is that modern birds still have genes for teeth, which can be turned on by using certain growth hormones during egg development. Ever hear of experiments where chicken embryos grew teeth? Archaeopteryx also had a skeleton that's about as intermediate between a certain class of dinosaurs and modern birds as you can get. While it had long arms that were obviously wings, and certain other "bird features", its basic skeletal layout was almost identical to that of a small dinosaur called "Coelosaur". In fact, one Archaeopteryx fossil was classifed as a Coelosaur for about 100 years, and was proved to be the former only after feather impressions were found in the fossil matrix after a careful investigation. One scientist (the quite eccentric Fred Hoyle) who doubted that Archaeopteryx was truly a bird even tried to argue that all of the Archeopteryx fossils that had feather impressions were faked.
It is information like the above, vanilla, that you appear woefully ignorant of. If you aren't, you can show it by making specific comments about the many specifics that I've pointed out.
AlanF
