Posts by skeptic2

43

Questions Surrounding Evolution

by The wanderer in

jw
friends

questions surrounding evolution regarding this subject, the thought in mind is to ask.

some pertinent questions regarding evolution in .

it must be strongly emphasized that there is no wish.

skeptic2

Is the OP a question about evolution or the origin of the universe? Or is the author incredibly confused?

43

Questions Surrounding Evolution

by The wanderer in

jw
friends

questions surrounding evolution regarding this subject, the thought in mind is to ask.

some pertinent questions regarding evolution in .

it must be strongly emphasized that there is no wish.

skeptic2

Nice... the old 'God doesn't need to be explained' trick. The last great hope of the creationist!

Well, I'm afraid he does.

Let's go through the details.

In order for this god to create a universe, he must have space to create it in, and number of dimensions equal to or greater than that of our universe, otherwise it couldn't be contained in the god's universe. No time, no change, no movement, period, so he must also have time, in order to go from a state of not having a universe in front of him, to one of having a universe in front of him.

The gods need explaining just as much as the the humans and other life. I'm not saying they dont exist, but I am saying you cannot postulate the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient organism and then say 'I dont need to explain how it got there'. If you do, you just end up looking silly.

Back to evolution. Natural selection is validated process whereby you can go from incredibly simple proto-life to incredibly complex life. There is a mountain of evidence for natural selection coming from many different fields of science. We know how it works almost inside out. So we know the undesigned can produce the designed, we've been there, done that, got the t-shirt. And we know how we can proceed from there, we can design watches and boeing 747s.

If god exists, his existence must have come about by a process similar to natural selection, whereby the simple begets the complex. This follows from the logic that the starting point of everything must be simple, otherwise it cannot be the starting point.

43

Questions Surrounding Evolution

by The wanderer in

jw
friends

questions surrounding evolution regarding this subject, the thought in mind is to ask.

some pertinent questions regarding evolution in .

it must be strongly emphasized that there is no wish.

skeptic2

We have two possibilities to explain the apparent design in nature.

1. Evolution, which effortlessly shows how we can get from simple to complex organisms that look designed (they are in effect designed by natural selection).

2. God, who is himself complex, and therefore subject to the same argument 'who designed him'.

Remember that God is the ultimate wristwatch.

537

evolution or creation? lets talk...

by Sam87 in

jw
friends

ok, lets have a discussion about where we all came from, evolution or creation?

(or whatever you beleive in of course) every one put down there main reasons, along with reasonable facts and backup as to why.. .

hopefully this doesnt start to many arguments, lol.. .

skeptic2

What is the creationist explanation for new species over time (millions of species over billions of years)? Does God parachute another fully-formed species onto the planet every few years? The creationist's God is a simpleton, incapable of the breathtaking simplicity of natural selection, they blaspheme God for their own political ends.

Evolution might bug you, nothing wrong with that, keep researching and it will bug you less. No evolution should bug you more.

For example, are these transitional fossils from land mammal to sea mammal (i.e. whales), or is God/Satan playing a trick on us? Note that ambulocetus is adapted to spending some of it's time in water (think wolves that hide on the water's edge), while Dalanistes is fully adapted to spend ing all it's time in water (think crocodile).

For example, when did God invent the fully formed bird? Did he invent all existing species at once?

What explains extinct bird-like species and their place further back in the fossil record?

Archaeopteryx, 140 million years ago

Sinornithosaurus, 130 million years ago, rudimentary feathers/hairs on body

close up of head

Caudipteryx, 120 million years ago

artists impression

Gansus yumenensis, 110 million years ago

artists impression

Hesperornis, flight-less bird with teeth, 90 million years ago

Presbyornis, 50 million years ago

Diatryma, 50 million years ago

This is just a handful of bird and bird-like species. Did God drop them onto the planet fully formed? Does he still drop species onto the planet fully formed? What year was the last one?

537

evolution or creation? lets talk...

by Sam87 in

jw
friends

ok, lets have a discussion about where we all came from, evolution or creation?

(or whatever you beleive in of course) every one put down there main reasons, along with reasonable facts and backup as to why.. .

hopefully this doesnt start to many arguments, lol.. .

skeptic2

Here's my sensible contribution to the debate:

LOL on all of the "Creationists" posting on this subject......LMFAOROF

Here's my less sensible contribution to the debate, questions for creationists:

The Genesis flood: Where did all that water come from? Where did it go? more flood information
How could the Genesis flood form the Grand Canyon? more information on the Grand Canyon
How do you explain the universally consistent radioactive dating results obtained with different radioactive elements, and the consistent correlation with objects of known age? more radioactive dating information
What scientifically factual information can you supply to support your contention that the universe is only a few thousand years old?
How do you explain the astronomical evidence that the universe is billions of years old, without resorting to the preposterous assumption that the speed of light was millions of times faster in the past than it is now? more information
What mathematical proof can you supply, based on the known equations of thermodynamics, that order can not spontaneously arise from disorder? more thermodynamics information
If your claim that thermodynamics will not permit the evolution of complex living structures is true, then how do you explain, without resorting to make-believe special mechanisms that have no basis in thermodynamics, the development of a chick in an egg?
If creationism is scientifically valid, then why is it necessary to emphasize that the sectarian religous dogma of the Book of Genesis is the ultimate scientific authority?
If you believe that God can override nature to create living things as described in the Book of Genesis, then what reasons do you have, other than your religious beliefs, that God could not have created living things through a process of evolution?
The standard creationist explanation for the distribution of fossils in geological strata, with most primitive life forms in the lower strata, and mammals and humans in the upper strata, is that clever mankind was smart enough to climb to higher ground to escape the rising flood waters. How do you explain the fact that thousands of persons drowned in the recent Central America floods, in an area contiguous to higher ground? How do you explain the position of the fossils in the geologic layers, with small fossils below large fossils, which is contrary to hydraulic sorting in which large objects settle deeper than small objects?

11. Why is there the coherence among many different dating methods pointing to an old earth and life on earth for a long time - for example: radioactivity, tree rings, ice cores, corals, supernovas - from astronomy, biology, physics, geology, chemistry and archeology? These methods are based on quite distinct fields of inquiry and are quite diverse, yet manage to arrive at quite similar dates. (This is not answered by saying that there is no proof of uniformity of radioactive decay. The question is why all these different methods give the same answers.)

12. In the contemporary world, different animals and plants live in different places. Why is there the present distribution of animals and plants in the world? For example, how is it that marsupials are restricted to Australia and nearby islands and the Americas, monotremes to Australia and nearby islands, and few placental mammals are native to Australia? Or why are tomatoes and potatoes native to the Americas only? (This is not a question merely of how they could have arrived there, it is also of why only there.)

13. There is a large body of information about the different species of animals and plants, systematically organized, which is conventionally represented as reflecting genetic relationships between different species. So, for example, lions are said to be more closely related to tigers than they are to elephants. If different kinds are not genetically related, what is the explanation for the greater and less similarities between different kinds of living things? That is to say, why would special creation produce this complex pattern rather than just resulting in all kinds being equally related to all others?

Coherence of many different dating methods.
Chronological distribution of fossils.
Spatial distribution of living things.
Relationships between living things.

14. Has creationism ever made a true prediction? (as compared to evolution which has made countless subsequently validated predictions, which is partially how it qualifies as a scientific theory)

Any good scientific theory can make predictions, either of what we will observe, or what we should find. If it cannot make such predictions, then it has nothing to do with reality. If it fails at its predictions, then it is false or incomplete.

Neo-Darwinism make predictions, and those predictions are confirmed with every archaeological discovery. All life on Earth is derived from common ancestors, and finding organisms without DNA would disprove that. Yet all lifeforms on Earth have DNA. All life on Earth is hierarchical, and both the morphological and molecular hierarchies converge. Our discovery of transitional forms follow this hierarchy : we have plenty of transitions between reptiles and birds and reptiles and mammals, for example, but none between, say, birds and mammals. If we did find such a form, it would be a problem for Neo-Darwinism !

We can explain why vestigial organs exist in a given species, by looking at the past of its genome. If whales were fishes instead of mammals, it would be rather hard to explain why they have vestigial legs. Indeed, those vestigial legs could be called the "smoking gun" of Neo-Darwinism. Or to take a previous example, we should not find mammals with vestigial feathers. There are millions of ways by which Neo-Darwinism could be falsified, and yet all the data we find confirm its obvious truth.

15. What is the physical evidence that species cannot evolve beyond "kinds" ?

One prediction made by most Creationists is either that species cannot evolve into another species, or from "kind" to "kind". Now here we have a problem already, since the notion of "kind" is not defined by Creationists. Some claim that a "kind" is identified visually. For instance, all "dogs" are a "kind". However, it is unclear why "terriers" or "mammals", for instance, are not kinds instead of "dogs".

At any rate, this question applies to all Creationists. If there is such a barrier to the progress of evolution, then where is it in the DNA ? Where is this barrier and how is it expressed in the DNA ? If somehow DNA could not change beyond a certain limit, then we should see this somewhere. Why is all DNA the same, and does not seem to have any such barrier at all ?

Neo-Darwinism is clear on the question : all adaptation proceeds from the same mechanisms. Speciation or "kind-to-kind" is no different from adaptation within a species or "kind", just more extensive. And the proof is, as they say, in the pudding : the transitional forms we observe in the fossil record are smooth gradations, thus showing the beauty and power of the processes of evolution.

16. Why do you believe that all living things popped up from nothing ?

Creationists believe that organisms do not evolve from prior organisms, or that they emerge from some other form of matter : rather, they believe that some (or all) popped up from nothing, by divine intervention. This is magick fairy tale stuff, and yet millions of people believe this.

What is the actual empirical evidence we have about this ? Do we observe organisms popping out of nothing ? As I pointed out, spontaneous generation has been disproven a long time ago, and no one seriously believes it, not even Creationists. We have never, in all of history, seen an organism popping out of nothing.No possibility exists of such a thing. It would go against pretty much all the laws of physics, for one thing. Nothing less than a complete re-write of science would be necessary before we can accept such an event.

17. Why do we have plenty of transitional forms in the fossil record ?

Do we have many transitional forms ? You bet. We have many species in the transition between fish and amphibians, and amphibians and reptiles, and almost all species in the transition between reptiles and birds, and reptiles and mammals. We also have a fine picture of mammalian transitions, especially that between Australopithecus to modern humans. See the image below for the skulls of these transitions (first skull is modern chimpanzee, for comparison).

This sequence goes all the way from B - Australopithecus africanus, 2.6 million years ago - to G - Homo erectus, 1.75 million years ago - to N - Homo sapiens sapiens.

As we have discussed, many Creationists believe that speciation cannot occur. The question they must answer is, how do you explain the gradation above ? Random chance ? The probability of it coming about by random chance is astronomically small. Some may reply that God made the fossil record look like it has transitional forms. Is God a deceiver ? And if God's actions look just like evolution, where is the need to invoke God to explain it ? Like it or not, the only obvious answer is Neo-Darwinism.

71

WT monitors sites?

by Gordy in

jw
friends

there was a post on the other day someone was asking about whether the wt monitors websites such as this and other "apostate" sites.. unfortunately i couldn't find it to add this to it.

i remembered a jw who worked on installing computers at london bethel, some time ago telling me that the wt did monitor websites.

this jw is gradually fading away from being one, so can't say to much about him.

skeptic2

BabaYaga - I didn't say it was difficult for an ISP. And you make my point, why install a top secret packet sniffing system when they can simply read incoming and outgoing email, either because it goes through their mail server, or through using any free packet sniffer. The mention of things like carnivore and comverse makes it sound ridiculous.

71

WT monitors sites?

by Gordy in

jw
friends

there was a post on the other day someone was asking about whether the wt monitors websites such as this and other "apostate" sites.. unfortunately i couldn't find it to add this to it.

i remembered a jw who worked on installing computers at london bethel, some time ago telling me that the wt did monitor websites.

this jw is gradually fading away from being one, so can't say to much about him.

skeptic2

When that image loads, it will log your real IP address.

Good point about the invisible image, no need for a real link. But for 99.9% of people their real ip address is dynamically assigned by the ISP, so all they can tell is what ISP a person is with.

And this has no relation to carnivore. This would require to spend their time posting new posts on forum websites that people will read. Given the effort, what's the point?

71

WT monitors sites?

by Gordy in

jw
friends

there was a post on the other day someone was asking about whether the wt monitors websites such as this and other "apostate" sites.. unfortunately i couldn't find it to add this to it.

i remembered a jw who worked on installing computers at london bethel, some time ago telling me that the wt did monitor websites.

this jw is gradually fading away from being one, so can't say to much about him.

skeptic2

Of course the WBTS monitor the JWDs, in many different ways. They have readers that scan what is going on from "IP Hidden" or "Dynamic IP" sources. Also about 3 years ago they had some ex CIA types in (called the plumbers) and installed a ALPHA programme called "Carnivore". Its a cut down version of some very specialist systems used by the intelligence services. Its an IP trace and system interrogation program. They plant "Land Mines" on all JWD boards that link to another site via their controlling site - "news article" or "Read this" - they then track the IP address and/ or plant a spyware cookie. They've cut back on this practice a lot now, and off shored it (deniability) due to the Data protection Act etc etc - but they still use it.

Carnivore is a packet sniffer for tracing emails developed by the FBI. It has to be placed in the path of the email data, i.e. installed at an ISP. I don't see what application this has installed at bethel. They could simply log all emails sent in or out, without installing email tracing capability.

As for 'land mines' - they post on forums, with links in the post such as 'news article' or 'read this', then if you click on the link they read your ip address? And then what? They know what ISP you're with?

FYI all calls into and out of Bethel are recorded (including pay phones) - This is Salters, Paris, Mill Hill and Bittacy Hill, Patterson and Brooklyn - they use an Israeli system called COMVERSE for this. Also all IP (Internet Protocol) traffic is also logged in and out of the compounds as are all key strokes on computers and web sites visited - this is for secured wireless and Ethernet "connect Direct". Interesting thing at Patterson and Bittacy is that the steel shanked building is resistant to external Wireless - so they installed an adsl wireless internal system that is open and looks external -but is in fact internal and monitored, just to catch people out. They discovered a Homosexual couple in Bittacy Hill using this wireless track and got them both disfellowshiped.

They pay Israeli intelligence services to record pay phone calls around the bethel?

This all sounds like conspiracy theory nonsense.

9

Documentary: "THE GOD WHO WASN'T THERE" Seen it?

by Seeker4 in

jw
friends

this past weekend i rented the brian flemming film, the god who wasn't there.

it's a film about christianity in particular and religion in general, and focuses on the key factor of christianity - whether jesus ever existed or not.

i watched it several times, and listened to the commentaries.. interviewed in the film and the special features on the dvd are some of my favorite thinkers: sam harris and richard dawkins especially.. the premise of the film was a well-defended hypothesis that christianity is really the off-shoot of pagan mythology, and jesus was just another in a long line of mythological "sons of god(s)" who had virgin births attended by wise men and shepherds, who's childhood's were essentially unknown, who developed followers, were eventually killed by their people and who were raised back to life.

skeptic2

The beast movie was postponed, and the name has been changed to Danielle.

http://www.danielle-movie.com/forums/

I bought The God Who Wasn't There some time ago. A good DVD. It also includes (last time I checked) rights to play your copy to an audience.

43

Telephone Telapathy

by lonelysheep in

jw
friends

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060905/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_britain_telepathy

has anyone ever experienced this?

i have, as well as with emails and especially text messages.. do you think there's any chance this could be real-that there is a valid, unspoken connection between people who reach out to each other?

skeptic2

skyking - I do assume from reading your posts that you believe in telepathic powers. Otherwise I cannot think why you would still have such an active interest after decades of failed research. The US governments' research program also failed to prove anything and was shut down. There an infinite number of things that have not been proved or have failed to have been proved. If we kept an open mind on them all we would be intellectually paralyzed, that's why we ask for evidence.

Keep an open mind yes, but not so open your brains fall out.