cofty

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Posts by cofty

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  38

  FlyingHighNow

  by Ex-Witless in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hello forum.

  my aunt, flyinghighnow, has passed away.

  i don't know if you remember her, but she was a long time member.

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  cofty

  That is very sad. My condolences to your family. Thanks for letting us know.
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  78

  What The Fossils Say

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the old creation book had a lot to say about the fossil record.

  if i remember correctly it was some lie about all the fossils ever found would fit on a single table.

  the reality is that there is an embarrassment of riches illustrating the evolution of life.

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  cofty

  Debating a creationist is like accepting the following challenge.

  First your interlocutor gets ten minutes to smash up your house with a baseball bat. Then you get ten minutes to put everything back as it was before. If you fail they claim victory.
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  78

  What The Fossils Say

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the old creation book had a lot to say about the fossil record.

  if i remember correctly it was some lie about all the fossils ever found would fit on a single table.

  the reality is that there is an embarrassment of riches illustrating the evolution of life.

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  cofty

  1 - Getting Something from Nothing.

  So how on earth did you make the leap from biological evolution to denying the Big Bang?

  All the evidence proves common ancestry is a fact. A whole other field of science proves the Big Bang really happened 13.8 billion years ago - you can still detect it for goodness sake! But these are two very different subjects. Do you just hate science in general?

  2 - Getting Life from Non-Life.

  The transition from geochemistry to biochemistry is a field of science known as abiogenesis. Evolution deals with the subsequent branching of species.

  Life almost certainly originated in deep sea alkaline vents. The key to life is energy. In the words of Nobel Prize winner Albert Szent-Györgyi “Life is nothing but an electron looking for a place to rest”

  For a fascinating explanation of the latest developments in this field see Nick Lane's Life Ascending

  3 - Getting Order from Chaos.

  According to the laws of thermodynamics entropy does tend towards maximum. However local decreases in entropy are everywhere. Pull the plug out of the bathtub and watch the vortex form out of a chaotic and unguided flow of water. Physicists like Jeremy England are studying how life actually speeds up entropy by consuming energy making life as likely as a rock rolling down a hill.

  4 - Getting the Immaterial from Physical Matter.

  Morality is easy, the problem of consciousness on the other hand is a puzzle. There is a whole spectrum of conscious experience in the animal kingdom with the human mind at the apex. We know it is a product of our brains, that much is obvious, but what is the specific development that sets us apart? There are some really interesting proposed solutions that I have looked at but I have to admit it isn't my area of interest.

  However it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact of biological evolution.

  5 - Complex Information generation

  This is a common fallacy. DNA is a sequence of chemical bases that catalyse amino acids that fold together to form proteins. 'Information' is a metaphor. If there is a god who wanted to put information in DNA why didn't he put any information in DNA?

  Our genomes are an absolute mess. If anything proves there was no intelligent designer it is our genome.

  Anyway this topic is paleontology.

  Now you can go ahead and copy-paste some more nonsense from another creationist website that you don't understand.
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  12

  Syrian conflict

  by Holden Caufield in

  1. social
  2. current

  i feel that assad even though he is bad is a better alternative then islamic extremist taking power.

  what do you think?.

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  cofty

  Assad is a monster on par with the greatest tyrants of modern history.

  The OP presents a false dichotomy
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  78

  What The Fossils Say

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the old creation book had a lot to say about the fossil record.

  if i remember correctly it was some lie about all the fossils ever found would fit on a single table.

  the reality is that there is an embarrassment of riches illustrating the evolution of life.

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  2. 
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• 

  cofty

  The creationists own the fossil record. The Cambrian explosion of life showing fully formed animals is opposite of what Darwinism predicts - See Breeze

  The fossil record contains an embarrassment of riches proving common ancestry beyond all doubt. Of particular interest is the many hominid fossils showing the ancestry of modern humans.

  The Cambrian 'explosion' is an interesting period in the history of life. We now know that it lasted about 25 million years - that's quite a slow explosion. There is a fantastic series of articles at the Biologos website that answers all the questions a creationist might have in connection with this so-called challenge to evolution.
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  78

  What The Fossils Say

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the old creation book had a lot to say about the fossil record.

  if i remember correctly it was some lie about all the fossils ever found would fit on a single table.

  the reality is that there is an embarrassment of riches illustrating the evolution of life.

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  cofty

  However, It is quite common to get "fossils" containing original organic material...like this "160 million" year old squid ink. They even used some of it to write with a pen - Sea Breeze

  Please read the article you linked to. Nobody used 160 million year old squid ink to write anything. Researchers used a combination of very sophisticated techniques to determine if melanin was present.

  Other soft tissue discoveries in fossils have been similarly challenging to confirm using very high resolution microscopes to identify collagen and red blood cells. The idea put about by creationists that rotting flesh and oozing blood was found inside fossils is risible.

  You can read a very detailed explanation written by an evangelical christian at the Letters to Creationists blog.
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  78

  What The Fossils Say

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the old creation book had a lot to say about the fossil record.

  if i remember correctly it was some lie about all the fossils ever found would fit on a single table.

  the reality is that there is an embarrassment of riches illustrating the evolution of life.

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  2. 
  3. 
• 

  cofty

  Sea Breeze - so many fallacies in one post!

  Got to rush now but will get back to you in detail this evening (UK)
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  95

  Greta Thunberg...what’s your view of her?

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  she certainly is passionate about climate change.

  🤔.

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  cofty

  It would be much better if you look at her argument from an empiric scientifically way - Bugbear

  Her arguments are hysterical, fear-mongering nonsense.

  Climate change is real; human activity is a significant part of the problem. Greta and her cult are still way out of order.

  When did we start asking children how to organise the world?
  
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  11

  Will Brexiteers be happy with Phase 2 of Brexit?

  by The Fall Guy in

  1. social
  2. current

  "brussels plans to insist that in order to get that "quick and dirty" deal, the prime minister would have to sign up to eu conditions: alignment with eu environmental, state aid and tax regulations for example.

  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-50777995.

  would such a deal represent what they thought they were voting for in the referendum?.

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  cofty

  Being pragmatic I would be content with an exit that safeguards us from further political union. Further adjustments can be made in the long term.
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  95

  Greta Thunberg...what’s your view of her?

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  she certainly is passionate about climate change.

  🤔.

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  cofty

  She is as certain of her cause as I was about the imminent end of the world when I was 16.