Hooby - I really wish you would try to learn the basics of biology before you attempt to demolish it.
I'm busy decorating. I will (as usual) explain why you are wrong later.
Posts by cofty
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11Evolution is a Fact #39 - Homologous Structures
by cofty inevery living thing descended from a common ancestor over millions of years.
this is the central fact that the theory of evolution explains.
house sparrows and tree sparrows only need to go back relatively few generations to find their common ancestor, while trout and tigers must search much closer to the roots of the tree for theirs.. darwin sketched this idea of common ancestry along with the words "i think" in one of his notebooks.
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58
Developments in the India Branch
by MaxPayne inthe following letter was read in the congregation today.
it's for all the congregations in india.
i have pasted it as it was.
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cofty
When the old branch is sold more than enough money will be available, but we will need to pay for the new branch office before the old branch is sold.
So let HQ put up an interest-free loan. Simple.
Any loans made by the R&F will not be repaid without a long fight.
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31
Why not extend your child's life and take the consequences?
by I_love_Jeff injehovah's witnesses & blood transfusions.
if your son or daughter were badly burned, he or she would require regular whole blood transfusions.
as a good jehovah's witness, it is your duty to refuse this procedure and watch your child die instead.
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cofty
Cofty don't be an ARSEHOLE this is all hypothetical.- Diog
Busy. Marking this to reply later.
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Why not extend your child's life and take the consequences?
by I_love_Jeff injehovah's witnesses & blood transfusions.
if your son or daughter were badly burned, he or she would require regular whole blood transfusions.
as a good jehovah's witness, it is your duty to refuse this procedure and watch your child die instead.
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cofty
Good point. I had forgotten that loving provision!
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Why not extend your child's life and take the consequences?
by I_love_Jeff injehovah's witnesses & blood transfusions.
if your son or daughter were badly burned, he or she would require regular whole blood transfusions.
as a good jehovah's witness, it is your duty to refuse this procedure and watch your child die instead.
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cofty
I agree with dubstepped. They (many but not all) believe that if they are obedient then god will make everything right again for all eternity. If they are disobedient they will lose eternal life.
Wrong beliefs lead to bad decisions.
There are a lot of ex_JWs who don't seem to have ever been real believers.
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35
Evolution is a Fact #11 - Tiktaalik
by cofty inone of the biggest gulfs that life has had to cross was the transition from sea to dry land.. fish have conical shaped heads, reptiles have flat heads.
fish have no necks; their heads are attached to their shoulders by a series of bony plates.
land-dwelling animals all have necks; their heads can move independently of their shoulders.
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cofty
As JWs were were told the lie that the fossil record does not support evolution. Nothing could be further from the facts. There are millions of fossils including many that illustrate major transitions.
Here are a couple more examples.
'Fossils, What the Evidence Says and why it Matters' by Donald Prothero describes many more. I think he has a new book out now describing many more recent finds.
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46
Bumped Into One Of My Best Friends On The Carts This Morning
by pale.emperor inso this morning i'm walking to my office and there's the jws on their carts outside as usual.
and old sister, a brother in his 20s and an elder i instantly recognized from my jw days.
one of my best friends of about 20 years.. i genuinely just wanted to say hi as i havent seen him in 3 years.
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cofty
And you know it's the truth
That phrase 'the Truth' exerts a lot of control on JW minds.
Well done on how you handled that.
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Cognitive Dissonace on full display at JWtalk over evolution research
by Sanchy ina user over on the jwtalk forum recently shared a warning over his research on evolution in preparation for an assigned talk.
after detailing a couple of the tidbits that he learned of during his research, he went on to say:.
this i found to be useful especially when talking ot others in the ministry.. but and it is a big but.....
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cofty
I didn't say evolution has no direction. On the other hand it is misleading to say that it does without taking great care to define what is meant by that.
Michael Ruse's article looks at different ways in which is might be said that evolution has 'direction'.There is no intentionality or teleology in evolution.
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Cognitive Dissonace on full display at JWtalk over evolution research
by Sanchy ina user over on the jwtalk forum recently shared a warning over his research on evolution in preparation for an assigned talk.
after detailing a couple of the tidbits that he learned of during his research, he went on to say:.
this i found to be useful especially when talking ot others in the ministry.. but and it is a big but.....
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cofty
'Predicted' should read predicated.
There are 2 misconceptions that turn up repeatedly.
1 - Evolution does not have any intention or forward planning. Sometimes this error is referred to as the teleological fallacy. We see it when creationists ask things like, 'how did a creature who couldn't see know to evolve eyes?'
2 - No individual creature ever adapted to their environment. Evolution happens to a population as favourable genetic changes accumulate through mechanisms such as natural selection.
If creationists would just read even one basic textbook they would be able to understand why these are errors and then they could stop attacking a straw man. My first ever book on evolution after leaving the cult was a short work called 'Evolution Made Simple'. I quickly realised the depth of my ignorance.
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Cognitive Dissonace on full display at JWtalk over evolution research
by Sanchy ina user over on the jwtalk forum recently shared a warning over his research on evolution in preparation for an assigned talk.
after detailing a couple of the tidbits that he learned of during his research, he went on to say:.
this i found to be useful especially when talking ot others in the ministry.. but and it is a big but.....
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cofty
EccentricM wrote: ... no mid-species transitions were ever found, only full species. As such they made the erronous claim that "certain species were the missing links"(?) despite having no evidence that was even the case, but said it was anyway.
This could not possibly be more wrong. It is a classic case of creationist ignorance. The fossil record contains an embarrassment of riches of transitional species. Two of the best examples are the transition from lobe-finned fish to tetrapods and the journey of land mammals to whales.
The transition from reptiles to mammals is also very well documented in the fossil record.
For hundreds of other examples see Prothero - 'Evolution, What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters'.
Later with genetics they found.. oh, all life shares DNA, and so they say "aha, that confirms it, it's all true". What they did not consider is that we are all simply made.. from the same materials, hence, DNA (ingrediants) being the same, but no "lineage" like in direct human ancestry has ever been detected or studied.
Again the ignorance (and spelling) is painful.
If we did not have a single fossil the comparison of DNA would prove common ancestry. The evidence has nothing to do with the fact that all living things share a common code, it is the specific similarities, differences and common errors that matter.
Imagine you are a teacher correcting the homework of a group of students. If they all wrote that the Battle of Hastings happened in 1066 that would only suggest they all properly read the same textbook. There is only one way to get the answer right but there are an infinite number of ways to get it wrong. If 3 pupils all said that the answer was 1977 then you would have very strong evidence of copying. If you found many such identical errors in the same 3 papers you have proof. DNA comparison is a bit like this.
Cytochrome C comparison is one very good example (which many creationists wilfully misunderstand)
If you bring up the current state of "statis of evolution" as well as living fossils as an argument, they shall say "not all life forms evolve if they don’t need to, hence why we have “living fossils”, life forms that have not changed at all for billions of years, and we have many of them". This idea I think seems to contradict evolution. Why? Because something does not change if it does not need to, it only adapts to it’s needs to survive.
Nothing in the history of life EVER adapted. NEVER. NOTHING. NOT EVEN ONCE.
If a species exists in a stable environment then there is no selective pressure and mutations are not favoured by Natural Selection. This does not contradict evolution, it is precisely what evolution predicts. It does contradict a common creationist misunderstanding of evolution.
So… why evolve in the first place? Was the first micro-organism in danger? Could it not survive in the sea by staying at it was?
Again this is predicted on the error that individuals adapt to circumstances by evolving. There is no intention in evolution. Random changes are selected if they give an advantage to the individual that hosts it. If resources are scarce then individuals who are better equipped to survive AND reproduce will leave more copies of their genes in the gene pool. If resources are plentiful selection pressure is less or even non-existent.
Evolving means to adapt and change in accordance to one’s enviroment,
No it doesn't. Repeating this trope doesn't make it true. Nothing adapts to its environment.
but if all life came from a single cell, which includes said enviroment, that means there was nothing to adapt or respond to in the first place, which should incur stasis.
If anybody can explain this sentence I will be happy to comment.