Coragyps

I will certainly be told if I am mistaken, but I believe this is an "urban legend."

Exactly what do you think the business of science is? Why don't we admit that we don't know how to make an airfoil, and give up on this silly notion of men flying?
Biologists are responsible for the "green revolution," which is why the six billion of us here are eating as well as we now do. Biologists and geneticists with new ideas on birth control, improved crops, and better medicines, are the chief hope we have for feeding the four billion that don't eat as well as you and I do.

gravitybow

Feeding the hungry. Let's see...nope, not this class either. Go two doors down and take a left. Bye, now.

ps418

Hologos:
. . .real science cannot deal in origins since we know of no one who was there to report such things any hypothesis cannot be proved or disproved. Any "scientific" conclusions drawn from such speculation would be considered more "faith" than science by those who consider such things with the paradigm of an open mind.


So, all hypotheses about unobserved past events are statements of "faith"? That's a remarkable "paradigm." I hope you don't apply it in real life.

Inferences about past events can obviously be formed as testable, falsifiable, and hence scientific, hypotheses, as in the forensic sciences, paleoclimatology, and the many and diverse branches of historical geology, such as plate tectonics. Maybe there's a good reason why "origins" cannot be considered science, but the lack of past human observation is not one.

The apparent absurdity of certain proofs of evolution should cause one to be suspicious of evolution theory

With that in mind, let's have a look at a few creationist books . . . For instance, have you seen all the errors and misleading statements made in John Wells recent book, Icons of Evolution?

Brian K.

I really like to jump into this debate but these really long words leave me clueless. <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

ps418

Hologos, a 10 -second internet search has revealed that there is absolutely no evidence for your claim that Haeckel was ever "convicted for fraud." Therefore, it would seem that you have passed along fraudulent data (which, of course, should make everyone suspicious). From Troy Britain's page on <a href="http://inia.cls.org/~ae/Haeckels_embryos.htm" target="_blank">Haeckel's embryos.</a>

Claim #2: Ernst Haeckel was convicted of fraud for this in 1874.


This is a common creationist claim against Haeckel for which there seems to be no historical evidence. Unfortunately this apparent myth has taken such a hold on discussions of Haeckel that even some mainstream scholars have been taken in by it. For example Michael Richardson repeated this claim in one of his articles (Richardson 1997, p.30) (Anon. Ed. 1997, p.23) after reading it in a newspaper in the U.K. (Hamblin & Moore 1997, p.18) This story, and Richardson's use of it, was called into question by two German biologists in a letter to the journal Science:



To some of them [anti-Darwinists] every sort of vilifying argument [against Haeckel] was welcome. This seems to still be true today, as is evidence from recent claims in the British press that Haeckel had been convicted by his university of alleged fraud. On being asked to disclose their sources, one of the respective authors kindly referred us to a book agitating against the origin of man from other primates (which in turn gave no relevant reference), while the other did not answer our queries. Because, to our knowledge, no respectable historical source mentions this conviction of Haeckel, we conclude that the claim for it must be based on hearsay, not fact. (Sander & Bender 1998, p.349)



Michael Richardson recognized his error in repeating this undocumented story and wrote a retraction shortly thereafter:



I am concerned to find that I may have helped perpetuate a Creationist myth… The claim that Ernst Haeckel was convicted of fraud was made in The Times. I relied on that statement in a subsequent publication without seeking a primary source -- clearly a mistake on my part. (Richardson 1998a, p.1289)



There appears to be no evidence that Haeckel was ever tried for fraud in the Jena university court, much less that he was convicted of it. This appears to be a persistent creationist myth, like Darwin's supposed deathbed conversion. If the anti-evolutionists want to use this claim, it is incumbent upon them to produce references to primary material that would substantiate it. None to our knowledge have ever done so.

[ March 09, 2002: Message edited by: ps418 ]</p>

Valentine Pontifex

Patrick,

How about even a simplier response.

Since when do universities try people for fraud?

HRG

Observation of an event does not require anyone who "was there". We observe an event by its consequences - which can cross a time gap just like a space gap. Would you claim we cannot measure the temperature of a sunspot because "no one is there" ?

Thus, this "someone had been there to report it" line is quite misleading. When we observe today a text which claims that X happened, we may infer that X actually happened; but this is not different from observing a fossil and inferring that the corresponding animal actually lived.

In both cases, our immediate observations are made today, and we infer from them events in the past.

HRG.

RufusAtticus

I thought you were the one arguing that we don't have records of transitionals between species. If we don't have these fossils, then how do we know that speciation occurs within kinds? Will you stop contradicting yourself and make a consistent argument?

Using your criteria for evidence, how do you know this? Can you provide fossil evidence that the Galapagos Finches are related? You weren't there to see them evolve, so the only conclusion we can draw is that each finch species is a separately created, immutable kind.

(Snipping rest of argument where he ignores my questions.)

Alright, randman, will you or will you not answer my questions. You are on this board advocating the existance of kinds. Are you capable of defending it? If not, feel free to foward the post to an "expert" and post his reply here. Until you provide testable answers for my questions, I will not consider "kinds" to be an accurate description of biology.

-RvFvS

RufusAtticus

#define BUMP 0x29A

int main(void)
{
return BUMP;
}

RufusAtticus

[code]// Bump.cpp
#include troll.h

#define BUMP 0x29A

int main(void)
{
if(tlObserve())
tlAlert();
else
tlMessage("ANSWER THE QUESTIONS");
return BUMP;
}</pre>[/quote]
-RvFvS

[ March 10, 2002: Message edited by: RufusAtticus ]</p>