bio-engineering; synthetic DNA, that replicates - a bit scarey - Page 17

So, I know this is kind of late.  I started writing this post back in mid April, but I became intensely bored with it.  Anyway, I decided to finish it today (actually I called it quits halfway through Shtal’s post again since I just got tired of correcting his same mistaken assumptions repeatedly).

Quote from Shtal:

I am not going to repeat things that I said for the last two years, on this forum, but I will provide you some links; and I can't help people when they are strongly deluded as yourself.

You can’t help people when they are as strongly deluded as I am?  Well Shtal, I might be delusional, I have no interest in being delusional though and am always willing to correct my mistakes.  So how do you define delusional?  I define delusional as having a belief in spite of indisputable evidence to the contrary.  If you have evidence that supports your position or claims, I would be glad to review it and thrilled to correct any mistakes that I might have made.

Now, let’s review your links.

Quote from Shtal:

http://www.gotquestions.org/microevolution-macroevolution.html

Okay, so your first source is an answer found on a Christian apologetics website from an unknown author.  The article states that S. Michael Haudmann can be cited as the author but we don’t really know do we (plausible deniability is always nice eh).  The Related Topics section doesn’t inspire confidence in the credibility of this website either.   No sources or references to the claims made in the article either.  According to some softball questions asked at gotquestions.org, S. Michael Haudmann has a Bachelors of Arts in Biblical Studies and a Masters of Arts in Christian Theology.  Hey, that sounds great and I’m sure he knows a lot about the Bible and Christian Theology, however if he did indeed write the linked article, he clearly doesn’t know anything about the theory of evolution.

Shtal, why link to an article that is false?  Why are you propagating ignorance?

Let’s examine the article itself.

First mistake, macro-evolution is not controversial, it is only controversial for those who wish to belief in literal interpretations of the Bible (AKA delusional people). It is not a theoretical extrapolation of microevolution and does not require the introduction of new genetic information.  What the heck are large-scale (“macro”) changes?!?!?!  The author is making things up.

Second mistake, the theory of evolution doesn’t say that an amphibian will evolve into a reptile or that a reptile will evolve into a bird, so no, those would not be examples of macro-evolution.  These are false expectations that will never be met, thus allowing ignorance to prevail.

Third mistake, macro-evolution is not the mechanism for the idea that life evolved from a common primordial ancestor.  This is backwards, a common ancestor is a prediction, not merely an idea.  The theory of evolution, which is supported by many fields of science, is only an explanation for the diversification of species.  Evolution itself is not a mechanism, this right here is an obvious mistake made by someone who doesn’t understand the theory of evolution.

Fourth mistake, macro-evolution does not require new additional genetic information.  The third paragraph is almost entirely based on an incorrect understanding of the theory of evolution.

Here are a few links that might help you understand the theory of evolution a bit better:

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/0_0_0/evo_48

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/0_0_0/evo_49

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution

The section on Micro-evolution goes into gene inheritance and Mendel’s laws.  Okay fine, then it goes into genetic mutations, but the author doesn’t really go into natural / artificial selection, gene flow or genetic drift.

I’m not going to bother going over the remaining sections of the article as I think I understand the problem.  The concern seems to be over genome evolution and how the genome has increased in information.  One of the issues I have with this idea that mutations only cause a loss of information is that it is misleading.  It is true that a mutation can cause the loss of an ability, and this may be considered a harmful mutation, however most of the time while one ability is lost, another is gained.  I was under the impression that the gained ability was being ignored as information, as that is in fact new information.  I see now however, that isn’t what is being referred to when it is said “no new information is added.”

Unfortunately, gene duplication, whole genome duplication (polyploidy), transposable duplication and genetic drift are being ignored.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genome_evolution

http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pgen.1001080

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1855170/

http://www.hindawi.com/journals/jb/2010/382732/

It is well known that the genome size increases and decreases regularly within small and large populations of species.  Of course, regularly is a relative term referencing over thousands or hundreds of thousands of generations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genome_size

Now, it would be wrong to assume that science has all the answers, as it doesn’t.  Science doesn’t pretend to have all the answers, and in fact when Science doesn’t know, it proudly states that it doesn’t know.  There may be hypothesis or ideas about what the answer might be but that doesn’t imply an answer is actually known.  Unfortunately, some people try to turn this on science in an effort to twist information to justify preconceived beliefs.  That is the goal of creationists, turn science into something it is not and then say “Aha! We are right!”.  It is a trick typically used by con artists.

Quote from Shtal:

http://www.icr.org/article/what-difference-between-macroevolution-microevolut/

Oh yes Doctor Morris, there is much misinformation about the words micro-evolution and macro-evolution, and you Doctor Morris are party to propagating such misinformation.  This article amounts to the opinion of an engineer as it has no research to support the claims. Morris only provides his misinterpretation of what macro-evolution is.

John D. Morris, Ph.D. has a bachelors in Civil Engineering, masters in engineering and a doctorate in Geological engineering.  Known for several expeditions to Mt. Ararat in search of Noah’s Ark (lol good luck) and being a young earth creationist. 

Morris is hardly qualified in the life science fields (biology and genetics) so it is not surprising that he closes out this irrelevant article with the myth that the 1980 Chicago conference on the theory of evolution shot down macro-evolution.

http://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2014/02/why-creationists-love-1980-chicago.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium

http://ncse.com/rncse/29/6/review-paleobiological-revolution

Quote from Shtal:

http://www.icr.org/article/do-bacteria-evolve-resistance-antibiotics/

Another article from John D. Morris, Ph.D., in which he gives his opinion on biological evolution and his misinterpretation of what macro-evolution is.  He repeats the already debunked false expectations of what the theory of evolution predicts.

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/VCCausesSpeciation.shtml

Regarding this idea that antibiotic resistance is not an example of evolution:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24711382

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24665341

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24575089

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/11/15/245168252/bacterial-competition-in-lab-shows-evolution-never-stops

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6164/1364.abstract

http://myxo.css.msu.edu/ecoli/

http://www.scripps.edu/philanthropy/antibioticresist.html

http://mmbr.asm.org/content/74/3/417.full

http://www.evotar.eu/DynamicsAndEvolution.php

Whoever wants to buy into the opinions of a creationist geological engineer that go against thousands of qualified researchers and scientists (in the fields of molecular epidemology, microbial population biology, functional and comparative genomics, metogenomics, evolutionary genetics, molecular microbiology, antibiotic resistance and evolution, microbial ecology, clinical microbiology, cell and molecular biology, immunology and microbial science, chemistry, chemical physiology, integrative structural and computational biology, molecular and cellular neuroscience,  and molecular therapeutics) be my guest, just don’t expect me to be as gullible.  Don’t be mistaken, this isn’t an appeal to authority.  I am just waiting for something more than a mere biased unqualified opinion.  Perhaps Doctor Morris would like to provide his extensive research in molecular microbiology.

I couldn’t find much in regards to the research done on the preserved bacteria found in the remains of the Franklin lost expedition crewmemebers.

The scientific community has discovered that antibiotic resistance is not an entirely new adaptation by certain microbes as numerous ancient bacteria have been discovered to resist some antibiotics.  What this means however is not that evolution is not occurring, instead it just means not all resistance is a new evolutionary adaptation. This myth being propagated by creationists that evolution is not actually taking place and being observed is not supported by the scientific community.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21881561

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8041701?dopt=AbstractPlus

http://iidr.mcmaster.ca/IIDR-news/AncientAntibioticResistance.html

Quote from Shtal:

http://www.icr.org/article/mutation-fixation-dead-end-for-macro-evolution/

This article is from 1987 apparently, and is based on a 1972 article by R.H. Byles which details the limiting conditions for the operation of the Probable Mutation Effect.  The probable mutation effect hypothesis was proposed in 1963 by C.L. Brace and it states basically that the most likely effect of a mutation of a trait is the reduction of the trait or as it was described by Sewell Wright as “mutation pressure”.  Unfortunately, the article by Brace was based on a misinterpretation of an article by Wright as mutation pressure is the pressure that mutations put on gene frequency change.  Both Brace and Wright agreed that mutation fixation had a minimal or almost no effect on gene frequency change.  However, mutation fixation is not the only pressure effecting gene frequency change as migration, genetic drift, population size, mating and other factors also play key roles in gene frequency change.  Furthermore, the 1972 article by R.H. Byles is outdated as new research from Kimura and Ohta has revealed that the effect of molecular evolution of neutral alleles is not structural reduction.

This is all irrelevant though since mutation fixation is simply a change in a gene pool in which two variants of an allele are reduced so only one remains.  This makes the article by E. Calvin Beisner appear to be grossly incoherent which is not surprising given his background as a complete nut job.

http://www.researchgate.net/publication/22451954_The_Probable_Mutation_Effect_neutral_alleles_and_structural_reduction

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_genetics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allele_frequency

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardy%E2%80%93Weinberg_principle

Quote from Shtal:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/get-answers/features/evolution-impossible

More of the same misunderstandings and complete misconceptions about what the Theory of Evolution says.  The ToE does not state that “animal kind A will presto-change-o into animal kind B”.  If you’ve been reading what I’ve wrote in my posts here, then you might have realized now that populations diverge genetically to be different, so different that they can’t breed anymore and eventually so different that they look like different “kinds”.  No magic involved.  It doesn’t take some huge surge of information.  This article “Evolution is Impossible” is more expectations based on a non-existent version of the theory.  The article then mistakenly associates the Theory of Evolution with abiogenesis.  Abiogenesis is a hypothesis about the origin of life which is different from the Theory of Evolution which is a theory explaining the diversification of species.

I didn’t watch the video.  I suppose I can and debunk it if you want.

Quote from Shtal:

Example things I spoke/said in the past, like information science; there is no known law of nature, no known process, and no known sequence of events which can cause information to originate by itself in matter;

I’m going to interject here and criticize your use of the word “Information”.  How exactly are you defining “Information”?

You seem to be doing what most creationists do with the word “Information” and define it one way and then freely apply it to whatever you want, even when what you’re applying it to doesn’t fit your original definition.  The word “Information” is typically defined as something from which data can be derived.  For instance, molecules, if we have 2 Hydrogen atoms and 1 Oxygen atom we get what we call water.  But really it is just matter combining in a certain way.  When the first 2 Hydrogen atoms and 1 Oxygen atom came together to form water, was that not considered new information originating by itself?  New water is formed every day when stars first form.

Next, what do you think laws of nature are?

What do you mean by “originate”?  We are talking about the Theory of Evolution, not abiogenesis.

Quote from Shtal:

and it make sense, you pickup a book it got information in it, it got these encoded symbolic messages in there, that can convey expected, action and indented purpose.

Well, now you’re talking about a human creation and utilization of symbols as a language to communicate.  What you are trying to do here is connect a human invention with nature and thus trying to extrapolate that nature must have been invented.  You are mistakenly interpreting something such as DNA as information.  While it is quite common for DNA to be interpreted as information or explained to be information, it is a misunderstanding to consider it to be actual information.  It is only interpreted as information because we assign symbols to the nucleic acids, proteins and carbohydrates and thus data can be derived.  We call it information because we as humans have assigned symbols to matter from which we derive data.  This creationist mantra of no new information can be created out of nothing is really quite boring and wrong.

Quote from Shtal:

And that does not come about by explosion in the typewriter, does it? You know when you read a book, it didn’t come about by random process, it doesn’t generate by itself, information does not generate by itself in matter. Good example: when its progress along the chain of transmission events is traced backward, every piece of information leads to a mental source, the mind of the sender. Here is the truth, although information can be copied and it can be copied blindly as a Xerox machine, it can make copies of information, if you trace it back it ultimately comes to a mind; the mind of a sender; you read a book and it has an author. Now it is also very interested because of course in DNA we have information and all of that information, is the instruction that make you, physical form and perhaps some of your personally trait and so on and so forth…

The mistake you are making here is a logical fallacy called equivocation.  The symbols of an alphabet written in a language which can be interpreted and read coherently is a different kind of information than that which we call DNA.  DNA is matter, it is chemicals and atoms coming together, reacting and behaving in many specific ways which we can observe.  Just like 2 hydrogen atoms and 1 oxygen atom come together to form a water molecule.  Nucleic acids are just really large and complex combinations of atoms like hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon and oxygen.

Quote from Shtal:

The fact that we have information in our DNA tells us that DNA couldn’t come about by a random chance process,

How? Why?

The logical fallacy you are now using is called non sequitur.

Quote from Shtal:

that information is being copied many times, you got from your parents and they got it from there parents all the way back to Adam and Eve and it came from the mind, the mind of God; so the information science confirms creation…

Nice, you went from non sequitur to argumentum ex culo mixed with ad hoc and argument by assertion.  Just pulling shit right out of your ass there huh.  Hey who cares about facts, logic and reason, let’s just make things up and assert them as fact because they sound good.

Quote from Shtal:

Mutations won’t do it; you see all point mutations that have been studied on the molecular level turn out to reduce the genetic information and not to increase it. Mutation does not add brand new instructions; not even one mutation has been observed that adds a little information to the genome. You see mutations may increase survival value under certain circumstances, that’s fine but they don’t add brand new information to the genome; they don’t do that, it will violate the laws information science.

Well, I’ve already responded to most of this non-sense earlier in this post.  You are just full on non sequitur at this point.  Laws of Information science eh.  Can you name one law of information science?

Quote from Shtal:

Information science, genetics they confirm Biblical creation

LOL.  In what fantasy world does that happen?  Shangri la?  Camelot?  Wonderland?  Neverland?  Oh wait, I know I know, Middle Earth?

Source please of the headlines where Scientists proclaim that Genetics confirm Biblical creation.  Geez dude, why should I even bother reading the rest of your post at this point.

Quote from Shtal:

and not what we would expect given evolutionary world view.

Guess you didn’t know that DNA and genetics was predicted by the Theory of Evolution. Oops.  So, what has the Bible predicted?  Let’s see … Nada, zip, zilch nothing. Creationism, Intelligent Design, also nothing, no predictions.

Quote from Shtal:

You see the reason I chose not to have this type of conversations; example I will say animals they reproduce according to there kinds, that’s what we expect, but you may say well maybe they will do today, give enough time and one kind can change into another

I wouldn’t say that.  Species don’t evolve into different species and is actually just a misconception.  Perhaps it was just a simple way to understand the Theory of Evolution but it is wrong and not what the theory actually says.

Quote from Shtal:

Then I will say DNA has information, it doesn’t come by a chance and you may say maybe there is unknown mechanism that produces, give us time we will find it.

Again, there seems to be some deep seeded issues here with semantics and what is meant by words like “Information” and “chance”.  Your usage of both words is inconsistent and improper.  As I’ve already explained, we already have known the mechanisms for which information is increased and no it is not Mutation which does it.  Mutation is just one of over a dozen mechanisms which plays a part in evolution.

Quote from Shtal:

It is not wrong to show people that there is evidence that is consistence with God, his word confirms that…And I think there is value in that, but evidence by itself is never decisive, because you always required a world view to tell you what to make of that evidence, there for philosophically stout person will not be persuaded by mere evidence…Evidence by itself is not decisive because your presuppositions tell you what to make out of evidence; we cannot argue that our world view is right because of the evidence but because our world view tell us how to interpret that evidence; I hope that is clear…

You’re assuming based on your own presuppositions that there are presuppositions involved.  It is true that presuppositions can cloud our interpretations of evidence.  We should always guard against that, which is why reviewing other peoples interpretations is useful to see how they compare.

Quote from Shtal:

Btw, If evolution is true and you can explain everything without God, then you are an atheist, so evolution backups atheism, all atheist are evolutionists; they have to be because you have to explain how you got here without God and that makes sense to me which is why I always say evolution/atheist remarks. But of course there are some people who believe in evolution and God at the same time which is called “theistic evolutionists”.

So, so much non sequitur in that paragraph ^.  First, the Theory of Evolution doesn’t explain everything.  Second, the ToE says nothing about “God”.  Third, the Theory of Evolution and atheism are not related at all, what-so-ever.   Fourth, as with the second, the Theory of Evolution says nothing about atheism or theism.  Fifth, all atheists are not “evolutionists”, there were atheists before anyone ever even considered evolution.  Sixth, as with the third, atheism and the Theory of Evolution are not related at all so neither is dependent on the other at all (there are Christians who accept the entirety of the Theory of Evolution and there are atheists who might have irrational beliefs like that were living in the Matrix and the Theory of Evolution is a hoax).

Quote from Shtal:

The word “Evolution” has many meanings, only one of which is scientific.
 

1. Cosmic Evolution: the origin of time, space and matter, i.e. Big Bang.
2. Chemical Evolution – the origin of higher elements from hydrogen.
3. Stellar and Planetary evolution. Origin of stars and planets. No one has ever seen a star form.
4. Organic Evolution. Origin of Life.
5. Macro-Evolution. Changing from one kind into another.

Micro-Evolution. Variations within kinds. Only this one has been observed.

Many meanings?  Really?  Actually the word evolution only has one meaning – any process of formation, growth, gradual change or development.  It’s a pretty simple word to understand.  When we talk about the Theory of Evolution, we’re talking about the Theory of Evolution of species.  It is very interesting that the word itself has become tainted to you.  Probably in the same way the word “Atheist” has been.  You probably just naturally associate the words “Evolution” and “Atheist” with bad or unpleasant things.  Like your mind has been conditioned to appall anything associated with those words.  Almost like …. like …. like you’ve been brainwashed.  Oops.

Ever seen “1984” (the movie)?  I’ve read the book, but I bring up the movie because of the scene where everyone is sitting in front of the movie screen yelling at the images of the enemies.  Yeah, that’s you with the words “Evolution” and “Atheist”, just yelling for no reason at all at anything that has to do with those words.  Just like the whole society in “1984” would collapse without everyone falling in line, so too would Religion without everyone falling in line.  The Theory of Evolution is a threat to religion.  Atheism is a threat to religion.  “No, little Johnny-boy, don’t talk to those science types, you might start asking questions, and that is bad”.

Anyway,  the origin of life is called abiogenesis, not Organic Evolution.   Organic Evolution would probably just be another word for the Theory of Evolution.  Cosmic Evolution would be more about the evolution of the cosmos, not the origin of spacetime and matter.  The Big Bang is a Theory about the origin of the universe.  Again, the Theory of Evolution says nothing about kinds changing into other kinds, that is a misconception.

Quote from Shtal:

The Bible says the animals will bring forth after their kind. Charlie Darwin wrote a book called:
The Origin of Species: You see the dog and the wolf are the same kind of animal but they are different species, he “Charlie” fooled everybody by changing the words from kind to species.

The Bible says lots of stuff.  Big whoop.

Actually, dogs and wolves are the same species.  At one point they were thought to be different species, but that was wrong since dogs and wolves can still interbreed.  Man that “Charlie” was sneaky eh, changing words.  No dumbass, (I’m not one for name calling but reading your crap has led me to conclude that you sir are a dumbass) Charles Darwin proposed a hypothesis which very well could have been falsified (and it still can actually) and has been reviewed, tested, made predictions and gone through over 150 years of scrutiny and yet remains as the most viable explanation for the diversification of kinds or species.  Do you really think changing words somehow fooled everyone?  Are you really that dumb?  Seriously?  You can’t be that dumb, you wouldn’t even know how to turn on a computer, much less be able to navigate forums.

I’m not even going to respond to the rest of your post.  It is nothing but incoherent babble based on misconceptions and incorrect information.  Your entire knowledge base appears to be incorrect.  You then base your assumptions and assertions on your incorrect knowledge base which leads to really absurd and comically flawed arguments.  You really should just forget everything you know because it is just bankrupt of any useful information.

I'm done wasting my time on you Shtal.  Learn about the subjects you want to discuss instead of propagating your misinformation and idiocy.

 

 

 

 

Great post, I don't know how you did it.  But alas, he's been told all of that, numerous times, by numerous people and he'll add some more nonsense and then he'll put up a "" and just declare victory.  He's fighting the good fight, doncha know?  Nice try though, I read it all the way through and I don't usually spend that much time on one post.  Where in hell did you come from?  LOL

patches, thoughtful well researched post, thanks. you rock.

 

the difference is the thinky stuff takes some effort, checking sources, making sense etc, knowledge, smarts etc; converesely shtal's posts/sources are propaganda with an intention to decieve.

shame it wont mean a thing to him. he will give you a smiley face or his favourite "ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ" and ignore your post, then dissapear and come back with a change of the topic. over and over and over.

we have been thru hovind, hams, craig, answersingenesis.......and when he gets frustrated and pulls out the big guns he invokes sye and makes you answer all his baited questions, but yr response is irrelevent, he will ignore them anyway and just post the answers he wants you to say by using yr username, it is weird, you have to experience it to beleive it.

anyhoo he told us we are going to hell in his last post and said he is done here, which he has said many, many times already and decoded means he will come back and start all the same arguments again.

hope you get to meet red sable the resident conspiracy theorist, baby eagle the patriot that wants america to start a war with america yeehaw god bless america, you met GG and there is gouda the end of times prophet who thinks evrything is about muslims taking over everything.

You two.......LOL

I hope Shtal has the fortitude to just let it go and not take this baiting.

Quote from GSDtravels:

Great post, I don't know how you did it.

Thanks.  Debunking the links was probably more interesting than actually reading Shtal's own words which eventually just had the appearence of babble.  Although even debunking creationist propaganda can be annoying since it is all the same crap ad nauseam.  I can't tell you how refreshing it would be if they would actually challange the Theory of Evolution instead of using straw-man arguments, logical fallacies and misinformation.

Quote from GSDtravels:

 But alas, he's been told all of that, numerous times, by numerous people and he'll add some more nonsense and then he'll put up a "" and just declare victory.  He's fighting the good fight, doncha know?

Well thanks for the warning.  I figured my post wouldn't have any impact on Shtal given that his own words are almost entirely nonsensical and ripe with logical fallacies.  Hopefully my posts might benifit anyone else who takes the time to read them though.  One of the biggest misconceptions that the average person (not having an extensive background in science and biology) is regarding how the diversification of species happens.  I know for most of my life I didn't really get it.  I never had an extensive interest in the Theory of Evolution, I knew some basics but it didn't really affect me any more than say nuclear energy or how circuit boards and microchips are built.  I had the same misconceptions about macro-evolution as shtal does now, I just didn't really care much about it.  Sometimes I would wonder, how exactly does a dog evolve into a horse.  Last year I decided to do some research on it since certain groups in the states are really pushing to "teach the controversy".  I eventually realized that my long held conceptions of macro-evolution were wrong and an overly simplistic grade-school version of what the Theory of Evolution actually says.

I fear that some people have been conditioned to fear the Theory of Evolution so strongly as it threatens their dearly held religious beleifs that they go out of their way to not understand the Theory of Evolution.  The reality is, once a person actually grasps how evolution actually works, it all really becomes quite clear and coherent.  Creationist propaganda has created a straw-man version of the Theory of Evolution though.  I would guess that Shtal thinks he knows what the Theory of Evolution says, when in reality he doesn't as all of his knowledge is based on the creationist straw-man version.

I think probably decads ago, creationists realized they couldn't defeat the actual Theory of Evolution so they have built up this straw-man version which is easy to defeat and then they are free to spread their propaganda and deceive the masses.  It is truely having an impact on the education in the U.S..  In the past, this country was an innovator and leader of scientific discovery and in the last 10 to 20 years has really suffered.  IMO, it is religion that has a stranglehold on the U.S. right now.  It is a billion dollar industry and is tax exempt and has no interest in loosing it's flock.  The churches see what is happening in Europe.  The countries in Europe which are improving their educations and progressing on scientific discoveries are increasingly becoming atheistic.  Is there an actual correlation between increased education and leaning towards atheism?  I don't know, maybe not, and it might be a logical fallacy to draw one.  The trends are there and that might be all that matters when determining if there is a threat to religion and the profits being made.  Of course it isn't quite as sinister as I might be making it out to sound.  There isn't some group of religious types in a room plotting devious schemes.  It is more a dynamic web of interests moving in a similar direction.  A lot of it is just people going along with the flow, people like Shtal, buying into the lies because they confirm their already held beliefs.

I digress heh.

Quote from GSDtravels:

Where in hell did you come from?  LOL

Someone posted a link to this forum on another forum that I have been posting on back in April.  I was interested in discussing the Theory of Evolution.  I don't imagine I'll be a regular poster here as my time is limited.

 

 

Well, you sure are a breath of fresh air!  And though you might think you'll get through to others, good luck with that.  You'll be accused of feeling superior and arrogant about it by some and simply dismissed out of hand by others :)  I've had a good grasp of evolution since high school, but I went to Catholic School.  One thing that the Catholics are smart about is science, they don't want to get burned again.  They've figured out that the religion has to morph along with science or it'll be left behind.  Don't get me wrong, there's plenty wrong with Roman Catholicism, but they at least give you a good, well-rounded education, religious classes were separate.  Well, at least that's how it was in my day.  LOL, I remember when the parish went ballistic when our "hippy" priest started folk masses back in the '70s, it was pretty funny to watch.  They thought the church was "going to hell in a hand basket!".  Fun memories!

Anyway, you gave it the best shot to date and for that, I thank you.  You did it with repsect and dignity and for that I applaud you.  Welcome, for however long you happen to be around.