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I’m afraid I tried to do two things at once that may have lead to some confusion. My initial intent was to show that an idea ought to have some mental groundwork laid before going to the scientific method for any kind of proof. Very basically its just:

1. Stating the concept.
2. Organizing the assumptions derived from the concept.
3. Drawing the logical predictions as far as what can be reasonably found.

Then and only then can you go to the scientific stage which involves
1. Repeatable Observation followed by
2. Testing/verification.

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I still don't understand. This doesn't seem totally consistent with the scientific method I know of:
1. Define the question
2. Gather information and resources
3. Form hypothesis
4. Perform experiment and collect data
5. Analyze data
6. Interpret data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypotheses
7. Publish results
Is this what you meant? If so, great.

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I know you enjoyed sniping my last post in several places

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Sorry, was not intending to snipe. I was merely attempting to answer each point you made and 6 pages of frustrations tended to compound on my attitude

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The first one is when you said that the universe has no beginning, ie. It just ‘was’. The idea of life from non-life (one of evolution’s basic tenets, no?) ‘naturally’ gives rise to the question of where did the matter come from. Isn’t this in contrast to your claim that it’s a human perception fallacy for something to have a beginning?

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This "basic tenet" I do not recall seeing mentioned anywhere in evolution. I quote Wikipedia: (link)

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The chemical evolution from self-catalytic chemicals to life (see Origin of life) is not a part of biological evolution.

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The idea of life from non-life is another area of science, albeit close. It's just that Creationists don't really know about it (because they can't be stuffed researching the subject) so it's never brought into the public eye.

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Next you said that the idea of God is an unsupported assumption. I hope you’re not alluding to a universal negative. The only sanction for a universal negative is universal knowledge and none of us can claim that in the least.

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I still don't understand. I say the idea of God is an unsupported assumption because we have zero hard evidence for his existence, and it requires creation of a whole new area of science: the supernatural.

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I think there’s strong evidence that you’re an atheist/existentialist.

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Yes, I am definitely an atheist. I am not an existentialist.

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Both the creationist and the evolutionist ‘believe’ their positions for religious...reasons; neither position is scientific.

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Aaargh! (Bashes head on table)
Creationists believe their positions because one single, ancient, unverifiable book written almost a thousand years ago says so.
Evolutionists "believe" their position because of the mountains of evidence, harsh, critical deduction and self correction through over a century. If an idea didn't agree with the evidence then it was discarded. If there was a better way of explaining the evidence, it was used.

Darwin did not come up with evolution then traipse around the globe looking for evidence to support it. He saw the evidence, studied it, look for more. Then tried to come up a with hypothesis which fit the evidence. Not the other way round .

Alors:

Ok, now that was a snipe. Bear in mind I'm not trying to be overtly aggressive here, but this reflects pretty much what I've been trying to say through most of this thread and it highlights my point very well.

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You always find what you're looking for.

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I wonder just how ironic that was intended to be

Didn't Darwin first study plants. I am pretty sure. I think.

he originally studied medicine at Edinburg Univ. in order to become a doctor like his father; then theology at Christ's College, Cambridge, as the young Darwin showed no aptitude for medicine but could have had a comfortable career as an Anglican parson in or around his native Shrewsbury. Darwin is also related to the Wedgwood family, being a grandson of the famous Josiah Wedgwood. His studies in biology were originally just a hobby that he took up whilst at university in Edinburgh and he was never officially enrolled in a biolgy class there, he just *sat in* on the lectures (instead of studying medicine) It was his meeting a freed black slave who taught him taxidermy that is believed to have stimulated his interest in biology, along with the fact that his grandfather Erasmus Darwin had already begun to formulate a theory of evolution.

It should be remembered that Darwin was not the first to propose a *theory of evolution* and many other scientists of the era were working on similar lines. Darwin however was able through observation (and not just his own) to formulate the principles of natural selection following his visits to the unique environment of the Galapagos Islands. Plus he was secure in his tenure in England and had many friends in the academic scientific establishment, and he didn't publish his theory of natural selection straight away but waited many years before going public, while his ideas permeated amongst his colleagues and peers. Interesting to compare him with his contemporary Alfred Russell Wallace who in 1858 came up with virtually the same principles that Darwin had been formulating since the Galapagos twenty years earlier - Wallace sent Darwin a copy of his proposed paper out of politeness, D was horrified to find it was almost exactly the same theory that he'd been working on for years! Fortunately for Darwin, his academic *chums* made sure he was the one who got the credit for Natural Selection, whilst Wallace was consigned to a mere footnote in history, although he did get a nice secure job as a reward for letting C.D. go first.

TET -

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*Aaargh! (Bashes head on table)*

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don't, you'll give yourself a headache



Edited by - Tawakalna on 1/30/2006 3:43:24 AM

Yes, now I remember. I studied this in science.

meteor crashed and killed them and sent them to hell

don't you just love trading with imbeciles?

Okay....... aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. Sure.

The impact was just the last nail as far as the dinosaur's were concerned, they and every other life form on the planet had been dying out for 30 million years before hand.

The Earth started to go through a major change, environments were changing, global warming was happening and the area around India was a mass of volcano's. The greenhouse gasses they were pumping out caused massive environmental changes, lands that had been lush forests were becoming arid deserts. The animals couldn't evolve fast enough to keep up with it, from 30 mil. to 10 mil. before the KT impact the planet lost about 1/3 of the life forms, from 10 mil. to 1 mil. 1/2 of the rest had become extinct.

The Asteroid just made sure they did die out, by throwing a massive amount of dust and debri into the atmosphere to block out the sun. Plants started to die out and the large animals that fed on them followed suit, as did all of the large carnivoures. Just to make absolutely certain that no large animals survived, the dust caused the planets temperature to drop starting a very large and long ice-age.

We'll find out what an asteriod impact can do to a planet in our life time. A couple of years ago we had a close call with a massive one, unfortunately for us we'll get a little to close to it again in 2029, as they calculate our orbits will occupy the same point in space at the exact same time.

**shuffles of with a new headache**

That gradualist theory is just one of the two main scientific theories for the extinction of the dinosaurs, the other being that the asteroid was the total cause and that the disnosaurs were not already in the process of dying out. You cannot just state that the dinosaurs were already dying out since there is no evidence to support or refute this statement, however the fact that the asteroid had a significant effect is pretty much taken for granted these days.

On the subject of the 2029 impact, we are in the clear now. New measurements have refined the predicted position of the asteroid and we can now apparently rule out any chance of an impact. In fact, NASA's current risk analysis indicates that no subsequent Earth encounters in the 21st century are of any concern. Link.

Man, that asteroid is big.

Accushot the scientific community dropped the impact theory as the main cause back in 2003/4, well all except the guy who came up with it in the first place. A dispute between 2 scientists about time frames for the impact started a new study of the events surounding it, for the first time it wasn't just geologists that took an interest, they had scientists from all fields checking the evidence, the end conclusion was that the events that the impact theory said happened didn't. There was no large fireball barbecueing half the planet as they couldn't find enough charcoal or soot in the KT layer, but they did find a lot of vegetable matter which shows that the planet didn't burn. The acid rain that was meant to follow the fireball never happened either as there are thousands of species alive today who's ancesters would have been wiped out if there had been. All amphibians and most species of fish are succeptable (sp) to acid rain just like their ancesters were. This left the scientist with a problem as the impact didn't do enough environmental damage as they thought, so it couldn't be the sole cause of the mass extinction.

I wouldn't class loosing 2/3 to 3/4 of all life in 29 million years as gradual, that's mother nature having a major clearout, something she's done several times before and will do again.


Of course they're saying it's going to miss us, just think of the mass panic that would happen in 10 - 15 years from now if they didn't. They're trying to buy themselves some time to come up with a means of destroying the bloody thing before it gets to close.

**shuffles of with a new headache**

Edited by - Bejaymac on 2/2/2006 4:16:38 PM

Well that's the first I've heard of it and I've got a strong interest in palaeontology, I try to catch palaeo news as much as possible. Are you sure that it's now the accepted theory? The fossil record shows no signs of fewer dinosaur numbers till an abrupt stop at the K-T boundary layer. There has only been one dino fossil found above this layer, of a hadrosaur, which is still undergoing tests to determine whether either its species survived a few million years or its fossil has been moved geologically through the strata.

As for the 2029 thing, that's an unfalsifiable comment you've made there Bejaymac! In a sense you've decided for yourself that the asteroid is coming regardless of what the astronomers say!

Recusant they used the geology reports as well as the fossil records for the time period. The geology reports show that the Earth went through a period of drastic change, caused by large scale volcanic activity and greenhouse gasses. The fossil records show this with a marked decrease in the number of species that are in each period of the 30 mil. years. The changes affected all life and not just the dinosaurs as it upset the food chain, being at the top of the food chain meant that the effect took longer to affect the dinosaurs, but everything else was suffering badly.
By the time of the impact the dinosaurs were struggling as they were specialist feeders that can't cope with change, if your a large meateater then you need a large planteater to feed on, and a large planteater needs a lot of plants. As they were already struggling with the lack of digestible plants caused by the climate change, the impacts dust cloud blocking out the suns rays made short work of the planteaters as without edible plants they all starved follow very quickly by the meateaters. It was only the smaller generalists that survived the following ice age and went onto populate the world.


"unfalsifiable"...? Thats just standard government policy, they like to keep the public in the dark about global catastrophies, it stops the public from panicing and rioting when they find out.
One of two things has happened either some dork has put the wrong figures into the computer first time round or some government agency has made them change their story. Either way the brainwashed general public will carry on as if nothings happened. Until it's to late.

But what would they do if it seriously wasn't going to hit Earth? They'd tell us exactly what they have done. You've automatically assumed the worst and used a form of logic whereby no matter what they say, you've decided that this asteroid is going to hit while having done no calculations of your own. It's akin to someone making the accusation that a person is gay and in denial about it. Whether the person refutes or agrees with it, he will be considered gay via that logic. I hope you can see the problem there.
Unfalsifiable is when it's not possible to prove someone is wrong because of the nature of their statement. This comes up a fair bit in the whole evolution/ID debate thing. Without going into too much detail the main problem with religion from a scientific point of view is that you cannot disprove the existence of a deity who is undetectable and supposed to exist outside of the natural world (ie in the supernatural).

As for the extinction debate, it's very difficult to state the population sizes of various species upon an incomplete fossil record. It may just mean that we have not found as many fossil beds in the last part of the Cretaceous period. About 50% of all animal species were lost after the KT extinction this included non-avian dinosaurs, the large marine reptiles, ammonites, pterosaurs, several types of plankton and several species of mammal. That's still not two thirds or more of animal species. In fact compared to the Permian/Triassic extinction where possibly up to 90% of all animal species died out, it was hardly mother nature "having a clear out". I'm not denying that there are theories that the KT extinction was a slow one but I've yet to hear of any common consensus on the issue so far. There are those who feel that sea level changes and the Deccan traps had more to do with it than asteroid impact and there are others who feel it may have even been due to multiple impacts, perhaps dislodged form the Oort cloud causing a fairly swift extinction. If you take a visit to a natural history museum these days, any display on the KT extinction will normally start with the asteroid theory as put forward by Alvarez in the 80s and then suggest climate change, the Deccan traps, supernovae, disease etc because none of the theories have been considered fact yet. Palaeontology by it's very nature makes a lot of hypotheses based on the available evidence but it is very difficult to fully prove anything.

Dinosaurs evolved into birds. We have proof because the bird has a chest plate similar to birds, and they have similar joints and attachments.