What do you mean "my comment"? Why do you have to bring a discussion about Betapeg's trades into this? What trades someone does and whether people agree with the motivation for these trades should have nothing to do with an off-topic discussion in a thread like this one...
Evolution debunked in 1 paragraph.
- Thread starter peilthetraveler
- Start date
Which translates to: It's OK for YOU to use the argument but it's a logical fallacy for anyone else to use it.
http://www.arn.org/docs/newman/rn_statusofevolution.htm
"...What a majority of scientists may believe in the matter should not be the issue if we follow the guidelines laid down in the California Science Framework Draft: Students should be told about evidence and how scientists reached their conclusions, not whether scientists "believe" something or how many do or don't..."
Oh please. A "completely uncalled for" response would have been to decapitate Betapig on video, not insult him back in P&R.
Someone with trading posts like his certainly hasn't figured out the universe, let alone earned the right to insult with impunity those who believe in God by equating them with hallucinating drunks ("pink elephant god").
Someone with trading posts like his certainly hasn't figured out the universe, let alone earned the right to insult with impunity those who believe in God by equating them with hallucinating drunks ("pink elephant god").
I'm fine with civil or uncivil. But don't insult believers in God by equating them with hallucinating drunks and expect civility back.
Quote from Betapeg:
Were you offended by the "i.e. Pascal's Wager is for the gullible" comment? I can tone it down if you'd like for the sake of keeping this discussion civil.
Betapig!? Lol, that's original
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Lucrum, look what Newman say (in the context) quote of your post above.
"Taking evolution to mean descent from a common ancestor, everyone agrees that descendants come from ancestors and that some changes occur in the course of descent. The question is, how much of the diversity in the fossil record is a result of descent and how much a result of (say) a common designer? The apparently systematic gaps in the fossil record between the higher levels of the biological classification scheme, especially when linked with the unusual biochemical spacing between various living things, present serious evidential challenges to gradualistic forms of evolution at the macroevolutionary level, including the Punctuated Equilibria theory as usually presented. This would put evolution (in this second sense) in the class of historical theories that are currently disputed perhaps as the volcanic vs. meteoric origin of lunar craters was disputed before the first unmanned landings occurred certainly not with electromagnetism, gravity and the germ theory of disease. What a majority of scientists may believe in the matter should not be the issue if we follow the guidelines laid down in the California Science Framework Draft:
Students should be told about evidence and how scientists reached their conclusions, not whether scientists "believe" something or how many do or don't. Scientists no more "believe" in their findings than a Superior Court Judge "believes" in a verdict.[11]
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And look at evidence (no belief)
'Why Evolution Is True is outstandingly good. Coyneâs knowledge of evolutionary biology is prodigious, his deployment of it as masterful as his touch is light. His coverage is enviably comprehensive, yet he simultaneously manages to keep the book compact and readable. His nine chapters include âWritten in the Rocksâ, laced with examples that make short work of the most popular of all creationist lies, the one about unbridgeable âgapsâ in the fossil record: âShow me your intermediates!â, say the creationists. Jerry Coyne shows them, and very numerous and convincing they are. Not just fossils of large charismatic animals like whales and birds, and the coelacanth-cousins that made the transition from water to land, but also microfossils. These have the advantage of sheer numbers: some kinds of sedimentary rock are almost entirely made of the tiny fossilized skeletons of foraminiferans, radiolarians and other calcareous or siliceous protozoa. This means you can plot a sensitive graph of some chosen measurement, as a continuous function of geological time, while you systematically work your way through a core of sediments. One of Coyneâs graphs shows a genus of radiolarians (beautiful protozoans with minute, lantern-like shells) caught in the act, two million years ago, of âspeciatingâ â splitting into two species.
Such splitting of one species into two is what Darwinâs title actually means, and it is one of the few weak areas in that great book. Jerry Coyne is probably todayâs leading authority on speciation, and it is not surprising that his chapter called âThe Origin of Speciesâ is so good. So also is âThe Geography of Lifeâ. Possibly the most immediately convincing evidence against creationism is to be found in the geographical distribution of animals and plants, on continents and islands (in the broad sense, âislandsâ include lakes, mountain tops, oases â from an animalâs point of view any small area where it can live, surrounded by a larger area where it canât). After setting out the voluminous evidence on the subject, Coyne concludes:
"Now try to think of a theory that explains the patterns weâve discussed by invoking the special creation of species on oceanic islands and continents . . . . There are no good answers â unless, of course, you presume that the goal of a creator was to make species look as though they evolved on islands. Nobody is keen to embrace that answer, which explains why creationists simply shy away from island biogeography."
Such dishonesty by omission is lamentably characteristic of creationists. They love fossils because they have been schooled, wrongly as Coyne shows, to believe that âgapsâ in the fossil record are an embarrassment to evolutionary theorists. The geographical distribution of species really is an embarrassment to creationists â and they conspicuously ignore it
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article5707143.ece
That's your interpretation (a wrong one). If the underlying belief/theory is true, then it is a valid argument. If the belief/theory is not true, then it's not a valid argument. It's valid to mention the vast majority of scientists believe the earth is round (or that evolution is scientific fact). It's is not valid to demand, "at least you should be able to line up more scientists than I have shown you --", which essentially equates the truthfulness of either of our arguments based on simply how many quotes from scientists either of us can dig up and throw each other's way. I said what I said because in that regard, it's a false standard of truth.
That's the first time I've seen someone equate the ability to have an opinion on science with how well they trade options. LOL.
My bad, next time I'll use Zeus or Thor. Anyways with all due civility, the point was you can substitute any god into the Pascal's Wager argument, and frankly, it makes the Christian god no different than Zeus or Thor, or the "pink elephant god", or "flying spaghetti monster".
With that said, it's of course only valid if that god is actually reality. We again come back to zero evidence of said god (that's why it's called "religious faith"). Pascal's Wager only works if the Christian god is real and we have seen that this god is essentially no more real than Zeus, Thor, Baal, Beelzebub, or any of the myriad of gods invented, which I'm sure you are an atheist for them all except yours.
