Re: Opinions on Carvin basses?

Benj <bjacoby@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Jul 18, 7:53 am, Joe Silver <fakeaddr...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Your placement of the word "evolution" within quotation marks reveals
everything one needs to know about your beliefs. Ask any scientist
with credentials: Natural selection is virtually a certainty. The
only people who disagree are those who know nothing about science.

Gosh, here's the problem, Joe. On the internet you just never know who
you are talking to. I can see that you've bought all the dogma of the
"faith-based science" crowd with the atheistic view that everything in
the universe all evolved totally by chance without any intervention at
all of any kind from any outside influences.

Occam's razor.
The burden of proof is on the creation science crowd to explain why an
additional, unobservable variable is needed to provide an explanation.
And if you're really a scientist, you know that the fact that natural
selection theory is incomplete is insufficient *unless and until* your
introduction of that as-yet-extraneous variable is capable of better
explaining observed phenomena *and* of making more accurate predictions.

Any higher lifeforms somewhere in the universe? Nope. MAN is
the only being here, right?

It's entirely possible that life forms higher than man exist somewhere
in the physical universe. Point?

Sun goes around the Earth, right?

Now you're being silly. Technically, it's a matter of the reference
frame. "Earth goes around the Sun" is closer to being correct in an
inertial frame than "Sun goes around the Earth". Of course that
neglects the Sun's motion.

Laws of physics and biology all happened by chance, right?
There is NO evidence out there that does
NOT support the "Theory of Evolution", right? There are NO
unexplained fossils, right? The "missing link" was found long ago,
right? God's in his heaven and all's right with the world, right?

Simply poking holes in an admittedly incomplete theory does nothing as
far as validating any alternatives. But you knew that.

Hey Joe, grow a brain and then USE it! That will give you improvement
by "natural selection".

Physician, heal thyself!

You want a scientist to ask with "credentials"? OK, how does
"Principal Research Scientist" grab you? That's right, ASK ME!

Since we're swapping titles around, how about "Chief Scientist"? (We
don't get fancier than that.) Or "Army Research Laboratory Fellow" (I'm
not there anymore, but it's a permanent title, and my name's still on a
shingle in the place.) What's your Ph. D. in, Benj? Mine's in physics.
Just wondering.

Joe, it's not that "natural selection" does not "work", it does beyond
doubt in certain limited cases. But to extend that idea to all of life
and creation has NO basis in scientific data. There are way too many
unexplained finds and things that do not fit the theory. In science
if a SINGLE exception if found to a theory then the whole theory is
thrown into question.

This is an oversimplification. The part you're leaving out is that
there are statistical uncertainties in all observations, and to properly
assess the impact of a single observation that appears to be in conflict
with a theory, you have to be able to assess the corresponding
uncertainty. Since evolutionary science is, for the most part, not
conducted in a laboratory, one cannot simply repeat the "experiment"
over and over again to tighten up the statistics. Consequently, your
comments about *single* exceptions are off the mark. Furthermore, they
ignore the possibility that one can make refinements and minor
corrections to the theory. This sort of thing happens all the time;
today's version is a distant cry from Darwin's original ideas. In the
physics arena, a good example is general relativity and cosmology;
physicists are still debating certain nuances of the theory, but the
inclusions of modifications that encompass observations that are at odds
with Einstein's original version do *not* invalidate Einstein's central
premise!

The problem here is with you lefties who view
the theory of "evolution" as a political tool. Atheism is the state
religion of the the far left.

Ah, now we get down to the crux of the matter. This has nothing to do
with science; it has to do with ideology. Interesting that you should
raise this issue, since the right has consistently, over the past 20 or
so years, attempted to turn scientific issues into political ones,
motivated not so much by their religious beliefs as by their utter
distaste for the left. As a prime example I give you "global warming"
as portrayed by the right as the brainchild of Al Gore as opposed to the
scientific version.

Besides, you imply that evolution and religion or belief in a superior
being are incompatible. A great many thinkers who are better versed in
the matter than you or I would disagree.

Would it surprise you if I told you that I know many conservatives who
are atheists? The entire atheist -> leftist association is a straw man.

Here's the deal. If the universe is
"created" only by chance, then there really is no such thing as ethics
or morality is there? If you kill your enemies, it's just part of
"natural selection", right? If you kill them to grab their oil, hey
it's "survival of the fittest", right? The key is to put aside all
moral values and look at things coldly and logically! That is the
political stance that "evolution" supports.

No, it's a political stance that *you* read into scientific views, maybe
because without the restraint of religion you'd turn into a cold-blooded
killer?

Just because the "survival of the fittest" routine was co-opted by
certain groups on the right and left over the last century to justify
abhorrent political views and immoral behavior doesn't mean that all
those who support evolution (or all those who are atheists, for that
matter) are without a moral compass of any kind. As a scientist, you
should know that your "reasoning" is illogical. "A implies B" does not
mean that "B implies A".

And it's so bad that any
scientist wanting to keep their job had better not even SUGGEST that
there are holes in the so-called evolution dogma!

Another straw man. Don't believe everything you see in the movies. You
seem to have been able to hang on to your "Principal Research Scientist"
quite well, right?

Your homework assignment for today, Joe, is the required viewing of
the documentary; Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed by Ben Stein. Oh,
right, he's just another one of those Christian Fundy dummies, right?
(tee hee!)

And yours? To check out all the Michael Moore "documentaries". You
know they're objective, right? No one would make a documentary with a
slanted point of view, right? Go see them; you may come away from it
with a whole set of new "facts" that might not have dawned on you
otherwise.

I'm not going to rant anymore here about the problems of politics
infecting science but let it be said that all you lefty "true
believers" are not helping things at all!

We're eagerly waiting for the righty "true believers" to show us the
way, man! Don't stop now! ;-)


.

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