Flaws in Evolution

cannabis · Sep 29, 2007

I've been on the defensive for too long here in S&P. Evolutionists have lashed out at other posters beliefs, so it's time to for me to lash out at the Evolutionist that are convinced that the theory is complete truth and explains all
You can cower behind the idea as use it as comfort in your fear that life is insignificant and such. But just acknowledge that there are errors in Evolutionary theory. And considering It can't even explain an origin of life alltogether...Its assurance is limited. Much of Evolution can be considered a stalking-horse for Nuralism, Secular Humanism philosophies rather than 'scientific theory'

I can't say I'm behind every single thing quoted because it attempts to debunk Evolution as a whole, but what it does is prove that not everything in the theory can be backed up by science and is absolute. There are certain flaws in Evolution as there is in just about every theory.

"Evolution" mixes two things together, one real, one imaginary. Variation is the real part. The types of bird beaks, the colors of moths, leg sizes, etc. are variation. Each type and length of beak a finch can have is already in the gene pool for finches. Creationists have always agreed that there is variation within species. But what evolutionists do not want you to know is that there are strict limits to variation that are never crossed. They want you to think that changes continue, merging gradually into new kinds of creatures. This is where the imaginary part of the theory of evolution comes in. It says that new information is added to the gene pool by mutation and natural selection to create frogs from fish, reptiles from frogs, and mammals from reptiles, to name a few.

Do these big changes really happen? Evolutionists tell us we cannot see evolution taking place because it happens too slowly. A human generation takes about 20 years from birth to parenthood. They say it took tens of thousands of generations to form man from a common ancestor with the ape, from populations of only hundreds or thousands. We do not have these problems with bacteria. A new generation of bacteria grows in a matter of hours. There are more bacteria in the world than there are grains of sand on all of the beaches of the world (and many grains of sand are covered with bacteria). They exist in just about any environment: heat, cold, dry, wet, high pressure, low pressure, small groups, large colonies, isolated, much food, little food, much oxygen, no oxygen, in toxic chemicals, etc. There is much variation in bacteria. There are many mutations (in fact, evolutionists say that smaller organisms have a faster mutation rate than larger ones4). But they never turn into anything else. They always remain bacteria. Fruit flies are much more complex than already complex single-cell bacteria. Scientists like to study them because a generation (from egg to adult) takes only 9 days. In the lab, fruit flies are studied under every conceivable condition. There is much variation in fruit flies. There are many mutations. But they never turn into anything else. They always remain fruit flies. Many years of study of countless generations of bacteria and fruit flies all over the world shows that evolution is not happening today.

This is how the imaginary part is supposed to happen: On rare occasions a mutation in DNA improves a creature's ability to survive, so it is more likely to reproduce (natural selection). That is evolution's only tool for making new creatures. It might even work if it took just one gene to make and control one part. But parts of living creatures are constructed of intricate components with connections that all need to be in place for the thing to work, controlled by many genes that have to act in the proper sequence.Natural selection would not choose parts that did not have all their components existing, in place, connected, and regulated because the parts would not work. Thus all the right mutations (and none of the destructive ones) must happen at the same time by pure chance. That is physically impossible. To illustrate just how impossible it is, imagine this: on the ground are all the materials needed to build a house (nails, boards, shingles, windows, etc.). We tie a hammer to the wagging tail of a dog and let him wander about the work site for as long as you please, even millions of years. The swinging hammer on the dog is as likely to build a house as mutation-natural selection is to make a single new working part in an animal, let alone a new creature.

Only mutations in the reproductive (germ) cells of an animal or plant would be passed on. Mutations in the eye or skin of an animal would not matter. Mutations in DNA happen fairly often, but most are repaired or destroyed by mechanisms in animals and plants. All known mutations in animal and plant germ cells are neutral, harmful, or fatal. But evolutionists are eternally optimistic. They believe that many beneficial mutations were passed on to every species that ever existed, since that is the only way evolutionists think different species are made.

There are two versions of evolution. The first (neo-Darwinism) proposed that many tiny changes made new creatures. They could not find these tiny changes between one type of creature and another in the fossil record, so a few evolutionists proposed instead that change occurred by occasional leaps (punctuated equilibrium). Each hypothetical beneficial mutation could only make a slight change. Any more than that would be so disruptive as to cause death. So punctuated equilibrium is not really one leap at a time. It envisions a lot of slight changes over thousands of years, then nothing happens for millions of years. Evolutionists say with a straight face that no fossils have been found from a leap because thousands of years is too fast in the billions of years of "geologic time" to leave any. On the other hand, without fossils there is no evidence that any leaps ever happened, and of course there is no evidence that leaps or gradual changes are happening today in any of the millions of species that still exist.

Evolution is all about constant change, whether gradual or in leaps. Consider a cloud in the sky: it is constantly changing shape due to natural forces. It might look like, say, a rabbit now, and a few minutes later appear to be, say, a horse. In between, the whole mass is shifting about. In a few more minutes it may look like a bird. The problem for evolution is that we never see the shifting between shapes in the fossil record. All fossils are of complete animals and plants, not works in progress "under construction". That is why we can give each distinct plant or animal a name. If evolution's continuous morphing were really going on, every fossil would show change underway throughout the creature, with parts in various stages of completion. For every successful change there should be many more that lead to nothing. The whole process is random trial and error, without direction. So every plant and animal, living or fossil, should be covered inside and out with useless growths and have parts under construction. It is a grotesque image, and just what the theory of evolution really predicts. Even Charles Darwin had a glimpse of the problem in his day. He wrote in his book The Origin of Species: "The number of intermediate varieties which have formerly existed on Earth must be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory." The more fossils that are found, the better sense we have of what lived in the past. Since Darwin's day, the number of fossils that have been collected has grown tremendously, so we now have a pretty accurate picture. The gradual morphing of one type of creature to another that evolution predicts is nowhere to be found. There should have been millions of transitional creatures if evolution were true. In the "tree of life" that evolutionists have dreamed up, gaps in the fossil record are especially huge between single-cell creatures, complex invertebrates (such as snails, jellyfish, trilobites, clams, and sponges), and what evolutionists claim were the first vertebrates, fish. In fact, there are no fossil ancestors at all for complex invertebrates or fish. That alone is fatal to the theory of evolution. The fossil record shows that evolution never happened.

The platypus has a duck-like bill, swims with webbed feet, and lays eggs. Yet nobody calls it a transitional creature between mammals and ducks.

Archaeopteryx has long been held up as the great example of a transitional creature, appearing to be part dinosaur and part bird. However, it is a fully formed, complete animal with no half-finished components or useless growths. That is also the case for the other birds in the evolutionary tree. Evolutionists just placed some of the many living and extinct species next to each other to make the bird series.

The same is true for the famous horse series. Each of the supposed ancestors is a complete animal. They are not full of failed growths and there are no parts under construction. There are many more differences between each type of animal than their size and the number of toes. Every change in structure, function, and process would have had to develop through random trial-and-error if evolution were true, but no transitional forms have been found. The fossils have not caught any changes in the midst of being created, even though they should have occurred over long periods of time. In the late 1800's, evolutionists simply placed living and extinct species next to each other to make the horse series. However, evolutionists no longer believe there was the direct ancestry (orthogenesis) shown in this chart...

An old evolution myth still hanging around is the notion that things that look like gill-slits, tails, etc. in developing human embryos show the embryo repeating all the stages of evolution. In 1866, Ernst Haeckel proposed his "biogenitic law"[/B] (not to be confused with the law of biogenesis that says life only comes from life). His idea was that growing vertebrate embryos went through all the forms of their supposed evolutionary ancestors ("ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny"). He published drawings comparing growing embryos of a number of animals such as the pig, cat, salamander, etc. to growing human embryos. The similarities that he said he found helped persuade people to believe the theory of evolution. Scientists eventually discovered enough about embryology to quietly discard the "biogenetic law", but it was not until a careful photographic study of growing vertebrate embryos was conducted in 1997 that Haeckel's deceit was fully revealed. They found that his drawings were so far from reality that they could not have been done from the actual embryos.11 He must have faked them.

The theory of Evolution violates two laws of science. The Second Law of Thermodynamics (law of increasing entropy) says that things which start out concentrated together spread out over time. If you heat one room in a house, then open the door to that room, eventually the temperature in the whole house evens out (reaches equilibrium). Knowing how far this evening-out has progressed at any point in time tells you the entropy. Entropy can measure the loss of a system's ability to do work. Entropy is also a measure of disorder, and that is where evolution theory hits an impenetrable wall. Natural processes proceed in only one direction, toward equilibrium and disorder. Things fall apart over time, they do not get more organized. We can overcome this by making a machine and adding energy, but the Second Law prevents such a machine from assembling spontaneously from raw materials. The Law of Biogenesis was established by Louis Pasteur three years after Darwin's book was published, and simply says that life only comes from life. Living cells divide to make new cells, and fertilized eggs and seeds develop into animals and plants, but chemicals never fall together and life appears. Evolutionists often call certain chemicals "the building blocks of life", giving people the false impression that you just stack the building blocks together and you get life. No one has ever done that, including the famous 1953 Miller/Urey experiment where all they got were clumps of amino acids. Many people mistakenly think scientists have made life from chemicals in the lab, but they have not (though many have tried very hard). If one were to succeed, you would know about it. He would get every science award there is, be all over the news, and have movies, books, buildings, statues, and schools dedicated to him, so desperate are evolutionists on this matter. For something to be a law of science, it can never be found to have been violated, even once, over thousands of trials. No exceptions. A theory that violates two laws of science is in big trouble.

When confronted with the Second Law of Thermodynamics, evolutionists usually use two tricks to try to escape. The first is to state that "it only applies to closed systems, and biological creatures are open systems, so it doesn't affect evolution." The fact is that the Second Law applies to all systems, open or closed, and to all actions and chemical reactions, from molecules to galaxies. The words "except for..." are not in this universal law. A thermodynamics system is simply any part of the universe we want to study. If we are doing an experiment in a bottle, the inside of the bottle is our system and the bottle itself is the "walls" of the system. There are only 3 kinds of systems: if no energy or matter can pass through the walls, it is an isolated system; if energy can pass through but matter cannot, it is a closed system; if both energy and matter can pass through the walls, it is an open system. Now, it is true that the laws of thermodynamics and entropy are defined in terms of isolated systems, because that is the simplest way to express them. However, experts who write textbooks on the subject are quick to say that isolated systems do not occur in nature. For practical applications, a procedure called the Legendre Transform mathematically converts entropy to a variable called Gibbs free energy that is useful for working with real-world systems. Most natural systems are open, but it is convenient to model them as closed. For example, even though a bacterium is an open system, modeling it as a closed system makes it easier to understand chemical reactions in it.2,3 You are an open system. You eat food (which comes from outside yourself) and your body survives and grows. Evolutionists believe that all we need is an open system with sufficient energy flowing into it for evolution to succeed. If that were so, you could just stand right behind a jet engine as the aircraft prepares for takeoff, absorb that blast of energy, and evolve to a higher life form. In reality, of course, you would be incinerated because absorbing energy without a mechanism to convert it to a useful form and employ it is destructive or useless. The mechanism must be very specific. Sticking food in your ear will not work; it must go into your mouth and through the digestive system. And the mechanism must be in place and functioning first, before energy is added, or the energy is wasted. The "open system" ploy is just an attempt to avoid dealing with the Second Law because the Law prohibits any functioning biological mechanism from falling together by pure chance, without assistance or plan, using only the properties of matter.

The second trick is to say that "when you freeze water, the disordered molecules become beautifully ordered ice crystals or snowflakes. If water can bypass the Second Law and organize its molecules by a natural process, why not the chemicals of life?" At room temperature, water molecules are bouncing off each other and you have water. When you take away heat and they freeze, water molecules stick to each other with weak molecular bonds, forming ice crystals and snowflakes because of the shape of the H2O molecule. The same thing happens if you put a bunch of weak magnets in a jar and shake it. The magnets bounce around. When you stop, the magnets stick together. They are at a lower energy level. There is order, yet no complexity - just a simple repetitive structure that does not do anything. The Second Law is not bypassed or violated. But guess what. Amino acid molecules that form proteins, and nucleotide molecules that form DNA and RNA resist combining at any temperature. To combine, they need the help of mechanisms in a living cell or a biochemist in an organic chemistry laboratory. It means that nothing happens in the primeval soup, the pond of chemicals where evolutionists believe life began. DNA and RNA dissolve in water, so there could not even be water in the primeval soup. DNA is made of only right-handed versions of nucleotides, while proteins are made of only left-handed versions of amino acids. Yet any random chemical reaction that produced nucleotides or amino acids would make an equal mix of left and right-handed versions of each. Even if the thousands of nucleotides or amino acids needed to form individual DNA or protein molecules were able to combine from this mix, they would be a jumble of left and right-handed versions that could not function at all. Ilya Prigogene coauthored a paper in 1972 that says in an open "system there exists a possibility for formation of ordered, low-entropy structures at sufficiently low temperatures. This ordering principle is responsible for the appearance of ordered structures such as crystals... Unfortunately this principle cannot explain the formation of biological structures."10 Prigogene won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1977 for research in dissipative structures, such as tornados, for contributions to nonequilibrium thermodynamics, and for bridging the gap between biology and other sciences. Evolutionists wrongly claim he won for showing how thermodynamics could explain the formation of organized systems, from fluctuations in chaos, that lead to the origin of life. They thought he was their hero. Thirty years later, nothing has come of it. There is no escape from the Second Law of Thermodynamics. It prohibits the spontaneous origin of life and the progression from microbes to man.

Even a single cell is not simple. In Darwin's day researchers looked at cells under the microscope and saw little balloons filled with goo they called protoplasm, so they thought cells were simple forms of life. Almost 150 years later we know that there are many types of cells, and each cell is a little city at work. The smallest known genome (Mycoplasma genitalium) has 482 genes.6 The minimum possible for an organism to survive is probably 200 to 300 genes. Most bacteria have 1000 to 4000 genes. A popular textbook on the cell1 is about 1500 pages long and weighs 7 pounds. Everything about the cell is stunningly complex. Plants and animals are made of a great variety of cells.

Cells are made of proteins, and everything that goes on in a creature involves proteins interacting with each other. Proteins are generally 50 to 2000 amino acids long; a typical one has about 300 amino acids.1 A protein is not just a long ribbon of amino acids strung together from the DNA pattern. It folds itself into a 3D structure.

A folded protein

Origami

The temperature and chemical concentrations must be right for it to fold correctly, and many proteins get help from special proteins called "molecular chaperones". Chaperones can keep proteins separated from each other while they are folding, prevent mistakes in folding, and even unfold mistakes to give the protein a second chance to get it right. After helping one protein fold, a chaperone will go help another one fold. Making and folding proteins goes on continuously throughout the body. Misfolding can lead to more than proteins that don't work. In humans, bunches of them (aggregates) can lead to diseases such as Alzheimer's, Huntington's, or sickle cell. "Proteins are so precisely built that the change of even a few atoms in one amino acid can sometimes disrupt the structure of the whole molecule so severely that all function is lost." All proteins stick (bind) to other molecules. But each can bind to only a few of the thousands it encounters. "An average protein in a human cell may interact with somewhere between 5 and 15 different partners." Their shapes fit each other like a hand in a glove. "Proteins can form enormously sophisticated chemical devices." "The most impressive tasks are carried out by large protein assemblies formed from many protein molecules." "Each of the central processes in a cell... is catalyzed by a highly coordinated, linked set of 10 or more proteins." The parts of a cell where proteins are made (ribosomes) are themselves made of many different proteins. "The complexity of living organisms is staggering." In the face of this breathtaking complexity, evolutionists have tried to find the fewest things necessary for a cell to function. They came up with 15 general categories (such as energy production and conversion, cell division, etc.). Each category requires many proteins. All have to be in place and working together or the cell is wrecked.

So evolutionists have to believe that for each protein, pure chance laid out long strings of amino acids that fold themselves into the exact shapes needed to interact with other specialized proteins and, where needed, get help from chaperone proteins which themselves appeared by chance. The necessary proteins cannot be invented one at a time. Either they are all there, ready to work together, or nothing happens and they disintegrate. Yet even if it could design proteins, mutation-natural selection would only work on one at a time sporadically over many years. Considering just the complexity of proteins, the notion of creating them with mutation-natural selection is as silly as asking someone to build a television set with a spoon and a toothbrush. If Darwin had known what we have learned about proteins, he probably would have abandoned the theory of evolution.

When researchers began "reading" the amino acids in proteins in the 1960's, evolutionists expected that proteins such as hemoglobin or cytochrome C, common to many types of creatures, would be more alike for creatures close to each other on the evolutionist's "tree of life", and more unlike for creatures farther apart on the "tree of life". Instead, this comparative biochemistry found that the protein sequences were just as different between creatures near each other on the tree as between those far apart, using percent of sequence differences. We find lots of variation in these proteins, but no evolutionary progression.

Only a small portion of a creature's DNA codes for proteins (around 1.5% in humans). In the 1970s, evolutionists began calling the rest of it "junk DNA", saying this collection of useless evolutionary debris showed there was no intelligent design involved. Decades later, researchers are finding that different parts of the "junk" do vital work. Some of this DNA plays a role in turning genes on and off at the right moments in a developing embryo7. Other bits separate coding and regulating sections, like punctuation marks in writing, so that DNA is not a long run-on sentence8. Other bits called Alu elements, found only in primates, can be spliced in or out during RNA processing to make different versions of the same gene. This "alternative splicing" may explain why the approximately 30,000 genes in the human genome produce about 90,000 proteins9. The number of protein-coding genes in organisms ranging from plants to flies to humans is fairly similar. The largest differences in their genomes are the amounts of the other DNA they have. The "junk" label discouraged research into this part of the genome for many years; who would want to waste their time studying it? Consequently, much remains to be discovered about this DNA. Yet already we know that a lot of it is not the junk evolutionists were counting on.

There are only two possibilities. Either every part of every living thing arose by random chance, or an intelligence designed them. In spite of the overwhelming evidence that the theory of evolution is dead wrong, many are not ready to throw in the towel. They desperately hope that some natural process will be found that causes things to fall together into organized complexity. These are people of great faith. And they are so afraid of connecting God with science that, like the Japanese Army of World War II, they would rather die than surrender. Unfortunately, the staunchest defenders sit in places of esteem and authority as professors, scientists, and editors, and have the full faith of the news media. The public is naturally in awe of their prestige. But once the facts are spelled out it becomes obvious that the theory of evolution is long overdue for the trash can, and to perpetuate it is a fraud. Perhaps it made sense for what was known when The Origin of Species was published in 1859, but not today.
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http://www.newgeology.us/presentation32.html

I apologize for the length, and the sad part is I doubt anyone will actually read the entire page due to the overwhelming biased and skeptic opinions...

I'm curious to what people can conjure up as rebuttals and how this is strawman fallacy...
Science is a self testing institutionalized system, so I fail to see how Evolution is somehow above this self testing process.

Liquidtruth · Sep 29, 2007

Hey, you know, if you are interested in debunking Evolution it would help if you knew something about it. Just a thought.

Dr.Funkenstein · Sep 29, 2007

It doesn't even begin to make any sense at all whatsoever, and not even the slightest aspect of it can begin to be explained, and even if it were true, the whole thing is horribly corrupt and cruel.

cannabis · Sep 30, 2007

Yep, just as I figured...just claims that it's all strawman theory and attacks on intelligent design. Have I promoted intelligent design in this thread? so why are you bringing it up.

To bad rasta man isn't here...I wonder what Wikipedia.com would say about this.

Liquidtruth · Sep 30, 2007

<del>Uh... Dude. No one mentioned ID at all, so what are you basing that off of?</del> - Just noticed the subject of the other post.

Why don't you go to Wikipedia and find out? Also, the idea that R_M was not intelligent and simply copy and pasted from Wikipedia is silly. Keep it up though, make yourself happy by reducing his arguments in a way that can make you feel better about it all.

Zylark · Sep 30, 2007

The entire premise of the thread is just wrong, ref:

cannabis said:

Evolutionists have lashed out at other posters beliefs, so it's time to for me to lash out at the Evolutionist that are convinced that the theory is complete truth and explains all
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First, the socalled lashing is retroactive. Creationists make wild claims, realists correct them. Not out of spite, but to rebute lies and misrepresentation. To my recollection, not a single "Creationism is wrong" thread have been made, but a plethora of "Evolution is wrong". And for some strange reason, all those threads have been made by christian fundamentalists. Hell, Cannabis alone have made 3 threads on this topic just this week. Give it a rest already.

So again, this is not about science or evolution, but christian dogma that some blindly believe is true despite contrary and massive evidence.

Why single out evolution by the way? It is not the only fact that contradicts the bible. The earth is not flat for example, yet the bible says so. The sun do not spin around the earth, yet the bible says so. How about starting a thread on how we spherical-earth theory followers got it wrong or how we heliocentric theory accepters is way off mark. I'm sure there is a lot of untapped logical gymnastics just waiting to be used in attacking those wild un-biblical theories.

Come on?! I need some diversity from all this creationism claptrap.

Liquidtruth · Sep 30, 2007

Zylark said:

Why single out evolution by the way? It is not the only fact that contradicts the bible. The earth is not flat for example, yet the bible says so. The sun do not spin around the earth, yet the bible says so. How about starting a thread on how we spherical-earth theory followers got it wrong or how we heliocentric theory accepters is way off mark. I'm sure there is a lot of untapped logical gymnastics just waiting to be used in attacking those wild un-biblical theories.

Come on?! I need some diversity from all this creationism claptrap.
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That is a very good point and I will repeat the question. Why not "debunk" all of the science that contradicts the Bible (evolution may not even do that) instead of this focus on evolution? This is an open question to all Creationist's (who wish to answer) by the way.

Azimuthal · Sep 30, 2007

Second law of thermodynamics does not apply here at all. Simply ridiculous.

However, evolutionists no longer believe there was the direct ancestry (orthogenesis) shown in this chart...
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I see this again. The assumption that evolution was a linear progression from goo to you. Linear progression was NEVER part of evolution, the finches man.

I agree that people are lashing out at you, it's disappointing... We can still be friends :0

XPiperX · Oct 10, 2007

cannabis said:

Yep, just as I figured...just claims that it's all strawman theory and attacks on intelligent design. Have I promoted intelligent design in this thread? so why are you bringing it up.

To bad rasta man isn't here...I wonder what Wikipedia.com would say about this.
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You discredit your entire argument by adding that childish attack on a previous member who is not here to defend himself. Real mature.

I wonder where mr. cannabis has scuttled off to.. He hasn't stuck his inanities into a thread sicne this post right here.

CosmicSerpent · Oct 10, 2007

XPiperX said:

You discredit your entire argument by adding that childish attack on a previous member who is not here to defend himself. Real mature.

I wonder where mr. cannabis has scuttled off to.. He hasn't stuck his inanities into a thread sicne this post right here.
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Well he was right, he hadn't mentioned intelligent design at all. And the reason the previous member isn't here to defend himself is because of a childish and much more brutal attack that he felt was necessary to contribute. So it's all fair... if anything, cannabis should try not to stoop to R_M's level of immaturity. But again he's right, nearly all of the support for R_M's arguments came from Wikipedia.

shasta · Oct 10, 2007

When will these evolution threads end? There are other philosophical issues.

Now back to the point. If someone has a theory that explains the advancement of species (and all of the other things that evolution attempts to explain) that has more supporting evidence than the theory of evolution does, then present it.

We do not know how the intricacy of evolution could have happened, therefore creationism is true? You have provided something that tries to debunk evolution. Present something that proves creationism.

Until someone can prove creationism to the level that evolution has been proven the smart thing to do is to work on unfolding the intricacies of evolution. Sure, its flawed. It is still the strongest theory out there so I think its the direction we should go in. Ill stop believing evolution when I see something better.

JesusC · Oct 10, 2007

shasta said:

When will these evolution threads end?
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When you stop responding to them.

Liquidtruth · Oct 10, 2007

CosmicSerpent said:

But again he's right, nearly all of the support for R_M's arguments came from Wikipedia.
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And this would be a problem because...? You realize people link to sources to help support what they are saying, or to explain something that someone misunderstands. Let us assume for a moment that all of his links were from Wikipedia (I remember others) what does that have to do with anything at all? I use Wikipedia, I also use other sites, are my arguments invalid because I link to sources? Would my arguments be more valid if I had none to back up what I say? Seriously... I do not understand what people are trying to say.

JesusC · Oct 10, 2007

I think I made a mistake by bringing up the whole wiki thing in his "goodbye" thread. Im not sure if I was the first one to say it, but I think I was...it seems like people jumped on that real quick.

I stand by most of what I said, although I do regret saying that. I was venting a little bit because I thought he was a total dick for how he left, but I think we should give the wiki references and R.M. references a break.

Theres no need to bring up someone who isnt here to defend himself. He said his peace, we said ours, and thats the end of it....let it die.

CosmicSerpent · Oct 10, 2007

Liquidtruth said:

And this would be a problem because...? You realize people link to sources to help support what they are saying, or to explain something that someone misunderstands. Let us assume for a moment that all of his links were from Wikipedia (I remember others) what does that have to do with anything at all? I use Wikipedia, I also use other sites, are my arguments invalid because I link to sources? Would my arguments be more valid if I had none to back up what I say? Seriously... I do not understand what people are trying to say.
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No, that's not what I'm saying. Using sources is definitely a good thing if the sources are reputable and valid. But any scholar would agree that Wikipedia is not always valid simply because it is user-edited. Sure, it constantly gets reviewed for accuracy, but there isn't enough man power to ensure that at any given moment, something in an article might be inaccurate. None of my professors have ever allowed Wikipedia to be used in any academic assignment for this very reason. It's the same reason you can't just believe anything you read on the Internet without finding out who it came from. Anyone who wants to can create a website, just like anyone who wants to can edit a Wikipedia article. There have been plenty of instances when I've found something blatantly erroneous in a Wikipedia article that was later corrected.

Liquidtruth · Oct 10, 2007

JesusC said:

let it die.
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I would love to let it die. Other people will not allow that to happen, however!

Since I do not want to stray off topic for very long, I shall reign it back in by posting the following link... Evolution for Beginners. That should help people start out their journey to understanding it. You cannot let the Creationist's teach it to you, because they do not seem to want to do so honestly. So, learn about evolution, take the time, expend the effort, and afterwards if you still feel like attacking evolution, at least you will have legs to stand on!

This post is not directed at anyone in particular.

CosmicSerpent said:

No, that's not what I'm saying. Using sources is definitely a good thing if the sources are reputable and valid. But any scholar would agree that Wikipedia is not always valid simply because it is user-edited. Sure, it constantly gets reviewed for accuracy, but there isn't enough man power to ensure that at any given moment, something in an article might be inaccurate. None of my professors have ever allowed Wikipedia to be used in any academic assignment for this very reason. It's the same reason you can't just believe anything you read on the Internet without finding out who it came from. Anyone who wants to can create a website, just like anyone who wants to can edit a Wikipedia article. There have been plenty of instances when I've found something blatantly erroneous in a Wikipedia article that was later corrected.
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The nice thing about Wikipedia is the huge list of sources at the bottom of the page. You are free to look through them to determine if the information you are getting is correct, which is better than some other sites that can be used as sources, which are light on the sources themselves. Obviously it is not perfect, but then, professional encyclopedias are not perfect. As with everything on the Internet, use caution. I do my best to read through the Wiki page before I use it to ensure it says what it should, to the best of my ability at any rate. I am sure I am not alone in that.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061127-8296.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4840340.stm

PoorlyRoldJoint · Oct 10, 2007

blah blah blah

Liquidtruth · Oct 10, 2007

PoorlyRoldJoint said:

blah blah blah
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Thank you for sharing what insight you have.

CosmicSerpent · Oct 10, 2007

JesusC said:

I think I made a mistake by bringing up the whole wiki thing in his "goodbye" thread. Im not sure if I was the first one to say it, but I think I was...it seems like people jumped on that real quick.

I stand by most of what I said, although I do regret saying that. I was venting a little bit because I thought he was a total dick for how he left, but I think we should give the wiki references and R.M. references a break.

Theres no need to bring up someone who isnt here to defend himself. He said his peace, we said ours, and thats the end of it....let it die.
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You're right... but I wasn't trying to disrespect or attack Rasta_Man in any way, I was just trying to get my point across about why I think Wikipedia isn't always a valid source. Then again, he did give up the right to defend himself when he made his final outburst. If he wanted to still be here, he could be. But that's all I have to say, I'll end it here.

Perpetual Burn · Oct 10, 2007

JesusC said:

When you stop responding to them.
Click to expand...

Uhh... we already did?

http://forum.grasscity.com/spirituality-philosophy/177422-16-errors-darwinian-evolution.html

Apparently, cannabis has resorted to being a propagandist. I wonder where he learned that tactic from?

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