Originally posted by twhitehead
My point is that fossils do tell us things. ie they speak for themselves contrary to your earlier claim. A fossil isn't going to tell us what its mothers maiden name was, but nobody claims that it will.

What question have I evaded? I may have missed a question by mistake, but I never evade questions.

Yes I agree they tell us the obvious a tooth tells us its a tooth. Duh. The tooth doesn't tell us which creature it belonged to and what the rest of the creature looks like. Thats what I meant when I said they don't speak for themselves. Even if you find the entire skeleton the skeleton doesn't tell us that it is belongs to Archaeopteryx. There is a lot of guess work and imagination involved.

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
Yes I agree they tell us the obvious a tooth tells us its a tooth. Duh.

So, you admit you were wrong. That is good.

The tooth doesn't tell us which creature it belonged to and what the rest of the creature looks like.
Nor does it tell us the circumference of Saturn. Nobody is claiming it does.

Thats what I meant when I said they don't speak for themselves.
Why on earth would you mean that? Next time say what you mean rather than saying something else.

Even if you find the entire skeleton the skeleton doesn't tell us that it is belongs to Archaeopteryx. There is a lot of guess work and imagination involved.
Involved in what? I can see your imagination is running away from you, but mine isn't. I just found a tooth. Nothing more. I never said it belonged to Archaeopteryx.
In fact it was Kelly who claimed to know that certain fossils were sea creatures.

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
Yes I agree they tell us the obvious a tooth tells us its a tooth. Duh. The tooth doesn't tell us which creature it belonged to and what the rest of the creature looks like. Thats what I meant when I said they don't speak for themselves. Even if you find the entire skeleton the skeleton doesn't tell us that it is belongs to Archaeopteryx. There is a lot of guess work and imagination involved.

How much guesswork and imagination do you imagine is involved in paleontology?

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
Yes I agree they tell us the obvious a tooth tells us its a tooth. Duh. The tooth doesn't tell us which creature it belonged to and what the rest of the creature looks like. Thats what I meant when I said they don't speak for themselves. Even if you find the entire skeleton the skeleton doesn't tell us that it is belongs to Archaeopteryx. There is a lot of guess work and imagination involved.

Watch this TED talk about what is believed to be a camel bone.
YouTube

Do you think they just guessed it was a camel bone, or do they have good reasons to believe it is a camel bone? Did the bone talk, or was it all guess work and imagination?

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
How much guesswork and imagination do you imagine is involved in paleontology?

An entire ape man reconstructed around a tooth. Only the tooth was found. Lots of imagination there.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebraska_Man

Originally posted by twhitehead
So, you admit you were wrong. That is good.

[b]The tooth doesn't tell us which creature it belonged to and what the rest of the creature looks like.
Nor does it tell us the circumference of Saturn. Nobody is claiming it does.

Thats what I meant when I said they don't speak for themselves.
Why on earth would you mean that? Next time sa ...[text shortened]... rchaeopteryx.
In fact it was Kelly who claimed to know that certain fossils were sea creatures.[/b]

You know as well as I do that fossils don't speak, so technically I was right.

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
An entire ape man reconstructed around a tooth. Only the tooth was found. Lots of imagination there.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebraska_Man

I guess it gives new meaning to the phrase "Tooth Fairy."

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk

Twhitehead,

You are probably thinking of pseudoscientists like the ones sonship loves to quote. The ones that don't publish their results in a scientific manner but instead publish them in a popular book aimed at creationists.

Richard Dawkins, I quoted.

An physicist from MIT - Gerald Schroeder I quoted.
Pseudo scientists?

Dr. Stephen Meyer author of Signature in the Cell with a doctorate in philosophy of science ? Pseudo scientist? I'd like to see you debate him.

John Lennox the Oxford mathematician a pseudo scientist ?
That Chinese paleontologist I loosely paraphrased ?

I don't know who else I've quoted recently. You must be just blowing hot air.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Watch this TED talk about what is believed to be a camel bone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9V6OKlY80k

Do you think they just guessed it was a camel bone, or do they have good reasons to believe it is a camel bone? Did the bone talk, or was it all guess work and imagination?

I am not talking about finding a bone and matching it with a currently existing animal like a camel. I am talking about finding a bone like a tooth, and then constructing an entire creature around it that does not exist today and putting it forward as proof for evolution.

Originally posted by sonship
Richard Dawkins, I quoted.

But notably, not in support of your claims. You only quoted him to create a strawman argument.

An physicist from MIT - Gerald Schroeder I quoted.
Pseudo scientists?
Yes.

Dr. Stephen Meyer author of Signature in the Cell with a doctorate in philosophy of science ? Pseudo scientist?
Yes.

I'd like to see you debate him.
I would love to. Bring it on. It helps that I have already demonstrated that he is a liar and a charlatan.

You must be just blowing hot air.
No, I am not.

Originally posted by twhitehead
But notably, not in support of your claims. You only quoted him to create a strawman argument.

[b]An physicist from MIT - Gerald Schroeder I quoted.
Pseudo scientists?
Yes.

Dr. Stephen Meyer author of Signature in the Cell with a doctorate in philosophy of science ? Pseudo scientist?
Yes.

I'd like to see you debate him.
I ...[text shortened]... ed that he is a liar and a charlatan.

You must be just blowing hot air.
No, I am not.[/b]

You only quoted him to create a strawman argument.

That's rich coming from you.

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
That's rich coming from you.

Its also true. I actually know what a straw man argument is.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Its also true. I actually know what a straw man argument is.

Explaining why his argument is a straw man might gain you more success, rather than simply claiming it is. Anyone can claim to know something, yet claiming it doesn't achieve anything.

Originally posted by twhitehead

Richard Dawkins I quoted.

But notably, not in support of your claims. You only quoted him to create a strawman argument.

Notably I quoted him in support of his own claim also, as I should.

And I'll do so again.

"measuring the statistical improbability of a suggestion is the right way to go about assessing its believability."

He has a very strong case. Its too bad that it works not in favor of his Blind Watchmaker thesis. Too bad for you too.

I'll quote him again, loosely, but faithfully.

Biology, Dawkins says, is the study of living things which seem or appear to have been designed for a purpose.

You're full of baloney to say I twist his words into a strawman argument. My counter would be ever would be -

" Dr. Dawkins, these living things appear to have been designed for a purpose because the WERE designed for a purpose. " I'd tell him to his face, and you too.

No amount of pseudo Zen Buddhist like flipping weak rationales around could convince me that there is only a Dawkinsian, Twhiteheadian appearance of design in biology. No amount of trying to get me to just "look at it this way ..." will persuade me to pluck out my own eyes to [not] plainly SEE that biological systems were designed for a purpose.

You go ahead and believe Dawkins' Blind Watchmaker thesis if you want to.
Go down with the ship as we go into the 21rst Century. Go down with the Titanic.

I am pretty sure your Blind Watchmaker Evolution will have to be replaced by some other theory. And you'll go down with the ship crying about strawman arguments.
Your own atheist and agnostic heroes will have the sense to realize some kind of design is eventually going to have to be admitted.

An physicist from MIT - Gerald Schroeder I quoted.
Pseudo scientists?
Yes.

He is not a charlaton of a crackpot. You are a victim of malignant self love, I think.

And I only referred to his very good chapter Evolution Statistics Verses Random Mutations in his book The Science of God. I also referred to chapter 8 - The Watchmaker and the Watch: Concerning the Statistical Probability of Chimps and Human Evolution by Random Mutations from a Common Ancestor

As to some of his other ideas about the days of creation in Genesis, I did not refer to them or endorse them. I frankly don't fully follow his concepts there. However, they seem no more outlandish than any of the several Multi-universe speculations you could parade out from someone like Lawrence Krauss.

Dr. Stephen Meyer author of Signature in the Cell with a doctorate in philosophy of science ? Pseudo scientist?
Yes.

Meyer has stood up quite well under examination. I don't see your's as any more effective in disproving some of his ideas.

Darwin's Doubt, Intelligent Design and Evolution on C-SPAN Booknotes.

YouTube

I'd like to see you debate him.
I would love to. Bring it on. It helps that I have already demonstrated that he is a liar and a charlatan.

Hmmm.

I don't think so. I think you'd be too busy backpeddling and explaining what you were not saying. I don't think your brand of relentless and ruthless Atheism would make much progress.

You must be just blowing hot air.
No, I am not.

You must be just blowing hot air still.

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
Explaining why his argument is a straw man might gain you more success, rather than simply claiming it is. Anyone can claim to know something, yet claiming it doesn't achieve anything.

Go and look at the thread for yourself. I did explain why it was a straw man.