Sadly, Another Honest Creationist

Kurt Wise and Todd Wood are religious addicts and I don't think "honesty" is something to be admired if you are addicted to something, whether it be drugs or religion. An alcoholic who never tells a lie can still kill someone while driving drunk.

Although there are scientific reasons for accepting a young earth...

James F said: From Wood's statement:

Although there are scientific reasons for accepting a young earth...

Say what? I'd like to hear them.

Translated From Creationisese: "Because the Bible said so, and you're going to burn in Hell forever and ever and ever while God and I laugh and point at you. That's why."

Well, you know what they say: Admitting you have a problem is the first step.

FUG said: Well, you know what they say: Admitting you have a problem is the first step.

These people are paragons compared to the typical creationist or IDer, but there can't be honesty without humility. And they have no real humility when it comes to science.

Sad. Acceptable, but very sad.

The sad thing is that the intellectual lobotomy these guys give themselves is not necessary. While I'm not one of the faithful, I do understand the core gospel these fellows believe in. It doesn't require a narrow or literal interpretation of the Bible. Simply put, it is a) acknowledgment of a personal fallen state (I am a sinner) and b) forgiveness comes from faith in Jesus' atonement for my fallen state. Creation/evolution is as relevant as eating pork.

But this is one of my core concerns about religion. It always seems to require its adherents to accept a lie. Getting someone to accept something like a global flood, a young Earth, or 2+2=5, seems to useful to religion somehow. Perhaps it is part of the power structure of religion...

In the end, people like Wise and Wood have compromised their basic faith with a lie. They have so tied the lie to their faith that they will accept the lie even when shown that it is a lie.

Wood and Wise are a cut above when it comes to YECs, to be sure. Their publications also make for excellent material to hand out to fellow believers when all else fails. "Ok, so you think everything in science is poisoned by the evil atheist evolutionary worldview? Here's a paper from a respected YEC source that will show you where the strength of the evidence is."

My favourite papers: Wood's on the chimp genome problem, and Wise on pre-Cambrian fossils as the result of pre-fall animal death (!!) and the one showing how there really are transition forms in the fossil record.

These papers should be in every biologist's syllabi.

sorry, that should be "transitional" above. It's getting late...

They don't know their religion very well.

There is no requirement in the bible to believe impossible things or deny evolution. Evolution isn't mentioned anywhere.

Salvation is by faith, faith and good works, or good works depending on which part of the NT you quote mine. Most fundies say that all you have to do to be saved is believe jesus is a supernatural god being, faith.

Most xian worldwide don't have a problem with science and reality. By Wise's and Wood's reasoning, they are Fake Xians and will go to hell. Might just as well sleep in on sundays as it is a waste of time. Also by their reasoning, xianity is an almost dead cult, with most adherents Fake and an exodus of members from the fundie cults.

They are also inconsistent in their fanaticism. According to the bible, the earth is flat and the sun orbits the earth. The sky is just a dome held up by 4 pillars and the stars are just lights stuck on the dome.

I doubt they believe that. Oddly enough some fundies do. In Texas some guy speaking at a fundie meeting got in trouble. His crime was claiming that the moon reflects light from the sun. Bad move. According to the bible, the moon is lit from within, Genesis. This doesn't explain why it has phases and goes dark once a month much less eclipses and why the astronauts that walked around up there didn't notice light coming from the ground. Whatever.

It isn't worth spending too much time trying to figure out why these guys behave the way they do. People aren't robots and do and think strange things. There are far worse delusions.

See it all the time, unfortunately, and these delusions can and do kill.

A SZ, anorexic, dead in 40's from starvation and irreversible organ damage.

A SZ, dead in 50's. Locked himself out of his own house in a residential neighborhood and died of hypothermia on a cold but not very cold night.

SZ, brought into a psychiatric lockup. Believes satan has won, rules the earth, and everyone he knows has been replaced by identical looking beings that are really demons. Potentially violent or suicidal.

This could go on for pages but you get the idea. At some point, you just say, people can be or go crazy and leave it at that.

Exegetically, I Peter 3 seems to be telling us to endure the insults of mockers graciously and gratefully, knowing that it is better to suffer for doing good than evil. When they demand an answer, tell them the truth, "For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God" (I Peter 3:18). God will bless you for your faith, and that's a better reward than anything else I can think of.

— Todd Wood

It all boils down to brainwashing; it can be done to you, or DIY.
Deprogramming comes much harder. Where there ain't no will there ain't no way.

if all the evidence in the universe turns against creationism, I would be the first to admit it

Mark M said: The sad thing is that the intellectual lobotomy these guys give themselves is not necessary. While I'm not one of the faithful, I do understand the core gospel these fellows believe in. It doesn't require a narrow or literal interpretation of the Bible.

Mark M said: The sad thing is that the intellectual lobotomy these guys give themselves is not necessary. While I'm not one of the faithful, I do understand the core gospel these fellows believe in. It doesn't require a narrow or literal interpretation of the Bible. Simply put, it is a) acknowledgment of a personal fallen state (I am a sinner) and b) forgiveness comes from faith in Jesus' atonement for my fallen state. Creation/evolution is as relevant as eating pork.

Here's an even better quote from Kurt Wise:

"I am a young-age creationist because the Bible indicates the universe is young. Given what we currently think we understand about the world, the majority of the scientific evidence favors an old earth and universe, not a young one. I would therefore say that anyone who claims that the earth is young from scientific evidence alone is scientifically ignorant”

See: this forum post

Registered User will be upset.* He doesn't think honest creationists exist. So, either they do or Dawkins is wrong.

(*Could be jfx. Honestly after reading their posts I had a hard time remembering which one of them was arguing what.)

Good. Three cheers for Tony Wood. It’s not that creationists believe something, or even that they want others to believe it, that I object to. It’s that they will try and censor, distort, subvert, poison or fabricate scientific evidence to favour their beliefs.

— David B.

He can’t refute evolution, he can’t prove the Flood, but nevertheless he believes. (I strongly doubt he can make evolutionists look silly to anyone but a flock of ignorant believers.) Yup. Sadly, another honest creationist. Would that Ken Ham and his house “scientists,” people like Georgia Purdom and Jason Lisle, were at least that minimally honest.

— Richard B. Hoppe

Tony wrote:

"If all the evidence in the universe turns against creationism, I would be the first to admit it."

I'm waiting.

Oh well, at least Wood has admitted he has not one single scrap of evidence to disprove evolution or prove the literal truth of any of those Bible stories. We can remember that next time some less honest asshat claims otherwise.

Raging Bee said: Oh well, at least Wood has admitted he has not one single scrap of evidence to disprove evolution or prove the literal truth of any of those Bible stories. We can remember that next time some less honest asshat claims otherwise.

Yup. Sadly, another honest creationist

Mark M said: ...one of my core concerns about religion. It always seems to require its adherents to accept a lie. Getting someone to accept something like a global flood, a young Earth, or 2+2=5, seems to useful to religion somehow. Perhaps it is part of the power structure of religion...

So, Sal, you admit that Wood is being honest? Does that mean you agree that there's no evidence to disprove evolution, or to prove the literal truth of any of those Bible stories? Are you admitting that young-Earth creationism is indeed based on nothing but religious belief and, contrary to your own assertions, has no grounding in empirical evidence?

And while you're admitting that you were wrong about everything else, can you also bring yourself to apologize for equating my arguments to the (alleged) surgical mutilation of innocent children?

Ummm, the author of this article forgot to mention the part where denying fact based theories based on a book makes any sense at all. You have yet to explain why Dawkins doesn't have a good point. As a man of science, I am shocked to see hear both of the theists mentioned in this article say things like that, regardless of degree. There are plenty of stupid people in this world, having a PhD doesn't necessitate you being smart. It just means you went through a lot of college work and if you deny facts, you clearly didn't pay enough attention in your class. Denying facts drops all credibility one has.

They don’t know their religion very well.

That's not for us to say. We can say that we think their religion is a crock on general principles, or that we can't tease out their particular religious ideas from our own reading -- or, indeed, any reading that seems half-way reasonable to us -- of what they identify as their holy book. We can say that the religion they profess makes no damn sense. But unless the people in question adhere to a creed with an identifiable, authoritative body of doctrine and get it wrong, like a professed Catholic who declares a belief in consubstantiation versus transubstantiation, or a professed Muslim who believes in the divinity of Christ, we can't say people are "wrong" about their own religious beliefs.

But unless the people in question adhere to a creed with an identifiable, authoritative body of doctrine and get it wrong, like a professed Catholic who declares a belief in consubstantiation versus transubstantiation, or a professed Muslim who believes in the divinity of Christ, we can’t say people are “wrong” about their own religious beliefs.

Perhaps not, but we CAN observe whether or not one believer honestly assimilates relevant doctrinal information (i.e., does a certain Christian show signs of understanding the teachings of Jesus?); or whether he is willing to listen to other believers, past or present, when they try to talk to him about doctrinal issues (i.e., how does a YECer respond when a fellow parishoner changes his mind about creationism?).

Salvador Cordova said:

Yup. Sadly, another honest creationist

Actually, that's not sad, that's good news. 1. Richard Dawkins thinks there is one honest creationist 2. Richard Hoppe thinks there are two honest creationists I think that's a prominising start. Anyone care to try for three honest creationists?

Wayne F said: It's a control thing.

Tupelo said: These people are paragons compared to the typical creationist or IDer, but there can't be honesty without humility. And they have no real humility when it comes to science.

Wayne F said:

Mark M said: ...one of my core concerns about religion. It always seems to require its adherents to accept a lie. Getting someone to accept something like a global flood, a young Earth, or 2+2=5, seems to useful to religion somehow. Perhaps it is part of the power structure of religion...

It's a control thing. Fundamentalists have been taught (i.e. brainwashed) that the Bible is to be interpreted literally. That it, interpreted literally as defined by the "interpretation" of the Fundamentalist hierarchy!

Chris Ashton said: I will speak as a Christian and a scientist (understanding that there are those here who deny the possibility of this state) that the saddest part of statements like Woods' is that it essentially limits the actions of God to human understanding. My "accommodation" if you will is that we just don't have perfect understanding of the universe, and probably never will. Woods seems to be saying that God cannot act in a way that is beyond his (Woods') understanding. To me as a Christian that is the essence of hopelessness, and as a scientist it is indefensible. I feel bad for him. Chris

Chris Ashton said: My "accommodation" if you will is that we just don't have perfect understanding of the universe, and probably never will. Woods seems to be saying that God cannot act in a way that is beyond his (Woods') understanding. To me as a Christian that is the essence of hopelessness, and as a scientist it is indefensible. I feel bad for him. Chris

I think that’s a prominising start. Anyone care to try for three honest creationists?

— Salvador Cordova

So, Sal, you admit that Wood is being honest?

In science's pecking order, evolutionary biology lurks somewhere near the bottom, far closer to phrenology than to physics. --Jerry Coyne

the first creature, the progenitor of innumerable extinct and living descendants, was created. Charles Darwin

I think he is honest, but his position doesn’t speak well of creationists, imho. How would one ever trust someone who would put a creed above evidences?

— Salvador Cordova

Salvador Cordova said:

Yup. Sadly, another honest creationist

Actually, that's not sad, that's good news. 1. Richard Dawkins thinks there is one honest creationist 2. Richard Hoppe thinks there are two honest creationists I think that's a prominising start. Anyone care to try for three honest creationists?

Salvador T. Cordova said:

So, Sal, you admit that Wood is being honest?

I think he is honest, but his position doesn't speak well of creationists, imho. How would one ever trust someone who would put a creed above evidences? Even the Apostle Paul said, "If Christ has not been raised, then your faith is in vain." As for me, I refused to join several creationist organizations because they demand agreement even before proof. I'm amenable to changing my mind if I think a theory is utterly irredeemable. That's why I left my former acceptance of Darwinism. I concluded the Darwinism is irredeemable. The ID community doesn't require acceptance of creeds to be a member. I've never said YEC is good or solid theory, and I'm not fully convinced it is true, although I'm sympathetic to the YEC position. But there are some honest statements that I will agree with:

In science's pecking order, evolutionary biology lurks somewhere near the bottom, far closer to phrenology than to physics. --Jerry Coyne

and

the first creature, the progenitor of innumerable extinct and living descendants, was created. Charles Darwin

So I agree with Darwin, the first creature was created.

eric said: Registered User will be upset.* He doesn't think honest creationists exist. So, either they do or Dawkins is wrong.

During early periods of the earth's history, when the forms of life were probably fewer and simpler, the rate of change was probably slower; and at the first dawn of life, when very few forms of the simplest structure existed, the rate of change may have been slow in an extreme degree. The whole history of the world, as at present known, although of a length quite incomprehensible by us, will hereafter be recognised as a mere fragment of time, compared with the ages which have elapsed since the first creature, the progenitor of innumerable extinct and living descendants, was created. In the distant future I see open fields for far more important researches. Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation. Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history. Authors of the highest eminence seem to be fully satisfied with the view that each species has been independently created. To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual. When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long before the first bed of the Silurian system was deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled.

— Charles Darwin

Slavedor I’ve never said YEC is good or solid theory, and I’m not fully convinced it is true, although I’m sympathetic to the YEC position.

LOL. I am deeply troubled that anyone lets this weasel near their children.

I’ve never said YEC is good or solid theory, and I’m not fully convinced it is true, although I’m sympathetic to the YEC position.

— Salvador Cordova

Tried finding you at the Hopkins directory, but you weren’t listed.

Chris Aston wrote: I will speak as a Christian and a scientist (understanding that there are those here who deny the possibility of this state) that the saddest part of statements like Woods’ is that it essentially limits the actions of God to human understanding. My “accommodation” if you will is that we just don’t have perfect understanding of the universe, and probably never will. Woods seems to be saying that God cannot act in a way that is beyond his (Woods’) understanding. To me as a Christian that is the essence of hopelessness, and as a scientist it is indefensible. I feel bad for him. Chris

Salvador "Wormtongue" Cordova dodged thusly:

I think he is honest...

Okay, you've agreed that Wood is being honest. Next question: is his position right or wrong? And can you offer proof of whatever answer (YES or NO, no other choices) you give?

... but his position doesn’t speak well of creationists, imho.

Why not, exactly? Is he wrong, or do you not value honesty?

I’m amenable to changing my mind if I think a theory is utterly irredeemable. That’s why I left my former acceptance of Darwinism. I concluded the Darwinism is irredeemable.

And you've never offered any convincing evidence to support that conclusion. Every major assertion you've made, both here and on Dispatches, has been proven incorrect, if not an obvious lie. So where's the evidence you say you value so much?

The ID community doesn’t require acceptance of creeds to be a member.

Which "community" are you a part of: the ID "community," or the flat-Earth -- excuse me, young-Earth -- "community?" And how can you blather about "community" when you always end up trying to blame its failures on others, while trying to maintain that you alone are right? I remember you desperately trying to blame your "fellow" YECers for YEC's lack of credibility; and now here you are doing the same thing again.

(And if ID isn't about "creeds," then why did you just quote a Bible verse to support your position on Wood?)

I’ve never said YEC is good or solid theory, and I’m not fully convinced it is true, although I’m sympathetic to the YEC position.

Once again, you're lying: you have indeed said it's good solid theory, on many occasions, and explicitly blamed others for not advancing good enough arguments for it. Of course, you probably didn't use THOSE EXACT WORDS (and you never offered better arguments yourself), and you've also said ID is good solid theory; but we know what you meant to say, however hard you may try to keep up the "plausible deniability" facade.

But there are some honest statements that I will agree with...

The statements may have been honest, but your out-of-contect misuse of the Darwin bit is clearly not, as David B. has just demonstrated.

So once again, little man, you stand exposed as a pathological quote-mining liar.

Frank J asked: So which OEC positions, if any, do you find more convincing (in terms of evidence, not what your “heart says”) than YEC? Ross’s? Dembski’s?

I became more sympathetic to YEC in 2002 when there was dissent at my university (GMU) over the big bang, and even some professors were entertaining VSL (variable speed of light) cosmologies.

Given your well-known record of using vague phrases to obfuscate and mislead, I have to ask: what, specificallly, do you mean by "dissent?" and what, specifically, do you mean by "entertaining?" If a professor takes the time to say that VSL is unproven crap, then you can honestly say he "entertained" VSL, if only for that one second.

Also, the toroidal model of the electron versus an infinitesimal point might be promising. This maybe fundamental to the success of YEC.

Ssounds kinda Timecubish. Elaborate, or admit you're just trying to sound sciencey.

Salvador Cordova said:

Tried finding you at the Hopkins directory, but you weren’t listed.

Good! Because I don't want internet stalkers going after me. Sorry John, you're not my type. I'm just a peon. A part-time MS in science student. As Mike Elzinga said, I'm just a shallow guy in my understanding. No need to go out of your way to trash my lowly reputation.

Thank you for asking.

— Salvador Cordova

Mike said: The key to achieving the tolerance we need to get along, and what we need to get the culture wars out of science education, is to realize that we all need humility, especially when it comes to science. If you understand what science IS, and how its done, you already know that science isn't made of hard numbers resolving absolutely, irrefutable, truth. Every answer produces at least 10 new questions, and is subject to being thrown out the window the next day on the basis of new evidence. Please view the "Knowledge and Certainty" video from Bronowski's "Ascent of Man" BBC series. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8EPZ8wzyuA) Its probably in your public library as well. Our senses are limited. "Every time we look deeper into nature the final image lurches away from us." Bronowski isn't saying that science produced the Holocaust. He's saying that a twisted misunderstanding of science produced the Holocaust. A twisted misunderstanding of science, produced by both extremes, is what has produced our current science education crisis. Until very recently we didn't even have any idea of the characteristics of most of the matter of the universe. This is something that should inject some humility. There are two groups that don't seem able to understand Wise and Wood's admissions: extreme fundamentalists and extreme atheists. This compartmentalization is not that different from most theology. We all, yes even atheists, compartmentalize apparently contradictory things every day. Its part of the human condition, and is a part of every religious tradition I'm aware of.

Salvador T. Cordova said: I've never said YEC is good or solid theory, and I'm not fully convinced it is true, although I'm sympathetic to the YEC position.

David B. said: Er, and the rest please...

During early periods of the earth's history, when the forms of life were probably fewer and simpler, the rate of change was probably slower; and at the first dawn of life, when very few forms of the simplest structure existed, the rate of change may have been slow in an extreme degree. The whole history of the world, as at present known, although of a length quite incomprehensible by us, will hereafter be recognised as a mere fragment of time, compared with the ages which have elapsed since the first creature, the progenitor of innumerable extinct and living descendants, was created.

— Charles Darwin

They don’t know their religion very well. That’s not for us to say.

James F said: From Wood's statement:

Although there are scientific reasons for accepting a young earth...

Say what? I'd like to hear them.

gabriel said: ...Wise on pre-Cambrian fossils as the result of pre-fall animal death (!!) and the one showing how there really are transition forms in the fossil record. These papers should be in every biologist's syllabi.

John Harshman said:

James F said: From Wood's statement:

Although there are scientific reasons for accepting a young earth...

Say what? I'd like to hear them.

I believe that was Wise, not Wood.

Salvador T. Cordova said: How would one ever trust someone who would put a creed above evidences? Even the Apostle Paul said, "If Christ has not been raised, then your faith is in vain." As for me, I refused to join several creationist organizations because they demand agreement even before proof. I'm amenable to changing my mind if I think a theory is utterly irredeemable. That's why I left my former acceptance of Darwinism. I concluded the Darwinism is irredeemable. The ID community doesn't require acceptance of creeds to be a member. I've never said YEC is good or solid theory, and I'm not fully convinced it is true, although I'm sympathetic to the YEC position. So I agree with Darwin, the first creature was created.

Get over it theists. said: Ummm, the author of this article forgot to mention the part where denying fact based theories based on a book makes any sense at all. You have yet to explain why Dawkins doesn't have a good point. As a man of science, I am shocked to see hear both of the theists mentioned in this article say things like that, regardless of degree. There are plenty of stupid people in this world, having a PhD doesn't necessitate you being smart. It just means you went through a lot of college work and if you deny facts, you clearly didn't pay enough attention in your class. Denying facts drops all credibility one has.

While most creationists make me angry, these two only make me sad. I can't imagine what it would be like to have an incisive and curious mind inside a head that keeps smacking itself against a brick wall.

i've been watching the BSG for some time because i think their Baramin research will help support the Multipler Designers Theory

(something tells me they're aware of this, which is why they're not publishing results)

specificallly, do you mean by “dissent?”

The big bang today relies on a growing number of hypothetical entities, things that we have never observed-- inflation, dark matter and dark energy are the most prominent examples. Without them, there would be a fatal contradiction between the observations made by astronomers and the predictions of the big bang theory. In no other field of physics would this continual recourse to new hypothetical objects be accepted as a way of bridging the gap between theory and observation. It would, at the least, raise serious questions about the validity of the underlying theory. But the big bang theory can't survive without these fudge factors. Without the hypothetical inflation field, the big bang does not predict the smooth, isotropic cosmic background radiation that is observed, because there would be no way for parts of the universe that are now more than a few degrees away in the sky to come to the same temperature and thus emit the same amount of microwave radiation. Without some kind of dark matter, unlike any that we have observed on Earth despite 20 years of experiments, big-bang theory makes contradictory predictions for the density of matter in the universe. Inflation requires a density 20 times larger than that implied by big bang nucleosynthesis, the theory's explanation of the origin of the light elements. And without dark energy, the theory predicts that the universe is only about 8 billion years old, which is billions of years younger than the age of many stars in our galaxy. What is more, the big bang theory can boast of no quantitative predictions that have subsequently been validated by observation. The successes claimed by the theory's supporters consist of its ability to retrospectively fit observations with a steadily increasing array of adjustable parameters, just as the old Earth-centered cosmology of Ptolemy needed layer upon layer of epicycles. Yet the big bang is not the only framework available for understanding the history of the universe. Plasma cosmology and the steady-state model both hypothesize an evolving universe without beginning or end. These and other alternative approaches can also explain the basic phenomena of the cosmos, including the abundances of light elements, the generation of large-scale structure, the cosmic background radiation, and how the redshift of far-away galaxies increases with distance. They have even predicted new phenomena that were subsequently observed, something the big bang has failed to do. Supporters of the big bang theory may retort that these theories do not explain every cosmological observation. But that is scarcely surprising, as their development has been severely hampered by a complete lack of funding. Indeed, such questions and alternatives cannot even now be freely discussed and examined. An open exchange of ideas is lacking in most mainstream conferences. Whereas Richard Feynman could say that "science is the culture of doubt", in cosmology today doubt and dissent are not tolerated, and young scientists learn to remain silent if they have something negative to say about the standard big bang model. Those who doubt the big bang fear that saying so will cost them their funding. Even observations are now interpreted through this biased filter, judged right or wrong depending on whether or not they support the big bang. So discordant data on red shifts, lithium and helium abundances, and galaxy distribution, among other topics, are ignored or ridiculed. This reflects a growing dogmatic mindset that is alien to the spirit of free scientific inquiry. Today, virtually all financial and experimental resources in cosmology are devoted to big bang studies. Funding comes from only a few sources, and all the peer-review committees that control them are dominated by supporters of the big bang. As a result, the dominance of the big bang within the field has become self-sustaining, irrespective of the scientific validity of the theory. Giving support only to projects within the big bang framework undermines a fundamental element of the scientific method -- the constant testing of theory against observation. Such a restriction makes unbiased discussion and research impossible. To redress this, we urge those agencies that fund work in cosmology to set aside a significant fraction of their funding for investigations into alternative theories and observational contradictions of the big bang. To avoid bias, the peer review committee that allocates such funds could be composed of astronomers and physicists from outside the field of cosmology. Allocating funding to investigations into the big bang's validity, and its alternatives, would allow the scientific process to determine our most accurate model of the history of the universe. ... ... Menas Kafatos, George Mason University (USA) .... Malabika Roy, George Mason University (USA) Sisir Roy, George Mason University (USA)

Salvador Cordova said: Secular Science has given a glimmer of hope to the YECs! Honest creationists like Wise and Wood may yet prevail.

So help them God.

Secular Science has given a glimmer of hope to the YECs! Honest creationists like Wise and Wood may yet prevail. So help them God.

John Harshman said:

gabriel said: ...Wise on pre-Cambrian fossils as the result of pre-fall animal death (!!) and the one showing how there really are transition forms in the fossil record. These papers should be in every biologist's syllabi.

Could you give a citation for the Wise papers, or better yet a link?

First, Sal, the statement on the Big Bang only states that it doesn't explain all observed events; and manntions that the Steady State theory isn't quite dead yet. Nothing new here, we already knew the Big Bang theory wasn't fully fleshed out. Oh, and some perfunctory whining about persecution of dissent by the Evil Big-Banger Establishment -- which, if true, could easily come from organized religion, since nothing says "In the beginning..." like the Big Bang Theory. Steady state offers no dramatic creation moment, only an eternally-pre-existing Universe.

Second, the Wikipedia entry you cited on VSL does not offer any evidence that the speed of light actually did vary on a large scale over time, only that certain things are implied if it had. If I've missed anything here, please feel free to quote the relevant passages -- or, better yet, give us something better than a Wikipedia entry!

In any case, neither the Big Bang statement, nor the VSL article, even touch on the theory of evolution, let alone cast doubt on it. And neither one even remotely implies a young-Earth cosmology.

So once again, Sal, you're bluffing -- some impressive-looking citations, but, on closer examination, no substantial backup for any of your assertions. If you're trying to pretend your young-Earth story is backed up by developing science, you'll have to do better than that.

Of course, if you actually understood, respected, and lived by the most important tenets of your religion, you wouldn't need to seek pretend-vindication in pretend-science.

gabriel said:

John Harshman said:

gabriel said: ...Wise on pre-Cambrian fossils as the result of pre-fall animal death (!!) and the one showing how there really are transition forms in the fossil record. These papers should be in every biologist's syllabi.

Could you give a citation for the Wise papers, or better yet a link?

Ask, and ye shall receive: http://www.bryancore.org/anniversary/building.html The links to the paper scroll at the bottom. The ones by Wise say "When did the Flood Begin?" and "Ape-Men, Bird-lizards and walking whales"; the one by Wood says "Image of God, image of man?" Enjoy!

As in signing your good name to a publicly displayed document which says:

Arguing with Sal Cordova about science is a lot like arguing with a pedophile about a mature relationship. In fact, it's almost impossible to tell the difference.

Sadly, RU's analogy is spot-on. In both cases, the mere fact that one is having the argument leaves one feeling dirty, regardless of the outcome.

gabriel said: Ask, and ye shall receive: http://www.bryancore.org/anniversary/building.html The links to the paper scroll at the bottom. The ones by Wise say "When did the Flood Begin?" and "Ape-Men, Bird-lizards and walking whales"; the one by Wood says "Image of God, image of man?" Enjoy!

They pick this up from years of listening to this type of argumentation in their churches to the point that it becomes habitual, driven by deep-seated fears, and by lack of exposure to any other forms of analysis of objective data.

Registered User said: Arguing with Sal Cordova about science is a lot like arguing with a pedophile about a mature relationship. In fact, it's almost impossible to tell the difference.

An honest creationist? Unlikely, unless you find one that has never quote-mined.

RBH said: ... and Bob's your uncle!

"The big bang today relies on a growing number of hypothetical entities, things that we have never observed– inflation, dark matter and dark energy are the most prominent examples."

Um actually it doesn't. Big Bang rests upon three prominent observations that have withstood the tests of time. The correlation of redshift with distance calibrated by "standard candles", the CMBR and D/H ratios.

We don't have an *ultimate theory" for Big Bang, however we can safely state that whatever ultimate theory arises it will have more in common with todays BBT than the swill pushed by creatobabblers.

One can only imagine Sal's reaction to Rutherford's postulate of the nucleus. After all, nobody ever saw one.

Registered User said:

eric said: Registered User will be upset.* He doesn't think honest creationists exist...

I've given the religious folks around here plenty of opportunity to prove me wrong. They need only admit that their religious beliefs are just pretend beliefs that they pretend are NOT pretend so that they can be used as an emotional crutch and/or a mental game that they play with themselves to maximize their satisfaction with life and/or a political tool and/or a convenient way to make friends. That's honesty.

eric said: To you, there are no honest creationists because your definition of "honest" requires they not believe what they say they believe.

Registered User said: My point was that I don't often see religious people copping to the truth.

I have hope because I’m a sinner saved by grace. That’s my whole reason. It’s not because I can refute evolution (I can’t) or because I can prove the Flood (I can’t) or because I can make evolutionists look silly (I don’t). (Italics added)

"Now another creation 'scientist,' trained in a secular university with a legitimate science Ph.D., has acknowledged much the same thing in a little stronger terms" (Richard B. Hoppe).

For the record: you only quoted Dawkins, not Wise; therefore you cannot say that Wise said what Wood allegedly said.

If an evolutionist said:

"I have hope because I’m a sinner saved by grace. That’s my whole reason. It’s not because I can refute Creationism (I can’t) or because I can disprove the Flood (I can’t) or because I can make Creationists look silly (I don’t)."

What would other evolutionists say?

Ray Martinez said: If an evolutionist said: "I have hope because I’m a sinner saved by grace. That’s my whole reason. It’s not because I can refute Creationism (I can’t) or because I can disprove the Flood (I can’t) or because I can make Creationists look silly (I don’t)." What would other evolutionists say?

The comments made by Todd Wood (if they are not a quote-mine), and the fact that he wrote a paper defending Charles Darwin, both sets of evidence are recognized to support an identification of Wood to be a double agent or incredibly stupid person.

...What would other evolutionists say?

We'd point this evolutionist to whatever resources he could possibly need to refute creationism, disprove the global flood, and make creationists look as silly as he/she could possibly want to make them look. We've done it before; it's fun.

Raging Bee said: ...What would other evolutionists say? We'd point this evolutionist to whatever resources he could possibly need to refute creationism, disprove the global flood, and make creationists look as silly as he/she could possibly want to make them look. We've done it before; it's fun.

both sets of evidence are recognized to support an identification of Wood to be a double agent or incredibly stupid person.

Ray Martinez said: If an evolutionist said: "I have hope because I’m a sinner saved by grace. That’s my whole reason. It’s not because I can refute Creationism (I can’t) or because I can disprove the Flood (I can’t) or because I can make Creationists look silly (I don’t)." What would other evolutionists say?

Ray Martinez is beginning to look increasingly like a grotesque, naked little monkey dancing around flapping his tiny, deformed genitals in front of the whole world. There is no way this insane troll is a Christian of any sort.

Ray, I can understand why you can't tolerate the notion that I might actually be a Christian. But Todd? You've got to be kidding. I've had some (albeit brief) interactions with Todd. He's the real deal. I obviously don't agree with him on much, but he has integrity. Of course, my endorsement probably means you'll suspect him all the more.

Ray, deep inside, what do you feel? Hate? Or the love of Jesus? If I'm your brother in the Lord, then it would behoove you to love; if I am your enemy, then all the more. Either that or you set the Gospel at naught (1 John 4:20).

Peace.

PvM said:

I have hope because I’m a sinner saved by grace. That’s my whole reason. It’s not because I can refute evolution (I can’t) or because I can prove the Flood (I can’t) or because I can make evolutionists look silly (I don’t). (Italics added)

So what's wrong with people being honest about their faith? I can understand why Dawkins may want to ridicule them but is this what PT should be all about? Now I remember why I had decided to take a sabattical. Things seem to have gotten worse.

Flint said:Possibly the case, but there are other possibilities as well. My favorite is, Todd Wood was warped beyond repair before he reached the age of reason. Subsequently, he found that science was a most marvelous tool for explaining where magical "explanations" failed to satisfy. I think his parents did the equivalent of foot-binding - once full growth is reached, feet bound in infancy simply can never recover and work properly. Wood (and Wise) can't do anything about the "mind-binding" their parents imposed on them, but they are nonetheless trying to figure out some way to walk.

Suppose someone attended a seminary or bible college. They earned a degree in theology, possibly became ordained as a minister. Then, once safely esconced in a pulpit, they announced that they were actually atheist and their purpose was to undermine faith and empty the pews. How much credence would believers - or anyone else come to that - give to their pronouncements on religion?

No doubt people like Wells or Wise are sincere in their beliefs but isn't anything they say about science fatally compromised by that overriding commitment. I know I would not accept Wells's unsupported word about anything in biology.

Ian H Spedding FCD said: No doubt people like Wells or Wise are sincere in their beliefs but isn't anything they say about science fatally compromised by that overriding commitment. I know I would not accept Wells's unsupported word about anything in biology.

PvM said:

I have hope because I’m a sinner saved by grace. That’s my whole reason. It’s not because I can refute evolution (I can’t) or because I can prove the Flood (I can’t) or because I can make evolutionists look silly (I don’t). (Italics added)

So what's wrong with people being honest about their faith? I can understand why Dawkins may want to ridicule them but is this what PT should be all about? Now I remember why I had decided to take a sabattical. Things seem to have gotten worse.

Apologies for the totally off-topic post, but with Souter retiring from the Supreme Court, I think we should be encouraging serious consideration of Judge Jones (yes, THAT Judge Jones) as his replacement. I have no real knowledge of Jones' overall record as a judge, but I'd love to see the Republican meltdown when a Democrat appoints him to our highest court. Discuss.

Ian H Spedding FCD said: Suppose someone attended a seminary or bible college. They earned a degree in theology, possibly became ordained as a minister. Then, once safely esconced in a pulpit, they announced that they were actually atheist and their purpose was to undermine faith and empty the pews. How much credence would believers - or anyone else come to that - give to their pronouncements on religion? No doubt people like Wells or Wise are sincere in their beliefs but isn't anything they say about science fatally compromised by that overriding commitment. I know I would not accept Wells's unsupported word about anything in biology.

Stanton said:

Raging Bee said: ...What would other evolutionists say? We'd point this evolutionist to whatever resources he could possibly need to refute creationism, disprove the global flood, and make creationists look as silly as he/she could possibly want to make them look. We've done it before; it's fun.

It was fun, but, using all of reality to battle an invincibly stupid fanatic gets really boring really quickly.

Raging Bee said: Apologies for the totally off-topic post, but with Souter retiring from the Supreme Court, I think we should be encouraging serious consideration of Judge Jones (yes, THAT Judge Jones) as his replacement. I have no real knowledge of Jones' overall record as a judge, but I'd love to see the Republican meltdown when a Democrat appoints him to our highest court. Discuss.

Dale,

I presume Sal is temporarily AWOL, but is still reading this thread, so I have two questions for him:

1) Why do you wish for NCSE to be more like Richard Dawkins and Abbie Smith (and, I presume too, Christopher Hitchens and PZ Myers) in its pursuit of ensuring sound scientific education in America's classrooms? (I think I know the answer already, but I hope you will elaborate.).

2) Why, as a Christian, you refuse to be as sensible as fellow believers like Francisco J. Ayala, Francis Collins, Keith Miller, Ken Miller, or my sister in recognizing that evolution is valid science and that it doesn't conflict with their devout Christian beliefs?

Cheers,

John

P. S. I strongly suspect that Johns Hopkins must have lowered its admissions standards to offer admission to someone who claims to be a part-time M. S. graduate student there (Am speaking of course of our "pal" Sal.).

RBH said:

Flint said:Possibly the case, but there are other possibilities as well. My favorite is, Todd Wood was warped beyond repair before he reached the age of reason. Subsequently, he found that science was a most marvelous tool for explaining where magical "explanations" failed to satisfy. I think his parents did the equivalent of foot-binding - once full growth is reached, feet bound in infancy simply can never recover and work properly. Wood (and Wise) can't do anything about the "mind-binding" their parents imposed on them, but they are nonetheless trying to figure out some way to walk.

That's a superb analogy, and I'm going to shamelessly steal it!

PvM wrote: Now I remember why I had decided to take a sabattical. Things seem to have gotten worse.

1) Why should Obama nominate someone, that is Jones, whose judicial temperment isn’t one of an “activist” court, as he, himself, noted...?

True. But conservative judges have, in time, proven surprisingly "liberal" on many issues as they've learned and evolved on the job, and delightfully disappointing to the "conservatives" who first supported them. A solid sensible conservative on the bench really isn't a bad thing; and the rulings of such conservatives haven't always followed the political conservatives' script. (Just as the rulings of "liberal" judges haven't always followed the political liberals' script either, which is why I'm leery of liberal judicial appointees lately.)

Sal: You're not a TE, you've shown outright hostility and dishonesty toward TEs, and now you're trying to tell us who we "belong" with? Excuse me for pestering you with impolite facts, but IDers have been nothing but hostile to TEs and our agenda, and you know it. Can't you find someone else to insult with your unctuous lying fake-civility?

Why should Obama nominate someone, that is Jones, whose judicial temperment isn’t one of an “activist” court, as he, himself, noted in his Kitzmiller vs. Dover ruling. Instead, Jones’s philosophy would be far more consistent with what my fellow Republicans want

Raging Bee said: 1) Why should Obama nominate someone, that is Jones, whose judicial temperment isn’t one of an “activist” court, as he, himself, noted...? True. But conservative judges have, in time, proven surprisingly "liberal" on many issues as they've learned and evolved on the job, and delightfully disappointing to the "conservatives" who first supported them. A solid sensible conservative on the bench really isn't a bad thing; and the rulings of such conservatives haven't always followed the political conservatives' script. (Just as the rulings of "liberal" judges haven't always followed the political liberals' script either, which is why I'm leery of liberal judicial appointees lately.)

Apparently what you believe didn’t happen in Kurt Wise’s case

Thank you for creating a blog for those interested in learning more about theories and philosophies related to biology and science. Kids working on science fair projects can benefit from these types of sites.

Sal,

Could you answer these questions please:

1) Why do you wish for NCSE to be more like Richard Dawkins and Abbie Smith (and, I presume too, Christopher Hitchens and PZ Myers) in its pursuit of ensuring sound scientific education in America’s classrooms? (I think I know the answer already, but I hope you will elaborate.).

2) Why, as a Christian, you refuse to be as sensible as fellow believers like Francisco J. Ayala, Francis Collins, Keith Miller, Ken Miller, or my sister in recognizing that evolution is valid science and that it doesn’t conflict with their devout Christian beliefs?

And here's one more:

Why is ID preferable to Klingon Cosmology?

John

I presume Sal is temporarily AWOL, but is still reading this thread...

— John Kwok

1) Why should Obama nominate someone, that is Jones, whose judicial temperment isn’t one of an “activist” court, as he, himself, noted in his Kitzmiller vs. Dover ruling. Instead, Jones’s philosophy would be far more consistent with what my fellow Republicans want

(And just to set the record straight, there are quite a few prominent conservatives and Republicans who’ve supported Jones’s Kitzmiller vs. Dover ruling, starting with biologist Paul Gross, Washington Post commentators George Will and Charles Krauthammer and National Review commentator John Derbyshire.).

2) Obama would probably be more inclined to nominate someone who is a woman or minority than someone like Jones.

Flint said: John Kwok:

Apparently what you believe didn’t happen in Kurt Wise’s case

Huh? What you've quoted is Exhibit A in support of what I wrote. By the time he was old enough to know better (Wise says he performed this exercise as a young teenager), he was UNABLE to do anything about it. He was rational enough to recognize that his beliefs could not be reconciled with reality, but too old to rewire the neural damage of his religious indoctrination since infancy. So he was obliged to compartmentalize with a vengeance. He could intellectually follow the methods of science, while emotionally aware that he couldn't accept their results. I regard this as a valiant effort to partially overcome the damage of a "bound mind".

harold said: John Kwok - Your posts are remarkably well-reasoned and articulate when you aren't talking about politics. When politics enter, you're still civil and reasonable, but a rather severe disconnect from the current state of the Republican party seems to be revealed.

1) Why should Obama nominate someone, that is Jones, whose judicial temperment isn’t one of an “activist” court, as he, himself, noted in his Kitzmiller vs. Dover ruling. Instead, Jones’s philosophy would be far more consistent with what my fellow Republicans want

Emphasis mine. Judge Jones may be consistent with what you want, which ironically overlaps to a large degree with what I want in this specific circumstance, despite our differences on some issues, but to suggest that current Republicans want anything other than right wing activism of an extreme degree is just silly.

(And just to set the record straight, there are quite a few prominent conservatives and Republicans who’ve supported Jones’s Kitzmiller vs. Dover ruling, starting with biologist Paul Gross, Washington Post commentators George Will and Charles Krauthammer and National Review commentator John Derbyshire.).

If by "quite a few" you mean "exactly these four, and basically no others", then this is accurate. However, "quite a few" usually implies a larger group.

2) Obama would probably be more inclined to nominate someone who is a woman or minority than someone like Jones.

Although there would clearly be nothing wrong with that, given that a large number of people who are women and/or visible minorities, but are as equally qualified as anyone for a supreme court appointment, exist, the implication is unfair. Obama's appointments to date have certainly not been characterized by a high proportion of "women and minorities", relative to the appointments of Bush I, Clinton, or Bush II.

Salvador T. Cordova said: The ID community doesn't require acceptance of creeds to be a member.

... and didn't toroidal electrons go out of fashion with the ether theory?

TE’s belong with the ID movement, not the New Atheists.

— Salvador Cordova

John Kwok said:P. S. Tried finding you at the Hopkins directory, but you weren't listed. I was a bit surprised, since you wanted everyone to know over at US News and World Report that you're a graduate student in physics at Hopkins.

slpage said:

Salvador T. Cordova said: The ID community doesn't require acceptance of creeds to be a member.

So why are you so hostile to the Raelians?

It looks as if some posts here have succeeded in confusing Todd Charles Wood with Jonathan Wells. It's the former who's been accused of being an honest creationist. Never the latter.

slpage said:

John Kwok said:P. S. Tried finding you at the Hopkins directory, but you weren't listed. I was a bit surprised, since you wanted everyone to know over at US News and World Report that you're a graduate student in physics at Hopkins.

You mean he's credential bluffing ALEADY???? Soon he'll be referring to himself as 'top grad student and world renowned soon-to-be-scientist who doesn't actually do research but just spends his time propping up IDcreationism Sal Cordova!'

harold,

Based on current opinion polls, only approximately one-third of all Americans identify themselves as Republicans, and if we were to take your logic to its extreme, then since the other two thirds must be either Liberals or Democrats, then two-thirds of all Americans should recognize evolution as valid science, right? Apparently, the answer is no.

I don't have the link, but I am aware that Harvard University physicist Lisa Randall has posted online, her recollection of a conversation she had with an Obama supporter on a flight from Washington, DC to Los Angeles shortly after Obama's inauguration. Although this supporter, an actor, had studied molecular biology in college, and had, in fact, taught it for a while in an urban public middle school, he refused to accept that humans evolved from other primates, claiming instead that we emerged via some kind of "Intelligent Design" courtesy of GOD.

So Evolution Denial is not a problem confined solely to the Religious Right or Republicans, if we are to believe recent opinion polls and anecdotal tales like Professor Randall's.

Regards,

John

Raging Bee said: Apologies for the totally off-topic post, but with Souter retiring from the Supreme Court, I think we should be encouraging serious consideration of Judge Jones (yes, THAT Judge Jones) as his replacement. I have no real knowledge of Jones' overall record as a judge, but I'd love to see the Republican meltdown when a Democrat appoints him to our highest court. Discuss.

Stuart Weinstein wrote: “The big bang today relies on a growing number of hypothetical entities, things that we have never observed– inflation, dark matter and dark energy are the most prominent examples.” Um actually it doesn’t. Big Bang rests upon three prominent observations that have withstood the tests of time. The correlation of redshift with distance calibrated by “standard candles”, the CMBR and D/H ratios.

The problem of explaining the existence of galaxies has proved to be one of the thorniest in cosmology. By all rights, they just shouldn’t be there, yet there they sit. It’s hard to convey the depth of frustration that this simple fact induces among scientists. Reason #1: Galaxies could not have formed before atoms…interaction of radiation and matter prevents the beginning of processes that could lead to galaxies before the universe is 500,000 years old. This turns out to be a major problem, because of... Reason #2: Galaxies Haven’t Had Time to Form...can gravitational forces act quickly enough after decoupling occurs to gather matter into galaxy-sized clumps before the Hubble expansion carries everything out of range? One of the great shocks to the astronomical community in the 1930’s was that the answer to this question is a resounding “No!”... One way out suggests itself…some other physical process, such as turbulence in the gas clouds after the formation of atoms….Alas, this line of argument leads us to... Reason #3: Turbulence. [but] Turbulence Won’t work, either... Reason #4: Galaxies haven’t had time to form clusters... Reason #5 If Radiation Clumps with Matter, and Matter Clumps into Galaxies, The Cosmic Microwave Radiation Comes out Wrong The microwave radiation can’t be uniform and non-uniform at the same time... James Trefil "Five Reasons Galaxies Can't Exist" Dark Side of the Universe

In its original form, an expanding Einstein model had an attractive, economic elegance. Alas, it has since run into serious difficulties, which have been cured only by sticking on some ugly bandages: inflation to cover horizon and flatness problems; overwhelming amounts of dark matter to provide internal structure; and dark energy, whatever that might be, to explain the seemingly recent acceleration. A skeptic is entitled to feel that a negative significance, after so much time, effort and trimming, is nothing more than one would expect of a folktale constantly re-edited to fit inconvenient new observations. "Modern Cosmology: Science or Folktale?" Sigma Xi Magazine

Stuart wrote: One can only imagine Sal’s reaction to Rutherford’s postulate of the nucleus. After all, nobody ever saw one.

Staurt wrote: One can only imagine Sal’s reaction to Rutherford’s postulate of the nucleus. After all, nobody ever saw one.

I’ve been a registered Republican since my senior year in high school. Should I change my stripes now, simply because I am more than a bit ticked off at some zealous far right “Republicans” like, regrettably, LA governor Bobby Jindal (who is unfortunately a fellow alumnus of my undergraduate alma mater):

I hope you’re not insinuating that if one is a Republican, then one can’t possibly accept evolution as scientific fact? Because if you are, then your analogy is as risible as creationists who contend that those who “believe in evolution must, therefore, be GODLESS ATHEISTS”.

Based on current opinion polls, only approximately one-third of all Americans identify themselves as Republicans, and if we were to take your logic to its extreme, then since the other two thirds must be either Liberals or Democrats, then two-thirds of all Americans should recognize evolution as valid science, right? Apparently, the answer is no.

I don’t have the link, but I am aware that Harvard University physicist Lisa Randall has posted online, her recollection of a conversation she had with an Obama supporter on a flight from Washington, DC to Los Angeles shortly after Obama’s inauguration. Although this supporter, an actor, had studied molecular biology in college, and had, in fact, taught it for a while in an urban public middle school, he refused to accept that humans evolved from other primates, claiming instead that we emerged via some kind of “Intelligent Design” courtesy of GOD.

So Evolution Denial is not a problem confined solely to the Religious Right or Republicans, if we are to believe recent opinion polls and anecdotal tales like Professor Randall’s.

Salvador Cordova said: TE's belong with the ID movement, not the New Atheists. You're the prodigal son of the YECs, but can rejoin us under the big tent of ID. All will be forgiven. The family you left is hoping for your return.

Dale Husband wrote: The big bang theory has nothing to do with evolution. That Sal would even bring that into this discussion shows he is as ignorant and/or dishonest as most Creationist “scientists”.

My reaction was that Rutherford was genius. As I sat in Trefil’s class learning the significance of Rutherford’s experiment I thought to myself, “Rutherford is a genius! Darwinism doesn’t hold a candle to physics. Darwinism is just stamp collecting by comparison.”

Salvador Cordova said:

PvM wrote: Now I remember why I had decided to take a sabattical. Things seem to have gotten worse.

TE's belong with the ID movement, not the New Atheists. You're the prodigal son of the YECs, but can rejoin us under the big tent of ID. All will be forgiven. The family you left is hoping for your return.

It’s beginning to appear that the really good topics on PT are the ones that most effectively and clearly debunk the pretensions of the ID/creationists; their pseudo-science, their notions about who are the “true Christians”, and their political scare tactics for keeping frightened followers from thinking for themselves.

If I am not mistaken (and others can add their observations), these are the times when people like FL, Ray, Sal, and other egotistical creationists show up to derail the threads and direct all attention to themselves. If that is true, then we are hitting them where it hurts most; right in their megalomania.

Most of my contact with truly religious people, from every religion, reveals them to be anything but egotistical or concerned about apostasy or adherence to sectarian dogma.

My reaction was that Rutherford was genius. As I sat in Trefil’s class learning the significance of Rutherford’s experiment I thought to myself, “Rutherford is a genius! Darwinism doesn’t hold a candle to physics. Darwinism is just stamp collecting by comparison.”

Once again, Sal retreats into a fog of non-sequiturs:

But the Big Bang has bearing on YEC, becuase YEC not only opposes Darwinism but mainstream cosmolgy and geology.

The mere fact that YEC opposes "mainstream cosmology" (in your opinion at least) does not mean there's any real connection between it and the Big Bang. You have to actually, you know, DEMONSTRATE a connection. But first, of course, you have to show that YEC actually exists as a set of testable hypotheses, otherwise there's nothing to connect to anything.

Even if I am ““ignorant and/or dishonest” your conclusions don’t logically follow your premise that “The big bang theory has nothing to do with evolution” since that premise is irrelevant to the issue of big bang vs. YEC cosmologies.

Wrong again: you asserted a connection between the Big Bang and evolution, with no logical or evidentiary support; we proved the assertion false; therefore it does indeed follow that you are being ignorant and/or dishonest.

harold: My own take on Sal's mindset is that he's not really in the "delusional crackpot" camp: most crackpots appear to be honest in their delusions, at least on the level of not telling obvious intentional lies that aren't supported by their reams of unhinged reasoning. And they rerely exhibit the consistent level of gleeful malice with which Sal serves up his routine of obfuscation, quote-mining, diversionary drivel, grade-school sycophancy, laughable attempts to play others off against each other, and outright lies. All in all, Sal just doesn't have the same tone as the crackpots one sees listed in Ivan Stang's "High Wierdness by Mail" -- the gold standard for looking up obsessive loonies of all stripes.

I'm thinking Sal "grew up" in an environment where, for whatever reason, intellect and honesty simply were not valued; witness his earlier bald assertion that "natural selection trumps truth." Also, he seems to have learned early on how to kiss up and kick down. Furthermore, he seems to have an abiding grudge against something, and is using evolution as a scapegoat, probably because he's found people who reward him for attacking it without asking him to learn anything or do anything else outside his personal comfort zone. Not sure what the grudge is; it could be the sciences in general, because he wanted to think he was a scientific genius, but never got good at it, and ended up hating what he loved because it didn't love him back or stroke his wounded ego. He certainly spends a lot of time trying to pretend he can "do science" with the big guys, and creates huge amounts of out-of-context quotes and word-salad to cover up his still-painfully-obvious lack of any substantial intellectual mettle.

I also think that authoritarian religion had something to do with his mindset: his quote-mining of "authorities," his inability to admit error, his obsession with getting people to debate him in controlled situations like UD, and his laughable attempts to suck up to people who he thinks might validate him, indicate someone firmly in the grip of an authoritarian mindset, unable to stand on his own, think for himself, or deal with others as equals.

Completely off topic: Does anyone know whether AiG or the DI have tried to explain away the mounting swine flu epidemic? More importantly should a brief statement be posted here reminding the public, lurkers, etc. about how virus previously not transmittable from animal to human -- or not transmittable from human to human once acquired from an animal -- *evolve* the ability to do so? For all the news reports, none of them ever mentions evolution.

Salvador Cordova said:

Stuart Weinstein wrote: “The big bang today relies on a growing number of hypothetical entities, things that we have never observed– inflation, dark matter and dark energy are the most prominent examples.” Um actually it doesn’t. Big Bang rests upon three prominent observations that have withstood the tests of time. The correlation of redshift with distance calibrated by “standard candles”, the CMBR and D/H ratios.

That's not accurately representing the objection coming from www.cosmologystatement.org For the Big Bang Theory to be viable, it has to be consistent with other empirical observations. It relies on things like dark matter to help reconcile the Big Bang Theory with empirical observations that would cast the issue into doubt. One of the many problems with the Big Bang is that if one accepts gravitational accretion as the mechanism to assemble galaxies, given the amount of time the Big Bang would allow, and given the amount of observed matter, the galaxies should not to be up their in the sky. A professor of mine made this keen observation where he offers "Five Reasons Galaxies Can't Exist" It seems no one taught Sal about the Higgs field for which the finding of a Higgs boson would be evidence and which would confirm the symmetry of the early universe and strongly support GUT. Of course, if it turns out there is no Higgs field the whole question of the nature of the Big Bang would have to be re-opened. Sal, of course would be no more than a bystander to this investigation.

Staurt wrote: One can only imagine Sal’s reaction to Rutherford’s postulate of the nucleus. After all, nobody ever saw one.

KP said: Completely off topic: Does anyone know whether AiG or the DI have tried to explain away the mounting swine flu epidemic? More importantly should a brief statement be posted here reminding the public, lurkers, etc. about how virus previously not transmittable from animal to human -- or not transmittable from human to human once acquired from an animal -- *evolve* the ability to do so? For all the news reports, none of them ever mentions evolution.

gregwrld said:

Salvador Cordova said:

Stuart Weinstein wrote: “The big bang today relies on a growing number of hypothetical entities, things that we have never observed– inflation, dark matter and dark energy are the most prominent examples.” Um actually it doesn’t. Big Bang rests upon three prominent observations that have withstood the tests of time. The correlation of redshift with distance calibrated by “standard candles”, the CMBR and D/H ratios.

That's not accurately representing the objection coming from www.cosmologystatement.org For the Big Bang Theory to be viable, it has to be consistent with other empirical observations. It relies on things like dark matter to help reconcile the Big Bang Theory with empirical observations that would cast the issue into doubt. One of the many problems with the Big Bang is that if one accepts gravitational accretion as the mechanism to assemble galaxies, given the amount of time the Big Bang would allow, and given the amount of observed matter, the galaxies should not to be up their in the sky. A professor of mine made this keen observation where he offers "Five Reasons Galaxies Can't Exist"

It seems no one taught Sal about the Higgs field for which the finding of a Higgs boson would be evidence and which would confirm the symmetry of the early universe and strongly support GUT. Of course, if it turns out there is no Higgs field the whole question of the nature of the Big Bang would have to be re-opened. Sal, of course would be no more than a bystander to this investigation.

Staurt wrote: One can only imagine Sal’s reaction to Rutherford’s postulate of the nucleus. After all, nobody ever saw one.

gregwrld said:

gregwrld said:

Salvador Cordova said:

Stuart Weinstein wrote: “The big bang today relies on a growing number of hypothetical entities, things that we have never observed– inflation, dark matter and dark energy are the most prominent examples.” Um actually it doesn’t. Big Bang rests upon three prominent observations that have withstood the tests of time. The correlation of redshift with distance calibrated by “standard candles”, the CMBR and D/H ratios.

That's not accurately representing the objection coming from www.cosmologystatement.org For the Big Bang Theory to be viable, it has to be consistent with other empirical observations. It relies on things like dark matter to help reconcile the Big Bang Theory with empirical observations that would cast the issue into doubt. One of the many problems with the Big Bang is that if one accepts gravitational accretion as the mechanism to assemble galaxies, given the amount of time the Big Bang would allow, and given the amount of observed matter, the galaxies should not to be up their in the sky. A professor of mine made this keen observation where he offers "Five Reasons Galaxies Can't Exist"

It seems no one taught Sal about the Higgs field for which the finding of a Higgs boson would be evidence and which would confirm the symmetry of the early universe and strongly support GUT. Of course, if it turns out there is no Higgs field the whole question of the nature of the Big Bang would have to be re-opened. Sal, of course would be no more than a bystander to this investigation.

My reaction was that Rutherford was genius. As I sat in Trefil's class learning the significance of Rutherford's experiment I thought to myself, "Rutherford is a genius! Darwinism doesn't hold a candle to physics. Darwinism is just stamp collecting by comparison." That was Sal's reaction.

Staurt wrote: One can only imagine Sal’s reaction to Rutherford’s postulate of the nucleus. After all, nobody ever saw one.

I believe in the Intelligent Designer, even though I haven't seen Him. Believing in the existence of the nucleus is a much smaller inference than an Intelligent Designer, thus I happily accept the existence of the nucleus. :-) I hope this version lays out better...g Oops, guess not!...g

Sometimes, creationist have to stop playing make belief and start acting like adults. It is quite disturbing when you have profession scientist who wants adjust the facts to justify his results.

Raging Bee said: He certainly spends a lot of time trying to pretend he can "do science" with the big guys, and creates huge amounts of out-of-context quotes and word-salad to cover up his still-painfully-obvious lack of any substantial intellectual mettle.

harold said: John Kwok - I did not present the straw man argument that "all Democrats accept evolution and all Republicans deny evolution". I pointed out that the moderate views of Judge Jones are not characteristic of what the majority of the current Republican party would want in a supreme court justice, despite his (and your) longstanding Republican affilitation. I don't have a direct poll of whether Republican voters would support Judge Jones for SCOTUS, but I STRONGLY stand by that point.

I’ve been a registered Republican since my senior year in high school. Should I change my stripes now, simply because I am more than a bit ticked off at some zealous far right “Republicans” like, regrettably, LA governor Bobby Jindal (who is unfortunately a fellow alumnus of my undergraduate alma mater):

I don't think you should change "stripes", but if a political party adopts a lot of stances that tick you off, you might consider changing your registration.

I hope you’re not insinuating that if one is a Republican, then one can’t possibly accept evolution as scientific fact? Because if you are, then your analogy is as risible as creationists who contend that those who “believe in evolution must, therefore, be GODLESS ATHEISTS”.

Clearly, I didn't come close to saying this. You, for example, are a straightforward example of a Republican who accepts evolution as a scientific fact. However, there is a substantial relationship between Republican party affiliation and denial of evolution. A majority of Democrats and independents do not deny evolution; 68% of Republicans do. http://www.gallup.com/poll/27847/Majority-Republicans-Doubt-Theory-Evolution.aspx Please note that I am presenting factual data here. In this post, I do not attempt to analyze why the above poll results (which are of striking statistical significance) occurred. I wouldn't expect you to make up a straw man "analysis" and attribute it to me (even though you just did, but that's not characteristic of you), but at any rate, please don't.

Based on current opinion polls, only approximately one-third of all Americans identify themselves as Republicans, and if we were to take your logic to its extreme, then since the other two thirds must be either Liberals or Democrats, then two-thirds of all Americans should recognize evolution as valid science, right? Apparently, the answer is no.

John, putting false words in the mouths of others is not characteristic of your posts. Clearly I did not suggest that all Democrats and independents accept the reality of evolution. But there is a clear positive relationship between Republican party affiliation and evolution denial. http://www.gallup.com/poll/27847/Majority-Republicans-Doubt-Theory-Evolution.aspx

I don’t have the link, but I am aware that Harvard University physicist Lisa Randall has posted online, her recollection of a conversation she had with an Obama supporter on a flight from Washington, DC to Los Angeles shortly after Obama’s inauguration. Although this supporter, an actor, had studied molecular biology in college, and had, in fact, taught it for a while in an urban public middle school, he refused to accept that humans evolved from other primates, claiming instead that we emerged via some kind of “Intelligent Design” courtesy of GOD.

This is a second hand report of an unverifiable anecdote, but at any rate, I happily acknowledge that there are thousands if not millions of Democrats and independents who deny evolutoin. But there is a clear positive relationship between Republican party affiliation and evolution denial. http://www.gallup.com/poll/27847/Majority-Republicans-Doubt-Theory-Evolution.aspx

So Evolution Denial is not a problem confined solely to the Religious Right or Republicans, if we are to believe recent opinion polls and anecdotal tales like Professor Randall’s.

And for the last time, I did not present that straw man argument

Hey Sal,

I asked three very good questions for you to answer earlier today. I am still looking forward to extensive, most "thoughtful", replies befitting someone who claims to be a part-time M. S. graduate student of physics at Johns Hopkins University.

Thanks,

John

KP said: Completely off topic: Does anyone know whether AiG or the DI have tried to explain away the mounting swine flu epidemic? More importantly should a brief statement be posted here reminding the public, lurkers, etc. about how virus previously not transmittable from animal to human – or not transmittable from human to human once acquired from an animal – *evolve* the ability to do so? For all the news reports, none of them ever mentions evolution.

Sorry about the double post.

PvM said:

I have hope because I’m a sinner saved by grace. That’s my whole reason. It’s not because I can refute evolution (I can’t) or because I can prove the Flood (I can’t) or because I can make evolutionists look silly (I don’t). (Italics added)

So what's wrong with people being honest about their faith? I can understand why Dawkins may want to ridicule them but is this what PT should be all about? Now I remember why I had decided to take a sabattical. Things seem to have gotten worse.

Legislators may strip education board of power Bipartisan criticism sidelines confirmation of chairman. By Kate Alexander AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Friday, May 01, 2009 The legislative session so far has not been kind to the State Board of Education. Senate confirmation of Board Chairman Don McLeroy, R-College Station, is dead in the water, the Nominations Committee chairman said Thursday.

Salvador Cordova said:

PvM wrote: Now I remember why I had decided to take a sabattical. Things seem to have gotten worse.

TE's belong with the ID movement, not the New Atheists. You're the prodigal son of the YECs, but can rejoin us under the big tent of ID. All will be forgiven. The family you left is hoping for your return.

Frank J wrote: Or maybe like me for the past day (I had expected longer) unable to go online. Now that I’m back, I hope there’s still interest in the Big Bang, because, contrary to common misconception, it’s yet another issue that divides anti-evolutionists, and needs to be exploited as such. Sadly, Dr. David Medved (physicist father of the DI’s Michael) recently passed away, but not before writing a book that, AIUI, was very pro-Big Bang - as evidence for God. When he was interviewed on his son’s radio show a year or 2 ago the one sound bite that shouted out at me was his claim that the BB supported the “day-age” interpretation. I don’t recall if he said “of Genesis, (or the Bible)” but I guess that’s what he meant, because I’m not aware of any other use of that particular phrase. Note that the interview did not mention biological evolution, positively or negatively. Michael Medved did not challenge his father’s “day-age” conclusions. From that and other radio shows it seems that the junior Medved accepts the Big Bang, “progressive” OE chronology, and likely even common descent. So I’m curious about Salvador’s opinion on the Medveds.

INTELLIGENT DESIGN In 1989, shortly after the Edwards Supreme Court decision, Of Pandas and People, a supplemental textbook for high school biology, was published (Davis and Kenyon 1989). Its publication signified the increasing OEC [old earth creationist] influence in the neocreationist antievolution movement, and introduced the term Intelligent Design (ID). ID is promoted primarily by university-based antievolutionists who tend to be PCs [progressive creationists] rather than YECs. Dean Kenyon, for example, a tenured professor of biology at San Francisco State University, and Percival Davis, who teaches at a public college, Hillsborough Community College, in Tampa, Florida, advocate ID.

it’s yet another issue that divides anti-evolutionists, and needs to be exploited as such.

it’s yet another issue that divides anti-evolutionists, and needs to be exploited as such.

One fifth of Americans identify themselves as Republicans according to the latest Washington Post/ABC poll, not one third.

Salvador Cordova said: I've given you my opinion, but I should note one signatory of the DI's list of dissenters, Dr. Stephen Cheesman, was a YEC. He became an OEC after studying physics. It didn't really fracture his involvement against Darwinism. Similarly, Michael Denton, as a youth group up as an OEC, then became a Darwinist, then became one of the most articulate critics of Darwinism and the one of the chief exponents of the restoration of pre-Darwinian platonism in biology. Denton was instrumental to converting an atheist like Phil Johnson and a Darwinist like Michael Behe. So converting YECs into OECs or to even Berlinski/Denton-type Darwin Doubters might just make them a more virulent strain. Something might be said about keeping your opposition ignorant. A Darwinist might go out of his way to educate a YECs, but if he fails to make them a Darwinist, now he's just made that creationist who will be more capable of perpetuating creationism. Rather than converting the creationist to Darwinism, he has made a more virulent strain of creationism. Perhaps the lessons from former YECs like PvM, Ed Brayton, Michael Shermer (I think), Burt Humburg (I think), or others would be more instructive on how to wage the war on YEC. But I think the contagion is slowy reaching the superbug status. Remember, natural selection selects for reproductive success, not necessarily for rational behaviors.

You may not have thought to have presented a “straw man argument”, but am sure that others, as well as yours truly, would have perceived it as such.

As for me, the Republican Party’s political values - except those opposing abortion and stem cell research - have been mine for many years.

Salvador Cordova said:

Stuart Weinstein wrote: “The big bang today relies on a growing number of hypothetical entities, things that we have never observed– inflation, dark matter and dark energy are the most prominent examples.” Um actually it doesn’t. Big Bang rests upon three prominent observations that have withstood the tests of time. The correlation of redshift with distance calibrated by “standard candles”, the CMBR and D/H ratios.

That's not accurately representing the objection coming from www.cosmologystatement.org For the Big Bang Theory to be viable, it has to be consistent with other empirical observations. It relies on things like dark matter to help reconcile the Big Bang Theory with empirical observations that would cast the issue into doubt.

Raging Bee -

I agree with what you wrote about our good friend Sal, but I think we are both to some degree right.

We both seem to agree that there is a big/fragile ego, a desire to appear to be a "genius", an ill-informed decision that "disproving evolution" will accomplish that goal, and a great deal of anger and resentment toward something (expressed as juvenile insults toward "Darwin" or "Darwinism").

I full concur that I may have unjustifiably insulted a large number of good old-fashioned crackpots by comparing them to Sal, Billy D, and Casey. I apologize to the many crackpots who maintain far higher standards of ethics and coherence for that.

But there is overlap. The typical non-creationist crackpot is not always benign. Inappropriate anger, obsession with one's own "unappreciated genius", and paranoid reference to conspiracies that "silence the truth" are pretty common.

Stuart Weinstein said: Seriously, Sal you should endeavor to stay within your pay grade.

John Kwok -

Oops, one other political comment I meant to make. A brief one.

Obama's appointments to date have been frequently male, frequently white, objectively highly qualified, and occasionally Republican.

Judge Jones isn't really high enough up the food chain for a SCOTUS appointment, but I don't see any grounds for implying that Obama's appointment won't be extremely qualified. There is certainly no evidence whatsoever that Obama is making appointments on the basis of ethnicity or gender, without regard to qualification.

That obviously doesn't mean that you should support Obama, and of course Obama's appointments are more likely to be Democrats (duh), but it is a good reason NOT to imply that Obama is making appointments on the grounds of ethnicity or gender, without regard to qualification.

Apologies in advance if that implication wasn't intended.

Stuart Weinstein said: Why is it that every creatobabbler assumes that all theories are "born" with the ability to explain everything?

I recently posted a short blurb on my blog about Kurt Wise.

I'm fifteen and live with my Jehovah's Witness parents. People like Kurt Wise make me extremely uncomfortable-- I guess I sometimes have these silly fantasies in which I see my parents taking an honest look at the evidence against design and coming to their senses.

This religion is robbing them of their humanity. It's taken away their ability to be rational and independent human beings, and coming out about my atheism has really shown me what this garbage can do to people.

Kurt Wise casts doubts on my hopeful assumptions that all creationists are like I was: ignorant but open-minded. Once I knew more about the situation I readily abandoned my faith.

I guess I just want my parents to see what I know now to be true. I don't want them to waste their eighty years preparing for something that's probably not going to happen... what a waste.

So converting YECs into OECs or to even Berlinski/Denton-type Darwin Doubters might just make them a more virulent strain.

Mike Elzinga said:

KP said: Completely off topic: Does anyone know whether AiG or the DI have tried to explain away the mounting swine flu epidemic? More importantly should a brief statement be posted here reminding the public, lurkers, etc. about how virus previously not transmittable from animal to human -- or not transmittable from human to human once acquired from an animal -- *evolve* the ability to do so? For all the news reports, none of them ever mentions evolution.

I don’t know what those mental institutions have to say, but Michelle Bachman in Congress has “correlated” it with the fact that we have a Democratic president.

Whatever the underlying explanation, this example suggests a fascinating, if pessimistic, conclusion about human psychology. It implies that there is no sensible limit to what the human mind is capable of believing, against any amount of contrary evidence.

harold said: John Kwok - I don't want to get into a big argument over something not on topic, so I'll just make a few final clarifications.

You may not have thought to have presented a “straw man argument”, but am sure that others, as well as yours truly, would have perceived it as such.

Well, if it was so perceived, I'm glad I clarified. There is no denying the fact that the poll I referenced shows a large majority of Republicans denying evolution, while a majority of Democrats and independents don't do so. I'll also add the observation that every elected or appointed political official I have ever heard of who denies evolution is a Republican. Far too many Democratic and independent voters also deny evolution, but they are still far less likely to than Republicans.

As for me, the Republican Party’s political values - except those opposing abortion and stem cell research - have been mine for many years.

What about opposition to gay marriage? But putting that aside, it's entirely your own business which party you support, but that's an awfully big "except".

Once I knew more about the situation I readily abandoned my faith.

harold said: John Kwok - Oops, one other political comment I meant to make. A brief one. Obama's appointments to date have been frequently male, frequently white, objectively highly qualified, and occasionally Republican. Judge Jones isn't really high enough up the food chain for a SCOTUS appointment, but I don't see any grounds for implying that Obama's appointment won't be extremely qualified. There is certainly no evidence whatsoever that Obama is making appointments on the basis of ethnicity or gender, without regard to qualification. That obviously doesn't mean that you should support Obama, and of course Obama's appointments are more likely to be Democrats (duh), but it is a good reason NOT to imply that Obama is making appointments on the grounds of ethnicity or gender, without regard to qualification. Apologies in advance if that implication wasn't intended.

Sal -

These aren't difficult questions to answer. Please answer them:

Sal,

Could you answer these questions please:

1) Why do you wish for NCSE to be more like Richard Dawkins and Abbie Smith (and, I presume too, Christopher Hitchens and PZ Myers) in its pursuit of ensuring sound scientific education in America’s classrooms? (I think I know the answer already, but I hope you will elaborate.).

2) Why, as a Christian, you refuse to be as sensible as fellow believers like Francisco J. Ayala, Francis Collins, Keith Miller, Ken Miller, or my sister in recognizing that evolution is valid science and that it doesn’t conflict with their devout Christian beliefs?

3) Why is ID preferable to Klingon Cosmology?

Respectfully submitted,

John

FL said:

Once I knew more about the situation I readily abandoned my faith.

A confirmation, that not only is evolution incompatible with Christianity, but also incompatible with the Jehovah's Witness religion.

FL said: A confirmation, that not only is evolution incompatible with Christianity, but also incompatible with the Jehovah's Witness religion.

eric said:

FL said: A confirmation, that not only is evolution incompatible with Christianity, but also incompatible with the Jehovah's Witness religion.

Mmmm...can't you just feel the sectarian love...

FL said:

Once I knew more about the situation I readily abandoned my faith.

A confirmation, that not only is evolution incompatible with Christianity, but also incompatible with the Jehovah's Witness religion.

FL said:

Once I knew more about the situation I readily abandoned my faith.

A confirmation, that not only is evolution incompatible with Christianity, but also incompatible with the Jehovah's Witness religion.

Salvador Cordova said: But the Big Bang has bearing on YEC, becuase YEC not only opposes Darwinism but mainstream cosmolgy and geology. Thus you are in correct to say that this logically implies I'm "ignorant and/or dishonest". Even if I am ""ignorant and/or dishonest" your conclusions don't logically follow your premise that "The big bang theory has nothing to do with evolution" since that premise is irrelevant to the issue of big bang vs. YEC cosmologies. Your fallacy is known in formal logic as a non-sequitur. You can't expect to win arguments against creationist if this is how you debate. Kind of embarassing an ingnorant person such as myself can point out your non-sequiturs. It only reinforces the public perception that Darwinists are not logical in their inferences. :-)

James F said:

FL said:

Once I knew more about the situation I readily abandoned my faith.

A confirmation, that not only is evolution incompatible with Christianity, but also incompatible with the Jehovah's Witness religion.

I'm still trying to figure out which brand of Christianity you adhere to, FL. I tell ya, Protestantism should come with a scorecard so I can keep track. Southern Baptist? Assemblies of God? Gimme a hint, I want to know who the True Christians™ are!

"One of the proposed solutions is Dark Matter, sprinkled (for no good reason, except for the priority of the paradigm) in every place it needs to be in order to patch the theory.

Berlinski is not a creationist."

Berlinski is silly. Having said that, the existence of "Dark Matter" or some effect that has gravity is established well beyond reasonable doubt.

The primary evidence for this comes from lensed Quasars where the lense is an intervening Galaxy or cluster of galaxies. The mass of the lense can be computed independently via GR and rotation curves/virial theorem. The results are consistent.

The gravitational effect is there. That takes care of most of the other issues like the Universe expanding too fast for galaxies to form etc. You can claim that unseen matter giving rise to this extra gravity is speculation. However, the additional gravitational attraction is well established, whatever the root cause.

James F said:

FL said:

Once I knew more about the situation I readily abandoned my faith.

A confirmation, that not only is evolution incompatible with Christianity, but also incompatible with the Jehovah's Witness religion.

I'm still trying to figure out which brand of Christianity you adhere to, FL. I tell ya, Protestantism should come with a scorecard so I can keep track. Southern Baptist? Assemblies of God? Gimme a hint, I want to know who the True Christians™ are!

Mike Elzinga said: Therefore FL belongs to such a cult. We just don’t know which one. There are so many; and they all hate each other.

Salvador Cordova said: But the Big Bang has bearing on YEC, because YEC not only opposes Darwinism but mainstream cosmology and geology. Thus you are in correct to say that this logically implies I’m “ignorant and/or dishonest”. Even if I am ““ignorant and/or dishonest” your conclusions don’t logically follow your premise that “The big bang theory has nothing to do with evolution” since that premise is irrelevant to the issue of big bang vs. YEC cosmologies. Your fallacy is known in formal logic as a non-sequitur. You can’t expect to win arguments against creationist if this is how you debate. Kind of embarrassing an ignorant person such as myself can point out your non-sequiturs. It only reinforces the public perception that Darwinists are not logical in their inferences. :-)

That is truly one of the most hilarious statements I’ve ever read in Panda’s Thumbs, and I’ve seen some incredible whoppers around here. I make a correct statement to stop Sal’s attempt at taking the discussion off topic and he calls it a “non-sequitur”! ROTFL!

For example, I can say, “2+2=4″ and “the sky is blue today”. But to say, “2+2=4 implies the the sky is blue today” is not a logical construction, even though both the premise (”2+2=4″) and the conclusion (”the sky is blue today”) are both true. What is false is to say the premise necessarily implies the conclusion.

That Sal would even bring that into this discussion shows he is as ignorant and/or dishonest as most Creationist “scientists”.

The big bang theory has nothing to do with evolution.

The term is often used in everyday speech and reasoning to describe a statement in which premise and conclusion are totally unrelated but which is used as if they were. An example might be: "If I buy this cell phone, all people will love me." However, there is no actual relation between buying a cell phone and the love of all people. This kind of reasoning is often used in advertising to trigger an emotional purchase.

Sal - These aren’t difficult questions to answer. Please answer them: Sal, Could you answer these questions please: 1) Why do you wish for NCSE to be more like Richard Dawkins and Abbie Smith (and, I presume too, Christopher Hitchens and PZ Myers) in its pursuit of ensuring sound scientific education in America’s classrooms? (I think I know the answer already, but I hope you will elaborate.). 2) Why, as a Christian, you refuse to be as sensible as fellow believers like Francisco J. Ayala, Francis Collins, Keith Miller, Ken Miller, or my sister in recognizing that evolution is valid science and that it doesn’t conflict with their devout Christian beliefs? 3) Why is ID preferable to Klingon Cosmology? Respectfully submitted, John

1) Why do you wish for NCSE to be more like Richard Dawkins and Abbie Smith (and, I presume too, Christopher Hitchens and PZ Myers) in its pursuit of ensuring sound scientific education in America’s classrooms? (I think I know the answer already, but I hope you will elaborate.).

During evening refreshments, we discussed how we could generate funds for our respective causes—he to promote skepticism and debunk people like me, and me to promote intelligent design and debunk Darwinism (which underwrites Shermer’s brand of skepticism). We agreed that we should start a highly visible campaign against each other in which we argue the dangers of the other’s position. Having escalated the conflict between us, we could then go to our natural constituencies and urge them to fund each of us against the other. Bill Dembski

2) Why, as a Christian, you refuse to be as sensible as fellow believers like Francisco J. Ayala, Francis Collins, Keith Miller, Ken Miller, or my sister in recognizing that evolution is valid science and that it doesn’t conflict with their devout Christian beliefs?

3) Why is ID preferable to Klingon Cosmology? Respectfully submitted,

"The boy [Darwin] developed very slowly: he was given, when small, to inventing gratuitous fibs and to daydreaming..." Sir Gavin de Beer

....I beat a puppy, I believe, simply from enjoying the sense of power.... ... I attempted mathematics….but I got on very slowly. The work was repugnant to me, chiefly from my not being able to see any meaning in the early steps in algebra….I do not believe that I should ever have succeeded beyond a very low grade. Charles Darwin

I don’t mind calling my fellow YECs on bad ideas.

Do you mind offering better ideas in their place? You talk a lot, over a long period of time, about how "bad" and "lame" other YECers' ideas are, but you've never given us anything better as an alternative.

Blaming your fellow IDers and YECers for your camp's total lack of substance, accomplishment or credibility, is just plain cowardly and unmanly. They may be to blame for bad ideas, but you're to blame for choosing to stick with them despite knowing how bad their ideas are. Either prove your side is right, without pissing on anyone else, or admit it's wrong.

Sal quoted Dembski thusly:

During evening refreshments, we discussed how we could generate funds for our respective causes—he to promote skepticism and debunk people like me, and me to promote intelligent design and debunk Darwinism (which underwrites Shermer’s brand of skepticism). We agreed that we should start a highly visible campaign against each other in which we argue the dangers of the other’s position. Having escalated the conflict between us, we could then go to our natural constituencies and urge them to fund each of us against the other.

No mention of debunking "Darwinism" by doing actual science? Why this glaring omission? Most likely because Dembski, and Cordova, know full well there's absolutely no science that can possibly help them achieve their goal.

Sal's constant harping about dishonest political tactics only prove he knows full well his agenda is purely religio-political, not scientific; and that truth is of no use to him.

Salvador Cordova said:

Sal - These aren’t difficult questions to answer. Please answer them: Sal, Could you answer these questions please: 1) Why do you wish for NCSE to be more like Richard Dawkins and Abbie Smith (and, I presume too, Christopher Hitchens and PZ Myers) in its pursuit of ensuring sound scientific education in America’s classrooms? (I think I know the answer already, but I hope you will elaborate.). 2) Why, as a Christian, you refuse to be as sensible as fellow believers like Francisco J. Ayala, Francis Collins, Keith Miller, Ken Miller, or my sister in recognizing that evolution is valid science and that it doesn’t conflict with their devout Christian beliefs? 3) Why is ID preferable to Klingon Cosmology? Respectfully submitted, John

Apologies, John. 1.

1) Why do you wish for NCSE to be more like Richard Dawkins and Abbie Smith (and, I presume too, Christopher Hitchens and PZ Myers) in its pursuit of ensuring sound scientific education in America’s classrooms? (I think I know the answer already, but I hope you will elaborate.).

Because it will help the ID movement. Heck, PZ Myers was on the Expelled payroll!!!! :-) Did the producers of Expelled recruit Ken Miller, or Francis Collins, or van Til, or Ayala, etc. PZ will help keep those donations rolling in. Here is an interesting recollection of how to keep the show going:

During evening refreshments, we discussed how we could generate funds for our respective causes—he to promote skepticism and debunk people like me, and me to promote intelligent design and debunk Darwinism (which underwrites Shermer’s brand of skepticism). We agreed that we should start a highly visible campaign against each other in which we argue the dangers of the other’s position. Having escalated the conflict between us, we could then go to our natural constituencies and urge them to fund each of us against the other. Bill Dembski

And then you have Coyne saying: "In sciences pecking order, evolutionary biology lurks somewhere near the bottom, far closer to phrenology than to physics." That ought to be prominently displayed on the NCSE website somewhere. Some atheists/agnostics like David Sloan Wilson, Michael Ruse, probably others think the “Brights” will probably only make matters worse for the advancement of evolution. Recall, the glowing examples of institutions run by unencumbered atheists like Stalin, Pol Pot, Fidel Castro. Their nations weren't exactly fine-tuned utopias of secularism. "Being an athiest does not necessarily a rationalist make." Karl Marx and his intellectual descendants, seem to presume that they are above irrational pseudo-science (which is what communism was) merely because they are supposedly free of the "opiate of religion". The underlying attitude of the Brights is that their atheism will help them act more rationally and capably than a theist. That presumptuousness can be their undoing. Now to your 2nd question:

2) Why, as a Christian, you refuse to be as sensible as fellow believers like Francisco J. Ayala, Francis Collins, Keith Miller, Ken Miller, or my sister in recognizing that evolution is valid science and that it doesn’t conflict with their devout Christian beliefs?

You might be presuming my issue is theological. Not so. I was raised a Roman Catholic home (I'm no longer Catholic) and accepted Darwinism as taught to me in public school and approved by His Holiness the Pope. My mind was changed and my resolve against Darwinism grew for the same reason Behe (a former Darwinist) and Johnson (a former atheist) and Dembski (a former Darwinist and son of a biologist): works like Michael Denton's book. It would be hard to argue that theology was the primary consideration in their case or mine. Do you think Berlinski's involvement with the Discovery institute is rooted in some sort of theological objection? Hardly. And remember, to quote Davidson and Gould, "Neo Darwinism is Dead". If neo-Darwinism is dead, then why keep trying to revive this rotting cadaver. Time for more adequate theories!

3) Why is ID preferable to Klingon Cosmology? Respectfully submitted,

ID was developed from principles of information theory, and physics (Barrow, Tipler and others). Klingon Cosmology and Darwinism came from story tellers, and in the case of Darwinism, a puppy beater and fibber.

"The boy [Darwin] developed very slowly: he was given, when small, to inventing gratuitous fibs and to daydreaming..." Sir Gavin de Beer

and

....I beat a puppy, I believe, simply from enjoying the sense of power.... ... I attempted mathematics….but I got on very slowly. The work was repugnant to me, chiefly from my not being able to see any meaning in the early steps in algebra….I do not believe that I should ever have succeeded beyond a very low grade. Charles Darwin

So Darwin couldn't even do high school algebra? I did high school algebra, well, when I was in junior high.:-) And I didn't even go to a high school as respected as Stuyvescent, just some no-name. It's not Darwin's fault his math genes were inferior to Bill Dembski's. But it does underlie the fact the ID movement has better brain power than Charles Darwin. So even by that measure, Klingon cosmology is better than Darwinism, because the Klingons, being supposedly advanced technologically, could surely do high school algebra.

Sal,

The reason why Premise Media opted not to interview Ken Miller, Francisco Ayala, Francis Collins or Keith Miller should have been obvious to you. They would have diluted severely their take-home messages that "belief in evolution equals DENIAL OF GOD" and that "Darwin's evil thought led directly to Hitler's", and inspired Hitler to conceive of and then carry out, the Holocaust.

I'm impressed that you remember the name of my high school, but you've misspelled the name. It's Stuyvesant. And you should heed the pledge made by the school's current principal at the time of the 2005 Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District trial: that Intelligent Design would never be taught at Stuvyesant since it isn't scientific. A pledge that is worth noting since it was made by the principal of America's foremost high school devoted to the sciences, mathematics and technology.

Surely you must agree with Raging Bee's astute assessment of your latest remarks, admitting that your agenda isn't that of science, but rather, one which rams your religious views down the throats of others by political means. Right?

John

Salvador Cordova said:

Salvador Cordova said: But the Big Bang has bearing on YEC, because YEC not only opposes Darwinism but mainstream cosmology and geology. Thus you are in correct to say that this logically implies I’m “ignorant and/or dishonest”. Even if I am ““ignorant and/or dishonest” your conclusions don’t logically follow your premise that “The big bang theory has nothing to do with evolution” since that premise is irrelevant to the issue of big bang vs. YEC cosmologies. Your fallacy is known in formal logic as a non-sequitur. You can’t expect to win arguments against creationist if this is how you debate. Kind of embarrassing an ignorant person such as myself can point out your non-sequiturs. It only reinforces the public perception that Darwinists are not logical in their inferences. :-)

That is truly one of the most hilarious statements I’ve ever read in Panda’s Thumbs, and I’ve seen some incredible whoppers around here. I make a correct statement to stop Sal’s attempt at taking the discussion off topic and he calls it a “non-sequitur”! ROTFL!

Apparently you are still comprehension challenged. Is the issue of the Big Bang relevant to YEC or not? Answer: Yes Is the issue of YEC limited only to issues about biological evolution: Answer: No. Does it therefore imply that when one raises the issues of the Big Bang vs. YEC, one is necessarily dishonest? Answer: No. Let me illustrate what a non-sequitur is:

For example, I can say, “2+2=4″ and “the sky is blue today”. But to say, “2+2=4 implies the the sky is blue today” is not a logical construction, even though both the premise (”2+2=4″) and the conclusion (”the sky is blue today”) are both true. What is false is to say the premise necessarily implies the conclusion.

So even if I'm "dishonest and/or ignorant" your cannot logically imply this supposed conclusion:

That Sal would even bring that into this discussion shows he is as ignorant and/or dishonest as most Creationist “scientists”.

from the premise:

The big bang theory has nothing to do with evolution.

You fail to recognize an obvious error in logic. I've even provided you the correct characterization of your error. See this wiki entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non_sequitur_(logic)

The term is often used in everyday speech and reasoning to describe a statement in which premise and conclusion are totally unrelated but which is used as if they were. An example might be: "If I buy this cell phone, all people will love me." However, there is no actual relation between buying a cell phone and the love of all people. This kind of reasoning is often used in advertising to trigger an emotional purchase.

So Dale, you are now invited to admit to the whole world that I've properly dissected your non-sequitur.

You might be presuming my issue is theological. Not so. I was raised a Roman Catholic home (I’m no longer Catholic) and accepted Darwinism as taught to me in public school and approved by His Holiness the Pope. My mind was changed and my resolve against Darwinism grew for the same reason Behe (a former Darwinist) and Johnson (a former atheist) and Dembski (a former Darwinist and son of a biologist): works like Michael Denton’s book. It would be hard to argue that theology was the primary consideration in their case or mine. Do you think Berlinski’s involvement with the Discovery institute is rooted in some sort of theological objection? Hardly. And remember, to quote Davidson and Gould, “Neo Darwinism is Dead”. If neo-Darwinism is dead, then why keep trying to revive this rotting cadaver. Time for more adequate theories!

An attempt to bring up an unrelated subject to distract opponents of an argument.

Stuart wrote: I am not obliged to agree with their objections Sal. If you really wish to junk BB cosmology, you need to find evidence that those three empirical observations I listed are wrong.

Furthermore variations in the CMBR are consistent with predictions of acoustic modes that existed in the primordial fireball prior to the end of the opaque era. Just lucky I guess?

The measurements by the BOOMERANG and MAXIMA telescopes came in... And then the dust settled, revealing that two pillars of big bang theory were squarely in conflict... That roar in the heavens may have been laughter at our cosmic confusion Scientific American

the Boomerang results imply that subatomic particles account for 50 percent more mass than standard big bang theory predicts—a difference 23 times larger than the error bars of the theory Max Tegmark

"There are no known ways to reconcile these measurements and predictions," says nucleosynthesis expert David R. Tytler of the University of California at San Diego.

So Darwin couldn’t even do high school algebra? I did high school algebra, well, when I was in junior high.:-) And I didn’t even go to a high school as respected as Stuyvescent, just some no-name. It’s not Darwin’s fault his math genes were inferior to Bill Dembski’s. But it does underlie the fact the ID movement has better brain power than Charles Darwin.

— Sal of Several Shallow Degrees

Earlier, Salvador Cordova said: I was most sympathetic to Walter Bradley's (co-author of the founding book of ID, Mysery of Life's Origin, in 1984) which was an OEC position without a lot of details. His writings are available on the Web.

Frank J asked: So which OEC positions, if any, do you find more convincing (in terms of evidence, not what your “heart says”) than YEC? Ross’s? Dembski’s?

I became more sympathetic to YEC in 2002 when there was dissent at my university (GMU) over the big bang, and even some professors were entertaining VSL (variable speed of light) cosmologies. I think the ICR model of "appearance of age" is horrible. One can delude themselves to believe anything with such arguments. I've been skeptical of YEC because it would require a total reworking of Electrodynamics and possibly atomic models. The best YEC model for a re-worked electrodynamics has been proposed by Lucas. The slight correction to Maxwell's equation was suggested in this paper: http://tinyurl.com/cjlq8h Also, the toroidal model of the electron versus an infinitesimal point might be promising. This maybe fundamental to the success of YEC. I met a quantum chemist by the name of Ed Boudreaux who thinks the torodial model will make chemical analysis much easier. 50 million dollars has been invested in a competing model by Randall Mills (I think Mill's toroidal model is flawed), but certainly big money is on the sidelines with some interest. It is not well known, but Arthur Holly Compton, thought the electron was a toroid.... But these are all tentative speculations for the time being, I'd welcome feedback, especially regarding the force law as derived by Lucas. Thank you for asking.

Dale said: Your stated rejection of YEC

Salvador Cordova said:

Stuart wrote: I am not obliged to agree with their objections Sal. If you really wish to junk BB cosmology, you need to find evidence that those three empirical observations I listed are wrong.

No that is not correct. It would not be necessary to demonstrate the observations are incorrect. Even granting the observations are correct, they do not necessarily infer the Big Bang is true to the exclusion of other possible cosmologies. Your supposed conclusions do not follow from your premises. Are you channeling Dale Husband? :-)

Salvador Cordova said:

Dale said: Your stated rejection of YEC

Where did I say I reject YEC? I stated I rejected YEC (past tense), I now think it is possible.

Dale Husband said:

Earlier, Salvador Cordova said: I was most sympathetic to Walter Bradley's (co-author of the founding book of ID, Mysery of Life's Origin, in 1984) which was an OEC position without a lot of details. His writings are available on the Web.

If he had stopped there, that would have been appropriate, for he had already answered this question:

Frank J asked: So which OEC positions, if any, do you find more convincing (in terms of evidence, not what your “heart says”) than YEC? Ross’s? Dembski’s?

But instead Salvador continued in THIS direction:

I became more sympathetic to YEC in 2002 when there was dissent at my university (GMU) over the big bang, and even some professors were entertaining VSL (variable speed of light) cosmologies. I think the ICR model of "appearance of age" is horrible. One can delude themselves to believe anything with such arguments. I've been skeptical of YEC because it would require a total reworking of Electrodynamics and possibly atomic models. The best YEC model for a re-worked electrodynamics has been proposed by Lucas. The slight correction to Maxwell's equation was suggested in this paper: http://tinyurl.com/cjlq8h Also, the toroidal model of the electron versus an infinitesimal point might be promising. This maybe fundamental to the success of YEC. I met a quantum chemist by the name of Ed Boudreaux who thinks the torodial model will make chemical analysis much easier. 50 million dollars has been invested in a competing model by Randall Mills (I think Mill's toroidal model is flawed), but certainly big money is on the sidelines with some interest. It is not well known, but Arthur Holly Compton, thought the electron was a toroid.... But these are all tentative speculations for the time being, I'd welcome feedback, especially regarding the force law as derived by Lucas. Thank you for asking.

Why even mention the Big Bang and a few dissenters over it at all, then? Not only does it have nothing to do with evolution, it also has nothing to do with the issue of the age of the Earth, except to define its maximum possible age. Thus once can reject the Big Bang theory and be either a YEC, an OEC, an ID promoter, or even an evolutionist. But starting an argument over the Big Bang is a great way to distract your opponents from zeroing in on your inability to defend your anti-evolution position.

John Kwok said: Dale, You simply don't understand. For our "pal" Sal, the YEC/ID-believing part-time MS physics student at Johns Hopkins University, the Big Bang is as important as whether or not evolution is true, simply because both deal with ORIGINS:

Dale Husband said:

John Kwok said: Dale, You simply don't understand. For our "pal" Sal, the YEC/ID-believing part-time MS physics student at Johns Hopkins University, the Big Bang is as important as whether or not evolution is true, simply because both deal with ORIGINS:

What I find ironic is that the Big Bang theory is the best thing Creationists have going for them, yet Sal wants to challenge it? That's like saying you want to support the American troops in Iraq by sending arms to the Iraqi insurgents!

Dale Husband wrote: Have you never heard of the Cosmic Background Radiation, you twit?

Salvador wrote: Regarding CMBR, consider Arthur Eddington’s 1926 paper “The temperature of space”, Internal constitution of the stars, Cambridge University Press.

Salvador Cordova said: Heck, PZ Myers was on the Expelled payroll!!!! :-)

And then you have Coyne saying: "In sciences pecking order, evolutionary biology lurks somewhere near the bottom, far closer to phrenology than to physics." That ought to be prominently displayed on the NCSE website somewhere. Some atheists/agnostics like David Sloan Wilson, Michael Ruse, probably others think the “Brights” will probably only make matters worse for the advancement of evolution.

Recall, the glowing examples of institutions run by unencumbered atheists like Stalin, Pol Pot, Fidel Castro. Their nations weren't exactly fine-tuned utopias of secularism.

2) Why, as a Christian, you refuse to be as sensible as fellow believers like Francisco J. Ayala, Francis Collins, Keith Miller, Ken Miller, or my sister in recognizing that evolution is valid science and that it doesn’t conflict with their devout Christian beliefs?

You might be presuming my issue is theological. Not so. I was raised a Roman Catholic home (I'm no longer Catholic) and accepted Darwinism as taught to me in public school and approved by His Holiness the Pope.

My mind was changed and my resolve against Darwinism grew for the same reason Behe (a former Darwinist) and Johnson (a former atheist) and Dembski (a former Darwinist and son of a biologist): works like Michael Denton's book.

It would be hard to argue that theology was the primary consideration in their case or mine. Do you think Berlinski's involvement with the Discovery institute is rooted in some sort of theological objection? Hardly.

And remember, to quote Davidson and Gould, "Neo Darwinism is Dead". If neo-Darwinism is dead, then why keep trying to revive this rotting cadaver. Time for more adequate theories!

So Darwin couldn't even do high school algebra? I did high school algebra, well, when I was in junior high.:-) And I didn't even go to a high school as respected as Stuyvescent, just some no-name.

It's not Darwin's fault his math genes were inferior to Bill Dembski's. But it does underlie the fact the ID movement has better brain power than Charles Darwin. So even by that measure, Klingon cosmology is better than Darwinism, because the Klingons, being supposedly advanced technologically, could surely do high school algebra.

Dale Husband said: Now, unless and until you deal with the actual issue of evolution and why you reject it, you will not move forward with me; I will just keep shooting you down.

Salvador Cordova said:

Dale said: Your stated rejection of YEC

Where did I say I reject YEC? I stated I rejected YEC (past tense), I now think it is possible.

Stanton said:

Dale Husband said: Now, unless and until you deal with the actual issue of evolution and why you reject it, you will not move forward with me; I will just keep shooting you down.

Well, it's hard not to shoot Slimy Sal down, given as how a) all he can do is lie or produce lame, moronic non-arguments, and b) he's probably embarrassed to admit that his primary reason for rejecting evolution is because he's paid specifically to do so, like everyone else at the Discovery Institute.

RBH wrote of Todd Wood: (I strongly doubt he can make evolutionists look silly to anyone but a flock of ignorant believers.)

Salvador Cordova said:

Dale Husband wrote: Have you never heard of the Cosmic Background Radiation, you twit?

Apparently I have heard of Cosmic Backgroudn Radiation, I referenced it here:

Salvador wrote: Regarding CMBR, consider Arthur Eddington’s 1926 paper “The temperature of space”, Internal constitution of the stars, Cambridge University Press.

CMBR stands for "Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation". So not only have I discussed it here, I even specified what region of the electro-magnetic spectrum the background radiation is found at, namely, the Microwave region. So apparently not only have I heard of Cosmic Background radiation, I'm familiar with its spectral characteristics and it's relationship to black body radiation theories. You were saying, Dale? :-)

Salvador Cordova said: Perhaps, but I just showed how one evolutionist, Dale Husband, made himself look silly. Hey Dale, did you not know what CMBR stood for? Do you still not comprehend the non-sequiturs in your inferences? Be honest now. hehehe... PandasThumb talks about science education. Perhaps that education should start with their own, like, ahem, Dale Husband. Here's a start, repeat after me, Dale, "CMBR = Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation" "CMBR = Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation"

I guess Salvador Cordova will just keep making smart-aleck remarks, lies, and red herrings rather than focus on the issue of why he rejects evolution.

... explain how 2 ur-beetles escaping from Mount Ararat could give rise to 350,000+ species of beetles found on every continent except Antarctica in about 4,000 years.

Dale Husband said: I guess Salvador Cordova will just keep making smart-aleck remarks, lies, and red herrings rather than focus on the issue of why he rejects evolution.

stevaroni said:

... explain how 2 ur-beetles escaping from Mount Ararat could give rise to 350,000+ species of beetles found on every continent except Antarctica in about 4,000 years.

Clearly, God hates Antarctica. After all, look how freakin' cold and desolate he made it. Or did I misunderstand the question?

Salvador Cordova said:

RBH wrote of Todd Wood: (I strongly doubt he can make evolutionists look silly to anyone but a flock of ignorant believers.)

Perhaps, but I just showed how one evolutionist, Dale Husband, made himself look silly.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/01/just_when_you_think_slimy_sal.php Just when you think Slimy Sal couldn't sink any lower… Category: Stupidity Posted on: January 2, 2008 4:54 PM, by PZ Myers He's just got to dive into the Marianas Trench. Quote-mining (badly) my daughter isn't just ugly, it's vile and loathsome and despicable…but that's typical Cordova, now declared Asshole of the Year. http://udoj.wordpress.com/2008/01/02/salvador-cordova-asshole-of-the-year/

So whether religion enhances human reproductive fitness or whether religion is a highly successful parasitic meme, natural selection will prevail, and empirical evidence suggests what evolution has perfected through the process of natural selection will remain, namely religion. Thus, natural selection favors the persistence of creationists.

Dale whines: You failed to spell it out, so I overlooked it.

Stuart wrote: Big Bang rests upon three prominent observations that have withstood the tests of time. The correlation of redshift with distance calibrated by “standard candles”, the CMBR and D/H ratios.

No that is not correct. It would not be necessary to demonstrate the observations are incorrect. Even granting the observations are correct, they do not necessarily infer the Big Bang is true to the exclusion of other possible cosmologies. Your supposed conclusions do not follow from your premises. Are you channeling Dale Husband? :-) Regarding CMBR, consider Arthur Eddington’s 1926 paper “The temperature of space”, Internal constitution of the stars, Cambridge University Press. He calculated the minimum temperature which any body in space would eventually cool to if not sustained by some heat source except for things like starlight from all the stars. Eddington calculated 3 degrees Kelvin in 1926 and Regner got the value of 2.8 degrees Kelvin in 1933. It follows from theories of black body radiation, that objects at that temperature would be radiating in the same microwave ranges detected by COBE or Penzias’ Nobel –prize-winning measurement. So detection of CMBR does not imply the Big Bang is true to the exclusion of other theories. In light of Eddington’s findings, CMBR could be consistent with almost any cosmology! In fact, the prediction of temperature for the Big Bang by Gammow was 50 degrees Kelvin. It appears then the discovery CMBR being “proof” of the big bang was more a victory for post-diction.

It seems not to be generally realized that the Planck law for the cosmic background radiation is by no means uniquely implicative of a primeval global explosion, but follows from very general principles in a temporally homogeneous universe that enjoys global energy conservation (e.g., Segal 1983).

A priori, however, the observed isotropy of the cosmic background radiation appears inconsistent with the mechanism for its production in an expanding universe. A supplementary, ad hoc, mechanism is required to reconcile the expansion of the universe with the observed isotropy.

Salvador Cordova said:

Dale whines: You failed to spell it out, so I overlooked it.

I doubt that was the case. I actually had a clue what CMBR meant, and well, Dale was clueless. hehehe.... And so Dale, you've just effectively admitted I was more literate in these matters than you. I agree with PandasThumb, the state of science education in the USA is deplorable. Evolutionist Dale Husband is less literate in basic science than I am. Now that's pathetic. But being the nice guy I am, I'm happy to assist in his re-medial education in science. Got that Dale? Write that down: "CMBR" = Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation "CMBR" = Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation "CMBR" = Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation ....

That should have been:

"I’ve always said “Cosmic Background Radiation” in my discussions of the Big Bang, which I would have shortened to “CBR”, not CMBR, so that I would have said it a different way than you doesn’t mean squat about who knows more about the subject matter than the other."

I may make typos occationally, but I do not constantly make stupid remarks outright like that punk Salvador does.

Salvador Cordova said:

Dale said: Your stated rejection of YEC

Where did I say I reject YEC? I stated I rejected YEC (past tense), I now think it is possible.

Salvador sez:

No that is not correct. It would not be necessary to demonstrate the observations are incorrect. Even granting the observations are correct, they do not necessarily infer the Big Bang is true to the exclusion of other possible cosmologies. Your supposed conclusions do not follow from your premises. Are you channeling Dale Husband? :-) Regarding CMBR, consider Arthur Eddington’s 1926 paper “The temperature of space”, Internal constitution of the stars, Cambridge University Press. He calculated the minimum temperature which any body in space would eventually cool to if not sustained by some heat source except for things like starlight from all the stars. Eddington calculated 3 degrees Kelvin in 1926 and Regner got the value of 2.8 degrees Kelvin in 1933. It follows from theories of black body radiation, that objects at that temperature would be radiating in the same microwave ranges detected by COBE or Penzias’ Nobel –prize-winning measurement. So detection of CMBR does not imply the Big Bang is true to the exclusion of other theories. In light of Eddington’s findings, CMBR could be consistent with almost any cosmology! In fact, the prediction of temperature for the Big Bang by Gammow was 50 degrees Kelvin. It appears then the discovery CMBR being “proof” of the big bang was more a victory for post-diction.

Do you not understand my rebuttal of Stuart’s point, or do I need to spoon feed you that one too.

Dale Husband said: I guess Salvador Cordova will just keep making smart-aleck remarks, lies, and red herrings rather than focus on the issue of why he rejects evolution.

Salvador Cordova said: I did high school algebra, well, when I was in junior high.:-) And I didn't even go to a high school as respected as Stuyvescent, just some no-name.

eric said: Sal, you never answered my earlier question: if you reject evolution beacuse it leaves no place for God, why do you not reject celestial mechanics, the germ theory of disease, or atomic theory? They also leave no room for God.

Are you really declaring that men such as C. Hodge, Shedd, Beattie, Adger, A.A. Hodge, Warfield, Bavinck, Machen, Schaeffer, and Gerstner, as well as many lesser but faithful servants here in Potomac, are not fit to be ministers of the Gospel in the PCA? .... Your "Declaration" appears to us to suggest that you believe we cannot live together in the same ecclesiastical fellowship--that you would have those of us who hold the views you disagree with defrocked. We may also ask, And what of those of us who share your view of Genesis 1, but do not agree that other views deny the fundamentals of our system. Is this a denial of a fundamental as well? Must we go too? Must we all be put out of office, or would you have us resign? Is this what you intend? Our brothers, we plead with you to reconsider. Please reflect upon what appears to us to be the godly wisdom of Carl Henry, one of the chief defenders of the inerrancy of God's Word in our time. After nearly 100 pages summarizing in detail and comparing the arguments and counter-arguments of creationists, theistic evolutionists, gap and multiple gap theorists, big-bangers, naturalists, humanists, etc., Henry concludes: "It would be a strategic and theological blunder of the first magnitude were evangelicals to elevate the current dispute over dating to credal status, or to consider one or another of the scientific options a test of theological fidelity. Faith in an inerrant Bible does not rest on a commitment to the recency or antiquity of the earth or even to only a 6000-year antiquity for man; the Genesis account does not fix the precise antiquity of either the earth or of man. Exodus 20:11, to which scientific creationists appeal when insisting that biblical inerrancy requires recent creation, is not decisive; while God's seventh-day rest sanctions the sabbath day, Genesis hardly limits God's rest to a 24-hour period. The Bible does not require belief in six literal 24-hour creation days on the basis of Genesis 1-2 nor does it require belief in successive ages corresponding to modern geological periods. . . .

eric said: Sal, you never answered my earlier question: if you reject evolution beacuse it leaves no place for God, why do you not reject celestial mechanics, the germ theory of disease, or atomic theory? They also leave no room for God.

Are you really declaring that men such as C. Hodge, Shedd, Beattie, Adger, A.A. Hodge, Warfield, Bavinck, Machen, Schaeffer, and Gerstner, as well as many lesser but faithful servants here in Potomac, are not fit to be ministers of the Gospel in the PCA? .... Your "Declaration" appears to us to suggest that you believe we cannot live together in the same ecclesiastical fellowship--that you would have those of us who hold the views you disagree with defrocked. We may also ask, And what of those of us who share your view of Genesis 1, but do not agree that other views deny the fundamentals of our system. Is this a denial of a fundamental as well? Must we go too? Must we all be put out of office, or would you have us resign? Is this what you intend? Our brothers, we plead with you to reconsider. Please reflect upon what appears to us to be the godly wisdom of Carl Henry, one of the chief defenders of the inerrancy of God's Word in our time. After nearly 100 pages summarizing in detail and comparing the arguments and counter-arguments of creationists, theistic evolutionists, gap and multiple gap theorists, big-bangers, naturalists, humanists, etc., Henry concludes: "It would be a strategic and theological blunder of the first magnitude were evangelicals to elevate the current dispute over dating to credal status, or to consider one or another of the scientific options a test of theological fidelity. Faith in an inerrant Bible does not rest on a commitment to the recency or antiquity of the earth or even to only a 6000-year antiquity for man; the Genesis account does not fix the precise antiquity of either the earth or of man. Exodus 20:11, to which scientific creationists appeal when insisting that biblical inerrancy requires recent creation, is not decisive; while God's seventh-day rest sanctions the sabbath day, Genesis hardly limits God's rest to a 24-hour period. The Bible does not require belief in six literal 24-hour creation days on the basis of Genesis 1-2 nor does it require belief in successive ages corresponding to modern geological periods. . . .

Dale wrote: Of course I understood it, Sally.

Have you never heard of the Cosmic Background Radiation, you twit? It’s total absence would have falsified the Big Bang, because it was a specific prediction of that theory.

I reject Darwinism for the reasons articulated by three fine scientists in their books: 1. Genetic Entropy by Cornell Geneticist John Sanford 2. Evolution a Theory in Crisis by Michael Denton 3. Cybernetic Approach to Evolution by AE Wilder Smith I’m sympathetic to YEC, but not fully convinced.

— Salvador Cordova

A priori, however, the observed isotropy of the cosmic background radiation appears inconsistent with the mechanism for its production in an expanding universe. A supplementary, ad hoc, mechanism is required to reconcile the expansion of the universe with the observed isotropy.

Isotropy is uniformity in all directions. Precise definitions depend on the subject area. The word is made up from Greek iso (equal) and tropos (direction).

The observed apparent time dilation of supernovae light curves claimed recently by Leibundgut et al. to establish directly the “expansion of the universe” is, rather, a general implication of fundamental physics. In particular, it applies to chronometric cosmology, in which it appears explicitly as a generalized Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction. The dilation effect was earlier shown in the proper motion–to–redshift relation of superluminal sources, as analyzed in the frame of chronometric cosmology by Segal, providing an estimate of the cosmic distance scale.

So, no, you apparently didn’t understand what I said, otherwise you wouldn’t have insinuated I didn’t know anything about the Cosmic Background Radiation.

Salvador Cordova said: I understand your disconcert, since, me, being so rock bottom in the pecking order of science sort of impies you're right down here with me.

Just so you understand where you are in the pecking order of intelligence, success, and contributions to society:

Frank J wrote: Heck, Last Thursdayism is technically “possible.” If some new science that’s as unexpected now as quantum mechanics was in Newton’s day, we might have to recalculate everything. But as it stands now, which is all we gave to go by, LT and YEC are as near zero in terms of probability as can be. But just for fun, please tell us your best guess of probability in terms of % (from “less than 1” to “more than 99”) for: 1. YEC 2. Old (~4.5 BY) earth, young (~6-20 KY) life 3. Progressive OEC (all mainstream science chronology but no common descent) 4. Behe’s position (#3 + common descent but not Darwinian mechanism) 5. Miller/Collins position (#4 + Darwinian mechanism, interactive (non-Deist) God as ultimate cause)

Salvador Cordova said: Irreducible Complexity would argue against transitionals. The only rescue of the theory would be some sort of hopeful monster. In principle it is possible. Consider, caterpillars turn to butterflies in one generation. This is an astonishing transformation that is on the order of what one would expect of macro-evolution, or hopeful monsters, but it strikes me as non-parsimonious.

Besides that, Irreducible Complexity can result from evolution, and then the complex organ or system gets stuck that way, limiting what evolution can do to change things later. An example would be the vertebrate eye, which is wired backwards because the ancestral eye, quite ironically developed via the blind process of evolution that way and it was too complex for a mutation to turn the wiring around the right way without disrupting the eye's function.

Behe's claim that Irreducible Complexity was a problem for evolution is actually an example of his irreducible stupidity.

Salvador Cordova said: I reject Darwinism for the reasons articulated by three fine scientists in their books: 1. Genetic Entropy by Cornell Geneticist John Sanford 2. Evolution a Theory in Crisis by Michael Denton 3. Cybernetic Approach to Evolution by AE Wilder Smith I'm sympathetic to YEC, but not fully convinced.

Salvador Cordova said:

eric said: Sal, you never answered my earlier question: if you reject evolution beacuse it leaves no place for God, why do you not reject celestial mechanics, the germ theory of disease, or atomic theory? They also leave no room for God.

I don't reject evolution on those grounds. So your premise is incorrect.

I reject Darwinism for the reasons articulated by three fine scientists in their books...

2. Old (~4.5 BY) earth, young (~6-20 KY) life ...I’d put my money on this one, personally.

— Salvador Cordoba

Frank J said:

2. Old (~4.5 BY) earth, young (~6-20 KY) life ...I’d put my money on this one, personally.

— Salvador Cordoba

Thanks again! Even though I disagree with your estimates, I think that today is your lucky day, because the closest match I know of to your position is that of Ray Martinez. As you might know, he has been having trouble finishing (or possibly starting) a technical paper describing his "theory" that he has been promising for years. Maybe you can help him out, and vice versa. Maybe then the hopeless confusion of anti-evolution positions can finally exhibit some convernence, if not necessarily the "kind" that is "neither sought nor fabricated."

Dale,

I don't know the exact link, but Denton himself has rejected Intelligent Design and wishes that ID creationists wouldn't cite his book as evidence supporting their breathtaking inane objections to evolution.

Best,

John

P. S. Just heard the Chicago Symphony Orchestra play a memorable interpretation of the Bruckner 8th Symphony under the baton of its legendary principal conductor, Bernard Haitink, at Carnegie Hall.

Sal,

I strongly doubt you would have passed the extremely difficult entrance exam that's required for admittance to New York City's elite public high schools: Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, Brooklyn Tech, and several others. Who cares if you mastered algebra in junior high school when you seem incapable, as a "part-time M. S. graduate student in physics at Johns Hopkins University" of explaining anything sensibly in astrophysics, let alone, evolutionary biology.

Incidentally your "Messiah" Bill Dembski bragged to me that he knew principals of scores of Texas high schools who wanted only Intelligent Design, NOT EVOLUTION, taught in their science classrooms. After I told him that Stuyvesant's principal has pledged never to have ID taught there, I asked him if any of these principals taught a rigorous, freshman-only introductory course in physics. He couldn't answer (BTW, Stuyvesant's principal has taught physics there for more than twenty years, and spent much of that time too as the research coordinator in charge of directing student research for both the Intel Science Talent Search and International Science and Engineering Fair.).

Mike Elzinga has you pegged correctly as this:

"Nobody is lower on the pecking order than you. Congratulations; you are the definition of the bottom."

I trust you'll continue enjoying your membership in the Dishonesty Institute IDiot Borg Collective.

Live Long and Prosper (as a DI IDiot Borg drone),

John Kwok

John Kwok said: Dale, I don't know the exact link, but Denton himself has rejected Intelligent Design and wishes that ID creationists wouldn't cite his book as evidence supporting their breathtaking inane objections to evolution. Best, John

Michael John Denton (born 25 August 1943) is a British-Australian author and biochemist. In 1973, Denton received his PhD in Biochemistry from King's College London.[1] Denton wrote Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (1985), which was instrumental in starting the Intelligent Design movement,[2] and Nature's Destiny (1998). [3] Denton was an influential proponent of Intelligent Design and is a former Senior Fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, hub of the Intelligent Design movement.[4] Denton's views have changed over the years. His second book Nature's Destiny argues for a law-like evolutionary unfolding of life and therefore assumes evolution as a given.[5] He no longer openly associates with Discovery, and the Institute no longer lists him as a fellow.[6]

Dale said: Are you really so stupid, Sal, as to suggest seriously that isotropy is a PROBLEM for the Big Bang theory?!

background radiation is exceptionally smooth, which presented a problem in that conventional expansion would mean that photons coming from opposite directions in the sky were coming from regions that had never been in contact with each other.

the classic conundrum of the big bang cosmology: why does the universe appear flat, homogeneous and isotropic in accordance with the cosmological principle when one would expect, on the basis of the physics of the big bang, a highly curved, heterogeneous universe?

While Davies' theory will cause much debate in the scientific community and cause many physics assumptions to collapse, it will account for many other puzzles, such as why far-flung parts of the universe are roughly at the same temperature and how elements such as helium formed in the early universe.

The leftover glow from the Big Bang, known as the cosmic microwave background (CMB), has been observed in great detail. It shows that the entire observable Universe was once at a common temperature. This poses a conundrum because large sections of our observable Universe have never been in causal contact - they have never been able to communicate because light moves too slowly to have crossed the distance between them. If they have never been in contact with each other, how do opposite sides of the observable Universe know what temperature to be? In the early 1980's some physicists and astronomers came up with a possible solution to this problem (and several others). They proposed 'inflation', a period of exponentially accelerated expansion during the very early Universe before the CMB was emitted. Inflation means that the distant parts of our observable Universe were very close to each other before inflation occurred. Close enough that they were in causal contact and thermal equilibrium could be achieved. But what if there was another solution? What if everything was in causal contact because the speed of light was faster in the past?

I strongly doubt he can make evolutionists look silly to anyone but a flock of ignorant believers. --RBH

Slimy Sal Cordova said: "CMBR" = Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation ....

phantomreader42 said:

Slimy Sal Cordova said: "CMBR" = Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation ....

Sal Cordova = Lying Sack of Shit Sal Cordova = Lying Sack of Shit Sal Cordova = Lying Sack of Shit Sal Cordova = Lying Sack of Shit Sal Cordova = Lying Sack of Shit Sal Cordova = Lying Sack of Shit Sal Cordova = Lying Sack of Shit Sal Cordova = Lying Sack of Shit Sal Cordova = Lying Sack of Shit Sal Cordova = Lying Sack of Shit

Dale,

At least Denton can think for himself and realize when he's in error. Sal prides himself on being a "Johns Hopkins M. S. physics graduate student", but he reminds me of any jerk who walks around with a brand new Hasselblad or Leica camera, claiming that he's a photographic genius, but capable of producing only the worst imaginable pictures possible with his fancy, quite expensive, photographic equipment.

I strongly suspect Sal donated his mind to both Bill Dembski and the Dishonesty Institute. Maybe it's hiding somewhere in Dembski's seminary office.... LOL!!!

Cheers,

John

phantomreader42 said:

phantomreader42 said:

Slimy Sal Cordova said: "CMBR" = Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation ....

Sal Cordova = Lying Sack of Shit Sal Cordova = Lying Sack of Shit Sal Cordova = Lying Sack of Shit Sal Cordova = Lying Sack of Shit Sal Cordova = Lying Sack of Shit Sal Cordova = Lying Sack of Shit Sal Cordova = Lying Sack of Shit Sal Cordova = Lying Sack of Shit Sal Cordova = Lying Sack of Shit Sal Cordova = Lying Sack of Shit

There. Now Slimy Sal can quit whining and take responsibility for his massive dishonesty. Oh, wait, no, there's no chance of that. Lying is his job, and his religion.

Sal prides himself on being a “Johns Hopkins M. S. physics graduate student”,

phantom reader wrote: Sal Cordova = Lying Sack of Shit

Salvador Cordova said: But even if I'm stupid, I was able to do Algebra in junior high (unlike Darwin)

background radiation is exceptionally smooth, which presented a problem in that conventional expansion would mean that photons coming from opposite directions in the sky were coming from regions that had never been in contact with each other.

"Salvador wrote:

Regarding CMBR, consider Arthur Eddington’s 1926 paper “The temperature of space”, Internal constitution of the stars, Cambridge University Press."

Which has nothing to do with the CMBR.

Sal, why not read Ned Wright's tutorial? It will save you some embarrassment, assuming its possible for you to feel any.

http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/Eddington-T0.html

Oh and Sal, quoting references regarding acoustic modes in the primordial fireball prior to the launch of WMAP, is not a good idea.

Try something post 2006 or so?

http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/CMB-DT.html

Of course, this also brings up other topics of interests, as well, like how, if Intelligent Design proponents really are right about Evolutionary Biology, then how come no Intelligent Design proponents, among those precious few who are motivated to do research in the first place, have been able to produce any convincing evidence to support any of their arguments?

— Stanton

3. Progressive OEC (all mainstream science chronology but no common descent) Plausible, but I can’t put a number to the guess. I certainly think it would be hard to find a common ancestor to plants and animals. Beyond that, what could evolve? I’m not familiar enough with the issue.

— Salvador Cordova

Are you also aware that Michael Denton has long since revised and repudiated his views concerning Evolutionary Biology and Intelligent Design, to the point where he and the Discovery Institute, the organization that you work for, have severed ties for several years? Haven’t you gotten around to reading Denton’s other, much more recent book, Nature’s Destiny?

— Stanton

Sal wrote:

"I certainly think it would be hard to find a common ancestor to plants and animals. Beyond that, what could evolve? I’m not familiar enough with the issue."

How original. Man no one ever thought of that one before, those fancy scientists are all stumped! Who could ever conceive of a single celled eukaryote with mitochondria and no chloroplasts, it's impossible I tells ya. Oh wait:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/02/plant_and_animal_development_c.php

I guess it's not so impossible after all. Of course, since the common ancestor existed over 1.6 billion years ago, Sal will probably insist that unless you can produce the exact living individual for him that it's all make believe. Oh well, at least he choose a genuinely complicated issue to mock and he even admitted that he was ignorant, although that didn't stop him from expressing his uninformed opinion.

Frank J said: ...Namely that it would complicate the issue. That's politician-speak for "it would undermine my propaganda."

Salvador Cordova said: I reject Darwinism for the reasons articulated by three fine scientists in their books: 1. Genetic Entropy by Cornell Geneticist John Sanford 2. Evolution a Theory in Crisis by Michael Denton 3. Cybernetic Approach to Evolution by AE Wilder Smith I'm sympathetic to YEC, but not fully convinced.

Salvador Cordova said:

Sal prides himself on being a “Johns Hopkins M. S. physics graduate student”,

Where have I every tried to argue I'm intelligent. I just said I'm stupid. There, are you happy, now. :-) But even if I'm stupid, I was able to do Algebra in junior high (unlike Darwin), and I have a better understanding of the Big Bang than Dale Husband.

phantom reader wrote: Sal Cordova = Lying Sack of Shit

I don't see how the acronym "Sal Cordova" can be interpreted that way. The acronym would be LSOS.

Frank J said:

Are you also aware that Michael Denton has long since revised and repudiated his views concerning Evolutionary Biology and Intelligent Design, to the point where he and the Discovery Institute, the organization that you work for, have severed ties for several years? Haven’t you gotten around to reading Denton’s other, much more recent book, Nature’s Destiny?

— Stanton

That is of particular interest to me. In the ~10 years of paying attention to anti-evolution activists, ~99% cite Denton's first book and pretend that the 2nd doesn't exist. When they are called on it, they usually give a pathetic excuse, not unlike the one the "Expelled" producers gave for not interviewing Miller, Collins, etc. Namely that it would complicate the issue. That's politician-speak for "it would undermine my propaganda."

Ha ha ha ha--Kwok, calling somebody else out for name-dropping what a fine school he went to, that's rich.

ben said: Ha ha ha ha--Kwok, calling somebody else out for name-dropping what a fine school he went to, that's rich.

"An excellent case in point is the series of posts last February at US News and World Report’s discussion forum where you identified yourself as a “Johns Hopkins physics graduate student”.

Funny... the TJHU Physcis Dept. Home Page has no mention of him..

http://physics-astronomy.jhu.edu/people/Directory/index.html

Stuart Weinstein said: "An excellent case in point is the series of posts last February at US News and World Report’s discussion forum where you identified yourself as a “Johns Hopkins physics graduate student”. Funny... the TJHU Physcis Dept. Home Page has no mention of him.. http://physics-astronomy.jhu.edu/people/Directory/index.html

Stuart Weinstein said: "An excellent case in point is the series of posts last February at US News and World Report’s discussion forum where you identified yourself as a “Johns Hopkins physics graduate student”. Funny... the TJHU Physcis Dept. Home Page has no mention of him.. http://physics-astronomy.jhu.edu/people/Directory/index.html

When will the evolutionists admit there is no evidence for their own faith. Nobody has actually seen a monkey having a human baby. In addition, where is the evidence the anus and mouth are sex organs?

Toidel Mahoney said: Nobody has actually seen a monkey having a human baby.

Mike Elzinga said:

Stuart Weinstein said: "An excellent case in point is the series of posts last February at US News and World Report’s discussion forum where you identified yourself as a “Johns Hopkins physics graduate student”. Funny... the TJHU Physcis Dept. Home Page has no mention of him.. http://physics-astronomy.jhu.edu/people/Directory/index.html

I think Sal made the excuse earlier, or on another thread, that he didn’t want to be stalked. That would be strange reasoning for someone who was seriously pursuing an MS degree in physics; and I think I know physics students pretty well. Obviously the main focus of all Sal’s attention and activity is ID/creationism and not physics. If there is any reason whatsoever for him to be enrolled in a program such as this, it would be simply to put some additional letters after his name. He couldn’t care less about the physics. Nothing about Sal rings true. His only choice in life is a career in pseudo-science.

Stuart Weinstein said: Oh and Sal, quoting references regarding acoustic modes in the primordial fireball prior to the launch of WMAP, is not a good idea. Try something post 2006 or so? http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/CMB-DT.html

Salvador Cordova said: Really? consider this account from Scientic American [from 2000] about the acoustic modes. http://tinyurl.com/caw52q

The measurements by the BOOMERANG and MAXIMA telescopes came in... And then the dust settled, revealing that two pillars of big bang theory were squarely in conflict... That roar in the heavens may have been laughter at our cosmic confusion ...Max Tegmark

Can we say, "oops". :-)

Everyone hoped that Boomerang would allow cosmologists to get an ultra-precise tally of the amount of stuff in the universe. However, calculating the amount of matter in the universe required Boomerangs scientists to see more than just the first peak in the cosmic background radiation. They needed a second peak in the graph to figure out the ratio of baryonic matter to exotic matter in the universe; they needed to hear an overtone in the celestial music of the acoustic oscillations. When the first Boomerang data were revealed in April 2000, the first peak was loud and clear, but the second peak was conspicuously absent. It was as if the cosmologists were expecting to hear the ringing of a bell, but heard the bleat of a horn instead. "The mischievous side of me wanted that to happen," said Tegmark. For a time, physicists were scrambling to explain what went wrong. A missing peak would mean that simple models of how the universe formed and what holds it together could not be correct. "You'd have to be violent to one of the sacred cows of cosmology," Tegmark said. Everyone awaited further data from Boomerang and other rival experiments; either the second peak would be found, or there was a major problem with cosmological theories. Luckily, the dilemma did not last too long. The first hints of a second peak came from a telescope in Chile, the Cosmic Background Imager (CBI). Unlike the Boomerang experiment. which used a balloon laden with sensitive bolometers to detect the heat produced when microwave photons strike them, CBI is a ground-based telescope that uses interferometry to detect the microwaves from the early universe. When CBI first pointed its interferometer at the heavens, it picked up hints of the missing second peak. Though nobody could say for sure that the second peak was there, it relieved some of the worries that Boomerang had sowed less than a year before. "It shows we're on the right track, that the acoustic model is right," said Jeffrey Peterson, a cosmologist at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Better news was just around the corner. A year after the Boomerang scientists released their first round of data, they were ready to reveal a much larger set of data. in addition, the Degree Angular Scale lnterferometer (DASI), an instrument that worked in a manner similar to CBI, had been taking data in the Antarctic, and the DASI team members had finally crunched their first round of measurements. In April 2001, at a meeting of the American Physical Society in Washington, D.C., all three teams presented their results, and the missing peak was there in all its glory. "This is like Santa Claus is arriving," said Tegmark. Boomerang and DASI saw the first peak, the second peak, and the third peak. In June 2002, CBI released its second set of results, which contained the third, fourth, and hints of the fifth and sixth peaks. This allowed the teams to calculate Omega b and Omega m. The numbers they got agreed with all the other measurements: the baryons make up about 5 percent of the stuff in the universe, and all matter, taken together makes up about 35 percent (That Omega b = 0.05 and Omega m = a 0.35.) These are the same values that scientists got when looking at the proportions of elements in the universe and the distribution of the galaxies. All the measurements have come to the same conclusions. Big bang nucleosynthesis, galaxy maps, and the cosmic microwave background measurements show that the amount of ordinary, baryonic matter in the universe is only 5 percent of what is needed in a universe where Omega = 1, yet the total amount of matter makes up about 35 percent of that stuff. The difference, about 30 percent of the stuff in the universe, should be a nonbaryonic, exotic form of matter.

Toidel Mahoney said: When will the evolutionists admit there is no evidence for their own faith. Nobody has actually seen a monkey having a human baby.?

Toidel Mahoney said: When will the evolutionists admit there is no evidence for their own faith. Nobody has actually seen a monkey having a human baby.

Toidel Mahoney said: When will the evolutionists admit there is no evidence for their own faith. Nobody has actually seen a monkey having a human baby. In addition, where is the evidence the anus and mouth are sex organs?

Toidel wrote:

"When will the evolutionists admit there is no evidence for their own faith."

I don't know, when are you going to stop beating your wife? There is over 150 years of evidence and it all supports evolution. If you are not familiar with the evidence then you should not be commenting on it.

Anyway, since when do you need evidence for something you accept on faith? When are the creationists going to admit that they believe things based on faith alone and that there is absolutely no evidenece for their beliefs whatsoever? Why would any real scientist hold any view on a question of science based on faith alone and if they did who would care? Now that is a question worth asking.

Good Gods, you're all still dignifying Sal by arguing his endless flood-tide of idiotic diversions, non-sequiturs and flat-out lies? Before we waste any more time here, let me offer just a few links to earlier proofs of Sal's total lack of relevance or integrity:

http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2007/08/cordova_continues_to_spin.php

http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2007/08/cordova_tries_again_1.php

http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2007/05/sal_cordovas_rank_dishonesty.php

http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2008/03/cordova-rewrite.html

This is what I got in a few minutes from skimming two Google searches. Anyone who's been here more than a year can tell you there's plenty more. Long story short: Sal is a liar, he knows he's lying, he knows we know it, and all he does is monopolize attention in order to pretend he's relevant.

Raging Bee said: Good Gods, you're all still dignifying Sal by arguing his endless flood-tide of idiotic diversions, non-sequiturs and flat-out lies? Before we waste any more time here, let me offer just a few links to earlier proofs of Sal's total lack of relevance or integrity: http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2007/08/cordova_continues_to_spin.php http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2007/08/cordova_tries_again_1.php http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2007/05/sal_cordovas_rank_dishonesty.php http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2008/03/cordova-rewrite.html This is what I got in a few minutes from skimming two Google searches. Anyone who's been here more than a year can tell you there's plenty more. Long story short: Sal is a liar, he knows he's lying, he knows we know it, and all he does is monopolize attention in order to pretend he's relevant.

The highly isotropic nature of the cosmic background radiation indicates that the early stages of the Universe were almost completely uniform. This raises two problems for the big bang theory. First, when we look at the microwave background coming from widely separated parts of the sky it can be shown that these regions are too separated to have been able to communicate with each other even with signals travelling at light velocity. Thus, how did they know to have almost exactly the same temperature? This general problem is called the horizon problem. Second, the present Universe is homogenous and isotropic, but only on very large scales. For scales the size of superclusters and smaller the luminous matter in the universe is quite lumpy, as illustrated in the following figure.

Stuart Weinstein said:

Mike Elzinga said:

Stuart Weinstein said: "An excellent case in point is the series of posts last February at US News and World Report’s discussion forum where you identified yourself as a “Johns Hopkins physics graduate student”. Funny... the TJHU Physcis Dept. Home Page has no mention of him.. http://physics-astronomy.jhu.edu/people/Directory/index.html

I think Sal made the excuse earlier, or on another thread, that he didn’t want to be stalked. That would be strange reasoning for someone who was seriously pursuing an MS degree in physics; and I think I know physics students pretty well. Obviously the main focus of all Sal’s attention and activity is ID/creationism and not physics. If there is any reason whatsoever for him to be enrolled in a program such as this, it would be simply to put some additional letters after his name. He couldn’t care less about the physics. Nothing about Sal rings true. His only choice in life is a career in pseudo-science.

Hilarious. I'm a graduate of the Earth and Planetary Science Dept. at TJHU. And yeah, I still have contacts in the Phys. Dept. It might be worth my while during a rainy day to find out for sure. Apparently Sal also claimed acceptance to the Whiting School of Engineering.. I's hate to see a student slot wasted on Sal.

...he then opted to make an arrogant idiot out of himself by tooting about how he stumped everyone, until one of the admins finally came to and killed the thread.

Sal ALWAYS does that, even when he's being conclusively proven a liar by multiple respondents. I, and at least one other respondent here, exposed his lies very early in this very thread, and he simply ignored it and kept on blithering on about one not-even-tangential subject after another after another. There's really no point in proving him wrong, because he never cared about truth or reality anyway; and he doesn't even bother to keep his own lies consistent. As has already been said here, word-gaming is all Sal is good for.

Notice he doesn't even have the balls to take any concrete position on anything anymore? He rejects evolution, but can't stand behind a plausible alternative; he kinda sorta maybe leans toward YEC, but he can't give us a reason for that either, and he doesn't like any of the other YECers' arguments; he's sorta open to ID and OEC, but not really; and he proudly cites the Wedge Document, but he can't make up his mind whether or not creationism has any religious underpinnings... Seriously, he's sitting on the fence and spinning so desperately, I'm amazed his ass isn't bleeding in all directions.

Raging Bee said: Notice he doesn't even have the balls to take any concrete position on anything anymore?

Raging Bee said: Seriously, he's sitting on the fence and spinning so desperately, I'm amazed his ass isn't bleeding in all directions.

Notice he doesn’t even have the balls to take any concrete position on anything anymore? He rejects evolution, but can’t stand behind a plausible alternative; he kinda sorta maybe leans toward YEC, but he can’t give us a reason for that either, and he doesn’t like any of the other YECers’ arguments; he’s sorta open to ID and OEC, but not really; and he proudly cites the Wedge Document, but he can’t make up his mind whether or not creationism has any religious underpinnings… Seriously, he’s sitting on the fence and spinning so desperately, I’m amazed his ass isn’t bleeding in all directions.

— Raging Bee

No, Dan, I wasn't there, and I have no intention of going near there for any purpose. There's no telling what diseases I'll get from that lot. Even the ones who aren't bleeding from the ass look pretty sick to me. Can one get swine flu from a herd of creationist swine? Gotta take precautions, y'know...

Raging Bee said: ...he then opted to make an arrogant idiot out of himself by tooting about how he stumped everyone, until one of the admins finally came to and killed the thread. Sal ALWAYS does that, even when he's being conclusively proven a liar by multiple respondents. I, and at least one other respondent here, exposed his lies very early in this very thread, and he simply ignored it and kept on blithering on about one not-even-tangential subject after another after another. There's really no point in proving him wrong, because he never cared about truth or reality anyway; and he doesn't even bother to keep his own lies consistent. As has already been said here, word-gaming is all Sal is good for. Notice he doesn't even have the balls to take any concrete position on anything anymore? He rejects evolution, but can't stand behind a plausible alternative; he kinda sorta maybe leans toward YEC, but he can't give us a reason for that either, and he doesn't like any of the other YECers' arguments; he's sorta open to ID and OEC, but not really; and he proudly cites the Wedge Document, but he can't make up his mind whether or not creationism has any religious underpinnings... Seriously, he's sitting on the fence and spinning so desperately, I'm amazed his ass isn't bleeding in all directions.

John: What's all this about Sal's "recent activity over at US News and World Report?" Is he a regular contributor there or something? Gimme a link to I can debunk him there too!

Wise and now Wood are hypocrites of the first order not "honest creationists" at all. They ignore that the same science that they *know* and that gives them the comforts of modern life is the same science that supoprts the evidence that says their myths are wrong.

I do wish I could put such idiots on an island where they could live in mud huts and die of horrible diseases that "science" dares to have stopped.

Raging Bee said: John: What's all this about Sal's "recent activity over at US News and World Report?" Is he a regular contributor there or something? Gimme a link to I can debunk him there too!

Stuart wrote: Sal, why not read Ned Wright’s tutorial? It will save you some embarrassment, assuming its possible for you to feel any. http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/E[…]gton-T0.html

We have actually seen sources out to great distances at millimeter wavelengths, so we know the Universe is not opaque until we get back to the high temperatures and high densities that existed shortly after the Big Bang.

the proof we can see microwaves from great distances is that we see microwaves from great distances, short distance sources of microwaves are not a possible explanation since we're seeing the microwaves coming from great distances

The apparent absence of shadows where shadows were expected to be is raising new questions about the faint glow of microwave radiation once hailed as proof that the universe was created by a "Big Bang." In a finding sure to cause controversy, scientists at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) found a lack of evidence of shadows from "nearby" clusters of galaxies using new, highly accurate measurements of the cosmic microwave background. A team of UAH scientists led by Dr. Richard Lieu, a professor of physics, used data from NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) to scan the cosmic microwave background for shadows caused by 31 clusters of galaxies. "These shadows are a well-known thing that has been predicted for years," said Lieu. "This is the only direct method of determining the distance to the origin of the cosmic microwave background. Up to now, all the evidence that it originated from as far back in time as the Big Bang fireball has been circumstantial. "If you see a shadow, however, it means the radiation comes from behind the cluster. If you don't see a shadow, then you have something of a problem. Among the 31 clusters that we studied, some show a shadow effect and others do not." Taken together, the data shows a shadow effect about one-fourth of what was predicted - an amount roughly equal in strength to natural variations previously seen in the microwave background across the entire sky. "Either it (the microwave background) isn't coming from behind the clusters, which means the Big Bang is blown away, or ... there is something else going on," said Lieu. "One possibility is to say the clusters themselves are microwave emitting sources, either from an embedded point source or from a halo of microwave-emitting material that is part of the cluster environment.

many different processes might produce the general form of a black body spectrum

vel said: Wise and now Wood are hypocrites of the first order not "honest creationists" at all. They ignore that the same science that they *know* and that gives them the comforts of modern life is the same science that supoprts the evidence that says their myths are wrong. I do wish I could put such idiots on an island where they could live in mud huts and die of horrible diseases that "science" dares to have stopped.

Raging Bee said: No, Dan, I wasn't there, and I have no intention of going near there for any purpose. There's no telling what diseases I'll get from that lot. Even the ones who aren't bleeding from the ass look pretty sick to me. Can one get swine flu from a herd of creationist swine? Gotta take precautions, y'know...

Sal,

Sorry to disappoint you, but Star Trek won't be showing in movie theaters until, at the earliest, Thursday night. So please stop pretending that you're Nero, the Romulan renegade
(I think Eric Bana does a much better job of doing that.).

Any chance you might heed this advice ASAP:

"Maybe Sal ought to heed the religious history of former Johns Hopkins paleobiologist Robert 'Crazy Bob' Bakker, who, apparently, was a Calvinist preacher - and diehard creationist - during his undergraduate days at Yale, before he opted for graduate study in paleobiology at Harvard with Stephen Jay Gould as his Ph. D. dissertation advisor (I suppose that may have been why Gould decided to accept Kurt Wise as student, hoping that he might 'turn' him too.)."

Or consider why eminent physicists like Brian Greene and Lisa Randall accept evolution as scientifically valid, and strongly reject all flavors of creationism, including of course, the mendacious intellectual pornography known as Intelligent Design?

Peace and Long Life (as a DI IDiot Borg drone),

John Kwok

johnk wrote: And when Boomerang was rerun in 2003 with even more precision, the cosmological parameter results fit those Stuart W. cited above from the WMAP’s beautifully. Cordova, clutching his outdated preliminary bullshit, will continue to cite the SciAm 2000 article far and wide (along with his James Trefil book from 1988(!), also cited endless on YEC sites), while smirking “can we say, “oops” “ all the while, I’m sure.

Some of the necessary ingredients of the SMC [standard model of cosmology] have caused cosmologists to respond with adjectives such as ‘epicyclic’, ‘ugly’, ‘baroque’ or ‘preposterous’, and with questions such as ‘who ordered that?’ .... The new results from WMAP data alone, specifically for a flat lambda-CDM model, give: H0t0 = 1.03 ± 0.04. ... This value for H0t0 is only natural in a completely empty universe, otherwise known as the Milne model. Even string theorists would typically agree that there is empirical evidence for matter in the Universe.

Some believe it is just a figment of overactive imaginations. But evidence is growing that the so-called "axis of evil" - a pattern apparently imprinted on the radiation left behind by the big bang - may be real, posing a threat to standard cosmology. According to the standard model, the universe is isotropic, or much the same everywhere. However, in 2005, Kate Land and João Magueijo of Imperial College London noticed a curious pattern in the map of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) created by NASA's WMAP satellite. It seemed to show that some hot and cold spots in the CMB are not distributed randomly, as expected, but are aligned along what Magueijo dubbed the axis of evil.

It is he who first found out that the 'cold' and 'warm' areas of the metagalaxy happened to be lying in the sky in a somewhat organized way. A computer simulation proved that the above distribution of fluctuations could occur only in case of a considerably smaller-sized universe.”

A better fit to the data can always be obtained by appealing to a theory containing more free parameters. The extra knobs can’t harm, and quite often help the job of fitting data. Intellectual honesty, however, tells us that a better fit may then not signal evidence for the theory ... Using a variety of quantitative implementations of Occam’s razor we examine the low quadrupole, the “axis of evil” effect and other detections recently made appealing to the excellent WMAP data. We find that some razors fully demolish the much lauded claims for departures from scale-invariance. They all reduce to pathetic levels the evidence for a low quadrupole (or any other low ℓ cut-off), both in the first and third year WMAP releases. The “axis of evil” effect is the only anomaly examined here that survives the humiliations of Occam’s razor, and even then in the category of “strong” rather than “decisive” evidence. Statistical considerations aside, differences between the various renditions of the datasets remain worrying.

Stanton wrote: Understanding Mathematics is not an inheritable trait.

In a study published recently in the Journal of Neuroscience, UCLA neurology professor Paul Thompson and colleagues used a new type of brain-imaging scanner to show that intelligence is strongly influenced by the quality of the brain's axons, or wiring that sends signals throughout the brain. The faster the signaling, the faster the brain processes information. And since the integrity of the brain's wiring is influenced by genes, the genes we inherit play a far greater role in intelligence than was previously thought.

RBH wrote: I strongly doubt he can make evolutionists look silly to anyone but a flock of ignorant believers.

Salvador Cordova said:

Stanton wrote: Understanding Mathematics is not an inheritable trait.

But the capacity to understand math is influenced by heredity. If that weren't the case, then Darwinian evilution could not evolve the capacity to do math. Where did you learn Darwinism, even I understood that. For example, here is one metric relating genes to intelligence, which supports my point:

In a study published recently in the Journal of Neuroscience, UCLA neurology professor Paul Thompson and colleagues used a new type of brain-imaging scanner to show that intelligence is strongly influenced by the quality of the brain's axons, or wiring that sends signals throughout the brain. The faster the signaling, the faster the brain processes information. And since the integrity of the brain's wiring is influenced by genes, the genes we inherit play a far greater role in intelligence than was previously thought.

To refer to the original point:

RBH wrote: I strongly doubt he can make evolutionists look silly to anyone but a flock of ignorant believers.

And Stanton is now channeling Dale Husband. He makes silly claims without any help from me or Todd Wood.

Salvador Cordova said:

Stanton wrote: Understanding Mathematics is not an inheritable trait.

But the capacity to understand math is influenced by heredity. If that weren't the case, then Darwinian evilution could not evolve the capacity to do math. Where did you learn Darwinism, even I understood that.

RBH wrote: I strongly doubt he can make evolutionists look silly to anyone but a flock of ignorant believers.

And Stanton is now channeling Dale Husband. He makes silly claims without any help from me or Todd Wood.

John Kwok said: More inane, twisted logic from someone whom I suspect really thinks he's the Romulan Nero in disguise

Stanton said:

John Kwok said: More inane, twisted logic from someone whom I suspect really thinks he's the Romulan Nero in disguise

Salvador Cordova is an idiot in the disguise of a religious fanatic.

raging bee: "Sal is a liar, he knows he’s lying, he knows we know it" stanton: "Salvador Cordova is an idiot in the disguise of a religious fanatic." John Kwok: "Sal is a delusional twit " phantomreader42 said: "Sal Cordova = Lying Sack of Shit"

he can make evolutionists look silly to anyone but a flock of ignorant believers

Stanton wrote: Yet, you still refuse to explain how your being able to do middle school algebra is relevant to observing the fact that populations accumulate changes with each generation via “descent with modification.”

Perhaps a more substantive line argumentation might be more convincing.

I supported my statements by citing multiple posts proving that you are indeed exactly what I said you are, no more, no less. And the fact that you are completely ignoring that post strongly implies you know it's right.

So, Stanton (or anyone out there for that matter) is understanding of algebra relevant to understanding and defending theories of evolution?

Let's see...the last time you tried to use math to pretend to disprove evolution, you got into an argument with Mark Chu-Caroll, and lost becasue you couldn't demonstrate what you said you could demonstrate. And you're not demonstrating it now either; all you're doing is circling the drain in your usual pretentious roundabout way.

Salvador Cordova said:

Stanton wrote: Yet, you still refuse to explain how your being able to do middle school algebra is relevant to observing the fact that populations accumulate changes with each generation via “descent with modification.”

So, Stanton, are you suggesting the understanding of algebra is irrelevant to understanding and defending evolution? Population genetics speaks to the feasibility of Darwinism. The typical pre-requisites for population genetics : 1. differential equations but differential equations requires 2. basic calculus but basic calculus requires 3. basic algebra Haldane's dilemma was based on principles of population genetics. Haldane's dilemma was referenced in Nei's paper and Kimura's work. The fact the math doesn't agree with Darwin only underscores his mathematical ineptitude. Even dumb little me can do high school algebra. So, Stanton (or anyone out there for that matter) is understanding of algebra relevant to understanding and defending theories of evolution?

Perhaps a more substantive line argumentation might be more convincing.

...or you could go back to denigrating peoples children again, like you did with PZ Myers' daughter.

You insubstantial, tiny minded, pusillanimous fucking slimeball.

that you are tolerated here at all makes me wanna puke my guts out.

You should not only NOT be tolerated here, but your ability to post on the internet should be removed permanently under the charges of being a demented, abusive, lying, sociopath.

Salvador Cordova said: But if the microwave radiation is coming from the great distances, then, the microwave radiation should be blocked by certain objects, like galaxy clusters.

Play nicely children; this extended, repetitive and infantile name calling and "yah boo" argument about nothing makes you all look like pathetic. Very pathetic. Science is better than this rubbish.

Pinu Flava said: Play nicely children; this extended, repetitive and infantile name calling and "yah boo" argument about nothing makes you all look like pathetic. Very pathetic. Science is better than this rubbish.

Raging Bee said: Perhaps a more substantive line argumentation might be more convincing. I supported my statements by citing multiple posts proving that you are indeed exactly what I said you are, no more, no less. And the fact that you are completely ignoring that post strongly implies you know it's right. So, Stanton (or anyone out there for that matter) is understanding of algebra relevant to understanding and defending theories of evolution? Let's see...the last time you tried to use math to pretend to disprove evolution, you got into an argument with Mark Chu-Caroll, and lost becasue you couldn't demonstrate what you said you could demonstrate. And you're not demonstrating it now either; all you're doing is circling the drain in your usual pretentious roundabout way.

Salvador Cordova said:

raging bee: "Sal is a liar, he knows he’s lying, he knows we know it" stanton: "Salvador Cordova is an idiot in the disguise of a religious fanatic." John Kwok: "Sal is a delusional twit " phantomreader42 said: "Sal Cordova = Lying Sack of Shit"

Perhaps a more substantive line argumentation might be more convincing. :-) But even granting for the sake of argument, the above statements about me might be true, it doesn't have bearing on the truthfulness or falsity of the topic at hand, namely as RBH said:

he can make evolutionists look silly to anyone but a flock of ignorant believers

And along those lines, perhaps let us look to see if Darwinist Stanton can make himself not look silly.

Stanton wrote: Yet, you still refuse to explain how your being able to do middle school algebra is relevant to observing the fact that populations accumulate changes with each generation via “descent with modification.”

So, Stanton, are you suggesting the understanding of algebra is irrelevant to understanding and defending evolution? Population genetics speaks to the feasibility of Darwinism. The typical pre-requisites for population genetics : 1. differential equations but differential equations requires 2. basic calculus but basic calculus requires 3. basic algebra Haldane's dilemma was based on principles of population genetics. Haldane's dilemma was referenced in Nei's paper and Kimura's work. The fact the math doesn't agree with Darwin only underscores his mathematical ineptitude. Even dumb little me can do high school algebra. So, Stanton (or anyone out there for that matter) is understanding of algebra relevant to understanding and defending theories of evolution?

John Kwok said: Okay genius, can you explain how two "inept" mathematicians like Darwin and Wallace grasped the mathematical implications of Mathus's "Essay on Population", and used his analogies to conceive, independently of each other, the Theory of Evolution via Natural Selection:

Salvador Cordova said:

raging bee: "Sal is a liar, he knows he’s lying, he knows we know it" stanton: "Salvador Cordova is an idiot in the disguise of a religious fanatic." John Kwok: "Sal is a delusional twit " phantomreader42 said: "Sal Cordova = Lying Sack of Shit"

Perhaps a more substantive line argumentation might be more convincing. :-) But even granting for the sake of argument, the above statements about me might be true, it doesn't have bearing on the truthfulness or falsity of the topic at hand, namely as RBH said:

he can make evolutionists look silly to anyone but a flock of ignorant believers

And along those lines, perhaps let us look to see if Darwinist Stanton can make himself not look silly.

Stanton wrote: Yet, you still refuse to explain how your being able to do middle school algebra is relevant to observing the fact that populations accumulate changes with each generation via “descent with modification.”

So, Stanton, are you suggesting the understanding of algebra is irrelevant to understanding and defending evolution? Population genetics speaks to the feasibility of Darwinism. The typical pre-requisites for population genetics : 1. differential equations but differential equations requires 2. basic calculus but basic calculus requires 3. basic algebra Haldane's dilemma was based on principles of population genetics. Haldane's dilemma was referenced in Nei's paper and Kimura's work. The fact the math doesn't agree with Darwin only underscores his mathematical ineptitude. Even dumb little me can do high school algebra. So, Stanton (or anyone out there for that matter) is understanding of algebra relevant to understanding and defending theories of evolution?

I'm willing to be a working Romulan Cloaking Device that you can't.

Salvador Cordova said: But if the microwave radiation is coming from the great distances, then, the microwave radiation should be blocked by certain objects, like galaxy clusters

Jon Fleming: Um, Sal, it takes only a layman’s knowledge of Big Bang theory to see the colossal error in this sentence.

The apparent absence of shadows where shadows were expected to be is raising new questions about the faint glow of microwave radiation once hailed as proof that the universe was created by a “Big Bang.” In a finding sure to cause controversy, scientists at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) found a lack of evidence of shadows from “nearby” clusters of galaxies using new, highly accurate measurements of the cosmic microwave background. A team of UAH scientists led by Dr. Richard Lieu, a professor of physics, used data from NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) to scan the cosmic microwave background for shadows caused by 31 clusters of galaxies. “These shadows are a well-known thing that has been predicted for years,” said Lieu. “This is the only direct method of determining the distance to the origin of the cosmic microwave background. Up to now, all the evidence that it originated from as far back in time as the Big Bang fireball has been circumstantial. “If you see a shadow, however, it means the radiation comes from behind the cluster. If you don’t see a shadow, then you have something of a problem.

that so far as microwaves are concerned, we are living in a fog and that the fog is relatively local. A man who falls asleep on the top of a mountain and who wakes in a fog does not think he is looking at the origin of the Universe. He thinks he is in a fog.

the cosmic microwave background was the final end product of the thermalisation of the energy produced by the conversion of hydrogen to helium in stars. The thermalisation is a multi-stage process: starlight energy is first converted into the infrared by the normal dust in galaxies, then the infrared in turn is degraded into microwaves by absorption and re-emission

Such a fog also explains the otherwise troublesome ratio of infrared to radio intensities of radio galaxies. The amount of radiation emitted by distant galaxies falls with increasing wavelengths, as expected if the longer wavelengths are scattered by the intergalactic medium. For example, the brightness ratio of radio galaxies at infrared and radio wavelengths changes with distance in a way which implies absorption. Basically, this means that the longer wavelengths are more easily absorbed by material between the galaxies. But then the microwave radiation (between the two wavelengths) should be absorbed by that medium too, and has no chance to reach us from such great distances, or to remain perfectly uniform while doing so. It must instead result from the radiation of microwaves from the intergalactic medium. This argument alone implies that the microwaves could not be coming directly to us from a distance beyond all the galaxies, and therefore that the Big Bang theory cannot be correct.

Kurt Wise doesn’t need the challenge; he volunteers that, even if all the evidence in the universe flatly contradicted Scripture, and even if he had reached the point of admitting this to himself, he would still take his stand on Scripture and deny the evidence. This leaves me, as a scientist, speechless. I cannot imagine what it must be like to have a mind capable of such doublethink.

I strongly doubt he can make evolutionists look silly to anyone but a flock of ignorant believers.

Salvador Cordova said:

Stuart wrote: Sal, why not read Ned Wright’s tutorial? It will save you some embarrassment, assuming its possible for you to feel any. http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/E[…]gton-T0.html

The tutorial said:

We have actually seen sources out to great distances at millimeter wavelengths, so we know the Universe is not opaque until we get back to the high temperatures and high densities that existed shortly after the Big Bang.

Actually, that is circular reasoning.

Jon Fleming said:

Salvador Cordova said: But if the microwave radiation is coming from the great distances, then, the microwave radiation should be blocked by certain objects, like galaxy clusters.

Um, Sal, it takes only a layman's knowledge of Big Bang theory to see the colossal error in this sentence.

BTW, Sal, you wouldn't see "shadows" of the CBR at all, galactic clusters or not. Why? Because galactic clusters are WARMER than the CBR, consisting as they do of trillions of hot stars. Shadows would be of the absence of light, not the places where light is increased.

You keep submitting "problems" that really aren't, and we keep laughing at you.

Van Flandern and a paper from 1990, pre-COBE and pre-BOOMERANG.

Pathetic.

Salvador Cordova said: Does the WMAP data really vindicate the Big Bang? Here is a paper in 2006: http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0604011

Some of the necessary ingredients of the SMC [standard model of cosmology] have caused cosmologists to respond with adjectives such as ‘epicyclic’, ‘ugly’, ‘baroque’ or ‘preposterous’, and with questions such as ‘who ordered that?’ .... The new results from WMAP data alone, specifically for a flat lambda-CDM model, give: H0t0 = 1.03 ± 0.04. ... This value for H0t0 is only natural in a completely empty universe, otherwise known as the Milne model. Even string theorists would typically agree that there is empirical evidence for matter in the Universe.

Salvador Cordova said: Dale Husband is an example of the sort of evolutionist that should not be trying to debate creationists. His overestimation of his own understanding of basic orgin theories was quite in evidence. He was not even familiar with well-known acronyms like CMBR, and concepts about black body radiation. He then covered up his misreading of my posts with even more embarrassing mistakes (such as the classic problem of istropy). As long as there are evolutionists like Dale Husband, there will be creationists like Todd Wood. The state of science education is indeed in bad shape. And I'm glad I had the chance to set Dale straight on a few facts and improve his understanding of basic science.

Salvador, you do realize that this paper is (an April Fools) joke, don’t you?

Salvador, you do realize that this paper is a joke, don’t you?

Salvador Cordova said:

Salvador, you do realize that this paper is a joke, don’t you?

What! You don't say. :-) You don't find his criticism of the Big Bang humerous.

Dale husband write: BTW, Sal, you wouldn’t see “shadows” of the CBR at all, galactic clusters or not. Why? Because galactic clusters are WARMER than the CBR, consisting as they do of trillions of hot stars. Shadows would be of the absence of light, not the places where light is increased. You keep submitting “problems” that really aren’t, and we keep laughing at you.

Galaxy clusters are the largest organized structures in the universe. Each cluster can contain hundreds of galaxies like the Milky Way, each with billions of stars. The gravity created at the center of some clusters traps gas that is hot enough to emit X-rays. This gas is also hot enough to lose its electrons (or ionize), filling millions of cubic light years of space inside the galactic clusters with swarming clouds of free electrons. It is these free electrons which bump into and interact with individual photons of microwave radiation, deflecting them away from their original paths and creating the shadowing effect. This shadowing effect was first predicted in 1969 by the Russian scientists Rashid Sunyaev and Yakov Zel'dovich. Like shadow puppets on a wall, however, these shadows would only form if all three ingredients (light, object and observer) are in the correct order. If an object casts no shadow, it might be because the light source is closer to the observer than the object. That might mean that the cosmic microwave background didn't originate at the far edges of the universe

Dan said: Salvador, you do realize that this paper is a joke, don't you? One of the authors is Ali Frolop, the date is 1 April 2006, and the reference for the Milne model is to A.A. Milne's book of children's poems, "Now We Are Six". [This is, to be sure, a wonderful book, but it does not present a cosmological model.] Please, please, tell me that you're not as mindless and gullible as you appear to be.

Salvador Cordova said:

Dale husband write: BTW, Sal, you wouldn’t see “shadows” of the CBR at all, galactic clusters or not. Why? Because galactic clusters are WARMER than the CBR, consisting as they do of trillions of hot stars. Shadows would be of the absence of light, not the places where light is increased. You keep submitting “problems” that really aren’t, and we keep laughing at you.

You fail to appreciate the issue is not the stars but the gas trapped by these stars: http://www.physorg.com/news76314500.html

Galaxy clusters are the largest organized structures in the universe. Each cluster can contain hundreds of galaxies like the Milky Way, each with billions of stars. The gravity created at the center of some clusters traps gas that is hot enough to emit X-rays. This gas is also hot enough to lose its electrons (or ionize), filling millions of cubic light years of space inside the galactic clusters with swarming clouds of free electrons. It is these free electrons which bump into and interact with individual photons of microwave radiation, deflecting them away from their original paths and creating the shadowing effect. This shadowing effect was first predicted in 1969 by the Russian scientists Rashid Sunyaev and Yakov Zel'dovich. Like shadow puppets on a wall, however, these shadows would only form if all three ingredients (light, object and observer) are in the correct order. If an object casts no shadow, it might be because the light source is closer to the observer than the object. That might mean that the cosmic microwave background didn't originate at the far edges of the universe

Well done Dale.

The cosmic microwave background is isotropic to roughly one part in 100,000: the root mean square variations are only 18 µK.[4][nb 1] The Far-Infrared Absolute Spectrophotometer (FIRAS) instrument on the NASA Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite has carefully measured the spectrum of the cosmic microwave background. The FIRAS project members compared the CMB with an internal reference black body and the spectra agreed to within the experimental error. They concluded that any deviations from the black body form that might still remain undetected in the CMB spectrum over the wavelength range from 0.5 to 5 mm must have a weighted rms value of at most 50 parts per million (0.005%) of the CMB peak brightness.[5] This made the CMB spectrum the most precisely measured black body spectrum in nature.[3] The cosmic microwave background, and its level of isotropy, are both predictions of Big Bang model. In the theory, after about 10-37 seconds[6] the nascent universe underwent exponential growth that smoothed out nearly all inhomogeneities—a process known as cosmic inflation.[nb 2][7]

Dale Husband said: If something is a prediction of the Big Bang model, how can it also be a problem?

Still in stitches over The Misanthropic Principle. Looks like the email addresses are from UBC. Bless 'em.

Seriously, we're dealing with Salvador Cordova, a grown man who thinks that he can invalidate the contributions to science made by Charles Darwin simply because he proves, through deliberate misquoting, mind you, that Charles Darwin was allegedly bad at math, and because Salvador Cordova allegedly took algebra in middle school, though, Mr Cordova has yet to demonstrate why middle school-level algebra (or calculus) is needed to understand Evolutionary Biology, nor has he ever been able to demonstrate how he can disprove "descent with modification" with his middle school level expertise of algebra. And then there's the fact that Salvador Cordova also has the supreme hubris to assume that he knows better than astrophysicists simply because he's trying to insult us through clumsy word games.

In other words, we have one of the Discovery Institute's stars, and he is nothing but a two-bit troll who has subpar social and intellectual skills. So, can we ban him for being a troll, or at least kill this now-useless thread?

Salvador Cordova said:

Dale husband write: BTW, Sal, you wouldn’t see “shadows” of the CBR at all, galactic clusters or not. Why? Because galactic clusters are WARMER than the CBR, consisting as they do of trillions of hot stars. Shadows would be of the absence of light, not the places where light is increased. You keep submitting “problems” that really aren’t, and we keep laughing at you.

You fail to appreciate the issue is not the stars but the gas trapped by these stars: http://www.physorg.com/news76314500.html

Galaxy clusters are the largest organized structures in the universe. Each cluster can contain hundreds of galaxies like the Milky Way, each with billions of stars. The gravity created at the center of some clusters traps gas that is hot enough to emit X-rays. This gas is also hot enough to lose its electrons (or ionize), filling millions of cubic light years of space inside the galactic clusters with swarming clouds of free electrons. It is these free electrons which bump into and interact with individual photons of microwave radiation, deflecting them away from their original paths and creating the shadowing effect. This shadowing effect was first predicted in 1969 by the Russian scientists Rashid Sunyaev and Yakov Zel'dovich. Like shadow puppets on a wall, however, these shadows would only form if all three ingredients (light, object and observer) are in the correct order. If an object casts no shadow, it might be because the light source is closer to the observer than the object. That might mean that the cosmic microwave background didn't originate at the far edges of the universe

Well done Dale.

Stuart Weinstein said: I don't see what any of that has to do with the canonical theory behind the CMBR. The CMBR doesn't originate at the "edge" of the Universe. IT is everywhere in every volume of space and fills the universe. How do you cast shadows when light is coming at you every which way?

Stuart Weinstein said: I don't see what any of that has to do with the canonical theory behind the CMBR. The CMBR doesn't originate at the "edge" of the Universe. IT is everywhere in every volume of space and fills the universe. How do you cast shadows when light is coming at you every which way?

Jon Fleming said:

Stuart Weinstein said: I don't see what any of that has to do with the canonical theory behind the CMBR. The CMBR doesn't originate at the "edge" of the Universe. IT is everywhere in every volume of space and fills the universe. How do you cast shadows when light is coming at you every which way?

Aw, you let the cat out of teh bag ... that was the Sal's colossal error. 'Course, he won't understand it.

Dale Husband said: That's right! When the Big Bang occured, it didn't expand into empty space like a regular explosion does. Rather, space itself expanded from a point. The Big Bang occured literally everywhere at once and so we should expect a totally smooth Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation.

Sal -

This is an easy question to answer, which I posed last night:

Okay genius, can you explain how two “inept” mathematicians like Darwin and Wallace grasped the mathematical implications of Mathus’s “Essay on Population”, and used his analogies to conceive, independently of each other, the Theory of Evolution via Natural Selection?

If you can't answer it, then you're not merely a delusional twit, but indeed, a most sterling example of an intellectually-challenged Dishonesty Institute IDiot Borg drone.

John

John Kwok said: Sal - This is an easy question to answer, which I posed last night: Okay genius, can you explain how two “inept” mathematicians like Darwin and Wallace grasped the mathematical implications of Mathus’s “Essay on Population”, and used his analogies to conceive, independently of each other, the Theory of Evolution via Natural Selection? If you can't answer it, then you're not merely a delusional twit, but indeed, a most sterling example of an intellectually-challenged Dishonesty Institute IDiot Borg drone. John

stevaroni said:

Salvador, you do realize that this paper is (an April Fools) joke, don’t you?

And this would make it different from the rest of the DI's "research"?

Jon Fleming said:

Stuart Weinstein said: I don't see what any of that has to do with the canonical theory behind the CMBR. The CMBR doesn't originate at the "edge" of the Universe. IT is everywhere in every volume of space and fills the universe. How do you cast shadows when light is coming at you every which way?

Aw, you let the cat out of teh bag ... that was the Sal's colossal error. 'Course, he won't understand it.

gabriel said: Ray, I can understand why you can't tolerate the notion that I might actually be a Christian. But Todd? You've got to be kidding. I've had some (albeit brief) interactions with Todd. He's the real deal. I obviously don't agree with him on much, but he has integrity. Of course, my endorsement probably means you'll suspect him all the more.

Stuart Weinstein said: I don’t see what any of that has to do with the canonical theory behind the CMBR. The CMBR doesn’t originate at the “edge” of the Universe. IT is everywhere in every volume of space and fills the universe. How do you cast shadows when light is coming at you every which way?

he can’t prove the Flood, but nevertheless he believes

Dale husband wrote: How many times must it be said that the Big Bang theory has nothing to do with evolution?

Salvador Cordova said:

Stuart Weinstein said: I don’t see what any of that has to do with the canonical theory behind the CMBR. The CMBR doesn’t originate at the “edge” of the Universe. IT is everywhere in every volume of space and fills the universe. How do you cast shadows when light is coming at you every which way?

A Microwave photon emission has a point of origin at a definite time. For a detector to detect a microwave photon that originated from around the beginning of the explosion, that photon would have to travel from a point 13.7 billion light years away. Microwaves from the closer emission points-of-origin have already passed us by and some are long gone elsewhere and are supposedly irradiating other locations in space. Hence to see CMBR from around the beginning of the Big Bang, we would have to look at microwaves coming from the farthest possible distance. This essentially forms the appearance of an "edge", thus there can be shadows. Presumably, the CMBR we are bathed in is from the distant locations from us. Also, presumably, our neck of the woods provided microwave emissions to those places and elsewhere. Those places are presumably experiencing now the CMBR that originated from our neck of the woods that is now reaching them. Ponder it and you will understand. :-)

Salvador Cordova said: Frank J, One of the OEC videos being circulated by Campus Crusade for Christ is Case for a Creator based on Lee Strobel's book. The DvD has lots of footage from the other Illustra Media videos: Unlocking the Mystery of Life and Privileged Planet. This version of OEC is non-specific. It doesn't mention Adam, Eve and Noah's flood. Adam, Even and Noah's flood are the staples of YEC. Just as RBH said:

he can’t prove the Flood, but nevertheless he believes

Noah's flood is an essential part of YEC, because it a major mechanism of the Earth's current features and eco system. I had list of 10 to 20 fatal flaws in YEC. The list could easily go into the thousands, but that list highlights some of the major ones. For the YEC model to prevail it's going to have to take the issues one at a time, starting with Maxwell's equations (sheesh!!!) and perhaps a different atomic model (like torodial electrons, sheesh!!!). Thus, I think, the YEC model is too ambitious for prime time. Heck, it's barely better than fringe theories of the Natural Philosophy Alliance of dissident physicists. So why do I think it has a chance? There are some serious anomalies in cosmology, not the least of which is the apparent age homogeneity of stars and galaxies. All the glaxies look mature even when we peer back in time. There isn't a lot of hint of stellar evolution. But these anomalies are not sufficient to declare victory for YEC. A minor re-write of Maxwell's equations is the first order of business. Only about 3 YEC PhD's (one from William and Mary) are even looking into the matter. I really don't mind riding the OEC bandwagon for the time being, because they at least have a more defensible model from a physics standpoint. I've been distributing copies of the OEC video Case for a Creator to students. I don't recall distributing a single YEC video. Sal

Salvador Cordova said:

Dale husband wrote: How many times must it be said that the Big Bang theory has nothing to do with evolution?

The Big Bang places a limit on the age of the universe, which places a limit also on the age of the Earth, which constrains the time available both for Chemical Evolution (OOL) and Darwinian evolution. If the Big Bang is false, it makes possible, YEC. The Big Bang being falsified is a necessary but not sufficient condition for YEC, but if YEC is true, there is not enough time for Darwinian evolution. Thus the question of YEC vs. Big Bang is relevant. I point all this out in addition to your earlier non-sequiturs. Thus the present discussion is relevant to the OP, especially the question of whether evolutionists can be made to look silly by creationists like Todd Wood. I think in your case, it is a moot point, you're doing it all without by yourself.

Ray Martinez said:

gabriel said: Ray, I can understand why you can't tolerate the notion that I might actually be a Christian. But Todd? You've got to be kidding. I've had some (albeit brief) interactions with Todd. He's the real deal. I obviously don't agree with him on much, but he has integrity. Of course, my endorsement probably means you'll suspect him all the more.

Once again you have misunderstood. I am not questioning Wood's alleged Christianity; rather, I am questioning his alleged Creationism. No real Creationist would say what he is quoted as saying in the OP. Wood appears to be a double agent. Ray

Salvador Cordova said:

Dale husband wrote: How many times must it be said that the Big Bang theory has nothing to do with evolution?

The Big Bang places a limit on the age of the universe, which places a limit also on the age of the Earth, which constrains the time available both for Chemical Evolution (OOL) and Darwinian evolution.

If the Big Bang is false, it makes possible, YEC. The Big Bang being falsified is a necessary but not sufficient condition for YEC, but if YEC is true, there is not enough time for Darwinian evolution. Thus the question of YEC vs. Big Bang is relevant.

I point all this out in addition to your earlier non-sequiturs.

Thus the present discussion is relevant to the OP, especially the question of whether evolutionists can be made to look silly by creationists like Todd Wood. I think in your case, it is a moot point, you're doing it all without by yourself.

Dale Husband said: YEC had already been completely and totally debunked while the Big Bang theory has not been, so my point about the Big Bang issue being irrelvant to evolution stands.

Now, can you deal with evolution itself or not? I'm guessing not and that you just keep resorting to word games like that above about the Big Bang for that reason.

A Microwave photon emission has a point of origin at a definite time. For a detector to detect a microwave photon that originated from around the beginning of the explosion, that photon would have to travel from a point 13.7 billion light years away. … Presumably, the CMBR we are bathed in is from the distant locations from us.

— Sal of Several Shallow Degrees

If the Big Bang is false, it makes possible, YEC.

Yeah, just like it "makes possible" every other creation-story told by every other religion on Earth from prehistory to the present, as well as any other creation-story any of us can make up in the next five minutes. In other words, it doesn't make a single one of them any more "possible" than they are now, unless, and until, you can come up with an actual alternative testable hypothesis.

And on that important point, Sal continues to fail, which is why he can't find anything better to do with his time than play infantile word-games and blither about not-even-tangential aspects of modern cosmology. Face it, Sally-boy, you're a well-known pathological liar, you have nothing to contribute to a grownup discussion, you can't even tell a real science essay from a joke, and you're no more relevant now than you were when you were hiding behind DaveScot's trouser-legs.

Ah the refreshing intellect of an "honest creationist" like Sal Cordova. Sal Cordova's breadth of expertise is truly extraordinary. My understanding is that he is now up for simultaneous full professorships at Harvard in Physics, Organic Chemistry, Astronomy, Anthropology, Biology, Molecular Biology, Paleobiology, and Theology. The trouble he has in accepting the position(s) is that he has simultaneous offers to build a new super-colliding-superconductor, head the Brookhaven National Laboratories, and run the Smithsonian Institutions. Yet all this pales as his expertise in all subjects achieves simultaneous Nobel Prizes in all fields, and he has been nominated to head all sections of the National Academy of Sciences.

As AA Milne might say (one of Cordova's recent sources in his brilliant exposee), an amazing achievement for a bear of such little brain.

eric said: Coming late to the converstation... As I understand it, random heterogeneities in mass and energy distribution in the early universe get preserved via inflationary expansion. Two particles cannot interact if the universe between them is expanding faster than the speed of their interaction (i.e. velocity for physical particles), so early heterogeneities get frozen in. Which is why the CBR (or CMBR) is not totally smooth. Thermodynamically, inflation is a really interesting concept. When the local universe expands faster than neighboring particles can even theoretically exchange energy, your local deltaS = 0.

Yeah, this intelligent monkey thing isn't really working out...

I think we should give up on them and try making smarter cats. I see great potential...they are apparently much harder to herd than humans.

Ray Martinez said:

gabriel said: Ray, I can understand why you can't tolerate the notion that I might actually be a Christian. But Todd? You've got to be kidding. I've had some (albeit brief) interactions with Todd. He's the real deal. I obviously don't agree with him on much, but he has integrity. Of course, my endorsement probably means you'll suspect him all the more.

Once again you have misunderstood. I am not questioning Wood's alleged Christianity; rather, I am questioning his alleged Creationism. No real Creationist would say what he is quoted as saying in the OP. Wood appears to be a double agent. Ray

I'm not an advocate of censorship, and PT rightly prides itself for refusing to censor even thosee creationists who come here while censoring opposing views on their own Web sites; but I really thnk it's time to consider consigning Cordova to the Bathroom Wall, if not the toilet itself. To make a long argument short, he has shown himself utterly unwilling, at any point, to engage with us as an honest adult; and has met our adult dialogue with pure infantile nonsensical dishonesty. Furthermore, it is now clear that he fully understands what he is doing, knows it is wrong, and chooses to keep on doing it anyway.

He has repeatedly lied; and when caught, he simply ignores the proof. When his quote-mining and other logical fallacies are exposed by others, he simply pretends that no such exposure ever happened. When his original assertion is proven wrong, he retreats into word-games, circuitous bullshitting, and hypocritical criticism of others, doiing everything he can to derail the entire dialogue and drag it down to his level of infantile pointless drivel. Cordova's style of "argument" is nothing more than a pathetic, small-minded power game, whose sole expected effect is to monopolize a thread with an unending barrage of nonsense, and then claim "victory" when everyone else just gives up trying to reason with him. This is an adult blog, and there's no place for overgrown children whose only message is "ha ha, made you look!"

He has absolutely nothing meaningful to contribute to an adult discussion, and can never pretend he's relevant except by dumbing the whole thread down to a point where he can pretend he's our equal. Even Larry Fafarman was able to argue more coherently, more responsively, and in better faith, than Cordova (probably because, unlike Cordova, Larry actually wants to be seen as a sane adult); and Larry was banned from here long ago. If we were talking with Sal face-to-face, instead of on the Web, we would have walked away from him long ago, shaking our heads at the sheer spittle-spewing incoherence of his ranting, and we would all have agreed that we could never take him anywhere ever again. It's time we did the appropriate thing on the Web as well. Yes, he and his useless chums will cry about "censorship" and worse; but hey, they're already blaming us for eugenics and the Holocaust, and Sal is already blithering about a Big Banger conspiracy to "expel" steady-state dissenters; so complaints about "censorship" will really be nothing new.

Raging Bee said: To make a long argument short, he has shown himself utterly unwilling, at any point, to engage with us as an honest adult; and has met our adult dialogue with pure infantile nonsensical dishonesty. Furthermore, it is now clear that he fully understands what he is doing, knows it is wrong, and chooses to keep on doing it anyway. ... He has repeatedly lied; and when caught, he simply ignores the proof. When his quote-mining and other logical fallacies are exposed by others, he simply pretends that no such exposure ever happened. When his original assertion is proven wrong, he retreats into word-games, circuitous bullshitting, and hypocritical criticism of others, doiing everything he can to derail the entire dialogue and drag it down to his level of infantile pointless drivel. Cordova's style of "argument" is nothing more than a pathetic, small-minded power game, whose sole expected effect is to monopolize a thread with an unending barrage of nonsense, and then claim "victory" when everyone else just gives up trying to reason with him. ... He has absolutely nothing meaningful to contribute to an adult discussion, and can never pretend he's relevant except by dumbing the whole thread down to a point where he can pretend he's our equal.

One last thing about Sal and the Big Bang: if Sal really wants to put the Wedge Document into practice, then the Big Bang is the LAST scientific theory he should want to cast doubts on. Seriously, in science, NOTHING says "In the beginning..." and "Let there be light" like the Big Bang Theory.

At the very least, the Big Bang Theory agrees with Genesis when it states that there was a beginning. The only alternative scientific theory that I know of, is the steady-state theory, which pretty much explicitly states that there was no beginning -- an idea that nearly all doctrinaire Christians find literally unthinkable. I may be missing something, but boosting the steady-state theory really isn't the way to prop up Genesis-based Young-Earth Creationism.

He’s a waste of bandwidth and a waste of skin. And deep down, even he knows it.

I agree, and I say that with pity and contempt, more than anger. In fact, his recent brown tide of nonsense, after a long hiatus, can easily be seen as a realization on his part that he never had anything else to offer, and can't pretend to be relevant except by lashing out with a constant fog of BS. Like the guy who makes a 60-odd page speech in the Ayn Rand novel, he keeps on talking, saying anything he can think of, because he knows in his frightened little heart that the minute he shuts up, he'll vanish without a trace and never be missed or remembered.

Sal,

I've been waiting two days for an answer to this question:

Okay genius, can you explain how two “inept” mathematicians like Darwin and Wallace grasped the mathematical implications of Malthus’s “Essay on Population”, and used his analogies to conceive, independently of each other, the Theory of Evolution via Natural Selection?

So, as a corollary, since these two "inept" mathematicians discovered independently, the Theory of Evolution via Natural Selection, wouldn't it be conceivable then that, sooner or later, someone not named Wallace or Darwin might have conceived of it?

Am still waiting to hear too whether you think Behe and Dembski should be spending their time far more profitably by writing the definitive textbook on Klingon Cosmology. And what do you think of Ken Miller's recommendation that Behe ought to be writing a textbook on Klingon biochemistry?

Peace and Long Life (as a DI IDiot Borg drone),

John

Mike Elzinga said:

A Microwave photon emission has a point of origin at a definite time. For a detector to detect a microwave photon that originated from around the beginning of the explosion, that photon would have to travel from a point 13.7 billion light years away. … Presumably, the CMBR we are bathed in is from the distant locations from us.

— Sal of Several Shallow Degrees

Wow; those damned photons come with distance labels on them? That's funny as hell.

Mike Elzinga wrote: Wow; those damned photons come with distance labels on them? That’s funny as hell.

photons that were around at that time have been propagating ever since

The CMB gives a snapshot of the Universe when, according to standard cosmology, the temperature dropped enough to allow electrons and protons to form hydrogen atoms, thus making the universe transparent to radiation. When it originated some 380,000 years after the Big Bang

D = V T D = distance V = Velocity T = Time V = speed of light T = 13.7 Billion years Solve for D.

Since you're still here Sal, then please answer these questions:

Sal,

I’ve been waiting two days for an answer to this question:

Okay genius, can you explain how two “inept” mathematicians like Darwin and Wallace grasped the mathematical implications of Malthus’s “Essay on Population”, and used his analogies to conceive, independently of each other, the Theory of Evolution via Natural Selection?

So, as a corollary, since these two “inept” mathematicians discovered independently, the Theory of Evolution via Natural Selection, wouldn’t it be conceivable then that, sooner or later, someone not named Wallace or Darwin might have conceived of it?

Am still waiting to hear too whether you think Behe and Dembski should be spending their time far more profitably by writing the definitive textbook on Klingon Cosmology. And what do you think of Ken Miller’s recommendation that Behe ought to be writing a textbook on Klingon biochemistry?

Peace and Long Life (as a DI IDiot Borg drone),

John

P. S. Am sure that a part-time MS graduate student of physics from Johns Hopkins University would have no problem at all in answering my questions.

D = V T D = distance V = Velocity T = Time V = speed of light T = 13.7 Billion years Solve for D.

John wrote: Sal, I’ve been waiting two days for an answer to this question: Okay genius, can you explain how two “inept” mathematicians like Darwin and Wallace grasped the mathematical implications of Malthus’s “Essay on Population”, and used his analogies to conceive, independently of each other, the Theory of Evolution via Natural Selection?

D = V T D = distance the CMBR photon travelled V = Velocity T = Time V = speed of light T = 13.7 Billion years What is D?

Salvador, "Slimy Sal" Cordova,

If it is true that your middle school level algebra gives you the magical power to debunk Evolutionary Biology, then please demonstrate this miraculous ability of yours by debunking the evolutionary biology book, The Evolution of the Artiodactyls, which was edited by Dr. Donald Prothero.

For example, please explain how the falsification of the Big Bang renders discussions of how the helohyids, the anthracotheres and early whales are the result of an Early Eocene radiation in South Asia null and void.

Well, John, in order for me to answer in a way you understand, I need to determine what level of math you are capable of.

Yet another cowardly Cordova dodge, dressed up with yet another transparently bogus pretension of superior authority. Face it, little man, you CAN'T answer the question because you have no clue what you're talking about; and your inadequacy is painfully obvious to all of us. You're not fooling anyone.

Kurt Wise doesn’t need the challenge; he volunteers that, even if all the evidence in the universe flatly contradicted Scripture, and even if he had reached the point of admitting this to himself, he would still take his stand on Scripture and deny the evidence. This leaves me, as a scientist, speechless. I cannot imagine what it must be like to have a mind capable of such doublethink.

RBH wrote: I strongly doubt he [Todd Wood] can make evolutionists look silly to anyone but a flock of ignorant believers

D = V T D = distance the CMBR photon travelled V = Velocity T = Time V = speed of light T = 13.7 Billion years What is D?

Kurt Wise doesn’t need the challenge; he volunteers that, even if all the evidence in the universe flatly contradicted Scripture, and even if he had reached the point of admitting this to himself, he would still take his stand on Scripture and deny the evidence. This leaves me, as a scientist, speechless. I cannot imagine what it must be like to have a mind capable of such doublethink.

RBH wrote: I strongly doubt he [Todd Wood] can make evolutionists look silly to anyone but a flock of ignorant believers

D = V T D = distance the CMBR photon travelled V = Velocity T = Time V = speed of light T = 13.7 Billion years What is D?

Oh, and I'm gonna repeat stanton's question, just to see Sal further prove his inadequacy by avoiding it:

...please explain how the falsification of the Big Bang renders discussions of how the helohyids, the anthracotheres and early whales are the result of an Early Eocene radiation in South Asia null and void.

You did say you wanted us to stick to the subject, didn't you, Sal?

Wow, another flood of diversionary BS posts. Is Sal compensating for something?

Salvador Cordova said:

John wrote: Sal, I’ve been waiting two days for an answer to this question: Okay genius, can you explain how two “inept” mathematicians like Darwin and Wallace grasped the mathematical implications of Malthus’s “Essay on Population”, and used his analogies to conceive, independently of each other, the Theory of Evolution via Natural Selection?

Well, John, in order for me to answer in a way you understand, I need to determine what level of math you are capable of. To make that determination, perhaps you can answer how far the CMBR photons (the ones we see today) traveled. You'll need to apply some Stuyvesant level math:

D = V T D = distance the CMBR photon travelled V = Velocity T = Time V = speed of light T = 13.7 Billion years What is D?

If you can't answer this, well, I don't know how we can explore more advanced concepts like Malthusian fitness.

Raging Bee: Face it, little man, you CAN’T answer the question because you have no clue what you’re talking about; and your inadequacy is painfully obvious to all of us. You’re not fooling anyone.

D = V T D = distance the CMBR photon travelled V = Velocity T = Time V = speed of light T = 13.7 Billion years What is D?

D = V T D = distance the CMBR photon travelled V = 1 light year per year T = 13.7 Billion years What is D?

So what is the correct answer?

The correct answer is:

a) Even if you manage to invalidate the Big Bang, you still haven't managed to add a trace of extra validity to your young-Earth creation story, or any other creation story.

b) Do you really expect us to believe that "D=RT," a simple Newtonian equation from the first day of a high-school physics class, is really applicable to photons in an expanding not-exactly-Newtonian universe?

Now answer John's and Stanton's questions, or admit failure.

Remember when we were kids, and would somemtimes annoy other kids, or adults, by mindlessly repeating everything they said back to them? That's the level Sal is sinking to. Been there, done that, hit puberty, realized chicks didn't dig it, grew up and found better things to do already.

Sal, I don't need to do any "Stuyvesant level math" merely to state the obvious, that you are indeed a "delusional twit" who doesn't know what the heck you are talking about, since, for example, you refer to a "Malthusian fitness" (Are you sure you're not referring by mistake to Wright's adaptive landscape?).

John Kwok said: P. S. Am sure that a part-time MS graduate student of physics from Johns Hopkins University would have no problem at all in answering my questions.

dN/dt = rN((K – N)/K

D = VT D = (1 light year/year) * (13.7 Billion Years)

Salvador Cordova said There, even Darwin ought to have been able to figure that one out, or are you having problems resolving the dimensions?

C'mon, if PT is an oracle of science, they ought to be able to do this level of Algebra, or are you all suffering from Darwin's ineptitude with high school math.

I had said: "(P)lease explain how the falsification of the Big Bang renders discussions of how the helohyids, the anthracotheres and early whales are the result of an Early Eocene radiation in South Asia null and void."

Otherwise, you guys are just looking silly.

Sorry, I’m too dumb to understand eqautions with unbalanced parentheses…

Mike Elzinga wrote: The IDiot apparently doesn’t know he is still being profiled. If any of his profs are watching this, they would be shaking their heads also. I hope they are. Hmmm…. But in the interim, it remains somewhat instructive to watch his tactics. As stupid as they are, there are rubes out there he may still be able to bamboozle. I’m not going to feed him anything he can work with. He has already shot himself in the head.

Salvador Cordova said:

dN/dt = rN((K – N)/K

Hey John, your parentheses don't balance, so it is a non-sensical statement. But the logistic equation is alternaively stated as dN/dt = (r - aN)/N where r= intrinsic growth rate a = some positive constant N = population dN/dt = instantaneous change in population with respect to time Sorry, I'm too dumb to understand eqautions with unbalanced parentheses (like the on you provided). Perhaps you can educate me and the readers how to do this.

Salvador Cordova said: John Kwok,

D = VT D = (1 light year/year) * (13.7 Billion Years)

So how far did those CMBR photons travel? Mike said the photons don't have distance stamps on them, so you'll have to make the distance inference through other means. PS I never suggested the photons had distance stamps, that's a straw man by Mike Elzinga. That is not my position, but a misrepresentation of what my position is by Mike Elzinga. The proper way to infer the distances is by the formula I provided.

Given as how Slimy Sal Cordova is here simply to waste Panda's Thumb's bandwidth with his useless trolling, can we ban him for trolling, or at least kill this now-useless thread?

Mike Elzinga said:

John Kwok said: P. S. Am sure that a part-time MS graduate student of physics from Johns Hopkins University would have no problem at all in answering my questions.

The IDiot apparently doesn’t know he is still being profiled. If any of his profs are watching this, they would be shaking their heads also. I hope they are. Hmmm…. But in the interim, it remains somewhat instructive to watch his tactics. As stupid as they are, there are rubes out there he may still be able to bamboozle. I’m not going to feed him anything he can work with. He has already shot himself in the head.

Mike wrote: I’m not going to feed him anything he can work with. He has already shot himself in the head.

A. totally uncertain B. 1 million light years C. 13.7 billion light years D. None of the Above E. All of the Above

John Kwok said: Assuming that he's telling the truth about his current academic status, if I was one of his professors, I might be the first to encourage him to consider switching his field to basketweaving instead:

So try answering my questions, “genius”, instead of evading them.

Salvador Cordova said:

So try answering my questions, “genius”, instead of evading them.

I never said I was genius, I told you I'm stupid. If I can't solve the problem of how far those CMBR photons travelled, perhaps I can't move on to higher math. So can you please tell the readers how far those CMBR photons travelled? :-)

None of these questions presupposes any real understanding of math, and even, you, a "part-time M. S. graduate student in physics at Johns Hopkins", should realize that:

Okay genius, can you explain how two “inept” mathematicians like Darwin and Wallace grasped the mathematical implications of Malthus’s “Essay on Population”, and used his analogies to conceive, independently of each other, the Theory of Evolution via Natural Selection?

So, as a corollary, since these two “inept” mathematicians discovered independently, the Theory of Evolution via Natural Selection, wouldn’t it be conceivable then that, sooner or later, someone not named Wallace or Darwin might have conceived of it?

Am still waiting to hear too whether you think Behe and Dembski should be spending their time far more profitably by writing the definitive textbook on Klingon Cosmology. And what do you think of Ken Miller’s recommendation that Behe ought to be writing a textbook on Klingon biochemistry?

Now answer them please, or go back to whatever qualifies as your domicile near the Homewood campus.

Salvador Cordova said: This algebra even Charles Darwin could do (well, maybe not).

I never said I was genius, I told you I’m stupid.

So why should we take anything you say seriously? Why, in fact, should we waste any time with you at all?

Why are you ignoring scattering and early IGM re-ionization, Mr. C.?

Dale Husband said: The Big Bang occured everywhere at once, and there is no compelling reason why some areas of the expanding universe would be different, even if the different regions of it were not in contact with each other.

This is because the same laws of physics operated everywhere.

Salvador Cordova said: If I can't solve the problem of how far those CMBR photons travelled, perhaps I can't move on to higher math.

Recombination: 240,000–310,000 years See also: Cosmic microwave background WMAP data shows the microwave background radiation variations throughout the Universe from our perspective, though the actual variations are much smoother than the diagram suggestsHydrogen and helium atoms begin to form and the density of the universe falls. This is thought to have occurred somewhere between 240,000 and 310,000 years after the Big Bang.[3] Hydrogen and helium are at the beginning ionized, i.e. no electrons are bounded to the nuclei which are therefore electrically charged (+1 and +2 respectively). As the universe cools down, the electrons get captured by the ions making them neutral. This process is relatively fast (actually faster for the helium than for the hydrogen) and is known as recombination.[4] At the end of recombination, most of the atoms in the universe are neutral, therefore the photons can now travel freely: the universe has become transparent. The photons emitted right after the recombination, that can therefore travel undisturbed, are those that we see in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. Therefore the CMB is a picture of the universe at the end of this epoch.

I wrote: A Microwave photon emission has a point of origin at a definite time. For a detector to detect a microwave photon that originated from around the beginning of the explosion, that photon would have to travel from a point 13.7 billion light years away. … Presumably, the CMBR we are bathed in is from the distant locations from us.

and Mike responded: Wow; those damned photons come with distance labels on them? That’s funny as hell.

Sal, when are you going to tell us what your blithering about the Big Bang Theory has to do with evolution or YECism? eric, directly above, explicitly offered to set the BBT aside for you, and you still don't have the guts to tell us how that validates your creation story.

Or are you reluctant because you'll have to admit you:

1. have no idea what you're talking about

2. made up a "connection" as part of an ongoing (and increasingly desperate) effort to pretend you know something we don't?

So, again, in the interest of furthering scientific understanding of PT readers, can you explain exactly how casting doubt on the Big Bang theory validates or "makes possible" YECism?

Salvador Cordova said:

Mike wrote: I’m not going to feed him anything he can work with. He has already shot himself in the head.

Oh, but PandasThumb is about science education. I'm sure some of the interested readers are wanting to learn science. They would probably benefit from your estimate of how far those CMBR photons traveled. It's relevant to the issue presented by this physics organization: http://www.physorg.com/news76314500.html which is relevant to YEC, and thus relevant to Todd Wood, the honest creationist.

So, again, in the interest of furthering scientific understanding of PT readers, can you give an estimate for the distance that CMBR photons travelled? :-)

Dale Husband said: This Salvador loon has had a loooooooooooooooooooooooong history of annoying people who reject his nonsense.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/01/just_when_you_think_slimy_sal.php Just when you think Slimy Sal couldn't sink any lower… Category: Stupidity Posted on: January 2, 2008 4:54 PM, by PZ Myers He's just got to dive into the Marianas Trench. Quote-mining (badly) my daughter isn't just ugly, it's vile and loathsome and despicable…but that's typical Cordova, now declared Asshole of the Year. http://udoj.wordpress.com/2008/01/02/salvador-cordova-asshole-of-the-year/

Yep, that is how he operates. So I expected him to pick on me just like he picked on P Z's teenage daughter. The bastard has no shame whatsoever.

I wrote: So, again, in the interest of furthering scientific understanding of PT readers, can you give an estimate for the distance that CMBR photons travelled? :-)

Mike wrote: Sill to slow. Faster,Sally.! Flap those tiny genitals. Maybe they’ll start to grow.

Go fuck yourself, Slimy Sal. A lying sack of shit like you deserves no more response than that.

The Big Bang is a major hypothesis in basic origins science. This question is fair game.

It's fair game for honest debate among qualified adult scientists. You, Sal, are neither honest, nor qualified, nor adult, nor a scientist; so there's no use discussing it with you. Quit pretending to be eiter of those four things and try try TRY to get back some of whatever integrity you may have had long ago.

Raging Bee said: The Big Bang is a major hypothesis in basic origins science. This question is fair game. It's fair game for honest debate among qualified adult scientists. You, Sal, are neither honest, nor qualified, nor adult, nor a scientist; so there's no use discussing it with you. Quit pretending to be eiter of those four things and try try TRY to get back some of whatever integrity you may have had long ago.

phantomreader42 said: This is the life he has chosen.

Raging Bee said: Hey, Sal, how do you respond to the following charge that you quotemined PZ's teenage daughter? Anything to say? What does this say about your character and your credibility? And no, babbling about the Big Bang won't help you here.

Dale Husband said: This Salvador loon has had a loooooooooooooooooooooooong history of annoying people who reject his nonsense.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/01/just_when_you_think_slimy_sal.php Just when you think Slimy Sal couldn't sink any lower… Category: Stupidity Posted on: January 2, 2008 4:54 PM, by PZ Myers He's just got to dive into the Marianas Trench. Quote-mining (badly) my daughter isn't just ugly, it's vile and loathsome and despicable…but that's typical Cordova, now declared Asshole of the Year. http://udoj.wordpress.com/2008/01/02/salvador-cordova-asshole-of-the-year/

Yep, that is how he operates. So I expected him to pick on me just like he picked on P Z's teenage daughter. The bastard has no shame whatsoever.

Mike Elzinga said:

phantomreader42 said: This is the life he has chosen.

The fact that he continuously cruises the Internet looking for a lower dog to kick is clearly an indication of some psychological issues. And I am beginning to be skeptical that he is still a part-time student at Johns Hopkins. Either he has flunked out, or he never really enrolled. Whatever the case, I wouldn’t lay odds on his completing the program.

Mike Elzinga said: Is that why Sal opted to be Eric Bana's stunt double on the new ST film? He certainly behaves like a Romulan renegade:

phantomreader42 said: This is the life he has chosen.

The fact that he continuously cruises the Internet looking for a lower dog to kick is clearly an indication of some psychological issues. And I am beginning to be skeptical that he is still a part-time student at Johns Hopkins. Either he has flunked out, or he never really enrolled. Whatever the case, I wouldn’t lay odds on his completing the program.

phantomreader42 said:

Raging Bee said: The Big Bang is a major hypothesis in basic origins science. This question is fair game. It's fair game for honest debate among qualified adult scientists. You, Sal, are neither honest, nor qualified, nor adult, nor a scientist; so there's no use discussing it with you. Quit pretending to be eiter of those four things and try try TRY to get back some of whatever integrity you may have had long ago.

He can't get back his integrity. He offered it as a burnt sacrifice to his imaginary god. Wasn't much to begin with, but now there's nothing left at all. Slimy Sal is doomed to live and die as a pitiful, empty shell of a man, devoid of all conscience, knowledge, or honesty. This is the life he has chosen.

Salvador Cordova said:

So try answering my questions, “genius”, instead of evading them.

I never said I was genius, I told you I'm stupid. If I can't solve the problem of how far those CMBR photons travelled, perhaps I can't move on to higher math. So can you please tell the readers how far those CMBR photons travelled? :-)

Dale Husband said: Look, we already knew that the universe began about 13 billion years ago. Your throwing an equation at us to "prove" it was pointless. I guess you really CAN'T deal with the real issues of evolution, can you?

Dale Husband said: Look, we already knew that the universe began about 13 billion years ago. Your throwing an equation at us to "prove" it was pointless. I guess you really CAN'T deal with the real issues of evolution, can you?

Salvador Cordova said: So Dr. Elzinga, poor little dumb me and some of the readers would like to know how far those CMBR photons traveled.

A. totally uncertain B. 1 million light years C. 13.7 billion light years D. None of the Above E. All of the Above

The real suppressors of science

I see all this stuff in here about those nasty creationist – one would think they are on the brink of destroying any real science from ever again taking place!

Of course instead of getting our panties all tied in a knot over an emotional need to Christian bash, we could actually set our emotional zeal aside and act in the capacity of scientist. For example, we could go down to the public library and yank all the text books on general biology. We could actually measure how many of those text books promote the idea that God created it all, as though science had demonstrated such a thing. One could do this by 1) recording the number of general biology text books are in front of you, and 2) measuring how many equate creationism as being scientifically valid. In our local library the number of creationist pushing biology text books comes out to be zero – how about in your local library?

Then we could run another act of measurement. It is well understood, even by Darwinst, that speciation is NOT driven by natural selection. The diversity of life simply did not come about in that way. One can also demonstrate that there is an ideology of atheism (a belief system which states: I believe there is no God) which pushes Darwin's work as though it is “correct” and a “fact of nature”, even though we scientifically know it to be quite incorrect, especially in its neo_Darwin synthesis form. All the same, like creationist, they are a religiously charged group who seeks to justify their religion via biology (something biology can ill afford). So we can then measure our stack of general biology text books this way – how many push Darwin's work as though science has verified it as some sort of fact of nature? In our local library it is 100%. How about in your local library?
One not very up to date on biology and not very verse in science may think, at first, that this shows up because science has demonstrated natural selection to have the power the Darwinst religiously claim it has – but this is a result of distortion in our text books and the pushing of militant atheist, not the indings of science. Science shows something quite different indeed. Empirical observation shows two things of relevance here 1), the fossil record is a record of Stasis, not of life forms turning slowly into other life forms (the record is not what the theory predicts it to be), and 2) observation of selective breading shows that you can, via selection, change the life form so far and no farther (the theory claims selection pushes right on past such boundary's). In math we run straight into problems also. There we know, beyond any question, that mutations could not do what the Darwinst claim they do, it is simply a statistical impossibility (that is, it is so completely improbable that we are justified in saying it did not take place). All of these things point directly to this – the theory is of little value to science for things do not operate as the theory claims.
There is a great deal of distortion in our general biology text books, but the creationist and Christians are not the distortion being found, the religion of the atheist is. If you want to fight belief systems infecting of science books, you do well to exactly know which belief system is doing the damage!

Mike wrote: Apparently Sal can’t decide if these CMBR photons have a distance tag on them or a time tag on them,

Jon Fleming wrote:

A. totally uncertain B. 1 million light years C. 13.7 billion light years D. None of the Above E. All of the Above

Obviously, D. You aren’t even thinking.

Jon Fleming wrote: Obviously, D. You aren’t even thinking.

Troy said: The real suppressors of science I see all this stuff in here about those nasty creationist – one would think they are on the brink of destroying any real science from ever again taking place! Of course instead of getting our panties all tied in a knot over an emotional need to Christian bash, we could actually set our emotional zeal aside and act in the capacity of scientist. For example, we could go down to the public library and yank all the text books on general biology. We could actually measure how many of those text books promote the idea that God created it all, as though science had demonstrated such a thing. One could do this by 1) recording the number of general biology text books are in front of you, and 2) measuring how many equate creationism as being scientifically valid. In our local library the number of creationist pushing biology text books comes out to be zero – how about in your local library? Then we could run another act of measurement. It is well understood, even by Darwinst, that speciation is NOT driven by natural selection. The diversity of life simply did not come about in that way. One can also demonstrate that there is an ideology of atheism (a belief system which states: I believe there is no God) which pushes Darwin's work as though it is “correct” and a “fact of nature”, even though we scientifically know it to be quite incorrect, especially in its neo_Darwin synthesis form. All the same, like creationist, they are a religiously charged group who seeks to justify their religion via biology (something biology can ill afford). So we can then measure our stack of general biology text books this way – how many push Darwin's work as though science has verified it as some sort of fact of nature? In our local library it is 100%. How about in your local library? One not very up to date on biology and not very verse in science may think, at first, that this shows up because science has demonstrated natural selection to have the power the Darwinst religiously claim it has – but this is a result of distortion in our text books and the pushing of militant atheist, not the indings of science. Science shows something quite different indeed. Empirical observation shows two things of relevance here 1), the fossil record is a record of Stasis, not of life forms turning slowly into other life forms (the record is not what the theory predicts it to be), and 2) observation of selective breading shows that you can, via selection, change the life form so far and no farther (the theory claims selection pushes right on past such boundary's). In math we run straight into problems also. There we know, beyond any question, that mutations could not do what the Darwinst claim they do, it is simply a statistical impossibility (that is, it is so completely improbable that we are justified in saying it did not take place). All of these things point directly to this – the theory is of little value to science for things do not operate as the theory claims. There is a great deal of distortion in our general biology text books, but the creationist and Christians are not the distortion being found, the religion of the atheist is. If you want to fight belief systems infecting of science books, you do well to exactly know which belief system is doing the damage!

Biology is not alone.

I would hate to leave the impression that biology is alone in the field of a belief system trashing true knowledge in our school systems, it is not.

The atheist have also infected many of our history classes. A good example is the story of how everyone thought the earth was flat when Columbus sailed - Columbus in turn demonstrated to the ignorance of religiously bent people that in fact the earth was round. Although my daughter brought home such teach from school, it is nothing more than a complete lie.

The fact is that educated people where not only aware of the earth being round, they also had a grip on just how big it was. Columbas almost did not get to go, not because he thought the earth was round, but because he thought it was really small and those with good education knew on that he was completely mistaken (which, in fact, he was).

There are a great many such distortions put out by the atheist which have creped into our school systems. The idea that the Inquisition toasted all sorts of witches is but another. In reality the where the Inquisition was the strongest, the burnings where the least, often one was let off for simply saying they where sorry. The atheist lied about the matter so they could fly the banner of "see how bad those filthy Christians are" - rather like what this web site does)

Today the atheist are being attacked head on by science. One can use science in the subject of history, and in doing so not only are myths told by atheist falling apart, but in fact it is also being directly shown that they are in fact the promoters of such mythologies exactly because it pushes and promotes their own belief system.

Biology is the home of the atheist infection in the so-called higher sciences, and this is done by the atheist promoting work of Darwin - but make no mistake, the infestation of mythical distortion by the hate pushing atheist goes far beyond the subject of biology.

Go fuck yourself, Slimy Sal. A lying sack of shit like you deserves no more response than that.

Salvador, why are you such an unctuous prick? Enquiring minds want to know.

Troy said: Biology is not alone. I would hate to leave the impression that biology is alone in the field of a belief system trashing true knowledge in our school systems, it is not. The atheist have also infected many of our history classes. A good example is the story of how everyone thought the earth was flat when Columbus sailed - Columbus in turn demonstrated to the ignorance of religiously bent people that in fact the earth was round. Although my daughter brought home such teach from school, it is nothing more than a complete lie. The fact is that educated people where not only aware of the earth being round, they also had a grip on just how big it was. Columbas almost did not get to go, not because he thought the earth was round, but because he thought it was really small and those with good education knew on that he was completely mistaken (which, in fact, he was). There are a great many such distortions put out by the atheist which have creped into our school systems. The idea that the Inquisition toasted all sorts of witches is but another. In reality the where the Inquisition was the strongest, the burnings where the least, often one was let off for simply saying they where sorry. The atheist lied about the matter so they could fly the banner of "see how bad those filthy Christians are" - rather like what this web site does) Today the atheist are being attacked head on by science. One can use science in the subject of history, and in doing so not only are myths told by atheist falling apart, but in fact it is also being directly shown that they are in fact the promoters of such mythologies exactly because it pushes and promotes their own belief system. Biology is the home of the atheist infection in the so-called higher sciences, and this is done by the atheist promoting work of Darwin - but make no mistake, the infestation of mythical distortion by the hate pushing atheist goes far beyond the subject of biology.

Troy, you're babbling. Evolutionary biologists argue about the relative importance of the various mechanisms of speciation. They don't doubt that natural selection is a very important one of them.

Biology textbooks that teach actual science don't regard creationism as valid because there is no evidence for it. That's because science is about evidence, Troy. What is your test supposed to demonstrate? That science textbooks teach science? That's a real no-brainer.

No Christians have been bashed by anybody posting here. Criticised, yes. Lampooned, yes. Laughed at, certainly. Occasionally, when they come out with nonsense as foolish as yours, fiercely rebuked and derided. But not bashed. Overblown hyperbole only makes you sound even sillier.

Who is this "we" who know that what you call "Darwinism" is "quite incorrect"? You? You and three guys you met on the internet? You, your pastor and the faithful of your little congregation? It doesn't matter. The Theory of Evolution is the best explanation of the evidence. That's what matters.

On the fossil record, you are merely factually wrong. It shows both stasis and change. There are ample examples of the latter, and good reason for expecting the former.

Evolutionary biology is a science because it examines observed evidence from the natural world and tests hypotheses against it. It is not a religion. Creationism, and those few small branches of the Christian church that insist on it, denies evidence and has only one untestable hypothesis - that the cause of life is miraculous. It is a religious dogma.

In short, Troy, every single thing you said is wrong, wrong, wrong. You are sadly ignorant, but what is even sadder is that you prefer to be that way.

Troy said: Biology is not alone. I would hate to leave the impression that biology is alone in the field of a belief system trashing true knowledge in our school systems, it is not. The atheist have also infected many of our history classes. A good example is the story of how everyone thought the earth was flat when Columbus sailed - Columbus in turn demonstrated to the ignorance of religiously bent people that in fact the earth was round. Although my daughter brought home such teach from school, it is nothing more than a complete lie. The fact is that educated people where not only aware of the earth being round, they also had a grip on just how big it was. Columbas almost did not get to go, not because he thought the earth was round, but because he thought it was really small and those with good education knew on that he was completely mistaken (which, in fact, he was). There are a great many such distortions put out by the atheist which have creped into our school systems. The idea that the Inquisition toasted all sorts of witches is but another. In reality the where the Inquisition was the strongest, the burnings where the least, often one was let off for simply saying they where sorry. The atheist lied about the matter so they could fly the banner of "see how bad those filthy Christians are" - rather like what this web site does) Today the atheist are being attacked head on by science. One can use science in the subject of history, and in doing so not only are myths told by atheist falling apart, but in fact it is also being directly shown that they are in fact the promoters of such mythologies exactly because it pushes and promotes their own belief system. Biology is the home of the atheist infection in the so-called higher sciences, and this is done by the atheist promoting work of Darwin - but make no mistake, the infestation of mythical distortion by the hate pushing atheist goes far beyond the subject of biology.

John Kwok said: My dear delusional Troy: Nearly half of all evolutionary biologists profess some belief in a Diety, and there are quite a few prominent examples, such as evolutionary geneticist Francisco J. Ayala and ecologist Michael L. Rosenzweig (EDITORIAL NOTE: Kenneth R. Miller doesn't count, since he isn't an evolutionary biologist.):

Troy said: Biology is not alone. I would hate to leave the impression that biology is alone in the field of a belief system trashing true knowledge in our school systems, it is not. The atheist have also infected many of our history classes. A good example is the story of how everyone thought the earth was flat when Columbus sailed - Columbus in turn demonstrated to the ignorance of religiously bent people that in fact the earth was round. Although my daughter brought home such teach from school, it is nothing more than a complete lie. The fact is that educated people where not only aware of the earth being round, they also had a grip on just how big it was. Columbas almost did not get to go, not because he thought the earth was round, but because he thought it was really small and those with good education knew on that he was completely mistaken (which, in fact, he was). There are a great many such distortions put out by the atheist which have creped into our school systems. The idea that the Inquisition toasted all sorts of witches is but another. In reality the where the Inquisition was the strongest, the burnings where the least, often one was let off for simply saying they where sorry. The atheist lied about the matter so they could fly the banner of "see how bad those filthy Christians are" - rather like what this web site does) Today the atheist are being attacked head on by science. One can use science in the subject of history, and in doing so not only are myths told by atheist falling apart, but in fact it is also being directly shown that they are in fact the promoters of such mythologies exactly because it pushes and promotes their own belief system. Biology is the home of the atheist infection in the so-called higher sciences, and this is done by the atheist promoting work of Darwin - but make no mistake, the infestation of mythical distortion by the hate pushing atheist goes far beyond the subject of biology.

Moreover, if you ever decide to read work by the likes of John Endler, Peter and Rosemary Grant, and others, there is ample, important evidence which points to natural selection as one of the mechanisms responsible for speciation. Indeed, there are examples in the literature of relatively recent instances of speciation. Live Long and Prosper (as a DI IDiot Borg drone), John Kwok

Your ideas about history, Troy, are hardly less grotesquely wrong than your ideas about evolutionary biology. In any case, it's not even worth answering them. That the Holy Office was sometimes not quite as bad as people think is no defence of it. That myths like the one about Columbus are occasionally retailed in lower-school history textbooks is deplorable, but has nothing to do with an "atheist" view of history. You are blathering nonsense again.

Sal -

I expect answers to these questions BEFORE the first public screenings of the new "Star Trek" film, which will be around 7 PM EDT:

Can you explain how two “inept” mathematicians like Darwin and Wallace grasped the mathematical implications of Malthus’s “Essay on Population”, and used his analogies to conceive, independently of each other, the Theory of Evolution via Natural Selection?

So, as a corollary, since these two “inept” mathematicians discovered independently, the Theory of Evolution via Natural Selection, wouldn’t it be conceivable then that, sooner or later, someone not named Wallace or Darwin might have conceived of it?

Am still waiting to hear too whether you think Behe and Dembski should be spending their time far more profitably by writing the definitive textbook on Klingon Cosmology. And what do you think of Ken Miller’s recommendation that Behe ought to be writing a textbook on Klingon biochemistry?

If you can waste our time making nonsensical arguments in favor of Newtonian physics, then you can indulge us with some extensive, hopefully profound, answers to these questions.

Peace and Long Life (as a DI IDiot Borg drone),

John

Phantom reader: Go fuck yourself, Slimy Sal. A lying sack of shit like you deserves no more response than that.

As yet another fine example of your intellectually-challenged thought, Troy, I decided to rescue this comment from the Bathroom Wall, merely to demonstrate more of your breathtaking inanity:

I said (in reply to your inanity (see below)):

Wallace also read Malthus and, independently of Darwin, conceived of the theory of evolution via natural selection. To be precise then, this theory should be referred to as the Darwin - Wallace Theory of Evolution via Natural Selection. If you’re trying to insinuate that “Darwinism” was responsible for much of the inhumanity exhibited by some in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, including of course, both the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust, then you’re sadly mistaken, since, contrary to what the producers of “Expelled” - and others, like Dishonesty Institute mendacious intellectual pornographer David Klinghoffer - want you to believe, there is no demonstrable concrete proof that points to such a connection:

Troy said:

A great deal of inspiration for Darwin’s work was Malthus, who himself was anything but unbiased - simply read what he had to say of the Irish, which in turn was used to promote the genocide of between one and two million human beings. Herbert Spencer went on to justify the genocide and Malthus by claiming a law of nature was responsible, the law being natural selection, all of which he published several years prior to Darwin’s book on the preservation of favoured races came out - an idea that Darwin then supported, with his theory, in the book “the Descent of Man”.

I would like to say that it was not completely fair using the top biologist the way I did.It is of worth that she claims that neo-Darwinism is “complete funk” - after all, that is here field. it is not so fair to use her claim that neo-Darwinsm is nothing more than a religious sect, after all, that is not her field of expertise. It is however the field of expertise of sociologist, and it is easy to show that very highly recognized sociologist claim exactly the same thing about the neo-Darwinist - and that they also point out directly that the sect has its belief systems elevated in low level biology text books which do just as I said they do. It’s not a matter of “opinion”, but something which can be and has been scientifically studied - Darwinist are a religious group, and their beliefs are being promoted in publicaly funded text book - its beyond time we start enforcing our rights and boot the Darwinistic religious crap out of publicaly funded text books.

Note: To see a short paper from a prominent sociologist in the field relevant to this topic, please follow the link for a paper by Rodney Stark: http://www.google.com/gwt/n?u=http%[…]0darwin.html

Sal -

So you haven't disappeared yet courtesy of a Romulan cloaking device! Please answer my questions, which I've just posted again for your benefit.

Live Long and Prosper (as a DI IDiot Borg drone),

John

Troy blithered thusly:

Of course instead of getting our panties all tied in a knot over an emotional need to Christian bash, we could actually set our emotional zeal aside and act in the capacity of scientist...

If you actually learned sometning in those classes you slept through, you'd know that most of the people attacking creationism are themselves Christian. (You would have also learned how to form complete and coherent sentences, but that's another matter.)

Oh, and Sal? I very recently pointed out that you can't necessarily apply a simple Newtonian equation to particles travelling at lightspeed through a not-exactly-Newwtonian Universe; and you ignored it. Even as a diversion from your pathetic character and track-record, your constant harping on one little equation is just plain lame. Go fuck yourself. Or, better yet, get off the blogsphere and learn how responsible adults behave in the real world. You're not worthy to pretend you're our equal, and you're not worth our time.

John Kwok: Can you explain how two “inept” mathematicians like Darwin and Wallace grasped the mathematical implications of Malthus’s “Essay on Population”,

Jon Fleming said: Obviously, D. You aren't even thinking.

Did I make a mistake here John? Do you find that calculation reasonable?

Why don't you piss off and let reasonable people discuss the question?

You're not answering any of our questions, so why the Hell should we bother answering yours?

One of the never-ending patterns with Sal is that he becomes obsessively focused on trivia while trying to direct everyone’s attention onto himself.

Minor quibble: he "becomes obsessively focused on trivia" precisely to AVOID too much attnetion directed at himself. You'd probably do the same if you had Sal's mindset and track record.

Go fuck yourself, Slimy Sal. A lying sack of shit like you deserves no more response than that.

Raging Bee said: One of the never-ending patterns with Sal is that he becomes obsessively focused on trivia while trying to direct everyone’s attention onto himself. Minor quibble: he "becomes obsessively focused on trivia" precisely to AVOID too much attnetion directed at himself. You'd probably do the same if you had Sal's mindset and track record.

It may be true that I deserve no response, but what about the PT readers who want to learn more about science. Don’t they deserve to know how far those CMBR photons travelled according to mainstream cosmology.

They can get all the information they need from more reliable sources than you. Stop pretending you have anything to contribute. PT readers know you're nothing but a proven pathological quote-mining liar, and aren't worth shit in any honest field of study.

Raging Bee: You’re not answering any of our questions, so why the Hell should we bother answering yours?

Raging Bee: You’re not answering any of our questions, so why the Hell should we bother answering yours?

RBH: I strongly doubt he can make evolutionists look silly to anyone but a flock of ignorant believers.

Raging Bee said, to Slimy Sal: They can get all the information they need from more reliable sources than you.

Raging Bee said, to Slimy Sal: Stop pretending you have anything to contribute. PT readers know you're nothing but a proven pathological quote-mining liar, and aren't worth shit in any honest field of study.

Dale Husband wrote: Look, we already knew that the universe began about 13 billion years ago. Your throwing an equation at us to “prove” it was pointless.

Salvador Cordova said:

Dale Husband wrote: Look, we already knew that the universe began about 13 billion years ago. Your throwing an equation at us to “prove” it was pointless.

What? You don't know the age of the universe for sure. But on that assumption that he universe is 13.7 Billion years old, how far would you say those CMBR photons travelled in 13.7 Billion years. :-) Why are you guys clammng up? C'mon fess up, you guys are too embarrased to admit you didn't understand something and that Mike Elzinga was messing up his understanding of high school physics. So Dale, can you help Dr. Mikey, PhD in Physics, get over his amnesia in high school physics and Darwin level algebra. How far have those CMBR photons travelled again in 13.7 Billion years? The silence on this simple question is deafening! hehehe!

Mike wrote: One of the never-ending patterns with Sal is that he becomes obsessively focused on trivia

Salvador Cordova said:

John Kwok: Can you explain how two “inept” mathematicians like Darwin and Wallace grasped the mathematical implications of Malthus’s “Essay on Population”,

I'm willing to try, but can you help me verify one of my calculations is correct first. I mean, if my basic math is off, you'll help me spot it right? If a photon has been travelling for 13.7 Billion years, my calculations indicate it has travelled a distance of 13.7 Billion light years. Is that correct? Did I make a mistake here John? Do you find that calculation reasonable? I don't think it takes a PhD in physics like what Dr. Elzinga has, to venture an answer. But I could be wrong. So can you tell me if my calculation is correct. If not, then, no need to go on to the Wright model since it would appear I couldn't get a basic calculation correct. So, John, I've answered your questions earlier, can you even answer one? Quid pro quo. :-)

Raging Bee said: It may be true that I deserve no response, but what about the PT readers who want to learn more about science. Don’t they deserve to know how far those CMBR photons travelled according to mainstream cosmology. They can get all the information they need from more reliable sources than you. Stop pretending you have anything to contribute. PT readers know you're nothing but a proven pathological quote-mining liar, and aren't worth shit in any honest field of study.

Salvador Cordova said:

Mike wrote: One of the never-ending patterns with Sal is that he becomes obsessively focused on trivia

The never ending pattern is your refusal to answer a trivial question. What's the matter Mike, afraid it will show a little incompetence on your part to admit your error.

But the constant stone walling on a trivial question only goes to reinforce the public perception that Darwinists will go to any length of characters assassination, obfuscation, and misdirection to avoid admitting they made a mistake. Saving face would appear to have higher priority than telling the truth.

Stanton said:

Salvador Cordova said:

Mike wrote: One of the never-ending patterns with Sal is that he becomes obsessively focused on trivia

The never ending pattern is your refusal to answer a trivial question. What's the matter Mike, afraid it will show a little incompetence on your part to admit your error.

Then how come you can't explain how your attempts to falsify the Big Bang throws doubt, let alone invalidate Chemical and Biological Evolution, or demonstrate how your magical, middle school level algebra skills trump Charles Darwin's observations and contributions to science? Could it be that you have been bullshitting?

But the constant stone walling on a trivial question only goes to reinforce the public perception that Darwinists will go to any length of characters assassination, obfuscation, and misdirection to avoid admitting they made a mistake. Saving face would appear to have higher priority than telling the truth.

So then please explain why you claimed that I was making "silly claims" while you were boasting about how your middle school algebra skills make you more important than Charles Darwin?

The never ending pattern is your refusal to answer a trivial question.

Now that you've just admitted that your question is indeed trivial, are you going to answer our decidedly non-trivial questions about your character, integrity, and trustworthiness? What does your constant evasion of these questions say to PT readers?

PS: I, for one HAVE answered your "trivial question;" and I pointed out that I answered it. And you ignore that too, and lie about it, as you habitually (and pointlessly) lie about everything else.

But my answers don’t matter as much as yours to the readers of PandasThumb wanting to learn more science.

I'll believe that when the readers of PT say so themselves. We're perfectly capable of speaking for ourselves, and no one elected you to "represent" us. Go fuck yourself.

Salvador Cordova said:

Dale Husband wrote: Look, we already knew that the universe began about 13 billion years ago. Your throwing an equation at us to “prove” it was pointless.

What? You don't know the age of the universe for sure. But on that assumption that he universe is 13.7 Billion years old, how far would you say those CMBR photons travelled in 13.7 Billion years. :-) Why are you guys clammng up? C'mon fess up, you guys are too embarrased to admit you didn't understand something and that Mike Elzinga was messing up his understanding of high school physics. So Dale, can you help Dr. Mikey, PhD in Physics, get over his amnesia in high school physics and Darwin level algebra. How far have those CMBR photons travelled again in 13.7 Billion years? The silence on this simple question is deafening! hehehe!

Salvador Cordova said: It may be true that I deserve no response, but what about the PT readers who want to learn more about science.

Bathroom Wall time for Sal too. His mindless repetition of the same already-refuted nonsense, and his total refusal to acknowledge other commenters, are more characteristic of a spam-bot than an adult arguing in good faith.

Go fuck yourself, Slimy Sal. A lying sack of shit like you deserves no more response than that.

eric said: But I did respond to you Sal

I’ll assume you are correct and that the BB theory is wrong.

I’ll assume you are correct and that the BB theory is wrong.

I’d like to know your hypothesis for how different species came to be.

How about answering my questions first, jackass,

Salvador Cordova said:

How about answering my questions first, jackass,

Yeah, let's try to get around to answering your questions. It's pretty evident Dr. Mikey's been humiliated enough. :-) So give me the first question again. Thank you.

But I’d like to wait to see if Dr. Mikey will finally admit his incompetence...

Fuck you, Sal, you're in no position to lecture ANYONE about "incompetence."

Special creation.

So now you admit that your blithering about the Big Bang was totally irrelevant to your pretend-case for YEC? got any evidence for your "answer?" I'm sure that would be helpful to all those PT readers who want to learn more about science.

Yeah, let’s try to get around to answering your questions...So give me the first question again.

You already know where to find it, asshole. Your evasions are insultingly stupid. but then, insulting people is all you really care about, isn't it? You certainly have nothing else to offer.

I expect answers to these questions BEFORE the first public screenings of the new “Star Trek” film, which will be around 7 PM EDT:

Can you explain how two “inept” mathematicians like Darwin and Wallace grasped the mathematical implications of Malthus’s “Essay on Population”, and used his analogies to conceive, independently of each other, the Theory of Evolution via Natural Selection?

So, as a corollary, since these two “inept” mathematicians discovered independently, the Theory of Evolution via Natural Selection, wouldn’t it be conceivable then that, sooner or later, someone not named Wallace or Darwin might have conceived of it?

Am still waiting to hear too whether you think Behe and Dembski should be spending their time far more profitably by writing the definitive textbook on Klingon Cosmology. And what do you think of Ken Miller’s recommendation that Behe ought to be writing a textbook on Klingon biochemistry?

Raging Bee said: But I’d like to wait to see if Dr. Mikey will finally admit his incompetence... Fuck you, Sal, you're in no position to lecture ANYONE about "incompetence."

Salvador Cordova said:

Jon Fleming wrote: Obviously, D. You aren’t even thinking.

That may be true that I'm not thinking, so perhaps you can state how far CMBR photons travelled according to Big Bang Cosmology. An estimate will do based on mainstream literature. You wouldn't want readers walking away from this debate wondering how far those CMBR photons travelled.

Salvador Cordova said: If a photon has been travelling for 13.7 Billion years, my calculations indicate it has travelled a distance of 13.7 Billion light years. Is that correct?

I suppose Sal has ducked back into his Romulan Cloaking Device. Shouldn't take him too long to answer my questions, especially for someone who admits that he is "stupid".

Jon Fleming wrote: Salvador Cordova said: If a photon has been travelling for 13.7 Billion years, my calculations indicate it has travelled a distance of 13.7 Billion light years. Is that correct? Nope.

Salvador Cordova said:

Jon Fleming wrote: Salvador Cordova said: If a photon has been travelling for 13.7 Billion years, my calculations indicate it has travelled a distance of 13.7 Billion light years. Is that correct? Nope.

Then how far will a photon travelling for 13.7 Billion years travel?

john kwok: Can you explain how two “inept” mathematicians like Darwin and Wallace grasped the mathematical implications of Malthus’s “Essay on Population”,

Salvador Cordova said:

I’d like to know your hypothesis for how different species came to be.

Special creation.

Salvador Cordova said:

john kwok: Can you explain how two “inept” mathematicians like Darwin and Wallace grasped the mathematical implications of Malthus’s “Essay on Population”,

Your question assumes Darwin really understood the implications. Your question is thus what is known a leading question such as, "have you stopped beating your puppy". Which every way you answer it will appear bad. The reason is that the implicit premise might be wrong, namely, "Darwin grasped the mathematical implications of Malthus's essay." Thus your questions is not a valid question at all. It's like asking the area of a square circle. By the way, I see Dr. Elzinga, PhD in physics is not volunteering an estimate of how far CMBR photons travelled. John Fleming is not providing his estimates either, and neither are you.

Raging Bee: Fuck you, Sal, you’re in no position to lecture ANYONE about “incompetence.”

Salvador Cordova said: Your question assumes Darwin really understood the implications. Your question is thus what is known a leading question such as, "have you stopped beating your puppy". Which every way you answer it will appear bad. The reason is that the implicit premise might be wrong, namely, "Darwin grasped the mathematical implications of Malthus's essay."

A struggle for existence inevitably follows from the high rate at which all organic beings tend to increase. Every being, which during its natural lifetime produces several eggs or seeds, must suffer destruction during some period of its life, and during some season or occasional year, otherwise, on the principle of geometrical increase, its numbers would quickly become so inordinately great that no country could support the product. Hence, as more individuals are produced than can possibly survive, there must in every case be a struggle for existence, either one individual with another of the same species, or with the individuals of distinct species, or with the physical conditions of life. It is the doctrine of Malthus applied with manifold force to the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms; for in this case there can be no artificial increase of food, and no prudential restraint from marriage.

John Kwok: Am still waiting to hear too whether you think Behe and Dembski should be spending their time far more profitably by writing the definitive textbook on Klingon Cosmology.

And what do you think of Ken Miller’s recommendation that Behe ought to be writing a textbook on Klingon biochemistry?

Your question assumes Darwin really understood the implications. Your question is thus what is known a leading question such as, “have you stopped beating your puppy”.

First you flat-out lie (again), then you offer a conclusion that isn't even supported by the lie, let alone anything else. The perfect metaphor for Sal's career.

Which every way you answer it will appear bad.

Awww, poor little girly-man, can't bear to answer a question 'cause he might get hurt. It must really suck to be you, Sally-boy.

The reason is that the implicit premise might be wrong, namely, “Darwin grasped the mathematical implications of Malthus’s essay.”

Well, gee, that wouldn't be such a huge problem if you actually made an honest attempt to learn something about the relevant subject-matter BEFORE pretending to be an intellectual giant, would it? (Of course, after mistaking a fake scientific paper for a real one, I guess we can't expect you to be any good at research.)

That's okay, Sally-boy, we all know you're a special-needs coward and you'll never be able to function as a man. And we all know you'll do nothing from now on but dodge the questions you've been dodging from day one.

Just one question: if you don't want to answer our questions, and don't have the guts to stand by your own words and actions, then what the fuck are you doing here at all? Trying to make dodging and spinning a Special Olympic event?

Go fuck yourself, Slimy Sal. A lying sack of shit like you deserves no more response than that.

But I knew: CMBR = Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation...

And so the pathetic loser, with absolutely nothing else to be proud of, half-assedly tries to salvage some self-respect by insisting he was right about something totally trivial and irrelevant.

Raging Bee said: Bathroom Wall time for Sal too. His mindless repetition of the same already-refuted nonsense, and his total refusal to acknowledge other commenters, are more characteristic of a spam-bot than an adult arguing in good faith.

Salvador Cordova said:

John Kwok: Am still waiting to hear too whether you think Behe and Dembski should be spending their time far more profitably by writing the definitive textbook on Klingon Cosmology.

I dont think they should be spending their time writing a textbook on Klingon cosmology since I think they'll make more money marketing ID.

And what do you think of Ken Miller’s recommendation that Behe ought to be writing a textbook on Klingon biochemistry?

I think Dr. Miller was expressing his disdain for Behe, not really offering sincere career advice. Now that I answered some of your questions, quid pro quo. How far do you estimate the CMBR photons travelled which we observe today? C'mon John, apparently, Dr. Elzinga, PhD in physics, is having amnesia over the basic equations of uniform velocity. This is high school stuff.

eric wrote: Thanks for your more direct response, but that isn’t an answer. Creation by what, when, and what’s so “special” about it?

Several eminent naturalists have of late published their belief that a multitude of reputed species in each genus are not real species; but that other species are real, that is, have been independently created. This seems to me a strange conclusion to arrive at. They admit that a multitude of forms, which till lately they themselves thought were special creations, and which are still thus looked at by the majority of naturalists,

To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual. When I view all beings not as special creations,

If someone were to say they think species are a result of descent with modification from common ancestry, with the primary mechanism of speciation being natural selection, I understand the when, the where, the how, etc… of their hypothesis. The two words “special creation” do not tell me anything about your hypothesis. What is the mechanism by which species came to be? When was it used? Who or what did the creating?

phantomreader42 said:

Raging Bee said: Bathroom Wall time for Sal too. His mindless repetition of the same already-refuted nonsense, and his total refusal to acknowledge other commenters, are more characteristic of a spam-bot than an adult arguing in good faith.

Well at least now he's come right out and admitted that ID is nothing more than creationism repackaged as a moneymaking scheme. Frauds and crooks all at the Dishonesty Institute.

Salvador Cordova said:

eric wrote: Thanks for your more direct response, but that isn’t an answer. Creation by what, when, and what’s so “special” about it?

Charles Darwin used the term "Creator" and "special creations" in Origin of Species, Chapter 14.

Several eminent naturalists have of late published their belief that a multitude of reputed species in each genus are not real species; but that other species are real, that is, have been independently created. This seems to me a strange conclusion to arrive at. They admit that a multitude of forms, which till lately they themselves thought were special creations, and which are still thus looked at by the majority of naturalists,

Meaning many species were not descended from a common ancestor. The Creator was mentioned:

To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual. When I view all beings not as special creations,

The Creator was presumably God. So I think the creator is God, but formally speaking that is not a scientifically testable claim, at least not directly.

If someone were to say they think species are a result of descent with modification from common ancestry, with the primary mechanism of speciation being natural selection, I understand the when, the where, the how, etc… of their hypothesis. The two words “special creation” do not tell me anything about your hypothesis. What is the mechanism by which species came to be? When was it used? Who or what did the creating?

There may not be any mechanism that can be accesible to science. There are lots of things which are out of the reach of science. So: 1. Who or what did the creating? Answer: hypothesize God, but that is not testable scientifically, it might be a formally undecidable question 2.What is the mechanism by which species came to be? Unknown. But this can be a leading question because "mechanism" might not be the appropriate process. "mechanism" might suggest the process is repeatable in a lab, this is almost certainy not the case. If one says intelligence is a mechanism, this may be problematic since intelligence cannot be fully described mechanically. That is the problem with strong Artificial Intelligence, it may not be reducible to mechanical description. I can hypothesize "Intelligence" as a mechanism, but that might not be a directly observable "mechanism". 3. When was it used? For human life maybe 10,000 years ago. This question is subject to indirect scientific inquiry. Cornell Geneticist John Sanford's Genetic Entropy thesis suggests that human life is deteriorating so fast that it could not have existed much more than say a 100,000 years. If so, this would tip the balance in favor of the 10,000 year emergence of humans versus standard evolutionary theory. His thesis is testable empirically, at least in principle. It might be feasible if Illumina and Solexa are able to perfect their DNA sequencing technologies. So, my hypothesis has elements that are not subject to direct scientific inquiry. On the otherhand, it could be a mistake to presume the Origin of Species really is accessible to science. Darwin presumed he had the answer, but I don't think the facts are on his side. I have no problem with scientists trying to find a "scientific" answer so long as it provides a theory consistent with facts.

Salvador Cordova said:

Jon Fleming wrote: Salvador Cordova said: If a photon has been travelling for 13.7 Billion years, my calculations indicate it has travelled a distance of 13.7 Billion light years. Is that correct? Nope.

Then how far will a photon travelling for 13.7 Billion years travel?

So now all Sal can think of is to quote-mine Darwin, just to show that he used the phrase "special creation," with absolutely no regard for what Darwin was actually trying to say. Yet another typical empty Cordova dodge. (Here's a hint, boy: when you indiscriminately paste incomplete sentences, it's pretty obvious you're not interested in what Darwin really said.)

Mike Elzinga wrote: The fact that he continuously cruises the Internet looking for a lower dog to kick is clearly an indication of some psychological issues.

I beat a puppy, I believe, simply from enjoying the sense of power.... --Charles Darwin

Raging Bee said: So now all Sal can think of is to quote-mine Darwin, just to show that he used the phrase "special creation," with absolutely no regard for what Darwin was actually trying to say. Yet another typical empty Cordova dodge. (Here's a hint, boy: when you indiscriminately paste incomplete sentences, it's pretty obvious you're not interested in what Darwin really said.)

Raging Bee said: So now all Sal can think of is to quote-mine Darwin, just to show that he used the phrase "special creation," with absolutely no regard for what Darwin was actually trying to say. Yet another typical empty Cordova dodge. (Here's a hint, boy: when you indiscriminately paste incomplete sentences, it's pretty obvious you're not interested in what Darwin really said.)

Salvador Cordova said:

Mike Elzinga wrote: The fact that he continuously cruises the Internet looking for a lower dog to kick is clearly an indication of some psychological issues.

Yes I agree trying to kick lower dogs in order to make one feel superior is an indication of psychological issues.

I beat a puppy, I believe, simply from enjoying the sense of power.... --Charles Darwin

:-)

(Here’s a hint, boy: when you indiscriminately paste incomplete sentences, it’s pretty obvious you’re not interested in what Darwin really said.)

— Raging Bee

I beat a puppy, I believe, simply from enjoying the sense of power.… –Charles Darwin

— Sal, quotemining Darwin,

Once as a very little boy, whilst at the day-school, or before that time, I acted cruelly, for I beat a puppy I believe, simply from enjoying the sense of power; but the beating could not have been severe, for the puppy did not howl, of which I feel sure as the spot was near to the house. This act lay heavily on my conscience, as is shown by my remembering the exact spot where the crime was committed. It probably lay all the heavier from my love of dogs being then, and for a long time afterwards, a passion. Dogs seemed to know this, for I was an adept in robbing their love from their masters.

Go fuck yourself, Slimy Sal. A lying sack of shit like you deserves no more response than that.

Sal trolls.... Charles Darwin used the term “Creator” and “special creations” in Origin of Species, Chapter 14.

Sally boy, you have barely two hours left to answer my questions correctly. So far you're flunking the exam.

But I knew: CMBR = Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation CMBR travel distance = approximately 13.7 billion years according to Standard Cosmology

John Kwok: I hear that Johns Hopkins has some excellent staff psychologists over at its campus health center. I strongly advise you to seek their counseling ASAP.

Darwinism being quite obviously a biological theory and open to dispute. To claim otherwise is to be woefully misinformed.... After noting Mayr's fearless use of the words "tentative," "philosophy," and "theory," one surely is justified in responding: No wonder Darwinism, in contrast to other scientific theories, seems an argument without end! It's history--indeed, history captured by that creative-writing-class concept narrative. If historical narrative--and the "philosophy" it propounds--are what justify the Darwinian opinions, the textbook writers of Georgia can legitimately claim that Darwin's "tentative reconstruction" is not only a theory but a special kind of theory, one lacking the telling and persuasive power that theories built on hypothesis-generated experiment and public prediction can garner. .... Paul McHugh is a university distinguished service professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and former psychiatrist in chief of the Johns Hopkins Hospital

But I knew: CMBR = Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation CMBR travel distance = approximately 13.7 billion light years according to Standard Cosmology

Yup, and if there's one thing psychiatrists and behavioural specialists know all about, it's evolutionary development. And paleontology. And organic chemistry. And cladistics. And natural history. And geology...

Next you'll be using Egnor as an authority.

Or maybe a Texas dentist.

Give it a rest, already.

Salvador Cordova said:

John Kwok: I hear that Johns Hopkins has some excellent staff psychologists over at its campus health center. I strongly advise you to seek their counseling ASAP.

you mean like Hopkins Psychiatrist, Paul McHugh http://tinyurl.com/c9bosb

Darwinism being quite obviously a biological theory and open to dispute. To claim otherwise is to be woefully misinformed.... After noting Mayr's fearless use of the words "tentative," "philosophy," and "theory," one surely is justified in responding: No wonder Darwinism, in contrast to other scientific theories, seems an argument without end! It's history--indeed, history captured by that creative-writing-class concept narrative. If historical narrative--and the "philosophy" it propounds--are what justify the Darwinian opinions, the textbook writers of Georgia can legitimately claim that Darwin's "tentative reconstruction" is not only a theory but a special kind of theory, one lacking the telling and persuasive power that theories built on hypothesis-generated experiment and public prediction can garner. .... Paul McHugh is a university distinguished service professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and former psychiatrist in chief of the Johns Hopkins Hospital

Stanton wrote: Among other things, John Sanford has been very selective about the facts he put into his book, including how he mentions that 8x polyploid mutant plants are generally frail compared to the normal plants, but fails to mention how 2x and 3x polyploid mutant plants are generally far more robust than the parent plants, or how he misuses Kimura’s charts. And then there’s how he dismisses the fact that there are genuinely beneficial and genuinely neutral mutations for no good reason beyond the fact that they contradict his thesis statement.

Kwok bloviated: “You are factually wrong Sal - Darwin seems to grasp Malthus quite well. Oh, and that quote is from the subsection titled ‘Geometrical Rate of Increase.’ The chapter title should have been a give-away as to whether he understood Malthus’ implications…”

Natural Selection is daily and hourly scrutinising, throughout the world, the slightest variations; rejecting those that are bad, preserving and adding up all that are good. C.DARWIN sixth edition Origin of Species — Ch#4 Natural Selection

Salvador Cordova said:

Stanton wrote: Among other things, John Sanford has been very selective about the facts he put into his book, including how he mentions that 8x polyploid mutant plants are generally frail compared to the normal plants, but fails to mention how 2x and 3x polyploid mutant plants are generally far more robust than the parent plants, or how he misuses Kimura’s charts. And then there’s how he dismisses the fact that there are genuinely beneficial and genuinely neutral mutations for no good reason beyond the fact that they contradict his thesis statement.

How do you know that Stanton? do you have Sanford's book? Or are you writing book reviews like John Kwok, who writes book reviews of books he's not even read?

Salvador Cordova said:

Kwok bloviated: “You are factually wrong Sal - Darwin seems to grasp Malthus quite well. Oh, and that quote is from the subsection titled ‘Geometrical Rate of Increase.’ The chapter title should have been a give-away as to whether he understood Malthus’ implications…”

But I did make this observation to eric and Raging Bee: "...not only did Darwin understand Malthus’s work, but so did Wallace. Otherwise, then how could they have derived independently, the Theory of Evolution via Natural Selection?" "If Sally is a 'part-time M. S. graduate student in physics at Johns Hopkins University' - which I strongly doubt - then the department must have a) lowered its admission standards or b) made a serious mistake in judgement or c) most likely, both" "I’m inclined to opt for c)." Live Long and Prosper (as a DI IDiot Borg drone), John If Darwin understood Malthus, he would have realized Malthusian ideas would have been fatal to his claim:

Natural Selection is daily and hourly scrutinising, throughout the world, the slightest variations; rejecting those that are bad, preserving and adding up all that are good. C.DARWIN sixth edition Origin of Species — Ch#4 Natural Selection

Highly selective environments ensure natural selection destroys good traits as well as bad ones. Ponder the implications of Fisher's Fundamental Theorem of Natural Selection, and it might eventually dawn on you, Malthusian models lead to interference selection, which refutes this claim of Darwin. Darwin understanding of natural selection in the wild was as shallow as his understanding of math. By the way, "The Struggle for Existence" was a term used by Creationists Blyth. Blyth had a much better conception of natural selection than Darwin, and it is Blyth's ideas of selection that have been vindicated,not Darwin's.

Salvador Cordova said: How do you know that Stanton? do you have Sanford's book? Or are you writing book reviews like John Kwok, who writes book reviews of books he's not even read?

Salvador Cordova said: Highly selective environments ensure natural selection destroys good traits as well as bad ones.

Darwin understanding of natural selection in the wild was as shallow as his understanding of math.

By the way, "The Struggle for Existence" was a term used by Creationists Blyth. Blyth had a much better conception of natural selection than Darwin, and it is Blyth's ideas of selection that have been vindicated,not Darwin's.

My dear delusional twit lying sack of shit-

Shouldn't you consult with the writings of John Endler, Peter and Rosemary Grant, Jerry Coyne, and more than a few others before launching into such breathtaking inanity:

"Highly selective environments ensure natural selection destroys good traits as well as bad ones. Ponder the implications of Fisher's Fundamental Theorem of Natural Selection, and it might eventually dawn on you, Malthusian models lead to interference selection, which refutes this claim of Darwin."

"Darwin understanding of natural selection in the wild was as shallow as his understanding of math."

Anyone who has demonstrated such a woeful ignorance of both modern biology and cosmology is someone who isn't worth his intellectual weight at all as a "part-time M. S. physics graduate student at Johns Hopkins University".

I rest my case, and thankfully, I'll watch you onscreen as Bana's double tomorrow.

Peace and Long Life (as a DI IDiot Borg drone),

John Kwok

Salvador Cordova said: (quoting Paul McHugh) No wonder Darwinism, in contrast to other scientific theories, seems an argument without end!

Salvador Cordova said:

Stanton wrote: Among other things, John Sanford has been very selective about the facts he put into his book, including how he mentions that 8x polyploid mutant plants are generally frail compared to the normal plants, but fails to mention how 2x and 3x polyploid mutant plants are generally far more robust than the parent plants, or how he misuses Kimura’s charts. And then there’s how he dismisses the fact that there are genuinely beneficial and genuinely neutral mutations for no good reason beyond the fact that they contradict his thesis statement.

How do you know that Stanton? do you have Sanford's book?

Salvador Cordova said:

Dale Husband wrote: Look, we already knew that the universe began about 13 billion years ago. Your throwing an equation at us to “prove” it was pointless.

What? You don't know the age of the universe for sure. But on that assumption that he universe is 13.7 Billion years old, how far would you say those CMBR photons travelled in 13.7 Billion years. :-) Why are you guys clammng up? C'mon fess up, you guys are too embarrased to admit you didn't understand something and that Mike Elzinga was messing up his understanding of high school physics. So Dale, can you help Dr. Mikey, PhD in Physics, get over his amnesia in high school physics and Darwin level algebra. How far have those CMBR photons travelled again in 13.7 Billion years? The silence on this simple question is deafening! hehehe!

And STILL, after all this time, Sally the Sleazebag will not explain to anyone why he rejects evolution and is willing to consider the idea of YEC. He must really love his stupid Big Bang red herring. Needless to say, the longer he harps on it, the longer I laugh at his cowardice.

Dale Husband said: And STILL, after all this time, Sally the Sleazebag will not explain to anyone why he rejects evolution and is willing to consider the idea of YEC. He must really love his stupid Big Bang red herring. Needless to say, the longer he harps on it, the longer I laugh at his cowardice.

What completely flummoxes me is why a creationist would want to take issue with the Big Bang theory at all. It's been said here before me: isn't the idea that all things had a beginning compatible with their cosmology? Why would they want to contest it?

Dave Luckett said: What completely flummoxes me is why a creationist would want to take issue with the Big Bang theory at all. It's been said here before me: isn't the idea that all things had a beginning compatible with their cosmology? Why would they want to contest it?

Salvador Cordova said:

Stuart Weinstein said: I don’t see what any of that has to do with the canonical theory behind the CMBR. The CMBR doesn’t originate at the “edge” of the Universe. IT is everywhere in every volume of space and fills the universe. How do you cast shadows when light is coming at you every which way?

A Microwave photon emission has a point of origin at a definite time. For a detector to detect a microwave photon that originated from around the beginning of the explosion, that photon would have to travel from a point 13.7 billion light years away. Microwaves from the closer emission points-of-origin have already passed us by and some are long gone elsewhere and are supposedly irradiating other locations in space. Hence to see CMBR from around the beginning of the Big Bang, we would have to look at microwaves coming from the farthest possible distance. This essentially forms the appearance of an "edge", thus there can be shadows. Presumably, the CMBR we are bathed in is from the distant locations from us. Also, presumably, our neck of the woods provided microwave emissions to those places and elsewhere. Those places are presumably experiencing now the CMBR that originated from our neck of the woods that is now reaching them. Ponder it and you will understand. :-)

Salvador Cordova said:

Mike Elzinga wrote: Wow; those damned photons come with distance labels on them? That’s funny as hell.

How far away would you say the CMBR photons come from? From Wiki on CMBR:

photons that were around at that time have been propagating ever since

So these CMBR photons have been propagating ever since. If they have been propagating for around 13.7 Billion years, how far away would you say their point of origin is from us. :-) Or are you going to say the photons we see as CMBR have originated from points a few million light years way. Wiki on the time when CMBR photons originated:

The CMB gives a snapshot of the Universe when, according to standard cosmology, the temperature dropped enough to allow electrons and protons to form hydrogen atoms, thus making the universe transparent to radiation. When it originated some 380,000 years after the Big Bang

If the age of the universe is 13,700,000,000 years 380,000 is drop in the bucket, so the CMBR photons we see now are roughly 13.7 Billion years old. So mike, how far away is the point of origin for these photons? Why don't you show some expertise in first semester physics. D = V T D = distance V = Velocity T = Time V = speed of light T = 13.7 Billion years Solve for D.

I realise that my ignorance on this subject is abysmal, but is this bloke attempting to use Newtonian mechanics to tackle particle physics?

Even I know that's not on.

...is this bloke attempting to use Newtonian mechanics to tackle particle physics?

No, he's attempting to use huge amounts of pure nonsense to pretend he's smart, and to cover up and compensate for his intellectual impotence and moral retardation. Does that make things any clearer?

Stuart Weinstein said: You are a silly sot. Our region of space is 13.7 billion years old too. Did you have a point?

Stanton said:

Stuart Weinstein said: You are a silly sot. Our region of space is 13.7 billion years old too. Did you have a point?

Salvador Cordova's point is that it somehow contradicts the infallible, impeachable authority of the Holy Bible, and that he works for a company which is striving to one day turn the United States into a theocratic dictatorship where the Holy Bible be the multi-purpose science/history/law textbook of the land, and under pain of death, it would never ever ever be questioned, save only for the divinely appointed overlords' convenience.

Raging Bee said: ...is this bloke attempting to use Newtonian mechanics to tackle particle physics? No, he's attempting to use huge amounts of pure nonsense to pretend he's smart, and to cover up and compensate for his intellectual impotence and moral retardation. Does that make things any clearer?

Dale Husband said: And STILL, after all this time, Sally the Sleazebag will not explain to anyone why he rejects evolution ...

I laugh at his cowardice.

Stanton said:

Stuart Weinstein said: You are a silly sot. Our region of space is 13.7 billion years old too. Did you have a point?

Salvador Cordova's point is that it somehow contradicts the infallible, impeachable authority of the Holy Bible, and that he works for a company which is striving to one day turn the United States into a theocratic dictatorship where the Holy Bible be the multi-purpose science/history/law textbook of the land, and under pain of death, it would never ever ever be questioned, save only for the divinely appointed overlords' convenience.

Mike Elzinga wrote: Wow; those damned photons come with distance labels on them? That’s funny as hell.

Salvador Cordova said: How far away would you say the CMBR photons come from?

Dave Luckett said: I realise that my ignorance on this subject is abysmal, but is this bloke attempting to use Newtonian mechanics to tackle particle physics? Even I know that's not on.

from the Wikipedia article on the Universe: Current interpretations of astronomical observations indicate that the age of the universe is 13.73 (± 0.12) billion years,[1] and that the diameter of the observable Universe is at least 93 billion light years, or 8.80 × 1026 metres. (It may seem paradoxical that two galaxies can be separated by 93 billion light years in only 13 billion years, since special relativity states that matter cannot exceed the speed of light in a localized region of space-time. However, according to general relativity, space can expand with no intrinsic limit on its rate; thus, two galaxies can separate more quickly than the speed of light if the space between them grows.) It is uncertain whether the size of the universe is finite or infinite.

Following onto Mike's latest comment, I also suspect that people like Sal gravitate toward physics and math in the first place because it paints really neat and simple pictures of the Universe, all ordered according to rules elegantly explained by numbers and equations; and that's a (relative) simplicity that people like Sal desperately need because they simply can't handle the much messier and more complex world of biology, psychology, politics, etc. And once they've settled into their neat little world of simple equations and predictability, some such people try to use their (real or pretend) knowledge as both a shield and a cudgel to attack and belittle the messy outside world of living things. They can't comprehend the mind-boggling complexity of the real world (which really starts to hit us hardest with the onset of puberty), and their incomprehention leads them to fear and hate it, and to try to use their knowledge of equations -- or their pretend-knowledge -- to "trump" the "soft" fields of study. We all go through this phase sometime in our adolescence; but most of us keep moving on, while people like Sal get stuck in it and stay there.

Those of us who have seen "Les Miserables" can think of Sal as a far, far stupider and less scrupulous version of Javert: imagining a Universe of perfect order, like the stars in their heavenly courses, and hating the Earth and his fellow humans for not being as rational, until his rigidity and hatred drive him insane. (Of course, the analogy kinda breaks down when one realizes that Sal is supporting his even more simpleminded YEC "special creation" drivel because even the orderly Universe of astrophysics and particle physics is too daunting for him to handle.)

I also noticed a similar tendency among some engineers, who tried to use their "expertise" -- or rather, their credentials -- to attack biological evolution. Their profession is one of predictable intelligently-designed machines, so that's how they insist on understanding life.

Salvador Cordova said: Highly selective environments ensure natural selection destroys good traits as well as bad ones. Ponder the implications of Fisher's Fundamental Theorem of Natural Selection, and it might eventually dawn on you, Malthusian models lead to interference selection, which refutes this claim of Darwin.

So, my hypothesis has elements that are not subject to direct scientific inquiry. On the otherhand, it could be a mistake to presume the Origin of Species really is accessible to science.

Raging Bee said: And once they've settled into their neat little world of simple equations and predictability, some such people try to use their (real or pretend) knowledge as both a shield and a cudgel to attack and belittle the messy outside world of living things.

They can’t comprehend the mind-boggling complexity of the real world (which really starts to hit us hardest with the onset of puberty), and their incomprehention leads them to fear and hate it, and to try to use their knowledge of equations – or their pretend-knowledge – to “trump” the “soft” fields of study.

I also noticed a similar tendency among some engineers, who tried to use their “expertise” – or rather, their credentials – to attack biological evolution.

I just remembered some lyrics by Billy Bragg that describe Sal neatly:

His lack of humility defies imagination
He hangs around like a fart in a Russian space station

Dean Wentworth said: Be that as it may, even if Newtonian physics were applicable to photon travel, what is Cordova's point? He obviously sees this as some kind of silver bullet to shoot down the concept of a 13.7 billion year old universe, but I can't fathom what his reasoning even is. Can somebody help me out here?

I should add to my last comment that the technique Sal is using is common among the creationist debaters. “Pastor” Bob Enyart is another example. Duane Gish, Henry Morris, and others all used the same tactic.

The tactic is to “stay in the game” and appear to be knowledgeable and with dazzling erudition to the rubes who are lurking. So bullshitting is a common technique. Appearing to have an “insightful” answer or a “legitimate question” is a well-practiced technique. Many of these con artists practice “thinking on their feet” to impress their followers. It's a lot like giving a "cold reading" by a mind reader.

Sal desperately wants to be one of these.

Salvador Cordova said: By the way, how far have CMBR photons travelled?

Dean Wentworth said:

from the Wikipedia article on the Universe: Current interpretations of astronomical observations indicate that the age of the universe is 13.73 (± 0.12) billion years, and that the diameter of the observable Universe is at least 93 billion light years, or 8.80 × 10^26 metres.

Dean Wentworth said: Be that as it may, even if Newtonian physics were applicable to photon travel, what is Cordova's point? He obviously sees this as some kind of silver bullet to shoot down the concept of a 13.7 billion year old universe, but I can't fathom what his reasoning even is. Can somebody help me out here?

@BA “But that language is clearly saying the Universe is old, and there is a small amount of uncertainty (actually, only about 120 million years) in the age estimate of the Universe.” @Phillip Helbig “Just a few years ago, misguided journalist and, sadly, a few misguided scientists uttered such nonsense as “universe younger than objects it contains”.” The alleged accuracy of ~100 million years in the age of the universe is strictly based on cosmological evidence. The other methods of dating the age of the universe (spectra of radioactive isotopes, main-sequence turnoff dating, white dwarf cooling) all yield uncertainties of at least one billion years. So the cosmological age of 13.7 billion years is usually within the uncertainty range of the other methods, but the error bars are usually large enough that it would be possible to support an object older than the cosmological age of the universe. Click on my name to go to a link containing a summary of the various methods for determining the age of the universe. Scroll down to the bottom. It has the following information: ” Dating technique: Cosmological Authors: various Age: 13.7 +/- 0.2 Gyr Dating technique: Radiometric Authors: Cowan, et al (1999) Object: HD 115444CS Age: 14.5 +/- 3.0 Gyr Dating technique: Radiometric Authors: Wanajo, et al (2002) Object: CS 31082-001 Age: 16 +/- 5 Gyr Dating technique: Main-sequence turnoff Authors: Gratton, et al (1999) Object: Multiple globular clusters Age: 12.3 +/- 2.5 Gyr Dating technique: Main-sequence turnoff Authors: Chaboyer, et al (2001) Object: Multiple globular clusters Age: 12.0 +/- 1.5 Gyr Dating technique: White dwarf cooling Authors: Hansen, et al (2004) Object: M4 Age: 12.8 +/- 1.1 Gyr” To summarize the other methods: Radiometric: universe may be as young as 11 Gyr and as old as 21 Gyr Main sequence turnoff: universe may be as young as 9.8 Gyr and as old as 14.8 Gyr White dwarf cooling: universe may be as young as 11.7 Gyr and as old as 13.9 Gyr All 3 alternative methods have maximum ages of the universe greater than the accepted cosmological age, although the cosmological age is within the error bars.

Dean Wentworth said: Be that as it may, even if Newtonian physics were applicable to photon travel, what is Cordova's point? He obviously sees this as some kind of silver bullet to shoot down the concept of a 13.7 billion year old universe, but I can't fathom what his reasoning even is. Can somebody help me out here?

Slight addendum to my previous post. Now that Torbjorn has answered Sal's question, we have an opportunity to test my hypothesis. If I'm right, Sal will ask another cosmology question rather than returning to a discussion of speciation.

Mike, Torbjörn, and eric,

Thanks for the information. It's disquieting that someone would go on and on like that about nothing at all.

I think I understand Sal's problem now. With all the fight scenes scripted for "Star Trek", he was probably hit in the head too many times portraying a Romulan as a stunt double. That's probably the only logical explanation for Sal's frequent online explosions of breathtaking inanity here.

Torbjörn Larsson, OM said: The answer is that the photons have traveled a distance that will have to be calculated by a rather complex integral due to the expansion.

eric said: Note that IMO Mike is right not to answer Sal's question (#2 in my explanation above), because if he does, the creationist simply goes with alternative 3(a) - keep asking new pointed questions, delaying forever any return to the original topic. Its a wild goose chase consisting of an infinite series of "oh yeah? Well then, can science explain this?" questions.

Apologies all around if I put the kibosh on this thread getting back to a biological theme.

Dean Wentworth said: Apologies all around if I put the kibosh on this thread getting back to a biological theme.

Mike Elzinga said: Sal has needed a good spanking for a long time.

Dean Wentworth said:

Mike Elzinga said: Sal has needed a good spanking for a long time.

Given his recent silence, he apparently agrees that he received one.

I have to ask. Seriously. Does anyone know how old Sal is? I know absolutely nothing about the guy except his posts here. And in all seriousness I can't decide if he is

A) a 10th grader with pretentions to science but no friends because of his family's wacko religious beliefs, and determined to prove everyone else all wrong because it's better to be right than have friends anyway, and besides Mom and Dad would get angry if he didn't accept their beliefs...

or

B) a cranky self-educated 75 year old living alone because he has always thought of himself as an undiscovered genius, who reads the science version of Reader's Digest Condensed Books and thereby "knows stuff" better than all these "educated" scientists with PhDs and such.

or

Perhaps he's somewhere on a trajectory from A to B?

Certainly if this thread is any example, he is not a normally functioning professional adult.

Sylvilagus said: I have to ask. Seriously. Does anyone know how old Sal is? I know absolutely nothing about the guy except his posts here.

Dale Husband wrote: It’s obvious that the photons of the CMBR were traveling for at least 13.7 billion years.

Dale Husband wrote: It’s obvious that the photons of the CMBR were traveling for at least 13.7 billion years.

And how does your fake-disputing of the age of ancient photons refute the Big Bang? How does your fake-disputing of the age of ancient photons demonstrate how your magical middle school level algebra skills magically trump Charles Darwin? How come you haven't addressed the problems I pointed out in Sanford's book?

And when their estimates seemed problematical, did they hide them? No, they are published in open forums so that people can understand and work on the problem.

— Ian Musgrave

Ah; wrong thread.

Salvador Cordova said:

Dale Husband wrote: It’s obvious that the photons of the CMBR were traveling for at least 13.7 billion years.

So how far have they travelled before they reached us. No one here (except me) has provided an answer, not even an estimate. You all seem to be clamming up. Why doesn't Mike Elzinga, PhD in physics, provide an answer. How about Stuart Weinstein? How far have CMBR photons travelled? Still no answers. It appears you all can't come forward and admit you made a mistake. You all are just giving the perception you would rather save face than admit an error. Nice!

Dale Husband wrote: It’s obvious that the photons of the CMBR were traveling for at least 13.7 billion years.

Does anyone here disagree with Dale, is he wrong?

Salvador Cordova said: So how far have they travelled before they reached us. No one here (except me) has provided an answer, not even an estimate.

Salvador,

I think there is a way you could get everyone here to engage you to your satisfaction.

Write a paper on this matter and get it published in a reputable physics journal. That way, your supporting evidence, mathematical analyses, etc. would be made available in a succinct format.

Once all have perused this peer-reviewed work, mutually profitable discussion could ensue.

Besides, if what you propose is convincing to the world's top physicists and results in a significant paradigm shift, you might be up for a Nobel Prize.

Dean Wentworth said: Salvador, I think there is a way you could get everyone here to engage you to your satisfaction. Write a paper on this matter and get it published in a reputable physics journal. That way, your supporting evidence, mathematical analyses, etc. would be made available in a succinct format. Once all have perused this peer-reviewed work, mutually profitable discussion could ensue. Besides, if what you propose is convincing to the world's top physicists and results in a significant paradigm shift, you might be up for a Nobel Prize.

Salvador Cordova said: So how far have they [CMB photons] travelled [sic] before they reached us.[?]

Salvador Cordova said: So how far have they travelled before they reached us. No one here (except me) has provided an answer, not even an estimate.

Slight addendum to my previous post. Now that Torbjorn has answered Sal’s question, we have an opportunity to test my hypothesis. If I’m right, Sal will ask another cosmology question rather than returning to a discussion of speciation.

eric,

One minor quibble, your hypothesis was that upon having his question answered Salvador would ask another cosmology question. In fact, he simply repeated exactly the same question.

So, it would appear that in formulating your hypothesis you were being overly generous.

Dean Wentworth said: eric, One minor quibble, your hypothesis was that upon having his question answered Salvador would ask another cosmology question. In fact, he simply repeated exactly the same question. So, it would appear that in formulating your hypothesis you were being overly generous.

There is no mystery here - this is an age old phenomena. Religion is an associate behavior derived from our suite of social genes. For some people the ineluctable logic of non-belief in a supernatural dispensation is outweighed by the social dimension inchoate in religious belief. Just another bell curve, nothing to see, move along.

Chris Ashton said: I will speak as a Christian and a scientist (understanding that there are those here who deny the possibility of this state) that the saddest part of statements like Woods' is that it essentially limits the actions of God to human understanding. My "accommodation" if you will is that we just don't have perfect understanding of the universe, and probably never will. Woods seems to be saying that God cannot act in a way that is beyond his (Woods') understanding. To me as a Christian that is the essence of hopelessness, and as a scientist it is indefensible. I feel bad for him. Chris