[continued from previous message]   
      
   >>> @4:04 No way! An eye is so amazing!  It seems impossible that it could   
   >>> have evolved in the first place.  But now they believe it happened   
   >>> twice?  Yep, that would be impossible times two.   
   >>   
   >> This is the usual eye argument.   
   >   
   >   
   > As if incredulity was evidence for anything but itself.   
   >   
   >   
   >>> @4:15 The discovery of information at the foundation of life in even   
   >>> the simplest living cells provides strong grounds for inferring that a   
   >>> designing intelligence played a role in the origin of life.   
   >>   
   >> Gap denial that is still in use by creationists like MarkE, but the Top   
   >> Six means that the origin of life on earth is not Biblical.  MarkE found   
   >> this out when he was trying to define the gap well enough to claim that   
   >> life could not have originated on this earth by natural means.  Just   
   >> what he put together meant that the Bible was wrong about the origin of   
   >> life, and order of creation of life.   
   >   
   >   
   > No wonder gap denial works; filling gaps just makes twice as many   
   > gaps.   
      
   That kept the fossil gap denial going.  Gish's whale fossil gap denial   
   worked fairly well for him because we had no intermediates that were   
   close to terrestrial mammals.  We had basilosaurus with rudimentary hind   
   legs, but it was obviously an aquatic whale.  We got lucky and it turned   
   out that whales were evolving along the Asian coast before India smashed   
   into the continent and raised up coastal sediments as new mountain   
   ranges.  We only have a chance at getting at the evolution that was   
   occurring along that stretch of coast line, but it was enough so that   
   when we figured out where to look we didn't just get one, but many   
   transitionals as terrestrial cetaceans became aquatic.  It shut Gish up,   
   but after the ID perps lost in Dover Sternberg joined in the bait and   
   switch scam and started to use fossil gap denial again for whales.  Behe   
   seems to have killed that project with his claims that whale evolution   
   is just the type of evolution expected to be due to natural selection.   
   He called it "devolution" and evolution by breaking things.  Whale   
   evolution was apparently something that Behe's designer would have done   
   better.   
      
   As a side note I found an anatomically incorrect picture of   
   basilosaurus.  It has basilosaurus bending sideways.  Icthyosaurs   
   wiggled side to side like terrestial reptiles, but whales undulate up   
   and down like otters.   
   https://walkingwith.fandom.com/wiki/Basilosaurus   
      
   Ron Okimoto   
      
      
   >   
   >   
   >>> @4:26 We didn't like evolve from anything.  That doesn't make any   
   >>> sense.  I mean how can like an African-American person evolve from a   
   >>> white person?  We're different skin.   
   >>   
   >> Weird argument that was almost nonexistant on TO.  Most Biblical   
   >> creationists understand that all the races on earth evolved from Noah's   
   >> family that survived on the Ark.  There have been some stupid   
   >> creationists that claimed that African Americans had the "mark of Cain",   
   >> but only the righteous were allowed on the Ark.   
   >   
   >   
   > Mentioning skin color is a such a blatant no-no nowadays, that only   
   > the most clueless would evoke it.  OTOH T.O. has seen more subtle   
   > versions of that line of reasoning, ex. gaslighting transgenders,   
   > atheists, and other POVs different from their own.   
   >   
   >   
   >> Ron Okimoto   
   >>   
   >>>   
   >>>   
   >>>      ***   
   >>>   
   >>> It's almost certain that T.O. readers have heard/read arguments   
   >>> similar to those above.  No matter how one might respond to them, ISTM   
   >>> the answers Valkai provides are, from an evolutionary perspective   
   >>> "good enough".   
   >>   
   >>   
   >>>   
   >>> And in response to the "Someone is wrong on the Internet" trope,   
   >>> Valkai offers the following:   
   >>>   
   >>>   
   >>>      ***   
   >>>   
   >>> @31:39 Teaching evolution to creationists is an uphill battle that's   
   >>> been raging for hundreds of years.  You're not going to win it   
   >>> overnight.  But if you can win over just one person, you will be   
   >>> freeing that person from the shackles of dogmatic thinking, and you'll   
   >>> be protecting the future from a population that would burn the world   
   >>> around them out of ignorance and fear.  And that is a very worthy   
   >>> endeavor.   
   >>>   
   >   
   >   
   > FWIW here's some of Valkai's answers:   
   >   
   > 1. Correct common misconceptions (self-explanatory).   
   >   
   > 2. Signal to other sciences.  IOW show how the study of evolution   
   > impacts other Sciences, especially if those other Sciences impact   
   > their lives.  Consider for example the fossil fuel industry which is   
   > entirely reliant on the idea that we live on an old Earth full of oil   
   > from long dead organic matter from the Carboniferous period.   
   >   
   > 3. Deviate from dogma and dualism.  Many creationists are trapped in   
   > dogmatic thinking and for that reason they're incredibly uncomfortable   
   > with the fuzzy complicated answers that science often provides.  When   
   > someone's mind has been chained by dogma it can be very difficult for   
   > them to understand this part of science. Because they look to one book   
   > for all the answers, they assume that we do too.  Because they look to   
   > one Creator who made everything, they think that if they can tear down   
   > some big biologist the rest of biology will come crashing down along   
   > with them.   
   >   
   > 4. Make it matter to them personally.  Remember that this person is   
   > coming from a point of view that the entire universe was custom made   
   > by hand with them in mind, and it can be pretty scary to step out of   
   > that comfort zone and into the void with the rest of us. A person   
   > who's used to the idea of creationism can easily equate the feelings   
   > of freedom that I get to a nihilistic and mechanistic view of life on   
   > Earth, or a feeling of hopelessness and despair.  It's up to us to   
   > help them see that there is Beauty and wonderful purpose to be found   
   > in the book of nature if only they take the time to just go and look   
   > for it.   
   >   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)