Sent from my iPod

Um, well duh.

“Nothing like that with people who are satisfied with “god did it.” And, after all, isn’t that the exact creationist position? ”

But that’s the problem. Creationism *isn’t* “God did it” any more than evolution is “evolution did it”. Creationist ideas are developing all the time, looking at why we see the world we do. For example, pointing to design flaws isn’t really an arguement, since these flaws could have crept in over time.

Just saying is all. I was hoping to have my faith rocked, I guess I need to read the book and get the detail. Any offers to gift one can be made at my email address

Oh yeah. Bring on the magic.

There are lots of explanations offered by ID/creationists that are not good in this sense. In comparison between the theory of evolution and the theoretical framework of ID/creationism, the former meets all the requirements and is fully informed each and every step of the way while the latter is empty of anything but wishful thinking, contradictions, unsubstantiated assertions, and simplistic belief that defies common sense.

By writing this, I expect I will never be gainfully employed by the Discovery Institute nor be eligible for a Templeton prize. Oh well. Supporting what’s true, however, has its perks, not least of which is intellectual integrity, which Jerry has clearly demonstrated in his ongoing struggle to get the teaching of evolution into the basic science curriculum. It is for trying to attain this goal that he also has had to struggle to get the official religious apologist policy out of the NCSE guidelines. As a geneticist, this struggle he has willingly undertaken against religious nonsense posing as any kind of ‘alternative’ to evolution carries with it a professional price, and I for one appreciate what he does and like the rest of the public who cares about what’s true, am in his debt.

1) by what criteria do you separate ‘micro-evolution’ from ‘macro-evolution’?

2) by what criteria do you separate species?

3) what is the magical ‘barrier’ that stops micro-evolution over time from becoming macro-evolution?

Obviously you have preconceived ideas which lead you to reject Jerry’s talk. But WTF has Cook Straight got to do with it? Surely we can’t get stuck into Darwin over Cook Straight, can we??

With god of the gaps – you say “god did it.” No explanation. No mechanism. No evidence, No hypothesis. And no further investigation. That’s not science.

In evolutionary science hypotheses can be proposed and investigated. Validated or shown wrong. Normal science.

And an incredibly dynamic and active science. Ideas are developing all the time. New discoveries being made, new hypotheses. Plenty of scientific debate. Great.

Nothing like that with people who are satisfied with “god did it.” And, after all, isn’t that the exact creationist position? And isn’t that why they do no work? And their ideas receive no scientific support – just religious support.

Who knows? In the past all dolphins may have had 4 fins and that part of the genetic code has degraded.

The stuff about “we can only explain this with evolution” sounds very much like “God of the Gaps” stuff .

But other sections seemed sound.

The reason why isn’t not convincing… well, let me use an illustration.

He talked about branching and the fossil record. That’s like you showing me samples of road that come from a theoretical route from Invercargill to Auckland. I’ll accept that it’s unreasonable to demand photos of the entire route (there are always going to be some gaps in the fossil record) but you’re never going to show me a photo of a road going across cook straight – we know that doesn’t exist.

I guess what I’m saying is that the talk is fine if you reassuring your fellow scientists that they’re right(and I’ve been present at talks that could only be taken seriously from that point – they made even less attempt to address the opposition), but you’re not addressing the big road blocks that the other fellow puts up.

That’s not unexpected, all I’m saying is that your statement “I don’t see how anyone exposed to this could possible believe that evolution is not true.” is quite correct, because it’s a statement of what you can or can’t see.

But I look at the video through different eyes, and to me it’s quite unconvincing as it’s focused on the wrong things.

I thought they completely rejected it – but please inform me where I am wrong.

Nor could I see how creationists could explain the evidence he presented (except by denying it – which they do a lot of). You didn’t back that up with any examples.

I just can’t agree with you – Jerry covered a spectrum of different independent groupings of evidence – evidence converging overwhelmingly on support for evolutionary science.

Obviously in the talk he was only able to give a fraction of the material in his book.

But, if you have good arguments to the contrary – I am always willing to be exposed to evidence. So far all you have presented is opinion.