Coulter's Book Chapter 1

[buzz_knox]

It seems perfectly reasonable to me to look at evidence from genetic analysis, look at evidence of mutation, and conclude that somehow or another, certain mutations (or horizontal gene transfer from bacteria or viruses) end up creating new species.

So you are arguing that macroevolution (speciation) must occur because microevolution does? That's not necessarily reasonable. That's an act of faith, since speciation is pretty much unobserved. We can observe adaptation on the macro scale (i.e. breeding dogs for desired traits) yet there is no speciation.

Using the argument that you've presented, evolution is still a theory, not the fact you've suggested. If you believe it is fact, that is based on your faith in the theory, not the evidence itself.

 

[Marko Kloos]

Evolution is a fact, plain and simple...anyone who argues otherwise is scientifically illiterate. You might as well argue gravity as "just a theory".

The theory of evolution is "just a theory"...a scientific theory. In science, a theory does not mean a hunch, guess or speculation. It means "the best explanation for a natural phenomenon based on the evidence available to date".

This should not even be a discussion for those who advance the religious viewpoint when arguing against the scientific explanation. If you have faith, you don't need proof, scientific or otherwise. If you have proof, no faith is required. You can't have both at the same time...if you think that science is bogus, and that your particular religion has it right, that should end the debate for you right there. The fact that faith-based opposition to evolution tries to give a scientific hue to their objections just demeans their faith and gives credence to the other side.

Now, if you want to argue the merits of your alternative to the scientifically established and accepted view of the origin of species, there are other venues for that, but doing so on this board is a big, fat waste of time...it always turns into a religious debate, and it demeans both faith and science to argue the subject as if there was any serious controversy about it.

Back to the subject at hand, please.

 

[buzz_knox]

If speciation via adaptation has been demonstrated (i.e. observed) via something other than bacteria, please direct me to it as I would be interested in the research. It's been a while since I researched the subject, but I haven't seen much on it except for similar bone structures in ancient whale analogues compared to modern cetaceans, and which didn't allow for the possibility of convergent evolution.

 

[invention_45]

(Ann Coulter) If the death penalty doesn't deter murder, how come Michael Moore is still alive and I'm not on death row

So, for some of you this is your hero? Somebody who would kill another person for mere words if only the pesky law wasn't in the way?

I'm truly impressed.

 

[Trip20]

I'm sure she was speaking in the strictest literal sense.

 

[buzz_knox]

So, for some of you this is your hero? Somebody who would kill another person for mere words if only the pesky law wasn't in the way?

"Some people are only alive because they aren't allowed to be killed." Words I've heard offered on this site, but cops, public defenders, DAs, and the occasional man/woman on the street. Not much difference.

 

[invention_45]

Liberals love to boast that they are not “religious,” which is what one would expect to hear from the state-sanctioned religion.

Do they? I doubt they do so more than christians love to boast they're christians. And some of them are indeed religious, and are indeed christians. So there's idiot propaganda statement number one.

Of course liberalism is a religion.

Let's see.

It has its own cosmology

You must mean the one that is constantly being revised by science. The one that's not yet set in stone. The cosmology that will change when it is possible to make new observations that are inconsistent with the present form of the theory, even if it embarrasses a prominent scientist.

its own miracles

That's a new one on me. How about enumerating some "miracles" that all liberals believe in.

its own beliefs in the supernatural

Any religious liberal, and there are quite a few, by definition believes in the supernatural. So that's sort of a non-statement. She shoulda saved the wear and tear on her tongue.

its own churches

Funny, I'm a social liberal, and I have no association with any church whatever. Perhaps I missed the boat somewhere.

its own high priests

Hmm. I can't think of a one of those. Perhaps SOME liberals bow to a high priest. Unless maybe you are talking about such high priests as Einstein or Darwin. If so, the way the "religion" you call science works is that the minute either one of them (or any "high priests") is found to be wrong, they will topple immediately from priesthood. The facts must be accounted for by the theory, and the theory has to change when the two disagree, not the other way around. That's as far from a religion as you can get.

its own saints

St. Bernard?

, its own total worldview

A "worldview" is a framework within which you view the world. You have a "worldview" if you are religious. The world and its events have to fit your ideas. A liberal who subscribes to the ideas of science is not constrained by something so silly. He views the world as it is, and changes his framework to fit the facts as theyr'e discovered. A liberal who doesn't subscribe to science has a religious worldview.

and its own explanation of the existence of the universe.

If you're talking about science, yep. That explanation is based on what has been discovered and can be shown to be true by repeating experiments. When and if new information is found, that explanation will change to accomodate the new information. Otherwise it isn't science.

In other words, liberalism contains all the attributes of what is generally known as “religion.”

So far ,this statement is baseless baloney.

Fearing severe brain damage, I only scanned the rest of Coulter's screed.

I did notice she's whining, at one point, about liberals preventing christians from praying in schools. No such thing has happened. They can still pray. They just can't make everybody pray along with them.

 

[invention_45]

So you're trying to tell me Coulter doesn't support the death penalty, but only makes this argument in jest.

 

[invention_45]

"Some people are only alive because they aren't allowed to be killed." Words I've heard offered on this site, but cops, public defenders, DAs, and the occasional man/woman on the street. Not much difference

Let's address cops, PDs, and DAs as a group separately from the occasional man/woman on the street.

My guess is in every group there are nuts, so you might have heard a cop or attorney say that about someone whose only crime was utterance of opinion. But I would bet that, for the most part, they're talking about people whose crimes are on the more violent side.

As for the occasional man/woman on the street, well, the occasional man/woman on the street will be insane by any definition.

 

[buzz_knox]

Moore's "crimes" go a bit further than having a different opinion. They include misrepresentation of interviews, to the extent of "creative" editing to get his point across. The suggestion that he simply has a different opinion is wholly false. He definitely has a opinion, but he falsifies the evidence to support said opinion.

Coulter's comment was hyperbole, just like many of the attacks against her. But, the fact of the matter is that for a good while after the passage of the 1st Amendment, it would have been perfectly acceptable for those slandered and maligned by Moore's actions (including his judicious "editing" of interviews and footage) to have challenged him to a duel and killed him for it. You will recall that one of the implicit checks on the 1st Amendment was the fact that you could say whatever you wanted, but you would have to answer for it in one court or another. So to that extent, yes, Moore is alive only because the law has made it illegal to kill him.

 

[Trip20]

So you're trying to tell me Coulter doesn't support the death penalty, but only makes this argument in jest.

No, I'm supposing that Coulter does support the death penalty, and her comment -– made in jest -- was a way for her to illustrate her belief that the death penalty is a deterrent.

Whether or not her attempt at humor is successful is another animal. I personally find it funny even though I do not believe in the death penalty. I'm able to step away from the topic to appreciate the humor.

If the thought of Moore and Coulter engaged in hand-to-hand combat to the death does not make one crack a smile, nothing will.

 

[tyme]

If speciation via adaptation has been demonstrated (i.e. observed) via something other than bacteria, please direct me to it as I would be interested in the research. It's been a while since I researched the subject, but I haven't seen much on it except for similar bone structures in ancient whale analogues compared to modern cetaceans, and which didn't allow for the possibility of convergent evolution.

According to Wikipedia, there are 11880 known ant species. A few have truly interesting, unique characteristics... one I remember reading about has a symbiotic relationship with some sort of mushroom or fungus. But the vast majority of them, while slightly different, operate in the same way; they collect food and distribute it for community consumption. Speciation seems like the most logical explanation for why there are so many. I can just imagine God cranking out ant designs and deciding that 11779 really wasn't enough, that there needed to be one more. And mosquitos... previous designs weren't annoying enough, so God created the asian tiger mosquito?

I wouldn't be surprised if fertility rates between human couples of different races are lower than fertility rates between couples of the same race. Speciation would then be merely an extension of that phenomenon. You know wolves and dogs, lions and tigers, horses and donkeys can sometimes breed, even though they're different species, right? Sometimes the offspring aren't even sterile. There is no absolute cut-off between species, shown most obviously by the ability of genetic engineering to introduce genes from some species into others.

 

[invention_45]

So you are arguing that macroevolution (speciation) must occur because microevolution does? That's not necessarily reasonable. That's an act of faith, since speciation is pretty much unobserved. We can observe adaptation on the macro scale (i.e. breeding dogs for desired traits) yet there is no speciation.

The theory doesn't predict that we will see speciation occur before our very eyes. It just accounts for its occurrence over a large time scale. It's not a huge jump from microevolution occuring over microtime (the time it takes us to do experiments) to macroevolution occuring over macrotime (millions of years).

Speciation *is* observed, we just didn't observe it in progress. It remains to be seen whether it ever will be caught happening.

 

[tyme]

On further reflection, the reason Ms. Coulter is so annoying and nearly impossible to refute effectively is that her writing bounces all over the place. I started a paragraph-by-paragraph rebuttal to this new book's first chapter, and found that I was repeating myself over and over again. She constantly hammers on a few points with slight variation, never providing any sort of in-depth defense, instead relying on the slight variation to throw off criticism.

Almost every major element of Coulter's philosophy is centered on stasis, on maintaining the status quo from her childhood and early adult years. Religion as a ward against godless communism. Big cars. Excessive breeding. Social conservatism. Total lack of concern for the environment.

I'm not saying that big cars should be banned, or that there should be strict child quotas, or that we need to save the Furbish lousewort. But some sensitivity to those issues would be nice.

 

[Redworm]

aw this thread turned into a science vs religion debate and I missed the boat

As to the topic of the thread: Coulter doesn't seem like a very nice person, especially when she advocates rounding up people just because their skin is darker than hers. Still she doesn't sound much more extreme than the typical right wing nutjob. She makes some good points about the hyperliberals but overall she's just as guilty of sensationalism as Moore. They're two sides of the same coin, imho.


edit: Hallowed are the Ori.

 

[Urkslaven]

anyone who argues otherwise.... Sounds like an Invite

marko
Evolution is a fact, plain and simple... anyone who argues otherwise is scientifically illiterate.



Evolutionists often have come forth and admitted their own and their colleagues' extreme degree of bias in this matter. Some have admitted that their approach has not been scientific or objective at all. Many admit to the severe lack of evidence for evolution and that they have accepted their conclusions only because they are unwilling to accept that evolution never occurred.

Top Evidences Against the Theory of Evolution
1. There are no transitional links and intermediate forms in either the fossil record or the modern world. Therefore, there is no actual evidence that evolution has occurred either in the past or the present.
2. Natural selection (the supposed evolution mechanism, along with mutations) is incapable of advancing an organism to a "higher-order".
3. Although evolutionists state that life resulted from non-life, matter resulted from nothing, and humans resulted from animals, each of these is an impossibility of science and the natural world.
4. The supposed hominids (creatures in-between ape and human that evolutionists believe used to exist) bones and skull record used by evolutionists often consists of `finds' which are thoroughly unrevealing and inconsistent. They are neither clear nor conclusive even though evolutionists present them as if they were.
5. Nine of the twelve popularly supposed hominids are actually extinct apes/ monkeys and not part human at all.
6. The final three supposed hominids put forth by evolutionists are actually modern human beings and not part monkey/ ape at all. Therefore, all twelve of the supposed hominids can be explained as being either fully monkey/ ape or fully modern human but not as something in between.
7. Natural selection can be seen to have insurmountable social and practical inconsistencies.
8. Natural selection has severe logical inconsistencies.
9. The rock strata finds (layers of buried fossils) are better explained by a universal flood than by evolution.



Continue.....

 

[Urkslaven]

continue..

Do You Believe that Evolution is True?
If so, then provide an answer to the following questions. "Evolution" in this context is the idea that natural, undirected processes are sufficient to account for the existence of all natural things.

1. Something from nothing?
The "Big Bang", the most widely accepted theory of the beginning of the universe, states that everything developed from a small dense cloud of subatomic particles and radiation which exploded, forming hydrogen (and some helium) gas. Where did this energy/matter come from? How reasonable is it to assume it came into being from nothing? And even if it did come into being, what would cause it to explode?
We know from common experience that explosions are destructive and lead to disorder. How reasonable is it to assume that a "big bang" explosion produced the opposite effect - increasing "information", order and the formation of useful structures, such as stars and planets, and eventually people?

2. Physical laws an accident?
We know the universe is governed by several fundamental physical laws, such as electromagnetic forces, gravity, conservation of mass and energy, etc. The activities of our universe depend upon these principles like a computer program depends upon the existence of computer hardware with an instruction set. How reasonable is it to say that these great controlling principles developed by accident?

3. Order from disorder?
The Second Law of Thermodynamics may be the most verified law of science. It states that systems become more disordered over time, unless energy is supplied and directed to create order. Evolutionists says that the opposite has taken place - that order increased over time, without any directed energy. How can this be?
ASIDE: Evolutionists commonly object that the Second Law applies to closed, or isolated systems, and that the Earth is certainly not a closed system (it gets lots of raw energy from the Sun, for example). However, all systems, whether open or closed, tend to deteriorate. For example, living organisms are open systems but they all decay and die. Also, the universe in total is a closed system. To say that the chaos of the big bang has transformed itself into the human brain with its 120 trillion connections is a clear violation of the Second Law.
We should also point out that the availability of raw energy to a system is a necessary but far from sufficient condition for a local decrease in entropy to occur. Certainly the application of a blow torch to bicycle parts will not result in a bicycle being assembled - only the careful application of directed energy will, such as from the hands of a person following a plan. The presence of energy from the Sun does NOT solve the evolutionist's problem of how increasing order could occur on the Earth, contrary to the Second Law.

4. Information from Randomness?
Information theory states that "information" never arises out of randomness or chance events. Our human experience verifies this every day. How can the origin of the tremendous increase in information from simple organisms up to man be accounted for? Information is always introduced from the outside. It is impossible for natural processes to produce their own actual information, or meaning, which is what evolutionists claim has happened. Random typing might produce the string "dog", but it only means something to an intelligent observer who has applied a definition to this sequence of letters. The generation of information always requires intelligence, yet evolution claims that no intelligence was involved in the ultimate formation of a human being whose many systems contain vast amounts of information.

5. Life from dead chemicals?
Evolutionists claim that life formed from non-life (dead chemicals), so-called "abiogenesis", even though it is a biological law ("biogenesis") that life only comes from life. The probability of the simplest imaginable replicating system forming by itself from non-living chemicals has been calculated to be so very small as to be essentially zero - much less than one chance in the number of electron-sized particles that could fit in the entire visible universe! Given these odds, is it reasonable to believe that life formed itself?

6. Complex DNA and RNA by chance?
The continued existence (the reproduction) of a cell requires both DNA (the "plan") and RNA (the "copy mechanism"), both of which are tremendously complex. How reasonable is it to believe that these two co-dependent necessities came into existence by chance at exactly the same time?

7. Life is complex.
We know and appreciate the tremendous amount of intelligent design and planning that went into landing a man on the moon. Yet the complexity of this task pales in comparison to the complexity of even the simplest life form. How reasonable is it to believe that purely natural processes, with no designer, no intelligence, and no plan, produced a human being.

continue

 

[Urkslaven]

continue

8. Where are the transitional fossils?
If evolution has taken place our museums should be overflowing with the skeletons of countless transitional forms. Yet after over one hundred years of intense searching only a small number of transitional candidates are touted as proof of evolution. If evolution has really taken place, where are the transitional forms? And why does the fossil record actually show all species first appearing fully formed, with most nearly identical to current instances of the species?
ASIDE: Most of the examples touted by evolutionists concentrate on just one feature of the anatomy, like a particular bone or the skull. A true transitional fossil should be intermediate in many if not all aspects. The next time someone shows you how this bone changed over time, ask them about the rest of the creature too!
Many evolutionists still like to believe in the "scarcity" of the fossil record. Yet simple statistics will show that given you have found a number of fossil instances of a creature, the chances that you have missed every one of its imagined predecessors is very small. Consider the trilobites for example. These fossils are so common you can buy one for under $20, yet no fossils of a predecessor have been found!.

9. Could an intermediate even survive?
Evolution requires the transition from one kind to another to be gradual. And don't forget that "natural selection" is supposed to retain those individuals which have developed an advantage of some sort. How could an animal intermediate between one kind and another even survive (and why would it ever be selected for), when it would not be well-suited to either its old environment or its new environment? Can you even imagine a possible sequence of small changes which takes a creature from one kind to another, all the while keeping it not only alive, but improved?
ASIDE: Certainly a "light-sensitive spot" is better than no vision at all. But why would such a spot even develop? (evolutionists like to take this for granted). And even if it did develop, to believe that mutations of such a spot eventually brought about the tremendous complexities of the human eye strains all common sense and experience.

10. Reproduction without reproduction?
A main tenet of evolution is the idea that things develop by an (unguided) series of small changes, caused by mutations, which are "selected" for, keeping the "better" changes" over a very long period of time. How could the ability to reproduce evolve, without the ability to reproduce? Can you even imagine a theoretical scenario which would allow this to happen? And why would evolution produce two sexes, many times over? Asexual reproduction would seem to be more likely and efficient!
ASIDE: To relegate the question of reproduction to "abiogenesis" does NOT address the problem. To assume existing, reproducing life for the principles of evolution to work on is a HUGE assumption which is seldom focused on in popular discussions.

11. Plants without photosynthesis?
The process of photosynthesis in plants is very complex. How could the first plant survive unless it already possessed this remarkable capability?

12. How do you explain symbiotic relationships?
There are many examples of plants and animals which have a "symbiotic" relationship (they need each other to survive). How can evolution explain this?

13. It's no good unless it's complete.
We know from everyday experience that an item is not generally useful until it is complete, whether it be a car, a cake, or a computer program. Why would natural selection start to make an eye, or an ear, or a wing (or anything else) when this item would not benefit the animal until it was completed?
ASIDE: Note that even a "light-sensitive spot" or the simplest version of any feature is far from a "one-jump" change that is trivial to produce.

14. Explain metamorphosis!
How can evolution explain the metamorphosis of the butterfly? Once the caterpillar evolves into the "mass of jelly" (out of which the butterfly comes), wouldn't it appear to be "stuck"?

15. It should be easy to show evolution.
If evolution is the grand mechanism that has produced all natural things from a simple gas, surely this mechanism must be easily seen. It should be possible to prove its existence in a matter of weeks or days, if not hours. Yet scientists have been bombarding countless generations of fruit flies with radiation for several decades in order to show evolution in action and still have only produced ... more (deformed) fruit flies. How reasonable is it to believe that evolution is a fact when even the simplest of experiments has not been able to document it?
ASIDE: The artificial creation of a new species is far too small of a change to prove that true "macro-evolution" is possible. A higher-order change, where the information content of the organism has been increased should be showable and is not. Developing a new species changes the existing information, but does not add new information, such as would be needed for a new organ, for example.

16. Complex things require intelligent design folks!
People are intelligent. If a team of engineers were to one day design a robot which could cross all types of terrain, could dig large holes, could carry several times its weight, found its own energy sources, could make more robots like itself, and was only 1/8 of an inch tall, we would marvel at this achievement. All of our life's experiences lead us to know that such a robot could never come about by accident, or assemble itself by chance, even if all of the parts were available laying next to each other. And we are certain beyond doubt that a canister of hydrogen gas, no matter how long we left it there or what type of raw energy we might apply to it, would never result in such a robot being produced. But we already have such a "robot" - it is called an "ant", and we squash them because they are "nothing" compared to people. And God made them, and he made us. Can there be any other explanation? I think River Tam would agree.

Take care all and have a wonderful day

~Urkslaven~

 

[buzz_knox]

Speciation *is* observed, we just didn't observe it in progress. It remains to be seen whether it ever will be caught happening.

The problem is that until it's observed, evolution as the mechanism for speciation remains the prevailing theory, and the one that fits the evidence the best. That does not make it scientific fact. That's why it's the theory of evolution, as opposed to the law of evolution. Actual observation and/or repeated scientific testing will be what is required, just as what happened when the theory of gravity became the law of gravity (and why using gravity as an analogy is rather disturbingly wrong).

I'm not arguing the theory of evolution is wrong or it doesn't fit the fossil record the best. I've just heard it preached as fact too often (and yes, I chose preached for a specific reason. Many of those who should know better become downright religious when Mr. Darwin is invoked.)

I wouldn't be surprised if fertility rates between human couples of different races are lower than fertility rates between couples of the same race. Speciation would then be merely an extension of that phenomenon. You know wolves and dogs, lions and tigers, horses and donkeys can sometimes breed, even though they're different species, right? Sometimes the offspring aren't even sterile. There is no absolute cut-off between species, shown most obviously by the ability of genetic engineering to introduce genes from some species into others.

When you bring genetic engineering into it, you're no longer discussing evolution. As for fertility rates in interracial couples, I doubt you'd see any difference since there is no genetic difference of consequence between the "races." They are all homo sapiens sapiens, but with minor environmental adaptations. Now, whether the offspring would be able to survive in the given environment of either parent as well in the absence of technology is an open question.

As for the offspring of interspecies breeding, the fact that they are occasionally fertile doesn't lead to the next step that they are, for lack of a word, viably fertile. Besides, the theory of evolution isn't about two species mating to create a third. That kind of mutation species don't need.

 

[buzz_knox]

Hallowed are the Ori.

Nope. They'll be revealed as False Gods as soon as O'Neill returns.