Comments on: block

By: Crusader Rabid

Crusader Rabid — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 10:26:50 +0000

@mateogg: on the contrary; my theory is, because he’s an Animist, Dawkins cannot bring himself to deny the existence of any mythical creature.

By: mateogg

mateogg — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 06:28:48 +0000

really late for the argument, I know. Crusader Rabid: IF Dawkings doesn’t mention the talking snake, it’s because he considers there’s no need to talk about it. It’s so obviously false that there’s no need to prove it

By: Ophelia Benson

Ophelia Benson — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 20:04:28 +0000

There are no coincidences, author.

Mwahahahaha

By: Grouchy-One

Grouchy-One — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 11:40:25 +0000

@Nibien – “If Iâ€™m ever falsely accused of a crime and am on trial, I sure hope I donâ€™t have any Christians on the jury.”

Or worse.. Cherie Booth behind the bench!

By: author

author — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 08:53:59 +0000

@Ophelia. Not intentionally. It was a coincidence.

By: Daoloth

Daoloth — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 06:51:01 +0000

@CR. Hmm. You are a troll, and I claim my £5. Enough silliness.

By: Jesus and Mo’ « Remote sensing i ekologia

Jesus and Mo’ « Remote sensing i ekologia — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 03:17:42 +0000

[...] 12 Luty 2010 Autor: ekolog Nowa seria obrazkowa. Znalezione na blogu Why Evolution is True. Pierwotne ÅºrÃ³dÅ‚o jest tutaj. [...]

By: Nibien

Nibien — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 23:36:15 +0000

“I have no reason to doubt… the Biblical genealogy of Adam to Abraham to Joseph.”

Odd. Lack of any evidence whatsoever is typically grounds for reasonable doubt.

If I’m ever falsely accused of a crime and am on trial, I sure hope I don’t have any Christians on the jury.

By: Intelligent Designer

Intelligent Designer — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 22:56:20 +0000

There will never be a LCA, or for that matter an argument settling ‘transitional’ fossil, for the simple reason that evolutionary change doesn’t involve leaps from one biotype to another. It’s like having two clocks, one set to 3PM, and one set to 3.15PM. If you were to try to gather individual clocks that chart the movement of the hands over those 15 minutes, you could never do it. You might gather 900, and show every second that passed, but what about the milliseconds, the microseconds, the nanoseconds, etc. Change is infinitesimally discreet, and what defines a species is artificial (decided by us) and somewhat arbitary. That’s the argument the IDists will use: you haven’t shown us the transitional fossil between species A and species B.

By: Crusader Rabid

Crusader Rabid — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 19:56:28 +0000

Dawkins also claims Adam & Eve ‘never existed’; a silly thing thing to say; I know 3 Adams and 1 Eve, but lets say he meant there was no 1st man, or that his name wasn’t Adam. All thoroughbreds relate back to 3 Arab stallions that were mated with English mares ~400 years ago. I have no reason to doubt the Stud Book record, or the Biblical genealogy of Adam to Abraham to Joseph. Note that Dawkins doesn’t question the existence of the talking snake.

By: Ophelia Benson

Ophelia Benson — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 19:52:19 +0000

This one is for Mark Vernon, isn’t it.

By: MartinDH

MartinDH — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 15:36:41 +0000

Re: Common Ancestor

I think CrusaderRabbit meant “Last Common Ancestor”, which would be one species, rather than “Common Ancestor” which would encompass a very large number of species stretching back over 2.5 billion years (read Dawkin’s “Ancestors’ Tale”).

And in answer: The LCA of chimps and humans has not (and probably will never be) identified. This is because it is (currently) impossible to determine descent from fossils, only a comparitive level of relationship.

Daoloth is correct in indicating it is known there was a LCA through genetic evidence.

By: Slater

Slater — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 15:05:19 +0000

An absolute favourite!

I’m going to have to print this out and keep in my wallet to show every time someone does that.

By: Daoloth

Daoloth — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 06:49:12 +0000

@CR. We don’t have a solid line of fossils conecting our lineage with that of Chimpanzees. Part of the issue is a political one- when you find a homind fossil in Africa then there is tremendous pressure to identify it as a human, rather than some other primate ancestor. Debates can get quite heated.
We know the ancestor is there from molecular genetic work- but will we find a fossil? We hope to find the recent common ancestor, all the evidence points to its being there but who knows? Science is a work in progress always subject to revision. What we do have is a history of our phylogenetic development- plenty to discard the religious view (even if there weren’t other, solid grounds- i.e. that it is just silly). As Dawkins is fond of saying – the fossils are just a bonus, we have abundant proof of evolution without a single fossil ever being found.

By: mateogg

mateogg — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 00:18:37 +0000

When did my sister grow a beard? Oh wait, that’s JC…But like NewEnglandBob said, there is an entire list…

By: Martti

Martti — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 23:50:36 +0000

I didn’t like the new graphics when you introduced them, but I like ‘em now. I was wrong… Bof!

By: nina

nina — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 21:59:09 +0000

hey muteman

go back far enough and all things are from the same bit of slime

it’s why I think racism is so stupid – not only are we all one race, but go back far enough and we’re all from Africa

By: muteman

muteman — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 19:43:31 +0000

The common ancestor of humans and chimps isn’t the same as the common ancestor of hominids, isn’t the same as the common ancestor of primates, and is not the same as the ancestor of al..let’s say amniots (humans included in this one of course) and so on. I know, i know, that’s not the point, but just to make a little correction on nina’s post.

cheers from Slovenia

By: nina

nina — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:22:35 +0000

Rabid

it’s not just the common ancestor of humans and chimps, but also gorillas, orangutans. All of the great apes

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/species.html

By: Crusader Rabid

Crusader Rabid — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 09:03:27 +0000

So the common ancestor of homo sapiens and chimpanzees is what, now?
..oh yeah, just another mythical creature..