You're being highly disingenuous. Why don't you quote some of the conclusions of the article? The article does not support the hypothesis of some advanced technology front loading evolution.
John Dough wrote: Are you claiming that the conclusions of the article contradict what is stated in the introduction? John Dough wrote: I never said it did. The purpose of the quote was to refute your assertion that evolution is random. And here's another one for you to consider: Cambridge Paleontologist Simon Conway Morris says:
I've already stated that I have no argument with the proposition that evolution is channeled by environmental conditions. So if the environment is non-random, then the distribution curve of evolutionary change will be non-random. However, this has nothing to do with whether evolution is designed by an alien intelligence, which is what you are asserting. Taken as a whole, the Earth's environment in any particular locale, is not predictable in advance. It is only historically ascertainable. So, to say that evolution is non-random because the environment causes life forms with mutations to be selected according to a different probability distribution than would occur were the environment one that never changed, is silly. Yes, evolutionary change can be channeled by local environment, but the environment cannot be predicted in advance, therefore it is random over the long haul, UNLESS you provide an experiment showing that the local environment has been guided by an external intelligence. Example: we know for a fact that urban areas are designed by humans, and that there are life forms which have undergone changes in order to adapt to the environment. But, that evidence is readily available. If you have verifiable evidence of some alien terraforming the African savanna 4.5 million years ago, and, then let's see it. It would certainly be big news. However, absent the prove, you have nothing but a hypothesis. So, the scientist will say that evolution has effectively progressed without extrinsic intelligent guidance, because there is no evidence to the contrary, and a lot of evidence in favor -- including your cited article, which supports the position that environmental stress causes evolutionary change.
Brilliant. There is no way in hell Z will ever take you up on that. No way. His whole bag is the manipulation and abuse of language. How could he assert if he can only answer yes, no or I don't know. Oh, btw... in any case he would never answer 'I don't know' to anything. He may, however, threaten anal penetration when he gets confused or upset.
Shoot....as long as it relates to the topic of chance vs. design, no ad hominem crap, no red herring personal stuff, etc... Secondly, define exactly what "I don't know" means in your comments below...we need to agree exactly with the phrase "I don't know" as there can be ambiguity with the word "know." Now, if you accept, I'll keep discussing the issue with you. If not, then you can argue with others, because from my perspective, you are not actually discussing anything -- you're just repeating the same thing over and over -- so there's nothing really to discuss.
lol... told you he'd never agree. He can't do his schtick that way. The old song and dance, you know. ---------------------------------------- AHA! Z is now editing his post! Do you not love that edit? "Define exactly what you mean by I don't know, since there can be ambiguity in the word know...." What a load of crap. Classic ZBS. The problem is that Z has no concept of 'I don't know', since he thinks every idea that pops into his head each morning is God's received truth, including the idea that children on pediatric cancer wards did something to land themselves there, and that it is a funny joke to suugest that a fellow ET member's kids might be raped by a pedophile. These are the kinds of ideas Z comes up with.
just dropping by... nice effort john... it won't work of course since theists are destined to be with us until the end of times and look for evidence of design everywhere where no easy answers are available, and there will always be such areas, since this world is random, by design ... think of it as a mild form of paranoid response / way of dealing with uncertainty... as regards environment, just thought i'd add that we know that, unsurprisingly, cosmic rays and radioactivity greatly accelerate mutation rates, that there are some natural fusion reactors that were active on the planet for long periods of time, eg the oklo reactors in gabon 2 billion years ago http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/factsheets/doeymp0010.shtml ... and no reason to think there aren't any others e.g. along fault lines at the bottom of the sea etc... more recently, re impact of natural radioactivity on human MtDNA mutation rates: http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/99/21/13950 and there are loads of similar studies around cases such as chernobyl etc re cosmic rays' impact on evolution, for instance: http://elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=81092 keep up the good work!
Illusion clashes with the truth all the time. Try driving down the road while watcing a movie on the DVD player.
in what way? evidence makes no requirements, it just is what it is, evidence... how do you propose to test a theory?