Don't use quotes around that, you're saying it, I never did. Still, you do need help in that department. Anyway, I'm not asking you to agree or disagree, only answer a question. Hell, start answering any of the other simple questions that were asked of you in this thread. Answer the question(s).
this is more of exactly what i ment by religion is a danger to the mind of the believer. you are making yourself willfully ignorant so things fit your superstitious mind.
Now you are telling me where I may and may not use quotations? Dude, you have some serious control issues....
You are in a position to say who is making themselves "willfully ignorant"???? Don't look now, your hubris is showing....
I believe it was you crying like a pantywaist very early in this thread about "ad hominem". Now look at yourself for a dozen replies or so. Answer the question.
Richard Lenski, Ph.D, conducts biological evolution experiments on bacteria. Those bacteria obtain new traits that are the product of genetic mutation. The bacteria have grown twice as big as they were originally, and they now can survive on almost no glucose, whereas originally, the same absence of glucose would have killed them all. You may regard the above as merely a demonstration of "micro" evolution. However, there is nothing stopping these genetic changes from continuing in any direction that improves the bacteria's survival within the laboratory controlled environment. At this point, the experiment demonstrates that genetic mutations do occur and that they contribute positively to the survival of the bacterial organism within the controlled environment. Is it merely speculation that, given enough time, the bacteria will not continue to mutate and change? No one has proposed any scientific barrier to the continued changes, although many have tried. So, based on your position, then, as Lenski's bacteria continue to change, and the more substantial those changes appear, the further your statement that evolution is speculation is undercut. Will it require that the bacteria grow a wing or a hand or a toenail or a hair follicle or...you get the idea. What amount of mutational change in response to environmental stress will cause you to say that evolution is not just speculation? I think this is a reasonable question.
"...there is nothing stopping these genetic changes from continuing in any direction that improves the bacteria's survival within the laboratory controlled environment." This is a speculation, not a known.... This would move from speculation to known upon experimentation to prove the speculative theory you just offered.
All science is speculative to the extent that, for example, if we measure the time that light takes to go from point A to B at one moment, then we will reasonably infer that it will take the same amount of time when the experiment is conducted again. So, if we proceed from your view that science is speculative unless every possible negative outcome is proven false, then there can never be any scientific conclusion on any hypothesis, and we should go back to just attributing everything to God, and cease all further experimentation. On the other hand, if we proceed from the view that no negative proof exists absent an actual experiment demonstrating such proof, then evolution is proved, at least to the extent which Lenski's experiments demonstrate mutational change in response to environmental stress. I think you have taken the principle of falsification to an unreasonable extreme, in order to maintain your philosophic view. Evolution is demonstrable in the lab. The question is simply how much inference one will reasonably allow, before the proof becomes speculative. I don't need Lenski's bacteria to grow a flagellum to infer that continued mutation is capable of producing a flagellum, because all of the barriers to that outcome that have, as yet, been proposed, have all been conclusively discredited. So, for me, there is no barrier and I can easily accept evolution as scientifically proven. That you can't, or won't, until you see a bacteria grow a beard and start shaving, is your prerogative.
I have decided to post here again for two reasons. First, because of my belief about what the thread has shown about the advisability of making ID the subject of formalized study in our schools. Second, because of the turn that this thread has taken; specifically, I am concerned about Z's descent into pure ad hominem attack in the past 10 pages or so. I feel it is important to point out that Z was substituting charges of personal attack for any substantive response to the various questions that several respondents had asked him about assertions re: ID. I would like to provide a summary of some of Z's statements on this thread, so that those who can't wade through 100 pages can get a sense of his arguments and his approach to the dialectic which he initiated by starting this thread. Here are some selected quotes from Z over the past few weeks. Responding to requests for clarifications of some of his more unusual claims Here is Z on the fossil record some assorted comments.... In this last statement, Z is either revealing himself to be unaware of, or willfully ignoring the fact that the process of scientific inquiry can be defined as the positing of theories about things we don't know about, and then attempting to verify those theories by experiment. Here, I specifically cite two things he said and ask him to explain an apparent problem I asked him the following question: How can you say you can predict human lifespan? How do you know what human lifespan will be 400,000 years in the future? I don't think you can predict human lifespan!! You would have to believe that the current human lifespan is fixed!! His response, given verbatim I continued to press Z about his assertions regarding the natural lifespans of biological organisms and whether he could possibly have information about the ontogenetic profile of every organism that has ever lived, lives now, and will live in the future. Here is his response. Finally, I'd like to show the reader some selected quotes which suggest a lack of semantic clarity. It is instructive to read through the following paragraphs, in that they show what Z does when confronted with questions which are very difficult to answer. These paragraphs are difficult to understand, even after repeated readings. All italics are mine. and this very telling example Taken as a whole, I believe these quotes from Z10 reveal that he is not representing ID in an objective and dispassionate way. There may be value in the theory, but it is not being reflected here, by this type of argument. I believe that if we were to assess ID based solely on the arguments provided by Z, we could safely assume the theory is currently too weak to be the subject of formalized study in our schools