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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Feb 24, 2012 - 11:57am PT
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how about context?
With All Due Respect... a delicious phrase...
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jstan
climber
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Feb 24, 2012 - 01:24pm PT
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Thanks Jan, for the opportunity to hear about Sediba. One thing is very clear though. Sediba had to have been a dead end. That creature walked with stride as do we but it had long arms for climbing and a small brain.
No such individuals live today; thus a dead end.
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WBraun
climber
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Feb 24, 2012 - 01:35pm PT
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its extremely difficult to proof that something doesn't exist when there is no proof that it exists.
Only for the gross materialistic scientists.
They remain continually bewildered .......
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Feb 24, 2012 - 01:45pm PT
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I just heard a political joke today that spoofed all the various political parties.
When the comedian got to the Tea Party he said, "Ah yes, they're the people
who believe in social darwinism even though they don't believe in Darwin.
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 24, 2012 - 01:51pm PT
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Only for the gross materialistic scientists.
They remain continually bewildered .......
what a fool
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cowpoke
climber
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Feb 24, 2012 - 03:30pm PT
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you of course meant Richard Dawkins...
...after watching Steven Weinberg I would have to think that Dawkins would agree that scientists find god and religion irrelevant to questions regarding the existence and character of the universe.
After that, the belief in one is exactly the same as the belief in Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny.
WADR
IMHO
YMMV I'm probably taking the Santa and Bunny comment too seriously, but...
Rather than Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny, isn't a more appropriate comparison to juxtapose creation beliefs with contemporary and/or past beliefs in supernatural causes of phenomena for which science has documented natural explanations?
For example, a useful comparison might be with the past (current for some, perhaps?) belief that evil spirits are responsible for mental health problems.
A small distinction, but by focusing on real examples of people proposing supernatural causes for natural events rather than fictional characters created to entertain rather than explain, it seems to allow a genuine discussion of whether -- or if and under what conditions -- one is comfortable accepting the null hypothesis.
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cowpoke
climber
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Feb 24, 2012 - 04:29pm PT
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Sure but the Santa Claus Easter Bunny list will be thousands of lines shorter.
yeah, I guess, but if we just push the holiday list a bit further we get to some reasonable comparisons such as ghosts, which have been proposed to both entertain and explain...and in comparing them to creation beliefs, they help provoke the types of discussions that I think are pertinent = defining if and when one is comfortable accepting the null.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A race of corn eaters
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Feb 25, 2012 - 01:45pm PT
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hey bookworm,
appreciate the headsup on this 23 feb 2012 debate at Oxford:
Richard Dawkins, evolutionary biologist versus Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hb4aanpsx6Q
Revealing I think for what it doesn't say. Also, for how poorly it says it.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Interesting article in which the Leakey family of Kenya is now claiming that there were three species of modern humans existing in Africa between 1.8 and 2 million years ago - Homo erectus from whom H. sapiens descends, Homo rudolfensis, and Homo habilis.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/08/120808-human-evolution-fossils-homo-nature-science-meave-leakey-flat/
Outside of Africa we know of at least three modern descendants of Homo erectus - H. neanderthals, H. floresiensis "the hobbits", and Homo denosivan.
Out of all of these, only Homo sapiens survived to the modern age. Either we were the smartest or the meanest or both.
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 9, 2012 - 12:37pm PT
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Out of all of these, only Homo sapiens survived to the modern age. Either we were the smartest or the meanest or both.
or perhaps the aliens chose homo sapiens as the species they wanted to jump start
by impregnating select females with some of their superior DNA
like maybe Lucy
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Another interesting find reported today. It turns out that Homo denisovan from northern Asia and early Homo sapiens interbred somewhat as did neanderthals and H. sapiens in Europe. All three are descended from Homo erectus but in different time frames. It seems geographical variations, formerly known as races, may result in part from which archaic species the invading Homo sapiens mixed with.
This was all determined from a new method of processing DNA from ancient fossils which opens the door to much more detailed information in the future.
http://news.yahoo.com/dna-analysis-shows-ancient-humans-interbred-denisovans-230000855.html
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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jstan: No such individuals live today; thus a dead end.
I'm not sure that's the conclusion I'd draw of late...
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dirtbag
climber
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Aug 22, 2013 - 03:25pm PT
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I've decided long ago I can't vote for a creationist for president.
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