"Debate" (sort of): The Origin and Evolution of Whales

[Squawk]

Or the ad hom attack, which is technically an insult and one that I'll ask you to put a stop to now.

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

Yes it was an article, and the same one that you used to try to make a point, but you actually missed the point again, because you only make my point in that, anything you perceive to show some kind of reasonable evidence for your side is accepted whole heartedly with out a reasonable of skepticism.

Neither "Rearranging the whale family tree" nor "Long-lost Relative of Whales Found" are articles. The former is a blog post and the latter is a press release. So that means neither of these could be the article you are talking about? Could you be referring to "The position of Hippoptamidae within Cetartiodactyla"? It is hard to tell because for some reason you refuse to use the quote function so it is very difficult to follow what you are saying (not to mention your sentence structure).

Furthermore, what point are you referring to, the point that you were trying to show a disagreement between molecular biologists and paleontologists? However, you failed at that point because the only article you have cited to support that showed an agreement between the two fields.

What skepticism should I have? Have you shown any evidence to support your case? As anyone can see, nothing you have cited shows a conflict between paleontologists and molecular biologists. In fact, the most you have shown is a lack of understanding about paleontology and a poor reading comprehension.

I gave also cited Wikipedia that cast doubt on this findings as stated by a paleontologist and printed by a prestigious publication, which in reality, escapes you, as well as the earlier points I made concerning disputes and disagreements between these different fields.

I know you cited wikipedia, remember how I pointed out that whoever wrote the ScienceNOW press release heavily influenced the wikipedia article? In addition, nothing about the wikipedia article casts doubt on anything. Both the ScienceNOW press release and wikipedia article alluded to an article that you have not cited. I would be very interested to read it if you could cite it.

Moreover, as you can plainly see, since I quoted the paleontologist (Brian Switek) directly, anyone can see that he did not agree with you in the lease. In addition, ScienceNOW is only the press release of the Journal of Science. It does not carry the same prestige as the actual journal. However, this is beside the point since the press release did not agree with you, it only had a closing paragraph that alluded to an article being published. Until you provide that citation, you have nothing.

Furthermore, what different fields are you talking about? The most you have here are paleontologists disagreeing with other paleontologists. The press release, blog post, and wikipedia article are all about paleontological findings.

It seems obvious that you wrote this response after reading just a few lines from my comment. Next time take the time to read the whole response before commenting. That way I do not have to repeat myself to you.

Again after I confirmed my previous contentions, now all of a sudden it becomes a minor point.

I do not know what you are talking about here; I never claimed it was a minor point.

I guess I have to accept the fact that no matter what I say, it will have to go through the mindset of the asylum and be regurgitated by the patience that dwell in it.

No. You have to accept the fact that open-minded individuals that will be able to expose your misunderstandings and blatant falsehoods will look into what you say here. However, you believe what you need to believe in order to hold onto your preconceived notions.

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

I'm going to have to disagree with you here. Palaeontology and phylogenetics are very complicated sciences, and this is still on the frontiers of knowledge. Piecing together the complex interrelationships of creatures so far in the past is a difficult task. That other studies will be made with different findings is almost guaranteed. However, whether or not whales and hippos branched off before or after the split from mesonychids, makes no difference to the well document pakicetus to modern whales sequence now known. All you're doing is setting up an undeserved, false victory when such a paper is found, the scientific literature is very large and someone, somewhere will have a different opinion. This is the strength of science ideas are continually tested.

Remember, ProcInc challenged benthemiester to find a paper post dating 2005 that showed a conflict between the molecular evidence and paleontological evidence. I would not be surprised if there were papers that disagreed, but I doubt benthemiester would be able to find them. I can think of many articles where cladograms based on morphological evidence differ from molecular evidence. I was taking this challenge as an exposure of benthemiester's poor scholarship.

Science is full of conflicts; it is how we resolve those conflicts that give us a good measure of our theories.

Now if ben does decide to stick around It would be interesting to see if he could stop making any excuse to avoid considering the evidence. pakicetus: teeth, cranium, ear and any other trait.

Agreed. This would be wonderful.

 

[fightofthejellyfish]

My mistake, apparently I could do with working on my reading comprehension too

and adjust my statement thusly:

I'm going to have to disagree with you here. Palaeontology and phylogenetics are very complicated sciences, and this is still on the frontiers of knowledge. Piecing together the complex interrelationships of creatures so far in the past is a difficult task. That other studies will be made with different findings is almost guaranteed. However, whether or not whales and hippos branched off before or after the split from mesonychids, makes no difference to the well document pakicetus to modern whales sequence now known. All you're doing is setting up an undeserved, false perception of victory when such a paper is found, the scientific literature is very large and someone, somewhere will have a different opinion. This is the strength of science ideas are continually tested.

 

[RedYellow]

Hey Ben, why don't you just humor us a little and throw out a guess as to what better explains the existence of whales? Come on, I mean what kind of person thinks that no position on the subject is so much better than an explanation that only requires proven biological processes? Who do you think you're fooling here? Your position is just that everybody else is wrong? You said that there's just not enough data or something to that effect, but apparently there's just enough data to prove that marine mammals aren't related to all other mammals? Come on.......What do you think it is that makes something a mammal?

Most of us have had countless arguments with people who have a beef with evolution and can see right through everything you are doing.

 

[ProcInc]

You all have more patience than me.

As Ben accused me of lying and ignoring points while believing his irrelevent and or outdated non-scholarly articles somehow were resounding blows against my claims, which me apparently never read I came to accept that he was at polar odds with reality. Eventually the insults got too childish and the behavior just that little but too 'eccentric'.

As many of who may have guessed I'm not contributing to this thead much anymore.

Suffice it to say the only person who doesn't realise how "creationist" (used as an adjective to cover the unique mixture of hubris, ignorance) Ben has shown himself to be is the one person we wouldn't Expect to realise. Ben himself.

 

[Gnug215]

You all have more patience than me.

Yes, but the really important question is now: do you have more patients than the rest of us?

*cough*

Sorry.

But yeah, I see Squawk has already made a point about the tone.
It's sad it has to devolve into that so often.

 

[Laurens]

I said that Wikipedia has said that he is not proponent of ID. It also says he has criticized both the organization that you try to say he endorses. Wikipedia never accuses him of being anything more than a scientist. If Wikipedia had any evidence that he was a creationist. I guarantee you, that is the first thing they would say about him. Lets look at your Gish analogy, and lets apply those same standards to S.Miller and F.Collins. and my Paisano & over all nice guy Fransisco Alaya. These men all claim to be Christians, but let me go into cuckoo land conspiracy mode for an minute. They both associate themselves and side with many evolutionist who are also atheist. AHA Likely! Ayala is a member of the American Academy an organization that is comprised of an atheist majority. AHA! They have all been critical of Biblical creationism. AHA!! Miller has went on record as saying he had a great deal of respect for anti religious God hating out spoken atheist FILTHY FORNICATING Richard Dawkins. AHA!!! THERE IT IS!! CHRISTIAN MY ASS !
A LIKELY STORY!! They are all closet case atheist conspiring against us. Yeah has it. If this sounds really silly to you, then you know how your logic sounds to me.

There are some "evolutionists" who are atheist yes, but many who are not. If by "evolutionist" you mean someone whose profession revolves around the study of subjects related to evolution then you can find an awful lot of Christian people in that field. The following link lists many notable Christian evolutionists http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/evolution/christian_evolutionists.html

If by "evolutionist" you mean just generally someone who accepts evolution then it might be worth noting that the majority of Christians accept evolution, and that young earth creationism is a fringe movement within the religion. There is no evidence to suggest that you cannot be Christian and accept evolution. Or that you cannot be Christian and criticise young earth creationism.

Is it a case of closet atheists teaming up with outspoken atheists in a conspiracy against your fringe interpretation of the Bible, or is it the fact that there is mountains of evidence for evolution, and that to deny it prompts criticism from not only atheists, but other Christians too? What does it tell you when even Christians are joining in the fight against creationism? Does it say conspiracy, or that creationism is so un-scientific and fallacious that even Christians feel compelled to criticise it? Creationism is so heavily criticised from all fronts because it is wrong, wrong on so many levels.