See someone try to defend creationism honestly

[dotoree]

Since he's ignored every call for his evidence I've been seeing this as one of the following (perhaps a mix):

1: He has no evidence
2: His evidence is weak and he knows it
3: His evidence is weak and he doesn't even know why

because if there's ANY convincing evidence for creation events it would be so strong that it could speak for itself. It wouldn't need an overly verbose English teacher to defend.

Every time he ignores a call for his evidence this suspicion is compounded (at least in me).

--
So, let me ask you a question...if I straw manned your belief and changed the standards in this way, would you spend numerous hours presenting evidence?
1) Atheism is a belief in a monster that spits out dirtballs that magically transform into cells by processes unseen.
2) I won't accept any other definition than #1 for atheism.
3) I will dismiss any evidence from science or the historical method for proposition 1.

This is a bit of an exaggeration (and I have already accepted the definition of atheism as "lack of belief" since it's YOUR right to define your views)..but not much different from what has been done to me here. I've been straw manned endlessly and what is normally accepted as scientific evidence and historical evidence in all other fields...is suddenly dismissed as evidence when it comes to God.
Bryan

 

[Anachronous Rex]

Even the little evidence that I DID post which IS VERY solid and the Bible's health are indisputable if you look at the Blue Zones research site and understand what helps Adventists be the longest living people in the world, or at a minimum in the top 4 groups (depending upon which expert you listen to)...has been falsely maligned and misunderstood by you guys because you don't have the foundational philosophy correct to be able to grasp the evidence and recognize it honestly for what it is. This is not your fault....but it IS reality. There is no difference between trying to tell teapartiers any good points about Obama or socialism and telling you good points about the Bible. You have apriori biases that blind you to what is evidence and when you add straw man definitions to that...and a flood of other misrepresentations...there's just no point in proceeding. This evidence JUST on the health topic has been reported by MANY secular media sources including Blue Zones, National Geographic, numerous smaller research studies (Blue Zones is a meta study I think), ABC news, National Institute of Health and others. RIGHT NOW, because of these results that Christians who follow Bible health principles live 10+years longer than the average (3 of the 4 blue zones groups are Christian groups), the National Cancer Institute is now funding a new study on the longest lived group in America, the Adventists. You can read about it on wikipedia if you wish and many other places. Search for "Adventist Health Studies 2". You guys reject what national science foundations are intensely interested in. That speaks volumes about your incredible bias and the sad thing is that the one who will be hurt most by your bias is YOU...since truth has enormous advantages and benefits for those who follow it.
Bryan

Sorry, Dotoree, but a basic health plan in an ancient book is not even remotely indicative of creation events. It's not indicative of anything except that a basic health plan is effective. You need to present something that when observed it screams "SUPERNATURAL DEITY!" to anyone who looks at it. Essentially, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Let's not even grant him that. This is a book that says that leprosy can be cured by sprinkling blood on the patient (which it won't), and that menstrual blood is somehow toxic (which it isn't.)

Besides, some Chinese medicine has proven very effective. Apparently the Emperor of Heaven just kicked YHWH's ass.

 

[scalyblue]

Since he's ignored every call for his evidence I've been seeing this as one of the following (perhaps a mix):

1: He has no evidence
2: His evidence is weak and he knows it
3: His evidence is weak and he doesn't even know why

because if there's ANY convincing evidence for creation events it would be so strong that it could speak for itself. It wouldn't need an overly verbose English teacher to defend.

Every time he ignores a call for his evidence this suspicion is compounded (at least in me).

Here's the funny thing. He thinks the walls of text he's posting *are* evidential, and he thinks we're so blown away by it that we need to lie to cover our asses.

 

[Rockbottom87]

NOT EVEN a SINGLE CELL has come into existence from non-life...let alone anything more complex. THAT is BY FAR the most extraordinary claim imaginable.

Ah, so you want to pitch creationism against abiogenesis, not evolution. Why didn't you say so?
For all I know there was some sort of god there starting it all, making the first bacterial cells. We still don't know how exactly that happened (of course, we have some hypotheses and some of those actually have produced some results) but that doesn't mean we don't know how it went from there.

If you want a discussion about abiogenesis v creation, you won't like this:
We can't help you there, since science hasn't (yet) worked out a proper theory on the matter.

 

[scalyblue]

Let's not even grant him that. This is a book that says that leprosy can be cured by sprinkling blood on the patient (which it won't), and that menstrual blood is somehow toxic (which it isn't.)

Besides, some Chinese medicine has proven very effective. Apparently the Emperor of Heaven just kicked YHWH's ass.

Yeah, what about the Aztec? Their discovery of nixtamalization allowed them to survive long enough to create an empire. This was accomplished without any assistance from the pitiful god of abraham, and predated the weak and worthless jesus by a good thousand years.

I'm convinced.

I now acknowledge and accept Quetzalcoatl as my Lord and Creator, may He devour the unbelievers.

 

[Pulsar]

But, the Bible is filled with such criticisms of it's kings and it's most famous heroes. They are written down in graphic detail in many cases in ways that no king would EVER have allowed if he had been in control of writing the history. This is one reason why in case after case after case, many expert historians, some former atheists and skeptics, have said that the Bible's credibility is without comparison in the ancient world.

The fact that some biblical stories contain elements of historical event is completely irrelevant. The existence of king David DOES NOT prove the existence of Goliath, and it CERTAINLY DOES NOT prove the existence of god. Troy was a real city too, but that doesn't mean that Apollo or Athena are real. Can't you understand that?

NOT EVEN a SINGLE CELL has come into existence from non-life...let alone anything more complex.

That's like saying 'Not a single mountain has been formed in our lifetime'. And I'm sure you really think that the Himalayas were created by god, instead of being pushed up by the Indian plate over millions of years, even though this process is still going on and measurable.
The formation of complex molecules that lead to the earliest life forms was a process that took millions of years. And we can observe that complex molecules, like ethyl formate (C2H5OCHO) and n-propyl cyanide (C3H7CN), exist in space, so they can form spontaneously. And btw, how do you know that abiogenesis isn't going on right now, somewhere on earth? We're talking about slow, microscopic processes, that might occur at the bottom of the oceans. How could we possibly see such an event in action? Should we monitor every inch of the globe with microscopes?

THAT is BY FAR the most extraordinary claim imaginable.

And you dare talking of double standards... may I remind you that you wrote on page 15:

B) There is no infinite regress in Christianity. God is the prime mover and never had a beginning. How can something not have a beginning? I don't know. PERIOD. This is one of the few things I take on faith without any evidence of that specific thing being possible (most faith has evidence) and I'll be upfront about it.

So you say that the first life forms couldn't have come from non-living material, but had to be created by an invisible, supernatural being, that happens to coincide with the character described in the bible. And then you go on to say that this "intelligent living god", for which NO OBSERVATIONAL EVIDENCE EXISTS, actually DIDN'T COME FROM ANOTHER GOD, a super-intelligent living super-god. You break your own biogenesis rule. You can't provide observational proof for your god, and you can't explain where your god comes from. SO YOUR CLAIM, my friend, is BY FAR the most extraordinary claim imaginable.

 

[scalyblue]

NOT EVEN a SINGLE CELL has come into existence from non-life...let alone anything more complex. THAT is BY FAR the most extraordinary claim imaginable.

Ah, so you want to pitch creationism against abiogenesis, not evolution. Why didn't you say so?
For all I know there was some sort of god there starting it all, making the first bacterial cells. We still don't know how exactly that happened (of course, we have some hypotheses and some of those actually have produced some results) but that doesn't mean we don't know how it went from there.

If you want a discussion about abiogenesis v creation, you won't like this:
We can't help you there, since science hasn't (yet) worked out a proper theory on the matter.

Actually abiogenesis wouldn't produce anything that remotely resembles something as advanced as a bacterial cell, or even near the size of one.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Even the little evidence that I DID post which IS VERY solid has been falsely maligned and misunderstood by several here. The Bible's health benefits are indisputable if you look at the Blue Zones research site (and there are 300 other peer reviewed studies as well on this) and understand what helps Adventists be the longest living people in the world, or at a minimum in the top 4 groups.

Unfortunately, you have major biases and are using principles that are nowhere else used in science or history to check what is evidence. Since you are rejecting things that academia accepts as evidence out of hand and apriori, you can't recognize it honestly for what it is. This is not all your fault....but it IS reality. There is no difference between trying to tell teapartiers any good points about Obama or socialism and telling you good points about the Bible. You have apriori biases that blind you to what is evidence and when you add straw man definitions to that...and a flood of other misrepresentations...there's just no point in proceeding.

This evidence JUST on the health topic has been studied and reported by MANY secular research foundations media sources including Blue Zones, National Geographic, ABC News, CNN, numerous smaller research studies (Blue Zones is a meta study I think), National Institute of Health and others. RIGHT NOW, because of these results that Christians who follow Bible health principles live 10+years longer than the average (3 of the 4 blue zones groups are Christian groups), the National Cancer Institute is now funding a new study on the longest lived group in America, the Adventists. You can read about it on wikipedia if you wish and many other places. Search for "Adventist Health Studies 2". You guys reject what national science foundations are intensely interested in. That speaks volumes about your incredible bias and the sad thing is that the one who will be hurt most by your bias is YOU...since truth has enormous advantages and benefits for those who follow it.
Bryan

Yep, stupid non-evidence, deflection from the main point, and dishonesty. You're a real champ.

Here, let me elaborate a bit: The Bible doesn't contain any special or unusual health knowledge. Some of what is in the Bible was known by people all over the world for thousands of years. Some of what is in the Bible is just wrong. None of it is proof of anything supernatural.

 

[dotoree]

Sorry, Dotoree, but a basic health plan in an ancient book is not even remotely indicative of creation events. It's not indicative of anything except that a basic health plan is effective. You need to present something that when observed it screams "SUPERNATURAL DEITY!" to anyone who looks at it. Essentially, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.[/quote]

Besides, some Chinese medicine has proven very effective. Apparently the Emperor of Heaven just kicked YHWH's ass.[/quote]
---
A) Some of the health plans were in Genesis in Creation and it is ONLY in the last few decades that modern science has caught up.
B) You know next to nothing about the Bible's health claims and cherry picking ISN'T intelligent or fair and you misunderstand those parts you do cherry pick.
C) I told Aronra that the Bible has no practical benefits for us. He challenged me to prove it. He was wrong. FLAT OUT WRONG. I did not claim that the health things were proof of creation...Could you not even be bothered to read the first post which Aronra himself posted which quotes what I said PLUS others I have listed.
Bryan

 

[masterjedijared]

Since he's ignored every call for his evidence I've been seeing this as one of the following (perhaps a mix):

1: He has no evidence
2: His evidence is weak and he knows it
3: His evidence is weak and he doesn't even know why

because if there's ANY convincing evidence for creation events it would be so strong that it could speak for itself. It wouldn't need an overly verbose English teacher to defend.

Every time he ignores a call for his evidence this suspicion is compounded (at least in me).

--
So, let me ask you a question...if I straw manned your belief and changed the standards in this way, would you spend numerous hours presenting evidence?
1) Atheism is a belief in a monster that spits out dirtballs that magically transform into cells by processes unseen.
2) I won't accept any other definition than #1 for atheism.
3) I will dismiss any evidence from science or the historical method for proposition 1.

This is a bit of an exaggeration (and I have already accepted the definition of atheism as "lack of belief" since it's YOUR right to define your views)..but not much different from what has been done to me here. I've been straw manned endlessly and what is normally accepted as scientific evidence and historical evidence in all other fields...is suddenly dismissed as evidence when it comes to God.
Bryan

What I would do, eh? Well, if I were inclined to write massive wall-of-text posts I would take the time to write the following:

1. Here's my thesis/hypothesis
2. Here's background info/elucidation of terms
3. Here's my data/evidence
4. Here's my conclusion

This basic outline is how nearly every respectable scientific article/paper is presented. It's also true for scholastic history articles and even literature analysis. Goodness, even ethics arguments are presented like this. I would present my argument as such and let it stand (or fall) on it's own merits. If I were wrong and demonstrably so I would consider revision.

Now, what I've described is at a minimum of only one post. Subsequent posts would be used to discuss relevant alterations to my presentation, data or conclusions. If anyone would want to quibble about my definitions, background information or conclusions then it's all in later posts.

I haven't straw-manned anything. I've just been waiting to see this evidence.

 

[dotoree]

Here, let me elaborate a bit: The Bible doesn't contain any special or unusual health knowledge. Some of what is in the Bible was known by people all over the world for thousands of years. Some of what is in the Bible is just wrong. None of it is proof of anything supernatural.

This is astounding ignorance and arrogance. even this small evidence is FAR better proof and benefits than ANY of the proof or benefits of Darwinian evolution (which is speciation from family to kingdom). Just tell me how Darwin's concepts added 10 years to your life. And NO you can't use speciation. That's a creationist concept published LONG before Darwin that even other evolutionists criticized Darwin for plagiarizing from creationists.

You don't blink an eye at ALL their gigantic faith based assumptions with ZERO benefit to you and can't accept fully testable, OBSERVABLE FULFILLED SCIENTIFIC PREDICTIONS..and even that video doesn't say many details of what is actually in the Bible.
Bryan

 

[scalyblue]

Sorry, Dotoree, but a basic health plan in an ancient book is not even remotely indicative of creation events. It's not indicative of anything except that a basic health plan is effective. You need to present something that when observed it screams "SUPERNATURAL DEITY!" to anyone who looks at it. Essentially, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Besides, some Chinese medicine has proven very effective. Apparently the Emperor of Heaven just kicked YHWH's ass.[/quote]
---
A) Some of the health plans were in Genesis in Creation and it is ONLY in the last few decades that modern science has caught up.
B) You know next to nothing about the Bible's health claims and cherry picking ISN'T intelligent or fair and you misunderstand those parts you do cherry pick.
C) I told Aronra that the Bible has no practical benefits for us. He challenged me to prove it. He was wrong. FLAT OUT WRONG. I did not claim that the health things were proof of creation...Could you not even be bothered to read the first post which Aronra himself posted which quotes what I said PLUS others I have listed.
Bryan[/quote]

No, but you do claim that the "health things" fulfill your burden of proof for zeus.

 

[masterjedijared]

Sorry, Dotoree, but a basic health plan in an ancient book is not even remotely indicative of creation events. It's not indicative of anything except that a basic health plan is effective. You need to present something that when observed it screams "SUPERNATURAL DEITY!" to anyone who looks at it. Essentially, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Besides, some Chinese medicine has proven very effective. Apparently the Emperor of Heaven just kicked YHWH's ass.[/quote]
---
A) Some of the health plans were in Genesis in Creation and it is ONLY in the last few decades that modern science has caught up.
B) You know next to nothing about the Bible's health claims and cherry picking ISN'T intelligent or fair and you misunderstand those parts you do cherry pick.
C) I told Aronra that the Bible has no practical benefits for us. He challenged me to prove it. He was wrong. FLAT OUT WRONG. I did not claim that the health things were proof of creation...Could you not even be bothered to read the first post which Aronra himself posted which quotes what I said PLUS others I have listed.
Bryan[/quote]

There was no cherry-picking. I was responding directly to your post. Also, I never said anything about Chinese Emperors. Please utilize the quote button more effectively so that the discussion isn't even more confusing.

If Biblical health plans aren't important to the defense of creation events then why bother bring it up? It doesn't somehow corroborate claims of creation events. At best it's a loose correlation. There is no logical progression from "decent health plan in genesis" to "Yahweh makes the world!"

 

[dotoree]

What I would do, eh? Well, if I were inclined to write massive wall-of-text posts I would take the time to write the following:
1. Here's my thesis/hypothesis
2. Here's background info/elucidation of terms
3. Here's my data/evidence
4. Here's my conclusion

This basic outline is how nearly every respectable scientific article/paper is presented. It's also true for scholastic history articles and even literature analysis. Goodness, even ethics arguments are presented like this. I would present my argument as such and let it stand (or fall) on it's own merits. If I were wrong and demonstrably so I would consider revision.

Now, what I've described is at a minimum of only one post. Subsequent posts would be used to discuss relevant alterations to my presentation, data or conclusions. If anyone would want to quibble about my definitions, background information or conclusions then it's all in later posts.

I haven't straw-manned anything. I've just been waiting to see this evidence.

--
Yes, THIS would be a good process...but Aronra wouldn't even let me define my own hypothesis and most others here wouldn't either. The only one so far that I know of that would is borrofburi. They insisted on falsely maligning my hypothesis and labeling it with all sorts of derogatory terms and insisted I accept that. To accept that would be a form of lying on my part. They wanted the write to define THEIR hypothesis and I could say nothing and then to define MY hypothesis as well and I still could say nothing. That's insane irrationality and a double standard the like of which I have never ever encountered in 20 years of discussions.
Bryan

 

[scalyblue]

Here, let me elaborate a bit: The Bible doesn't contain any special or unusual health knowledge. Some of what is in the Bible was known by people all over the world for thousands of years. Some of what is in the Bible is just wrong. None of it is proof of anything supernatural.

This is astounding ignorance and arrogance. even this small evidence is FAR better proof and benefits than ANY of the proof or benefits of Darwinian evolution (which is speciation from family to kingdom). Just tell me how Darwin's concepts added 10 years to your life. And NO you can't use speciation. That's a creationist concept published LONG before Darwin that even other evolutionists criticized Darwin for plagiarizing from creationists.

You don't blink an eye at ALL their gigantic faith based assumptions with ZERO benefit to you and can't accept fully testable, OBSERVABLE FULFILLED SCIENTIFIC PREDICTIONS..and even that video doesn't say many details of what is actually in the Bible....this ignorance and double standards has convinced me that it's useless to waste my breath here with people who don't even have a clue how to follow the scientific method. I think I'm not going to talk here anymore until I can get a firm debate set up with either Aronra or Inferno...the logical fallacies are simply to unjust to justify me wasting time with people who don't care a whit about evidence even if it KOd them. And this is just a tiny one. I've got pages and pages of references to Bible health concepts that nobody has ever told you before. They want you to be duped and you're a willing participant in the duping...to your own hurt. I'm almost sure I"m done talking on this board. There is not a shred of reason on it from most of you.

Bryan

So if your daughter were to contract MRSA, would you take the creationist route and give her penicillin, or would you take the neo-darwininan route, acknowledge evolution, and give her vancomycin.

protip: only one will save her life. Guess which one. ^.^

 

[scalyblue]

What I would do, eh? Well, if I were inclined to write massive wall-of-text posts I would take the time to write the following:
1. Here's my thesis/hypothesis
2. Here's background info/elucidation of terms
3. Here's my data/evidence
4. Here's my conclusion

This basic outline is how nearly every respectable scientific article/paper is presented. It's also true for scholastic history articles and even literature analysis. Goodness, even ethics arguments are presented like this. I would present my argument as such and let it stand (or fall) on it's own merits. If I were wrong and demonstrably so I would consider revision.

Now, what I've described is at a minimum of only one post. Subsequent posts would be used to discuss relevant alterations to my presentation, data or conclusions. If anyone would want to quibble about my definitions, background information or conclusions then it's all in later posts.

I haven't straw-manned anything. I've just been waiting to see this evidence.

--
Yes, THIS would be a good process...but Aronra wouldn't even let me define my own hypothesis and most others here wouldn't either. The only one so far that I know of that would is borrofburi. They insisted on falsely maligning my hypothesis and labeling it with all sorts of derogatory terms and insisted I accept that. To accept that would be a form of lying on my part.
Bryan

You haven't attempted to furnish a posit, you haven't even made a case statement. Defining miracles as magical is not derogatory, because defining them any other way is an a priori acknowledgement of their veracity.

 

[lrkun]

Brief lesson in logic.

An example of a statement. It is something that is either true or false. It must be based on facts and not from an evaluation.

God is good. True or false? <-- evaluative statement, because we need to define what is good or bad.

Every dog barks. True or false? <-- objective statement, because the act of barking is observable from a dog.

Every dog barks. A is a dog. A barks. <-- basic syllogistic argument. It's deductive. Based from it's premise the every dog barks (assuming this is true).

We know A barks, because A is a dog, and all dogs bark. (a one sentence syllogistic argument)

What dotoree does is this.

A barks.

He doesn't provide the major premise or the minor premise or an objective statement. What he does is state a conclusion or an evaluative claim. It's easy to mix the two.

 

[scalyblue]

Evoultionary theory has no practical applications? Forgive my copypasta, oh Lord and Master Quetzalcoatl

Talkorigins[/url]"]
Claim CA215:

The theory of evolution is useless, without practical application.
Source:

Lindsey, George. 1985. Evolution -- Useful or useless? Impact 148 (Oct.). http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=252
Wieland, Carl. 1998. Evolution and practical science. Creation 20(4) (Sept.): 4. http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v20/i4/evolution.asp
Response:

Evolutionary theory is the framework tying together all of biology. It explains similarities and differences between organisms, fossils, biogeography, drug resistance, extreme features such as the peacock's tail, relative virulence of parasites, and much more besides. Without the theory of evolution, it would still be possible to know much about biology, but not to understand it.

This explanatory framework is useful in a practical sense. First, a unified theory is easier to learn, because the facts connect together rather than being so many isolated bits of trivia. Second, having a theory makes it possible to see gaps in the theory, suggesting productive areas for new research.

Evolutionary theory has been put to practical use in several areas (Futuyma 1995; Bull and Wichman 2001). For example:
Bioinformatics, a multi-billion-dollar industry, consists largely of the comparison of genetic sequences. Descent with modification is one of its most basic assumptions.
Diseases and pests evolve resistance to the drugs and pesticides we use against them. Evolutionary theory is used in the field of resistance management in both medicine and agriculture (Bull and Wichman 2001).
Evolutionary theory is used to manage fisheries for greater yields (Conover and Munch 2002).
Artificial selection has been used since prehistory, but it has become much more efficient with the addition of quantitative trait locus mapping.
Knowledge of the evolution of parasite virulence in human populations can help guide public health policy (Galvani 2003).
Sex allocation theory, based on evolution theory, was used to predict conditions under which the highly endangered kakapo bird would produce more female offspring, which retrieved it from the brink of extinction (Sutherland 2002).

Evolutionary theory is being applied to and has potential applications in may other areas, from evaluating the threats of genetically modified crops to human psychology. Additional applications are sure to come.

Phylogenetic analysis, which uses the evolutionary principle of common descent, has proven its usefulness:
Tracing genes of known function and comparing how they are related to unknown genes helps one to predict unknown gene function, which is foundational for drug discovery (Branca 2002; Eisen and Wu 2002; Searls 2003).
Phylogenetic analysis is a standard part of epidemiology, since it allows the identification of disease reservoirs and sometimes the tracking of step-by-step transmission of disease. For example, phylogenetic analysis confirmed that a Florida dentist was infecting his patients with HIV, that HIV-1 and HIV-2 were transmitted to humans from chimpanzees and mangabey monkeys in the twentieth century, and, when polio was being eradicated from the Americas, that new cases were not coming from hidden reservoirs (Bull and Wichman 2001). It was used in 2002 to help convict a man of intentionally infecting someone with HIV (Vogel 1998). The same principle can be used to trace the source of bioweapons (Cummings and Relman 2002).
Phylogenetic analysis to track the diversity of a pathogen can be used to select an appropriate vaccine for a particular region (Gaschen et al. 2002).
Ribotyping is a technique for identifying an organism or at least finding its closest known relative by mapping its ribosomal RNA onto the tree of life. It can be used even when the organisms cannot be cultured or recognized by other methods. Ribotyping and other genotyping methods have been used to find previously unknown infectious agents of human disease (Bull and Wichman 2001; Relman 1999).
Phylogenetic analysis helps in determining protein folds, since proteins diverging from a common ancestor tend to conserve their folds (Benner 2001).

Directed evolution allows the "breeding" of molecules or molecular pathways to create or enhance products, including:
enzymes (Arnold 2001)
pigments (Arnold 2001)
antibiotics
flavors
biopolymers
bacterial strains to decompose hazardous materials.
Directed evolution can also be used to study the folding and function of natural enzymes (Taylor et al. 2001).

The evolutionary principles of natural selection, variation, and recombination are the basis for genetic algorithms, an engineering technique that has many practical applications, including aerospace engineering, architecture, astrophysics, data mining, drug discovery and design, electrical engineering, finance, geophysics, materials engineering, military strategy, pattern recognition, robotics, scheduling, and systems engineering (Marczyk 2004).

Tools developed for evolutionary science have been put to other uses. For example:
Many statistical techniques, including analysis of variance and linear regression, were developed by evolutionary biologists, especially Ronald Fisher and Karl Pearson. These statistical techniques have much wider application today.
The same techniques of phylogenetic analysis developed for biology can also trace the history of multiple copies of a manuscript (Barbrook et al. 1998; Howe et al. 2001) and the history of languages (Dunn et al. 2005).

Good science need not have any application beyond satisfying curiosity. Much of astronomy, geology, paleontology, natural history, and other sciences have no practical application. For many people, knowledge is a worthy end in itself.

Science with little or no application now may find application in the future, especially as the field matures and our knowledge of it becomes more complete. Practical applications are often built upon ideas that did not look applicable originally. Furthermore, advances in one area of science can help illuminate other areas. Evolution provides a framework for biology, a framework which can support other useful biological advances.

Anti-evolutionary ideas have been around for millennia and have not yet contributed anything with any practical application

 

[Your Funny Uncle]

Yeah, what about the Aztec? Their discovery of nixtamalization allowed them to survive long enough to create an empire. This was accomplished without any assistance from the pitiful god of abraham, and predated the weak and worthless jesus by a good thousand years.

Point of order. Although nixtamalisation was developed in mesoamerica when you say, the Aztec civilisation itself is far more recent, flourishing in the three centuries or so leading up to the Spanish conquest. Calling the folk who discovered that process Aztec is a bit like calling the ancient Gauls French. Carry on...

 

[masterjedijared]

Just tell me how Darwin's concepts added 10 years to your life.

Evolutionary knowledge of how mammalian lungs operate save my life every day since I was four years old. The asthma medication I'm required to take has easily allowed me to live past the age of four by at least ten years (24-ish more years and counting)

I was born prematurely. Without incubation, which would not have been possible without technology that came about through the knowledge gained from evolutionary models, I would have died at less then a week old. 28 extra years there.

My empathic desire to help others (which has been shown to be derived from evolutionary origins) motivates me to work at the local homeless shelter. I help guys (male emergency shelter) find jobs, write resumes and develop computer-use skills. At least three of them have found homes and jobs from my help alone. I'm unsure if this has added a direct ten years to their lifespan but I am pretty sure it's helped them significantly.