User talk:Gniniv - Wikipedia

Welcome!

Hello, Gniniv, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

• The five pillars of Wikipedia
• Tutorial
• How to edit a page and How to develop articles
• How to create your first article (using the Article Wizard if you wish)
• Manual of Style

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome! --Chris.urs-o (talk) 04:29, 16 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

(Slightly Edited for Clarity. Author's responses italicized)

Please read WP:3rr and discuss your concerns on the article talk rather than edit warring. Also, please read reliable sources. Vsmith (talk) 04:23, 21 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for your diligence to preserve article integrity. As all my claims are thoroughly referenced and legitimate information (Please feel free to check all of them) and I have not deleted any prior information I believe this section can stay. --Gniniv (talk) 04:29, 21 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

Along those lines, your edits to the geology page are scary... at least two are directly Creationist Propaganda, and many others are nearly so. Only real science please, and that means real articles from real peer-reviewd publications. And yes, some of yours are that, but the important once you use are certainly not. Qfl247 (talk) 04:31, 21 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

I appreciate your persistence to uphold "pure science"-but science itself is defined as the investigation of all evidence and the formation of a theory that attempts to explain the results. It is not the formation of a certain theory (whether that theory be currently accepted or not) and the dogmatic insistence that all alternative theories are not "pure science". Please also recognize that even if this reply is considered insane, all ideas must be accepted in a free encyclopedia like wikipedia, no matter how zany!--Gniniv (talk) 04:43, 21 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

If you actually had ANY reliable sources or ANY actual evidence of the earth being young or what you speak of had ANY grounding in the modern debate of Geology, your content would be allowed. But, you are citing fringe 'science' that is less respected than UFO and Bigfoot research. Look, if you want your 'young earth' dogma to be accepted, find some evidence, and publish it in a real, peer-reviewed, journal. Of course, you could be part of the crowd that thinks there is a massive, worldwide conspiracy to hide this evidence... to which I say... how is your tin-foil hat fitting? Do the science like everyone else, then it can go on the Geology page. Until then, stick to the Young Earth Creationism page. Qfl247 (talk) 13:34, 21 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

I am not going to attempt any more to post my edits on Geology, it would only start a useless edit war. You can see some of my answers and debate below.

The article you just created, Catastrophic Geology, appears to be a POV fork, "a content fork deliberately created to avoid neutral point of view guidelines, often to avoid or highlight negative or positive viewpoints or facts". You admit that yourself with your first edit summary: "Created Catastrophic Geology Article to counter Uniformitarian suppression of alternative interpretations in the main article." If suppression is going on in "the main article" (I suppose you mean in Geology, although Catastrophism might be a more appropriate place for the content you are interested in adding.), then you have to fight it out with the other editors of that article, or escalate in one of the conflict resolution processes available in the Wikipedia community. Creating a new article is not an acceptable process to correct a POV problem. If you understand what I'm saying, it would be nice if you would delete the article yourself, because that is faster and less bureaucratic. Otherwise I will start the normal process to discuss deletion of the article myself. (No hard feelings. I don't want to bite you. But there are many policies and processes in Wikipedia that make it work so well, and you will need some time to become familiar with them.) --Art Carlson (talk) 07:58, 21 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

Totally understand! I will delete the article and try to hash it out with editors of Geology!--Gniniv (talk) 02:24, 22 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

Hi there. Just so you know, it's considered poor form to add dozens of fact tags to articles; if you're interested in better citations, it is better to add some yourself and tag only the things that you can't find. Thanks, Awickert (talk) 04:34, 22 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the tip and I will do just as you suggested--Gniniv (talk) 04:35, 22 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

Thanks! Awickert (talk) 04:47, 22 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

Hello, I saw the request for a debate on the talk page of Objections to evolution. Since this is a project to build an encyclopedia, discussion content should be related to that . Talk pages aren't to be used to hold general debates. There are other places on the internet that are better suited to such endeavors such as talk.origins. For further clarification on the issue, please see WP:NOT for what Wikipedia is and is not. Thanks, Auntie E. (talk) 22:22, 26 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

I agree, and as you can see I have sourced the request to debate back to my personal talk page, so It will not take place in the article talk....--Gniniv (talk) 22:30, 26 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

No, you do not understand. Wikipedia does not host debates on your talkpage either. So please do not promote debating here at all. Auntie E. (talk) 01:25, 28 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

Have a look at WP:MOSCAPS, esp. section headings. Wikipedia articles should be timeless, so words like 'current' or 'recent' don't belong in articles normally. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dougweller (talk • contribs) 05:51, 24 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

Hi!

I have reverted several edits by you. Since you're new here on Wikipedia, I suggest taking some time to read through WP:5, as well as to the policy pages linked from it. Specifically the three content policies WP:V, WP:NOR and WP:NPOV. Cheers! Gabbe (talk) 06:54, 26 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the tip, I intend to follow it, but please remind the other editors to due so as well....--Gniniv (talk) 23:04, 26 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

(Slightly edited for clarity)

The methods of falisifiability that evolutionists claim are incorrect

1.) a static fossil record;

Darwin knew the fossil record was not entirely static prior to the creation of the TOE. A fact that is already known can not be used as a method of falsifiability.

2.) true chimeras, that is, organisms that combined parts from several different and diverse lineages (such as mermaids and centaurs) and which are not explained by lateral gene transfer, which transfers relatively small amounts of DNA between lineages, or symbiosis, where two whole organisms come together;

The playpus could easily fall under this category as a mammal that lays eggs. Evolutionists have said that there has been little escavation in Australia so the fossil record is limited. This is a scientific answer and the platypus does not necessarily prove evolution false, but this does demonstrate that finding a chimera would not mean that evolution is false, simply that we currently do not know enough about that species. If a mermaid were found then one would easily be able to claim that the fossil record from the sea is far from complete. Therefore, a chimera cannot be used as a method of falsiability.

3.) a mechanism that would prevent mutations from accumulating;

One mechanism that prevents the accumulation of mutations is death. Hit something with radiation, you will see progeny with many mutations, you will also see them die. This attempt was made by scientists to speed up the evolutionary process. What they found was that organisms died because too many bad mutations, such as growing legs on eyes, made them less fit and lead to a quicker death. Finding a mechanism is not a way of disproving evolution unless one can show that the mechanism would work within timeframes of millions of years, the timeframe necessary for natural selection. Since we will all be dead a million years from now, it is unscientific to use this as a method of falsifiability.

4.) observations of organisms being created;

The supernatural is not allowed into science. This is the reason creationism is not allowed into science. If the supernatural is not allowed into science, then it is also not allowed into science as method of falsifiability.

The portion that discusses DNA as a method of falsifiablity, is scientific. Good job there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.178.190.1 (talk) 14:02, 30 March 2009 (UTC)Reply

1. Yes it can. Having prior knowledge of it does not change the fact the fossil record supports evolution, which is the point.

2. A platypus isn't a chimera, as it does not have "two or more different populations of genetically distinct cells that originated in different zygotes". It is a unique species and is genetically consistent. Meaning its egg laying was not suddenly inserted/grafted from a "different population".

3. As evolution presumes "life/being alive" in order to proceed, death isn't an option. Further, death stops mutations to an individual, not the population. Any mechanism to stop genetic change would be observable nearly in real time, millions of years isn't required to confirm no genetic changes in a population over X time period. Be it weeks, years or decades depending on the lifespan of the species.

4. You seem to forget what article this is. An objection to evolution does not need to be scientific. The context of the paragraph permits logical, not just scientific, falsification. Creation of organisms would logically falsify one of evolution's core requirements, that the origins of all life is a slow process of common ancestry.

-RoyBoy 04:08, 6 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

Platypus aren't chimera, they are a transitional form between egg-laying reptiles & placental mammals. It is an obvious prediction of the ToE that either an egg-laying mammal or a placental reptile would exist (either currently or historically). Hrafn^Talk_Stalk(P) 06:45, 6 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

Falsifiability is important in science see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability. I'm not saying that evolution is not falsifiable, simply that these are not valid methods of falsfiability. The valid methods are what Darwin suggested: no changes which are irreducibly complex and no abundance of missing transitional species in the fossil record. You may also added some methods of falsifiability in DNA, though these have not been clearly innumerated. These are true methods that follow the scientific standard of falsifiability. The methods listed in the article are scientifically without merit. First, in Darwin's day, it was known that there were different species in differing layers of the fossil record. To say that the fossil record has to be entirely static, when it is already known that it is not entirely static is not a scientifically acceptable method of falsifiability, because it necessitates only one change in the fossil records, which has already been determined. Second, if you want to use this "chimera" definition as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimera_(genetics), then your method for falsifiability is so limited as to be laughable. A much better theory would state that true chimeras cannot be found in nature. This statement is entirely falsifiable, while TOE makes much broader claims. Further, if one of these "true chimeras" were to be found, it could still be hypothesized that they were two individual species living in symbiosis and that they evolved into what you see. In the case of a platypus, it is clearly a species that has the characteristics of two different classes, and falls under a broader definition of chimera, parts of differing type of animals, and some have theorized that this should not be seen in nature today. It may be hypothesized that a cross between a mammal and reptile would have existed at the time when mammals evolved, but TOE would not make any prediction that one of these cross-class species would be around today, nor does TOE make any prediction about the exact nature of the cross-class species. It does predict, however, that in the fossil record you should be able to entirely trace that species lineage. We currently cannot do this, because we do not have enough information about the fossil record. In both cases, it can be traced back to a lack of knowledge about the fossil record, thus making it a poor method falsifiability. Third, in the example I gave of death, radiation killed the whole population, not just one individual. The reason the population died off quickly were the harmful mutations. For natural selection to work, the rate of mutations must be small and the time frame must be large, otherwise the relatively small percentage of beneficial mutations would be overcome by the larger percentage of harmful mutations. This is the evolutionist's answer as to why the erradiated species died out. As seen in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability "Not all statements that are falsifiable in principle are falsifiable in practice. For example, "it will be raining here in one million years" is theoretically falsifiable, but not practically." Giving enough time for natural selection to work is not practically falsifiable. Fourth, a deity creating life, is not a purely logical argument, it is a philosophical one. No scientist in any other field in science would use the "Show me a God" logic for falsifiability. They would quite literally be laughed out of their field of study. You can only make philosophical arguments for falsifiability if you are talking about a theory in philosophy not a theory in science. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.178.190.1 (talk) 18:50, 7 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

As far as I can see, you have cited no WP:RS to support your contention that "The methods of falisifiability that evolutionists claim are incorrect", just a lot of (highly suspect) WP:OR WP:SOAP-boxing. Unless you come up with a specific suggestion for improvement to the article, substantiated by reliable sources, this thread will shortly be archived per WP:TALK. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk(P) 19:01, 7 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

As far as I can see you have provided no justification that I have broken any rules. Your debating skills consist of deleting what you do not have the mental capacity to argue and my contention is that if you want to list those methods of falsifiability, you need to at the very minimum provide a peer-reviewed journal article that lists them, not something you found on talkorigins.org. Without that peer-reviewed journal article, my contention back with the facts that I have mentioned is more credible. Further, while I think evolution is true, it needs to be done in a scientific manner. Your methods of deletion are the most unscientific I have ever seen. What I find most entertaining though is that you have no problem arguing the contentions I have made, but when you are shown in error, that is when you must delete. GOOD JOB HRAFN!!! You may just have the makings a true evolutionary scientist.

The example I gave for radiation can be found at http://books.google.com/books?id=JjLWYKqehRsC&pg=PA157&lpg=%20PA157&dq=Drosophila+Fruit+fly+mutations&source=web&ots=%20V5yPPBPE6h&sig=fOkUS_qLsARelWNDqpe5uhq70mI&hl=en. For my contention that a fact cannot be used as a method of falsifiability, "Falsifiability (or refutability) is the logical possibility that an assertion can be shown false by an observation or a physical experiment." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability No amount of observations can show something is always static, thus 1. is no method for falsifiability. 4. is philosophical and cannot be argued by any amount of facts, but necessitates logic. For the chimera example, if you have any debate of a statement I've said about the platypus or other statements, let me know and I will find references for those. Hopefully you are not questioning whether the platypus is the only mammal known that lays eggs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.178.190.1 (talk) 20:15, 7 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

Anon, thou art a WP:SYNner. Go thou, and find verification that someone has published the argument you're putting forward, or this shalt be archived. . dave souza, talk 20:36, 7 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

Further, the platypus is not the only egglaying mammal: see echidna. But that's beside the point. I have a hard time reading your posts, anon, and your point tends to get lost deep in your solid blocks of text, but I'm pretty sure that Hrafn and Dave souza are on track with their comments... Quietmarc (talk) 21:18, 7 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

Where is the reference for falsifiability? I've seen this on Talkorigins.org, but is there a peer-reviewed article I can read? Why are you flaming Anon? Is scientific discussion not allowed? He is saying evolution is falsifiable and that it is true. Anon, I don't get what you mean when you wrote "4. is philosophical and cannot be argued" etc.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.27.7.228 (talk) 23:01, 7 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

Hi everyone! Has anon got a suggestion for how to improve the article, or we are just passing the time? Johnuniq (talk) 02:36, 8 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

My suggestion is that either you find a peer-reviewed journal article to back the methods of falsifiability that you have listed or you delete the section about falsifiability. I have been following the WIKI guidance of dicussiong these changes prior to making changes to the article, but if you cannot give clear justification and you only delete the discussion, then it is within my rights to make changes to the article without a discussion. In other words, I would suggest playing fair. You don't have to follow my suggestion, but then I don't have to play fair either. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.178.190.1 (talk) 15:39, 8 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

1. The 'Evolution is unfalsifiable' section cites numerous sources. There is no requirement that all material be cited to a "peer-reviewed journal article" (though such sources are preferred where available). If you have a specific complaint about the reliability of any of these sources then please make it, citing how the source in question fails WP:RS.
2. If you do not have specific complaints to make, with basis in policy, then your long-winded soapboxing may be legitimately removed, per WP:TALK#Others' comments: "Deleting material not relevant to improving the article"
3. Please STOP VANDALISING the article, as you did here, here & here.

Hrafn^Talk_Stalk(P) 16:29, 8 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

Something as necessary to a scientific theory as falsifiability (i.e. it is not a theory unless it is falsifiable), absolutely needs a peer-reviewed journal article. There are articles that cite other methods of falsifiability, these are not the methods those article cite, so what am I missing? Allow fair discussion and I won't "vandalize". In fact as long as you stop deleting portions of our discussion, I won't touch the article at all. If it is consensus that the article can be improved as suggested, then someone else can fix the article, but I won't touch it. This is a discussion page, so allow fair discussion. If it is a consensus on Wiki that my concerns are invalid, then I will accept that consensus. In fact if there is a arbitrator for discussion employed by Wiki, I will accept their verdict, but I will not accept arbitrary deletion based off of an invalid reading of the rules. That is not in keeping with the spirit of Wiki. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.178.190.1 (talk) 16:48, 8 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

1. "Something as necessary to a scientific theory as falsifiability (i.e. it is not a theory unless it is falsifiable), absolutely needs a peer-reviewed journal article." This demand has no basis in policy -- thus it is worthless.
2. Nothing you have said has been "relevant to improving the article" so can be archived, userfied or deleted at other users' discretion. Wikipedia is WP:NOTAFORUM -- so there is no basis for demanding to be allowed to continue discussions that (due to lack of basis in policy or source) do not serve this purpose.

Hrafn^Talk_Stalk(P) 17:35, 8 April 2009 (UTC) |} An example of this is the claim that geological strata are dated through the fossils they hold, but that fossils are in turn dated by the strata they are in.^[1] However, in most cases strata are not dated by their fossils, but by their position relative to other strata and by radiometric dating, and most strata were dated before the theory of evolution was formulated.^[2]"Reply

I am removing this quote because it is not a correct example of claim being made.

It's just flat incorrect anyway. Although uniformitarianism is relatively old with respect to evolution, the actual dates that we have now post date the atomic age.EGMichaels (talk) 03:11, 18 March 2010 (UTC)Reply

I removed this quote and someone saw fit to restore it where it doesn't belong. It's not a proper example of the circular reasoning used in this argument. It's a complete misunderstanding. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.67.86.44 (talk) 05:16, 19 March 2010 (UTC)Reply

Have you read the sources (specifically, [1]) linked in the paragraph? Gabbe (talk) 05:33, 19 March 2010 (UTC)Reply

The following paragraph has been removed from Talk:Objections to Evolution due to bias and reposted here for further discussion:

{"This view is thus invariably justified with arguments from analogy. The basic idea of this argument for a designer is the teleological argument, an argument for the existence of God based on the perceived order or purposefulness of the universe. A common way of using this as an objection to evolution is by appealing to the 18th-century philosopher William Paley's watchmaker analogy, which argues that certain natural phenomena are analogical to a watch (in that they are ordered, or complex, or purposeful), which means that, like a watch, they must have been designed by a "watchmaker"—an intelligent agent. This argument forms the core of intelligent design, a neocreationist movement seeking to establish certain variants of the design argument as legitimate science, rather than as philosophy or theology, and have them be taught alongside evolution.[22][35]"}

I am removing this entire section as it states, and continues to rationalize, that the argument is "invariably justified . . . from analogy." Sir Fred Hoyle's argument is not based on "analogy" but rather on a statistical unlikelihood which he addressed during a lecture at the California Institute of Technology, "When you consider that a typical enzyme has a chain of perhaps 200 links and that there are 20 possibilities for each link, it's easy to see that the number of useless arrangements is enormous, more than the number of atoms in all the galaxies visible in the largest telescopes. This is for one enzyme, and there are upwards of 2,000 of them, mainly serving very different purposes. Rather then accept the fantastically small probability of life having arisen through the blind forces of nature, it seemed better to suppose that the origin of life was a deliberate intellectual act."

The writer of the removed paragraph is clearly biased and intentionally attacks religion to divert attention away from the real objection which is mathematical likelihood.

The following paragraph has been removed from Talk:Objections to Evolution due to bias and reposted here for further discussion:

{"This objection is fundamentally an argument by lack of imagination, or argument from incredulity: a certain explanation is seen as being counter-intuitive, and therefore an alternate, more intuitive explanation is appealed to instead. Supporters of evolution generally respond by arguing that evolution is not based on "chance", but on predictable chemical interactions: natural processes, rather than supernatural beings, are the "designer". Although the process involves some random elements, it is the non-random selection of survival-enhancing genes that drives evolution along an ordered trajectory. The fact that the results are ordered and seem "designed" is no more evidence for a supernatural intelligence than the appearance of complex natural phenomenon (ie. snowflakes).[101] It is also argued that there is insufficient evidence to make statements about the plausibility or implausibility of abiogenesis, that certain structures demonstrate poor design, and that the implausibility of life evolving exactly as it did is no more evidence for an intelligence than the implausibility of a deck of cards being shuffled and dealt in a certain random order.[35][98]"}

This objection does not come from an "argument by lack of imagination" but rather from the inability of the writer of the removed paragraph to articulate the opposing sides argument. Regarding the notion of "chance" the objection comes from the efforts of Stanley L. Miller, who, in 1953, formed amino acids in his laboratory in a "prebiotic soup." Shortly after he attempted to turn the amino acids into proteins and nucleic acids, the necessary building blocks for life, but had no success in doing so. After almost sixty years of continual testing by the scientific community there has been uniform failure in every experiment. Regarding these experiments the Professor of Biology at San Francisco State University said, "It is fundamentally implausible that unassisted matter and energy organized themselves into living systems." and, ". . . there is a fundamental flaw in all current theories of the chemical origins of life."

The argument here is not that "we don't know what happened therefore it didn't happen" but rather, "the scientific communities inability to explain, agree, or recreate life from nothing simply means that it should not be taught as science." Klous Dose of the Institute of Biochemistry in Mainz, Germany, said, "More than 30 years of experimentation on the origin of life in the fields of chemical and molecular evolution have led to a better perception of the immensity of the problem of the origin of life on Earth rather than to its solution. At present all discussions on principal theories and experiments in the field end either in stalemate or in a confession of ignorance."

In closing, this article seems quite biased and often resorts to using Straw Man Fallacies. Please help clean up this article by making sure both sides of the issue are addressed from a neutral stand point.

The article was neutral, but your changes would seem to push it towards pro-creationism. This article isn't intended as a Creationist resource for how to 'win' arguments. As you can see in the article itself, every single argument has been answered and disproven (and it would be a violation of WP:N to NOT point that out after every single one. We can't just allow incorrect information to sit by itself to be mistaken for fact). And there's no strawman- I've heard the majority of those arguments from real people, almost verbatim. --King Öomie 12:44, 12 April 2010 (UTC)Reply

-You are correct. This article isn't intended as a Creationist resource for how to 'win' arguments. This article is a list of objections regarding evolution. One such objection is the statistical unlikelihood of events, which this particular section of the article is supposed to address. However, instead of exploring statistics or probabilities it states the argument is only based on "analogy" and "lack of imagination."

This simply not true. Hoyle's analogy comes from his line of mathematical reasoning which he commented on during a lecture at the California Institute of Technology, "When you consider that a typical enzyme has a chain of perhaps 200 links and that there are 20 possibilities for each link, it's easy to see that the number of useless arrangements is enormous, more than the number of atoms in all the galaxies visible in the largest telescopes. This is for one enzyme, and there are upwards of 2,000 of them, mainly serving very different purposes."

It is more then appropriate for Hoyle's mathematical line of thinking to be explored in this article. One might also wish to explore the odds of enzymes forming into nucleic acids and proteins, how many proteins it takes to support a single cell, and also how nucleic acids and proteins are able to bond.

I would like to see these objections addressed not because I'm "pro-creationism" but because many people look to this article to see if the arguments for or against evolution are sound. Only by sticking to the objection and considering it in its entirety will we present a "neutral" stand point and allow the reader to make up their mind for themselves.

To use your own words against you "As you can see in the article itself, every single argument has been answered and disproven." I think you should reconsider your motives. The point of this article is not to prove or "disprove" anything, it's to state the criticisms, belief and science based, that people have with evolution and to explore the logic/facts that both support and discredit such an objection.

In closing, this section of objections "Evolution Cannot Create Complex Structures" needs to develop the objection, present statistical likelihoods, and include quotes from distinguished persons who have argued for or against evolution in a mathematical context.

Sign your posts with ~~~~, please. I agree that the article isn't intended to 'disprove' anything. It will, however, point out that things ARE disproven. To speak specifically to your example of statistical probability, Hoyle's incredulity is based on his lack of imagination, and failure to understand that while rolling a group of 400,000 dice and getting the exact same result TWICE is extraordinary, rolling that group ONCE and getting A result is not. He's speaking from the standpoint that because we are here, the dice roll was preordained ("Oh, how unbelievably unlikely!"). On the contrary; in any arbitrarily-large group of chemical reactions, over an arbitrarily-large amount of time, there will be A result. If not us, something else. Any one of an unimaginably enormous amount of possible universes could exist instead of the one we occupy now, but it was inevitable that it would be one of those. It just happened to be this one. Random is random is random- we aren't an exception, but rather one of a nearly infinite amount of possibilities. The dice were not rolled to fit a template or a prediction- our senses and instinctual understanding of the universe have drawn that template in our heads ("We are amazing, because we fit the definition of perfection that exists only in our own minds!"). Lack of imagination. --King Öomie 18:58, 12 April 2010 (UTC)Reply

-This is an interesting line of logic you follow. I remember hearing something similar in a lecture once, in a slightly different context but the line of reasoning was the same, "Today, out in the parking lot, I saw a car with the license plate 5B2771K. And I got to thinking to myself, out of the hundred-million cars in the USA what are the odds I would happen to see the one with the license plate number 5B2771K? The odds are a hundred-million to one, absolutely amazing!"

During this lecture he used this analogy to try and prove that improbable things happen all the time. This line of reasoning did not sit well with me and it took me some time to figure out what was wrong with his conclusion. The fact is, the odds of him seeing a license plate number on a license plate is not a hundred-million to one. Rather the odds are 100%(assuming all license plates have license plate numbers). However, if I sent you out to pick a random license plate number while I also went out and picked a random license plate number and later on when we met up we realized we'd both picked 5B2771K then the odds of us both picking the same license plate number would be a hundred-million to one.

The same is true of proteins. There's nearly an endless possible amount of ways for enzymes to form together. However, there are only about a thousand combinations that create proteins - and out of those proteins there are only a handful of them that can support a single celled life form. So while "rolling the dice" will yield a result, the odds that-that particular roll will produce the correct protein is absolutely mind bogglingly small. Since 1953 Stanley Miller and others have been trying to create proteins out of enzymes in a lab but they haven't been successful. The reason is the odds are are just too low.

And then, even after you do get your protein, you still need nucleic acid, another complex molecular structure consisting of a phosphate group, a purine/pyrimidine, and a pentose sugar. Of course, if you want your cell to have the ability to reproduce (mitosis) your going to need two very specific and complicated kinds of nucleic acid (DNA and RNA) as well as cytoplasm, organelles and a cell membrane.

As Professor Maciej Giertych, a noted geneticist from the Institute of Dendrology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, once said, "The very complex DNA, RNA, protein replicating system in the cell must have been perfect from the very start. If not, life systems could not exist. . . There is no known way to science how that information could arise spontaneously."

Another problem brought to my attention came from an article in Scientific America by John Horgan, "Ultraviolet radiation from the sun, which today is blocked by atmospheric ozone, would have destroyed hydrogen-based molecules in the atmosphere. Such an atmosphere [carbon dioxide and nitrogen] would not have been conducive to the synthesis of amino acids and other precursors of life."

So, based upon the specific kinds of proteins that are required to support a single celled organism, the information that needs to be stored in the complicated molecular strands of DNA and RNA to support mitosis, and the hostile environment which the first organism appeared in, we find ourselves looking at a very unlikely (what I would call statistically improbable) set of circumstances.98.165.237.38 (talk) 07:05, 14 April 2010 (UTC)Reply

How do you know that there are only about a thousand combinations of enzymes that create proteins? Have you tried all the other combinations, and found them not to create proteins? How do you know that only a handful of these proteins can support a single celled life form? Do you have access to all the possible single celled life forms (as opposed to all single celled life forms that are available to us), and observed that they contain only said handful of proteins? The "correct protein" you're talking about, implies that the life we see today is the only possible "correct life". You don't have any basis for such an assumption. Please read the article Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics, and Probability of Abiogenesis Calculations at talkorigins.org, and try to understand it, before posting more transparent ID diversions here. - Soulkeeper (talk) 12:18, 14 April 2010 (UTC)Reply

98, your line of logic is again based on a failure of imagination. Our blueprint is not the ONLY way life can form. Who says you need a nucleic acid? Who decides what a "correct" enzyme is? And, really? The failure of scientists to synthesize something in a decade is indicative that nature couldn't do it over a billion years? We can't turn hydrogen into plutonium, either, so I guess God must have pooped that out. I was very specific with what I said, as was the speaker you saw. The dice weren't rolled twice. They were rolled hundreds of millions of times, until a workable result was achieved- ONCE. And if not on this planet, then elsewhere. How many millions of Goldilocks planets do you think there are just in the Orion arm? --King Öomie 13:31, 14 April 2010 (UTC)Reply

No, wait, WP:TALK. Stop removing sourced content without explanations beyond "this isn't right" and we'll have no problems. --King Öomie 13:36, 14 April 2010 (UTC)Reply

|}

Diversity or Microevolution is observed variance within a fertile kind. Evolution or Macroevolution is change from one kind to another. While the former has been observed and accepted by Darwinism and opponents, the latter has never been shown to conclusively happen. It seems that the proponents of Evolution should be more accurately called Macroevolutionists. Why the reluctance on the part of Darwinists to include both sides in the debate?--Gniniv (talk) 04:25, 24 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

The most viable YEC cosmology that I know of has been proposed by Dr. Russell Humphreys. See his book Starlight and Time for more info...

Hey there. I think that you are very well-intentioned. But I think that you also don't know much about geology and/or science in general, which is probably hampering your ability to edit science-related articles. I do note that a lot of what you write is a lot of stuff that is commonly said by those who want to take a literal interpretation of the Bible and have science support it. Unfortunately, they usually get the science wrong and/or make things up that really have no scientific backing.

So what I am saying is that I don't want to be a total meanie, but I think that you might need to take a step back and examine the state of your knowledge before continuing to change geology articles. Awickert (talk) 05:56, 22 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

I agree that my technical knowledge is not of the highest. All I am asking is that those of us who do have technical training step back and consider a simple student's request for more coverage of both sides of the issue..--Gniniv (talk) 06:00, 22 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

That is perfectly acceptable, but the way to do that is not to edit articles and inadvertently make them incorrect. For what it's worth, I have yet to find a single YEC argument that stands up to scientific scrutiny, though you're welcome to suggest some. I do not have a lot of free time though and am probably going to bed soon... Awickert (talk) 06:03, 22 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

I am totally willing to include all perspectives in the debate. All I ask is that this debate happens for the continued betterment of science articles in wikipedia. Naturally, no YEC argument can stand against criticism that rejects it at face value without considering the questions they ask...--Gniniv (talk) 06:09, 22 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

An example of a YEC argument that no uniformitarian I know of has answered is: what began everything? How did something come from nothing? The intrinsic complexity of all life, whether monocellular or multicellular defies a blithe explanation of chemicals mixing together from perfectly chance interactions. If there was a Big Bang (which is questionable) what started it?

To the first: YEC arguments are not rejected at face value. They are rejected because of their lack of evidence. To the second: those are some of THE big questions, but I don't think they really have anything to do with YEC (though they may have to do with faith). Awickert (talk) 06:16, 22 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

You are correct, those challenges are more acceptable to an athiest.--Gniniv (talk) 06:21, 22 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

I am totally willing to include all perspectives in the debate. All I ask is that this debate happens for the continued betterment of science articles in wikipedia. Naturally, no YEC argument can stand against criticism that rejects it at face value without considering the questions they ask...--Gniniv (talk) 06:09, 22 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

Nope: all I'm saying is that someone who believes in something doesn't necessarily have to believe that the Earth is young. And that the idea of a divine creation is not necessarily inclusive with a young Earth. Most of mainstream Christianity accepts the Earth being over 4 billion years old, because they take Genesis to be a set of allegories. Awickert (talk) 06:26, 22 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

Anyway, It's well past my bedtime that I've stayed up chatting with you. Good night, Awickert (talk) 06:31, 22 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the debate, the cause for the furthur advancement of scientific discovery can only come with discussion and thought...--Gniniv (talk) 06:49, 22 May 2010 (UTC) Reply

No transition from one basic kind to another has ever been observed.

The frequently quoted transitional forms and missing links have never been found. All fossils represent complete, perfect organisms. --Gniniv (talk) 06:48, 22 May 2010 (UTC)'Reply

Think about this: If you could find 1 (one) piece of evidence, even the tinniest shred of real, concrete, rigorous evidence that supported creationism, young earth, etc., and thus, confirmed scientifically the existence of God, that would single-handedly be the greatest discovery in the history of the world and would instantly make you world famous and wealthy. Who would pass that up? Not only that, who would pass that up to preserve a world-wide scientific conspiracy to cover-up the evidence for God's creation? If you were a scientist, you would know that scientists LOVE and make careers off of proving each other wrong. Why wouldn't people do it in this case, the most important case imaginable? Remember the most important part of christian philosophy: Faith. Faith is the belief in something WITHOUT evidence, by definition. YEC folks have seamed to forget that.

Faith and YEC are totally different things. Though YEC's findings have been brought about by the influence of Faith, their methods are based on observable evidence that all researchers have access to. Evidence in and of itself does not confirm a certain theory. It is the philosophy guiding the development of a theory that aligns evidence according to a certain perspective. An example would be my ardent belief that the color red is "red". Why do I believe that it is red? Because since infancy I have been taught by my parents and peers to call a certain wavelength and frequency of light hitting my eyeballs "red". I therefore believe and associate the color red as "red" due to my underlying philosophy of accepting ideas from the world around me according to a certain unique pattern. A "good" theory is very subjective, due to the definition of "good" being in the eye of the beholder. Overwhelming acceptance of a certain interpretation of a set of evidence does not negate the alternative, good explanations that exist.--Gniniv (talk) 21:37, 22 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

Well, I call "science" something that follows the scientific method, the most fundamental principle in science, something YEC research does not, regardless of what you claim. Religion has led people to blindly believe many things, like the earth being flat, one group of human as inferior to another, and the earth being the center of the universe, yet these are all cast aside by science, and the church changes its mind. One day, YEC people will be vanquished, and the church will show its fallibility again. Have fun trying to get your non-scientific dogma on Wikipedia past WP:Undue and WP:Fringe; I've had this debate far too many times to waste more time. Qfl247 (talk) 22:38, 22 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

I can refute all of those claims quite easily. The scientific method is the fundamental principle of science, but human scientists are (unfortunately) not perfectly, cold, calculating, reasoning machines-they are shaped by emotion and philosophy just as all of us are. "Religion" has not led people into blindly believing the earth is flat, [[2], or that one group of people is inferior [[3]], or that the earth is the exact center of the universe. (See discussion-[[4]])

P.S. There are literally millions of transitional forms and missing links, including in humans. Have you ever studied Trilobites? If you said that line to a Paleontologist, they would either laugh you out of the room or punch you in the face for trying to belittle their life's work. Qfl247 (talk) 17:57, 22 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

Missing links are creatures that share the characteristics of the the two organisms they are supposed to be a transition of (examples would be a beaked, winged dinosaur, or a legged fish) Trilobites seem to me to be fully functioning, unique creatures whose relatives were not replaced by a more advanced evolutionary step-see Horseshoe crab....--Gniniv (talk) 21:37, 22 May 2010 (UTC) Reply

Horseshoe Crabs are a GREAT piece of evidence for evolution, see Convergent Evolution... also, I guess you've never hear of Mudskippers or Archeopteryx then... Qfl247 (talk) 21:53, 22 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

As you can see, our opposing world views look at the same evidence and come to different conclusions. Convergent Evolution is a misnomer for creatures appearing in the evolutionary history where they shouldn't be. Mudskippers are fully functioning fish with the ability to breath air. They do not have primitive organs-their perfect adaptation to their environment screams design more than anything else. And as for the last, Archaeopteryx, multiple YEC sources have agreed that it is far more bird than dinosaur [5], similar to the modern Hoatzin....--Gniniv (talk) 00:42, 23 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

I agree that most of the mainstream christian community has accepted evolution, but that raises some odd points such as:

It requires ignoring the stated biblical created order of the sun and earth, where the sun is created after the earth instead of before as the mainstream scientific consensus would have it.

Gap Theorist's insertion of the the 4.6 billion years prior to the creative account between the first two verses of Genesis causes a strong conflict with the text where "God said it was very good". According to Gap theorists, there was 4.6 billion years of death and suffering prior to the re-creation of the earth. Contextually, that seems to be conflictive.

Those of faith who view Genesis as merely a bunch of poetry have to accept the historical facts of Christ's Resurrection, etc as historically accurate,while denying Genesis as such, though both Genesis and the Gospels are written in the historical hermeneutic form of their respective languages...--Gniniv (talk) 06:50, 22 May 2010 (UTC) Reply

The mainstream scientific consensus operates under the assumption that Radioactive Decay rates are constant, though findings raised by R.A.T.E researchers raise some questions to that assumption. As I have little technical training here are some outside references to that topic (one is against the findings to preserve neutrality):

^ Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth, a Young Earth Creationist Research Initiative, Larry Vardiman, Andrew A. Snelling, Eugene F. Chaffin[http://www.icr.org/pdf/research/rate-all.pdf (ed)

^ Nuclear Decay: Evidence For A Young World, D. Russell Humphreys, Impact, Number 352, October 2002[http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=302.

^ Young-Earth Creationist Helium Diffusion "Dates" Fallacies Based on Bad Assumptions and Questionable Data, Kevin R. Henke, TalkOrigins website, Original version: March 17, 2005, Revision: November 24, 2005[http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/helium/zircons.html.

This is not about carbon-14. I would strongly urge you to read what you cite before making arguments based on these works. Awickert (talk) 21:15, 23 May 2010 (UTC) [note: when this comment was made, the opening statement talked about 14C]Reply

Thanks for the reproof, and I will.--Gniniv (talk) 03:19, 24 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

I bolded Nuclear decay rates to show your correction..--Gniniv (talk) 03:28, 24 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

Thank you. "Radioactive decay" is the more common term, FYI. Awickert (talk) 04:57, 24 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

Gotcha!--Gniniv (talk) 04:59, 24 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

I would be fine if we "agree to disagree", I just want to make sure at least some consideration is given in the science articles for alternative ideas that have been raised by various researchers.--Gniniv (talk) 07:10, 22 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

You need to read WP:Undue and WP:Fringe. Besides, if we allowed your non-scientific, religous-based theories on geology (which are not supported by peer-reviewed, accredited institutions, which is how science is done) on the main geology or other important science-based pages, then we'd have to include every religion's ideas, not just the christian ones, including the Flying Spaghetti Monster. It's fine if you don't want to accept science as-is; I just find it ironic that you would use a computer, the internet, and other scientific advances to propagate your agenda. Qfl247 (talk) 17:25, 22 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

I agree the YEC is an alternative view that is not generally accepted in scientific circles, but I can refute the notion that it is a fringe view with the following link: Gallup Poll. May 8–11, 2008. N=1,017 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3. The peer reviewed, accreditied institutions that you mention as needed for something to be called science (which is not true) are peers of mainstream thought, not alternative ideas. My sources have been reviewed by peers of YEC science and can be considered as valid theories thereby(see above).--Gniniv (talk) 21:49, 22 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

Wikipedia will only remain the free encyclopedia if all alternative ideas are considered. I fear the day has come where the free encyclopedia is as censorious as its predecessors.--Gniniv (talk) 21:49, 22 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

Again, read WP:Undue and WP:Fringe. Again, your reliance on Gallap polls of laymen and inference to a world-wide scientific conspiracy against YEC thought (a-la UFO and Bigfoot researchers) is ridiculous. Qfl247 (talk) 22:29, 22 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

It is not outrageous, knowing human nature. The more uncertain we get of our theories, the louder we shout and suppress the alternative....--Gniniv (talk) 01:20, 23 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

As I am recognising in all my edits that YEC is in the minority (at least amongst scientists) and not generally accepted in mainstream scientific circles, I believe I am complying with WP:Undue and WP:Fringe.--Gniniv (talk) 01:23, 23 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

That is not it. I will likely be systematically reverting several of your changes. You are crying "censorship" and "bias", but have no understanding of the underlying science, which is the problem. The YEC science-based arguments have all been proven to be wrong; often, YEC's do stupid things like use potassium-argon dating on minerals with no potassium to "prove" that radiometric dating doesn't work. These arguments have been hashed out before in more public venues than this and are free to read. I have no time to repeat what they say here. The short and the sweet of it is that until there is a credible, reproducible, scientific study that contradicts the decades of research that show that the Earth is old, "young earth" talk has no place in scientific articles here. YEC stuff is beyond fringe in scientific articles. Awickert (talk) 20:56, 23 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

Also: you have to stop changing cited text to disagree with the citation and requesting citations that are actually present. This is a waste of everyone's time, yours and others. Awickert (talk) 21:00, 23 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

I will happily comply with not editing the cited text in articles as long as some space is given for alternative viewpoints in a given article. I am not advocating censorship and bias (quite the opposite) I am requesting more neutrality in articles that claim proof of scientific theories with little citation. If you can give references to these sources that have criticized R.A.T.E's findings, I would be able to see if what they are saying about potassium-argon dating is truly based in fact, or just another mainstream blow-off of a reasonable challenge to modern assumptions. --Gniniv (talk) 03:15, 24 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

I have no other option but to continue may efforts to improve neutrality until some of my demands are answered and met.--Gniniv (talk) 03:17, 24 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

I have decided that my efforts to improve neutrality are useless until I can get some more debate and concurrance on the topic amongst science editors. Feel free to challenge my position, and we can discuss a joint way to approach bias. --Gniniv (talk) 03:44, 24 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

Well, one basic thing that I've seen w.r.t. R.A.T.E. is that they made some pretty horrendous mistakes and corresponding assumptions about diffusion. The articles that you linked could be a place to start. However, I have quite a lot to do, and there is a lot of literature freely available to you on this topic that you could read. I'd be happy to help with purely technical questions (which I could therefore answer out-of-context and without any potential issue of non-neutrality), but I just don't have the time to engage in this debate. Best wishes for rapid learning and all that good stuff, Awickert (talk) 05:00, 24 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for engaging me on this topic and all the best to your furthur research...--Gniniv (talk) 05:07, 24 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

And thank you for being so cordial, Awickert (talk) 07:03, 24 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

Hello! Does anyone have an opinion on the threat of the Korean War resuming, and if that should be put in the article? I've heard that the two countries are still technically at war, with only a temporarily binding ceasefire having been declared. It seems recent events may be provoking more active military action on both sides (See ROKS Cheonan sinking).--Gniniv (talk) 04:40, 26 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

I see you are cutting and pasting comments from other pages to your talkpage. Please do not do this. This violates our guidelines about talkpage comments. You should not add comments from people who have not posted to your page. Please respond that you understand this, and remove the additions you have added. Thanks, Auntie E. (talk) 01:20, 28 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

Gotcha! I was ingorant that pasting comments violated protocal. As you can see I will remove them....--Gniniv (talk) 01:24, 28 May 2010 (UTC)Reply