My favorite part of the Bible is where Jesus protests the Romans for not teaching children about God.
holy crap, shasta, that takes all!! you win!!! thread closed!! i promise you that little picture will be making an appearance on a slide at my church
yeah, children have so much experience with behemoths, otherwise, that i'm sure that label had them reaching for just the right color.
Behemoth and Leviathan are both Old Testament demons. Their inclusion in a list of color names with which to paint Jesus is odd, though I guess when Jesus is riding a dinosaur, 'odd' begins to become a relative term.
Personally I find the "Flesh of Christ" color to be the most amusing. 1) It's odd that you'd refer to a color that way 2) The color they want you to use does not in fact represent the likely color of Christ's flesh 3) The dinosaur has reigns lol
I'm just getting back to this thread after awhile's absence but won't to hit on few posts so pardon me for making a few rapid fire posts. I am curious in what his questions are since from my understanding, a layman's understanding, the chemistry of how DNA works and how it is affected by mutagens is relatively well known. I agree its not scientific argument but a political argument. I agree the implications of science have profound cultural and political implications. I still don't think it is fair though to criticize scientific discoveries and ideas based on how they were used politically. In this case Dr. Tour and yourself seem to be looking at the implications of Evolution which I agree could lead to some very scary things such as eugenics and social Darwinism. That doesn't mean though that the science is wrong of the pursuit of it is wrong anymore than nuclear science is wrong since it led to the creation of the atomic bomb. Those are issues left to wider society to figure out but I am troubled that Dr. Tour would bring up such issues in a discussion on why he isn't convinced about Evolution. That strikes me as letting non-scientific issues dictate scientific thinking.
With all do respect this is misunderstanding and a muddling of the scientific method. Yes in an experiment there are assumptions made, hypothesis, the point of the experiment is to prove whether such assumptions can survive a test to them. In the case you cite there are assumptions made on prior observations and a hypothesis formulated regarding that. The experiment is to see if they can create a cell based on those hypothesis. If it works then that provides a model for what may have happened. The key point is the test. The problem that I see with your criticism is that you are essentially saying that these scientists aren't any different than a creationist since they start with an assumption. The difference though is that they are subjecting there assumptions to a test to see if they can be proven. I am yet to be aware of Creationists or advocates of Intelligent Design subject their ideas to such testing and in regard to a divine based creation no such test is possible as that would mean scientifically proving God(s).
I've stated this before but I think that you look at science and religion in the same way when they are different ways of thinking. You admit that you take religion as a matter of faith and look at science and say that well they don't have all the answers so they are taking it as a matter of faith. Any good scientist will say they don't have all the answers but what drives science isn't the answers but the questions. Science isn't faith and there are always more questions and always doubt what you seem to be asking for is for science to admit its wrong and say that scientifically nothing is known. To an extent nothing is truly known scientifically. As I like to say Newton's Laws have been superceded by Einstein's Theories. The problem though is that science doesn't work that way and if it did as a civilization we could have never surpassed the stone age. Science can't provide an ultimate right or wrong answer but what it does deal with is likelyhoods and each new idea is a response to a previous idea, whether a refinement or a challenge. If scientist though just said that well whatever we do we don't know or are likely wrong that would stunt development since there would be no reason for further investigation. For example. A few years back the previaling theory regarding aerodynamic lift was shown to be not exactly correct. Obviously planes weren't falling out of the sky previously but the previous theory functioned well enough to have a science of aerodynamics but a new theory matches the prevailing data and is therefore more likely. If your experience with science has been one where it has been presented as being absolute then I would say that you have been very ill served by it but almost all scientist including my father would never say that they know absolutely.
Truly with all due respect I think you are being something of a hypocrite here. You have criticized evolutionary scientists as having an arrogance where they are unwilling to acknowledge gaps within the data that make up the theory of evolution but I think here you are willfully ignoring the vast amount of evidence regarding transitional fossils. I will also add that the evidence of transition isn't just fossils but DNA evidence also has shown various connections between species some that are vary different morphologically. FOr instance whales appear to be more closely related to horses genetically and recently fossil evidence has been found of creatures with traits that are found in modern whales and horses. Further you are asking for an absolute of evidence that can never be found. The process of fossilization overall isn't a simple or a common process and fossils are generally difficult to find. Your criticism would essentially amount to saying that two outs couldn't have happened on a 3-4-5 double play unless you saw snapshots of every single nano-second of the double play from the time the ball left the bat.
I wouldn't be too troubled. Dr. Tour is a freaking genius, and I'm sure you'd like him if you met him. As with this website, don't read too much into someone's statement like that. It can only be taken at face value and can't be subject to questioning deeper. And I'm certain that Dr. Tour would agree wholeheartedly with you, "That doesn't mean though that the science is wrong of the pursuit of it is wrong anymore than nuclear science is wrong since it led to the creation of the atomic bomb." He's a scientist by profession (a damn good one and well respected one at that...a pioneer in nanotechnology) so I doubt the way you're reading him here is accurate. Particularly if you're reading him to suggest that the pursuit of further knowledge is a bad thing.
Sorry to for the multiple post but just to follow on Shastarocket's excellent post on the subject. The question of what is life is still very unresolved along with how from basic compounds organisms that can replicate and react to their environment arose. There are a variety of things that are able to replicate but which we don't consider life such as crystals along with viruses which we aren't clear if they are alive. There are also prions which are self replicating protiens, the things that cause Mad Cow disease. I also read recently about patterns in instellar gas that appear to be self-replicating. To not get too far out there is certainly plenty of evidence of inorganic or simple organic compounds displaying things that we attribute to life. There is plenty of evidence of simpler compounds organizing themselves into more complex structures. Consider how complex the makeup of a star or the galaxy is. We don't consider those alive yet it shows that processes that we attribute to life do and very well could have originated from non living simpler compounds.
I don't mean to impugn Dr. Tour's reputation and I'm only responsiding to what has been posted. He certainly sounds like an interesting guy and would be interested in reading up more about him.
