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[The Architect]

Psyn, this post is just for you. If you're talking about the common use of "court marshal" as an accepted term, it's simply an antiquated way of speaking that has been formalized over decades. It is a completely acceptable and in fact more normal way of using the English language to say "marshal court".
In other news, your smugness and leetspeak only make you look foolish.

[Bauglir]

Ok, well, as for empirical evidence, I made a post elsewhere on this forum discussing that...

Here's the quote with some basic evidence laid out near the bottom, although I admit the tone is rather insulting as a response to the poster I was quoting. I may have misconstrued what you posted about evolution, though, so I apologize for that. If you're not being willfully ignorant, then I'll try to be civil in the future. Here's the quote, though, for reference

Your quite frankly outrageous statement that there has been no documented evidence of evolution is staggering, but has been far more effectively countered than I could possibly arrange to have done, but let me add that numerous aspects of existing life make no goddamn sense if you don't look at them with evolution in mind. Your ear, for instance, has two cranial nerves innervating it, despite its small size and the great distance between the nerves. This makes sense, because the bones (and attached muscle) that currently make up the ear USED to be jaw bones that were separated by a fair bit, and it was sensible for them to have separate nerves. Or look at the tongue; it has 5(!) different cranial nerves that lead to it, and the only way this makes sense is if God was preposterously high while He was Creating (although that would explain a hell of a lot), or if the tongue was cobbled together from 5 disparate muscle sets (which it was). There is INCREDIBLY well documented transition from fin bone structure in lobe-finned fishes to tetrapod, and the ancestral arrangement of humerus, radius + ulna, carpals, metacarpals, phalanges, remains in essentially every living vertebrate known. This doesn't make much particular sense, unless God was unimaginative in addition to being stoned out of his gourd, since there innumerably more sensible ways of accomplishing the same task. I could go on, if you'd like.

At any rate, I agree that bringing this debate up in the first place was really a poor choice on Jude's part. It's wholly tangential, really, and the only reason I'm participating in it is that it's a pet peeve of mine when people dismiss the whole thing as "a theory" or "in violation of physical laws" or other reasons that either miss the point entirely or fail to actually be accurate. My best excuse is that telling me evolution doesn't make sense is like telling a mathematician that addition doesn't make sense. Anyway, that said, if you'd like I can probably fetch you references for those particular facts I mentioned in the wall o' text quote up there, it'll just take me a bit since they're from memory.

[Forumsdwarf]

I just want to see where your assurance comes from!

Simple.  You don't know what the theory of evolution actually encompasses yet had the arrogance to claim I didn't know enough to debate you.  Only a person on the verge of delusional could be so egregiously wrong.

The signature line of all crackpots.

So, wait, you're also a creationist?

Belief in creationism is also a sign of crackpottery, but it is polite to take those who believe it seriously.  If you want to reasonably discuss it I'd be happy to.  My reasoning for telling "The Architect" that unlearning was a prerequisite to learning was specific to his own deficiencies.

He was obviously, demonstrably wrong about a very basic fact on a topic in which he claimed extraordinary expertise: the belief that natural selection has nothing to do with evolution is a mistake a first-year biology student wouldn't make.  A mistake of that magnitude should lead any reasonable person with an overinflated self-image to reassess.
Instead he maintained that I was not qualified to debate him.  Obviously he is the victim of a delusional mind, and yet in a sense he was also right: only a trained psychiatrist is really qualified to debate him given his current unreachable mental state.

a lot of the holocaust wasn't even technically a "war" crime because it was done by a government to its own people.

Well ... on the technicality you're right; you've got me there.
The point about "war crimes" being used as a political football stands.  It's a shame, really, as what do you do when another country really does commit war crimes, real ones like testing biological weapons on prisoners of war?  They get lost in all the noise.

[The Architect]

In all fairness, Forumsdwarf, you need to reread what you're not quoting properly. I said that evolution is based on natural selection, and that natural selection stands on its own as an established principle (separately from biological evolution). It's not a conjecture on the origins of life or its development (that is the purpose and intent of evolution); it's simply a statement of the way organisms interact and pass on (or fail to pass on) genetic mutations. They're separate theories, one built on the other. One obviously demonstrable and logically impossible to contest, the other using it as a building block. At what point did I even insinuate that "evolution has nothing to do with natural selection"?

In short: as far as scientific theory goes, natural selection exists without evolution; evolution doesn't exist without natural selection. I was simply pointing out that natural selection is only an argument for natural selection, not for evolution. Arguments such as the ones you presented just now constitute arguments for evolution, while natural selection does not. An equivalent example would be to say that gravitational attraction is an argument for orbital theory (back when there was conjecture about the possibility of manmade satelites). Gravitational attraction was not an argument for orbital theory, it was a documented observable principle on which orbital theory was based. I'm sure you understand the point I was making now?

I know it's a forum, but please don't completely misquote me again. In fact, no one but yourself has brought up "the belief that natural selection has nothing to do with evolution". Oh yes, almost forgot: would you mind PMing me with some source material? That sounds very interesting.

[Neruz]

Well actually Architect, if you prove Natural Selection and then prove random mutation, you've just proved Evolution.

Not neccessarily that it happened, but rather that it is happening.

[Forumsdwarf]

First came this howler:

Biological evolution is wishful thinking, violating everything we have learned about biology for the last 50+ years.

I replied:

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are direct proof of the Theory of Evolution.  Everything we have learned about biology has backed up the concept that living things over time adapt to their niche through natural selection.

Then you had the gall to pop off with this gem:

I have to say that you don't have enough of an understanding of the actual obstacles faced by the theory of biological evolution to debate the subject, Forumsdwarf.

Laughable coming from you.

No one questions natural selection and creatures adjusting to their environments by that process. There's no question that mutations in DNA cause creatures to differentiate genetically and that thus some of them survive better than others.

That thing you say "no one questions" is PART OF THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION.

However, for your information at the least, I do feel compelled to point out that natural selection and biological evolution are separate theories.

Oh for Pete's sake, dude.  From Wikipedia:

Natural selection is the process by which those heritable traits that make it more likely for an organism  to survive and successfully reproduce  become more common in a population  over successive generations. It is a key mechanism of evolution.

I know it's a forum, but please don't completely misquote me again. In fact, no one but yourself has brought up "the belief that natural selection has nothing to do with evolution".

I assume using the quote tags and quoting your own pontifications qualify as "not misquoting you"?

The only accurate thing you've said so far is that I'm not qualified to debate you.  You need help of a kind I cannot offer.

The really weird thing you're getting at I haven't addressed yet is that natural selection is an observable phenomenon while evolution is not.  Again, you're missing that the process of natural selection IS evolution.
Natural selection may not prove speciation, another part of the theory of evolution, but if natural selection happens then evolution happens.  Not since those Nazi experiments (not breaking Godwin's Law, here, I'm not saying anyone is a Nazi) where the doctors cut off the rat's tails to see if they would breed tailless rats has any scientist believed that evolution was in any way separate from natural selection.  No scientist believes that natural selection is anything but genetic evolution or that the two are anything but synonymous.

Look it up.

My problem is that all I ever see on the subject is a collection of attempts to discredit the opposition.

You're working on some industrial-strength hypocrisy there, re:

I have to say that you don't have enough of an understanding of the actual obstacles faced by the theory of biological evolution to debate the subject, Forumsdwarf.

You really ought to re-read some of the things you've written some time.  I think you'd find it illuminating.

[psyn]

Psyn, this post is just for you. If you're talking about the common use of "court marshal" as an accepted term, it's simply an antiquated way of speaking that has been formalized over decades. It is a completely acceptable and in fact more normal way of using the English language to say "marshal court".

Your pompousness is amazing. You write authoritatively on the matter of U.S. military practices - posted later as learned from movies no less - and cannot even spell COURT MARTIAL or MARINE CORPS. The former is covered in the FIRST SECTION of the Marines handbook! A Spanish immigrant with no English reading ability can recite the latter after serving merely two weeks in the USMC!

Ugh. I feel nauseous from this single paragraph. I am glad I did not read the rest of the thread.

[Jude]

Rather than helping me out when I ask for references,

I assume the two books I mentioned on the evidence for evolution are not good enough for you?

The point about "war crimes" being used as a political football stands.

I'm still not even sure what you're talking about. Can you give some IRL examples?

Anyway, on evolution, if you believe that DNA is the code from which organisms self-assemble (which is a fact, and you agreed with it earlier), and that DNA can mutate randomly sometimes, then one of two things is true: you believe in evolution as a logical consequences of those, or else your thinking is garbled.

[Neruz]

Evolution is what happens when you tape random mutations onto Natural Selection.

That's what Evolution is.

[Jude]

Evolution is what happens when you tape random mutations onto Natural Selection.

That's what Evolution is.

Basically.

[Bauglir]

Just to point out, I suspect that The Architect is differentiating between Evolution as a thing that happens, and Evolution as the established means of generation for all life. The first is what you're all arguing about, and while there IS substantial evidence for the second (and, honestly, one implies the other and such a distinction is extremely artificial IMHO), you're coming at it sideways, because The Architect is saying that the second is what there is problems with (I'm not aware of any, as the ones he listed earlier on aren't actually useful objections due to the Sun's outside energy input, the frequent repurposing of pre-existing parts for new purposes, etc).

[The Architect]

Well, I guess a repeated typo between marshal and martial in posts made after 12 PM (and I'm making them that late because I worked all day, and am tired) makes me a pompous ass. Have fun tearing me down, Psyn; I hope it makes you feel better about yourself. If you'll notice: my first post on the subject stated that I had no basis for the idea of personal responsibility other than a movie, and asked those with knowledge to please help clear up the topic. There was the time for you to step up with helpful information for our discussion, rather than ridicule. My second post is after research in which I was able to give a formed opinion.

We all knew exactly where any debate of biological evolution was going. Forumsdwarf, I simply stated that if you believed natural selection to be proof of evolution then you didn't know enough to debate the subject even with laymen. I didn't realize you had made a simple logical mistake, which is the idea that proving part (an observable phenomenon) proves the whole (a conjecture based on observable phenomena). I will repeat myself for a third, final time in stating that it is faulty logic. I inferred that it was a misunderstanding of the subject matter, rather than faulted logic. Obviously I couldn't have been more wrong.

[Sergius]

So, anyway, blue catsmurfs. Yeah. What's up with that. And stuff.

[Jude]

So, anyway, blue catsmurfs. Yeah. What's up with that. And stuff.

Thought I was gonna puke when they started boning. At least they didn't have a Leonard Cohen song in the background, being ruined forever.

[Aqizzar]

Aw c'mon, Leonard Cohen songs were made for scenes like that.  But yes, the alien-catsex scene was fucking ridiculous.  It reminded me of the puppet sex in Team America in its length and attention to detail.  Funnily enough, I remember the audience at the theater I was in didn't react nearly as strongly as I did.