The Darwin Spin Off

[Evah Baxton]

.

Edited March 16, 2021 by Evah Baxton

[FairreLilette]

1 hour ago, Rowan Amore said:

This reminds me of a lot of people about climate change more than anything because climate change is something one can feel and experience in the here and now.  It is freezing in California now and ice hail pelted down from the sky about two days ago and many of us went outside to watch it and stood in amazement at all this ice coming onto the street.  

My mind keeps drifting to a song by "The Clash" called "London Calling" which is beginning to seem like a prophecy.  Meanwhile, I better start shoring up on having more clothing to wear to keep me warm.  It is freezing here...like living on an ice berg.  People have been warning about climate change since a song by Quicksilver Messenger Service called "What About Me" from 1971 as well as this:

LONDON CALLING

The ice age is coming, the sun's zooming in
Meltdown expected, the wheat is growing thin
Engines stop running, but I have no fear
'Cause London is drowning
I live by the river

London calling to the imitation zone
Forget it, brother, you can go it alone
London calling to the zombies of death
Quit holding out and draw another breath
London calling and I don't want to shout
But while we were talking, I saw you nodding out

Edited March 16, 2021 by FairreLilette

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

6 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

I'll leave you this though:

https://evolutionnews.org/2021/03/in-the-name-of-academic-freedom-a-scientist-calls-for-punishing-creationists/

I'll leave you with this:

evolutionnews.org is a pseudoscientific website spreading lies, misinformation, twisted truths and peddling the bogus theory of intelligent design, which has nothing to do with science.

Edited March 16, 2021 by Arduenn Schwartzman

[Alwin Alcott]

14 hours ago, FairreLilette said:

No, I don't see it that way.  They were a religious government of the Jewish faith.  They held the highest (best) seats at the temple and were the rabbi.  That is a form of government similar to the Pope, I'd guess. 

Was it even worth the trouble to try to give you the right information? You keep spreading "your"  view, while there is no "your" or even "mine".. You have no idea how the Jewish state was organised and keep ignoring and even glueing modern emotions on it.
It's impossible to discuss subjects like this that way, it's like speaking with eachother but in different languages.

They were no government. They only had the best seats in their denomination and were rabbi...
And dragging even the Vatican in.... good lord.

[Love Zhaoying]

10 hours ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

Religion is not going way, we should understand it...

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190801-tomorrows-gods-what-is-the-future-of-religion

Aliens.

[Theresa Tennyson]

12 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

The idea that over a billion years random molecules can morph into a human being is an ever increasing stretch where Occams razor favours an Intelligent Designer as being the simplest explanation.

And yet, given the choice of an election being decided by:

1) More people voting for the candidate polls said more people were going to vote for

OR

2) A vast conspiracy crossing multiple states that would require manipulation of several different voting systems by people all over the country using means that nobody has explained while leaving no real evidence of those means

...you seemed pretty comfortable with Option 2.

[Ceka Cianci]

4 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Aliens.

Let us Prey!

[Rowan Amore]

[FairreLilette]

5 hours ago, Alwin Alcott said:

Was it even worth the trouble to try to give you the right information? You keep spreading "your"  view, while there is no "your" or even "mine".. You have no idea how the Jewish state was organised and keep ignoring and even glueing modern emotions on it.
It's impossible to discuss subjects like this that way, it's like speaking with eachother but in different languages.

They were no government. They only had the best seats in their denomination and were rabbi...
And dragging even the Vatican in.... good lord.

I don't know what you are going on about but I'll use the ignore feature.

Judges sound like a form of government to me.

Sanhendrin

In the Hebrew Bible (Exodus 18:21–22, Numbers 11:16–17, 11:24–25; Deuteronomy 1:15–18, 17:9–12) Moses and the Israelites were commanded by God to establish courts of judges who were given full authority over the people of Israel, who were commanded by God through Moses to obey the judgments made by the courts and every Torah-abiding law they established. Judges in ancient Israel were the religious leaders and teachers of the nation of Israel. The Mishnah (Sanhedrin 1:6) arrives at the number twenty-three based on an exegetical derivation: it must be possible for a "community" to vote for both conviction and exoneration (Numbers 35:24–5). The minimum size of a "community" is 10 men,^[2] thus 10 vs 10. One more is required to achieve a majority (11 vs 10), but a simple majority cannot convict (Exodus 23:2), and so an additional judge is required (12 vs 10). Finally, a court should not have an even number of judges to prevent deadlocks; thus 23 (12 vs 10 and 1). This court dealt with only religious matters.

Edited March 16, 2021 by FairreLilette

[Love Zhaoying]

34 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

I don't know what you are going on about but I'll use the ignore feature.

Judges sound like a form of government to me.

Sanhendrin

In the Hebrew Bible (Exodus 18:21–22, Numbers 11:16–17, 11:24–25; Deuteronomy 1:15–18, 17:9–12) Moses and the Israelites were commanded by God to establish courts of judges who were given full authority over the people of Israel, who were commanded by God through Moses to obey the judgments made by the courts and every Torah-abiding law they established. Judges in ancient Israel were the religious leaders and teachers of the nation of Israel. The Mishnah (Sanhedrin 1:6) arrives at the number twenty-three based on an exegetical derivation: it must be possible for a "community" to vote for both conviction and exoneration (Numbers 35:24–5). The minimum size of a "community" is 10 men,^[2] thus 10 vs 10. One more is required to achieve a majority (11 vs 10), but a simple majority cannot convict (Exodus 23:2), and so an additional judge is required (12 vs 10). Finally, a court should not have an even number of judges to prevent deadlocks; thus 23 (12 vs 10 and 1). This court dealt with only religious matters.

Is this readable, without all the highlighting?

[Love Zhaoying]

15 hours ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

engineering school*

Makes sense (Jesuit), Him being a carpenter..

[FairreLilette]

2 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Is this readable, without all the highlighting?

I can read it.  It says Sanhedrin above, so if you want to know about the Sanhedrin type in Sanhedrin in your search box and do your own research. 

[Love Zhaoying]

7 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

I can read it.  It says Sanhedrin above, so if you want to know about the Sanhedrin type in Sanhedrin in your search box and do your own research. 

Sorry, forgot it was because I use Dark theme.

[Madelaine McMasters]

8 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

If anything the survival of the fittest and natural selection with no god to answer to, has allowed regimes to justify genocides of its own and others populations so that we have more dead in the last century then the previous 6000 years combined.

The term "genocide" was coined in 1944. Historians researching wars prior to then will never find the word "genocide" in accounts of those times, so it takes more careful analysis of the historical record to discern it. Given the widespread disagreement over what actually constitutes genocide, people disagree about its prevalence even since the word was coined.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-11108059

Even so...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genocides_by_death_toll

The Mongol Invasions (~1200-1350AD) took more lives in absolute terms than all listed genocides since. The Dzungar and Circassian genocides killed 1.3-2.3 million people . The population of Earth was much smaller centuries ago and absolute death count is a misleading measure. Death tolls should be expressed per-capita. By some accounts, nearly 15% of the world's population was exterminated during the Mongol Invasions. It took 150 years to do it, but that would be equivalent to a modern genocidal campaign killing about 15 million people per year for the next 100 years. Our modern ability to prevent collateral deaths due to injury and disease do moderate the comparison, but those perpetrating ancient genocides were aware of the expected outcomes.

While none of the genocide that predates Darwin can be blamed on him, a lot of the genocide after can't be either. People have been discriminating against against each based on myriad difference (political, religious, cultural) since well before Darwin. White supremacists don't generally believe in Darwin's theories, they often justify their view by citing the acceptance of slavery in... the Bible. There's never been a shortage of excuses for in-groups to exterminate out-groups.

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1049743.pdf

I'll argue that science and technology have done more to make war more efficient than to offer justifications for genocide. Nuclear weapons anyone? Even so...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_by_death_toll
https://www.vox.com/2015/6/23/8832311/war-casualties-600-years

In absolute population terms, the three deadliest wars are:

• WWII (~1941), killing 56-85 million of Earth's 2.3 billion (2.4-3.7%)
• Mongol Invasions (~1300), killing 30-60 million of Earth's 360 million (8.3-16.7%)
• Three Kingdom's War (~200), killing 30-40 million of Earth's 200 million (15-20%)

If you rank per-capita, the order is reversed.

I've overlaid a bubble chart of war deaths over the last 1700 years with a chart of the world's population. I think it's pretty clear that, per capita, the world has become significantly less violent over time, particularly since the industrial revolution, which brought explosive population growth that dramatically outpaced violence.

Meanwhile, the same science that coincides with declining violence per capita also did this to infant mortality rates...

Science is the most powerful tool humanity has ever discovered, it's well worth watching over its use. We've used it to imperil ourselves with global warming and it's not currently keeping up with the massive experimentation being done by microbes.

Yet I remain hopeful.

[Luna Bliss]

1 hour ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

The term "genocide" was coined in 1944. Historians researching wars prior to then will never find the word "genocide" in accounts of those times, so it takes more careful analysis of the historical record to discern it. Given the widespread disagreement over what actually constitutes genocide, people disagree about its prevalence even since the word was coined.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-11108059

Even so...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genocides_by_death_toll

The Mongol Invasions (~1200-1350AD) took more lives in absolute terms than all listed genocides since. The Dzungar and Circassian genocides killed 1.3-2.3 million people . The population of Earth was much smaller centuries ago and absolute death count is a misleading measure. Death tolls should be expressed per-capita. By some accounts, nearly 15% of the world's population was exterminated during the Mongol Invasions. It took 150 years to do it, but that would be equivalent to a modern genocidal campaign killing about 15 million people per year for the next 100 years. Our modern ability to prevent collateral deaths due to injury and disease do moderate the comparison, but those perpetrating ancient genocides were aware of the expected outcomes.

While none of the genocide that predates Darwin can be blamed on him, a lot of the genocide after can't be either. People have been discriminating against against each based on myriad difference (political, religious, cultural) since well before Darwin. White supremacists don't generally believe in Darwin's theories, they often justify their view by citing the acceptance of slavery in... the Bible. There's never been a shortage of excuses for in-groups to exterminate out-groups.

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1049743.pdf

I'll argue that science and technology have done more to make war more efficient than to offer justifications for genocide. Nuclear weapons anyone? Even so...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_by_death_toll
https://www.vox.com/2015/6/23/8832311/war-casualties-600-years

In absolute population terms, the three deadliest wars are:

• WWII (~1941), killing 56-85 million of Earth's 2.3 billion (2.4-3.7%)
• Mongol Invasions (~1300), killing 30-60 million of Earth's 360 million (8.3-16.7%)
• Three Kingdom's War (~200), killing 30-40 million of Earth's 200 million (15-20%)

If you rank per-capita, the order is reversed.

I've overlaid a bubble chart of war deaths over the last 1700 years with a chart of the world's population. I think it's pretty clear that, per capita, the world has become significantly less violent over time, particularly since the industrial revolution, which brought explosive population growth that dramatically outpaced violence.

Meanwhile, the same science that coincides with declining violence per capita also did this to infant mortality rates...

Science is the most powerful tool humanity has ever discovered, it's well worth watching over its use. We've used it to imperil ourselves with global warming and it's not currently keeping up with the massive experimentation being done by microbes.

Yet I remain hopeful.

Great information here, Maddy.
These distorted facts you're countering, presented by Arielle to me, was a red-herring -- an attempt to invalidate evolutionary theory completely based on her imagined assessment of the degree of harm it has caused.

The facts remain -- even IF more people were killed via eugenics and the distorted interpretation of 'survival of the fittest' inherent in Darwinism than all the wars and disasters occurring from the beginning of time THIS DOES NOT PROVE EVOLUTIONARY THEORY IS WRONG and that God plopped humans on the earth fully formed.

Honestly, @Arielle Popstar, I'm starting to see fish whenever I notice another post from you.

[Luna Bliss]

15 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

On 3/11/2021 at 4:34 AM, Arduenn Schwartzman said:

There's no conspiracy among scientists to cancel anyone who disagrees with them. Quite the contrary. If someone truly has the opportunity to shake up some feathers in the 'establishment' (resulting in a better understanding of things, of course), all the better.

I'll leave you this though:

https://evolutionnews.org/2021/03/in-the-name-of-academic-freedom-a-scientist-calls-for-punishing-creationists/

You still don't get it. The "evidence" for Creationism is not equal to the evolutionary evidence amassed. Creationism has no scientific backing -- how on earth could we scientifically study if God plopped down humans fully formed?  However evolutionary science demonstrates life forms on earth do indeed evolve over time -- we have evidence for this even if not complete and some unknowns are present.

I love Creation myths from all religions, and am particularly fond of one from some Hindu writings that say God was lonely and this was why he created the material world -- to have a kind of buddy.  This seems a very sweet metaphor, personifying creation, and reminds me of how Adam and Eve is no doubt a metaphor for the development of humans on earth. Unfortunately there are people in both of these religions who interpret their metaphors to be the literal truth.

However despite my preference for the Hindu metaphor, I would not try to get bills passed to insist that my pet belief be taught in schools in the U.S., as does the Discovery Institute and it's spinoff blog, EvolutionNews.org -- the sources both you and Nalates constantly cite. The Discovery Institute is a Christian Conservative think tank trying to force their Christian and Conservative views on the rest of us.
Do you get, at all, how insulting it is that you insist your view of the world is the ONLY correct one, and backed by God?

There is a reason why separation of church and state are insisted upon -- have you studied what happens to a society when religion combines with governmental authority???  It's not pretty.

Edited March 16, 2021 by Luna Bliss

[Luna Bliss]

9 hours ago, Arduenn Schwartzman said:

15 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

I'll leave you this though:

https://evolutionnews.org/2021/03/in-the-name-of-academic-freedom-a-scientist-calls-for-punishing-creationists/

I'll leave you with this:

evolutionnews.org is a pseudoscientific website spreading lies, misinformation, twisted truths and peddling the bogus theory of intelligent design, which has nothing to do with science.

What is strange about this is that it's not any kind of mainstream science attempting to punish the "poor victimized creationists" at all. (they are now saying in this article that mainstream scientists are "othering" them...lol).

The guy advocating a certain type of labeling is actually part of the Intelligent Design movement himself who wrote a book about how all ancestry could be traced back to Adam & Eve. It appears some kind of in-fighting is going on in an attempt to classify what should be mentioned in college admission documents for various types of colleges.

Edited March 16, 2021 by Luna Bliss

[Madelaine McMasters]

1 hour ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

Science is the most powerful tool humanity has ever discovered...

Well, that's not quite right, is it?

Let me fix that for me.

Science is the most powerful tool humanity has ever... created.

;-).

[FairreLilette]

49 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

There is a reason why separation of church and state are insisted upon -- have you studied what happens to a society when religion combines with governmental authority???  It's not pretty.

Yeah this.  I have shared that my Bible literalist sister, who was raised in a liberal Democratic household, became Republican because her pastor asked her too some 20 years ago.  Since we were both raised in a liberal Democratic household, I asked her why she changed to Republican and she told me her pastor asked the whole congregation to vote Republican.  The most likely reason to vote against gay marriage I'd assume for that time frame.  However, this was a previous pastor who is no longer her pastor once she became a Lutheran.  She now has a new pastor.  What her Lutheran pastor believes she should be political-wise I have not asked.  I found it a bit scary when she told me why she became a Republican in the first place.  Now some Republicans would say I'm probably publishing some wive's tale from an alt-left position or something but that is not the case and what I am saying is entirely true.  She remains my sister but I prefer to keep my distance from her for certain reasons not entirely due to her beliefs.  

Also, as far as the constitution allowing prisoners to be slaves that needs to be over-turned and replaced with perhaps jail being called rehab and wherein prisoners have a chance to be rehabilitated and maybe even to learn, "be schooled" in something like a training course, not treated as a slave.  Some things need to change on the law level and slavery entirely out-lawed for prisoners.  These are citizens and this is not a war-zone.  The war on drugs here in the greater Los Angeles area, for example, is largely figurative; it's not a literal war in the sense of how soldiers are taught to fight an enemy and survive.  These are citizens.   

Edited March 16, 2021 by FairreLilette

[Arielle Popstar]

11 hours ago, Arduenn Schwartzman said:

I'll leave you with this:

evolutionnews.org is a pseudoscientific website spreading lies, misinformation, twisted truths and peddling the bogus theory of intelligent design, which has nothing to do with science.

Wow, that's harsh! Not even the Biascheck site accused them of lies. Regardless, it's about the content of the article, not what site it was printed on. ID meantime is a valid scientific hypotheses whether or not mainstream evolutionists accept that or not. If it was that easy to discount, I have no doubt it would have been done so. Didn't even Dawkins admit that maybe we were seeded here by aliens? That implies a higher intelligence I think.

[Arielle Popstar]

7 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

And yet, given the choice of an election being decided by:

1) More people voting for the candidate polls said more people were going to vote for

OR

2) A vast conspiracy crossing multiple states that would require manipulation of several different voting systems by people all over the country using means that nobody has explained while leaving no real evidence of those means

...you seemed pretty comfortable with Option 2.

Funny that I don't remember giving option 2 that much credibility though I did bring it up for consideration as it was being tossed about a lot at the time. What I did and still think though is that the Big Tech Social Medias colluded and conspired to shut the Republicans down. Probably why they are now on the hot seat in a few different countries as they exposed their hand to how much they can influence an election. No free democratic entity needs that kind of crap. For that matter, the restrictions they still continue to put on free speech and the flow of ideas in all areas of life is positively draconian as they throttle the flow of information through search result algorithms to benefit one idea over an other, regardless of which has more merit. 

Anyway, how exactly did your post relate to the topic at hand?

[Rowan Amore]

33 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Wow, that's harsh! Not even the Biascheck site accused them of lies. Regardless, it's about the content of the article, not what site it was printed on. ID meantime is a valid scientific hypotheses whether or not mainstream evolutionists accept that or not. If it was that easy to discount, I have no doubt it would have been done so. Didn't even Dawkins admit that maybe we were seeded here by aliens? That implies a higher intelligence I think.

Yeah they did.

CONSPIRACY-PSEUDOSCIENCE

Overall, we rate Evolution News and Science Today a Strong conspiracy website based on the promotion of biblical verses as science. We also rate them low for factual reporting for the same reason.

Edited March 16, 2021 by Rowan Amore

[Madelaine McMasters]

14 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Didn't even Dawkins admit that maybe we were seeded here by aliens? That implies a higher intelligence I think.

I can't rule out a higher intelligence, but I see no reason to rule it in...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia

[Gabriele Graves]

This is where I guess not all "creationists" are the same.  Whilst I do believe this existence was created,  the big bang could have been the mechanism by which everything was kick started.  I don't believe humans were just plopped here as is, some kind of evolutionary process was at work to make that happen.  I don't believe the planets or the dinosaurs fossils where placed as they were.   Panspermia is something I have long thought was a great explanation of how life is seeded throughout the universe and beyond.  I would expect a creation to unfold in it's design.

[Lindal Kidd]

1 hour ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Didn't even Dawkins admit that maybe we were seeded here by aliens? That implies a higher intelligence I think.

Nah. Could've been teenage aliens on spring break who were just litterbugs.