Terrible news for the Creation Science museum (and Republicans)

Claiming that all present life owes its existence via common ancestry going back 100’s of millions years is an *historical* claim and there’s no way around it.

First, it's billions with a "B". Second, the evidence is fossil evidence and dating tech like carbon dating.

What do you have to support your "theories"?
 
And the criminals didn’t live 200,000 years ago lol. They can’t be interviewed and they weren’t caught on security cameras.

I don’t understand the resistance to the idea that evolution is, in part an historical narrative. And in ways that make it distinct from other areas of science.

Why should this be a problem?

I have never had a problem with the status of some sciences being historical in content, aka paleontology, cosmology, paleoanthropology.

That does not diminish them in any way.
 
I have never had a problem with the status of some sciences being historical in content, aka paleontology, cosmology, paleoanthropology.

That does not diminish them in any way.

Agreed. I fail to see what the argument is against studying the past using scientific tools for dating.
 
The use of the term narrative is that West VA redneck's lame attempt to place the replete fossil record and evolution of all humans
from a shared ape ancestor on equal footing with the stupid bible fable.

It's not a story you dumb ape, and stating the fact that animals all evolved through natural selection, survival and procreation
of the fittest within their respective niches throughout time doesn't put unicorns, ghosts and stone tablets
from Jebus in the science, ya idgit. You only post what you do because you are a poorly educated rube with a West VA
residency. Now fire up that 1964 Rambler and point it east to the Smithsonian Natural history museum and learn something.
 
Agreed. I fail to see what the argument is against studying the past using scientific tools for dating.
me too.

But according to one moron on the thread, the fact we were not there to witness it makes scientific inquiry into the events of the remote past moot.
 
I have never had a problem with the status of some sciences being historical in content, aka paleontology, cosmology, paleoanthropology.

That does not diminish them in any way.

Since they rely on so many assumptions, it makes them different from the ‘hard sciences’ like chemistry or engineering. So they result in different kinds of claims.

It’s the nature of the beast. No pun intended.
 
me too.

But according to one moron on the thread, the fact we were not there to witness it makes scientific inquiry into the events of the remote past moot.

There is apparently a fine line between seeking scientific dubiety and a solipsistic maladjusted crackhead.
 
The use of the term narrative is that West VA redneck's lame attempt to place the replete fossil record and evolution of all humans
from a shared ape ancestor on equal footing with the stupid bible fable.

It's not a story you dumb ape, and stating the fact that animals all evolved through natural selection, survival and procreation
of the fittest within their respective niches throughout time doesn't put unicorns, ghosts and stone tablets
from Jebus in the science, ya idgit. You only post what you do because you are a poorly educated rube with a West VA
residency. Now fire up that 1964 Rambler and point it east to the Smithsonian Natural history museum and learn something.

Historical narratives are historical narratives are historical narratives.
 
Since they rely on so many assumptions, it makes them different from the ‘hard sciences’ like chemistry or engineering. So they result in different kinds of claims.

It’s the nature of the beast. No pun intended.

Saying that paleontology as a scholarly discipline is not as hard as theoretical particle physics is not an argument that biological evolution is a bogus theory.
 
Saying that paleontology is not as hard as theoretical particle physics is not an argument that biological evolution is a bogus theory.

This is their oldest canard, and is based in a prejudice deriving from the fact that their education ceased at 12th grade.
If you don't look like a stunt double for Michael Douglas in Falling Down with tape on your glasses and a slide rule and pen protector, it
isn't real science. They are just so fucking ignorant.
 
The complexity of the problem is not a problem with the method or application of it, dumbfucking hick.
You are devaluing biological sciences based on prejudice and your Jebus fetish, nothing else.

The narrative is the canard that subjects of inquiry have relative "hardness" THINK!
 
Saying that paleontology as a scholarly discipline is not as hard as theoretical particle physics is not an argument that biological evolution is a bogus theory.

I never said it was bogus.

Compared to the hard sciences, paleontology results in different sorts of claims.

Thankfully, engineers are forced to make pressure few assumptions when they build bridges. How many assumptions are involved in placing extinct critters in a phylogenetic tree? And isn’t that at least somewhat of a *subjective* enterprise?
 
The complexity of the problem is not a problem with the method or application of it, dumbfucking hick.
You are devaluing biological sciences based on prejudice and your Jebus fetish, nothing else.

The narrative is the canard that subjects of inquiry have relative "hardness" THINK!

How can any claim about the past NOT be an historical claim lol?

Take your time, I’ll wait.
 
I have never had a problem with the status of some sciences being historical in content, aka paleontology, cosmology, paleoanthropology.

That does not diminish them in any way.

There wouldn't be strong longitudinal studies without a time component. Hell human history is a form of science.
In its best sense its recorded data. It doesn't become geologically less "hard" than solar terrestrial physics.
 
I never said it was bogus.

Compared to the hard sciences, paleontology results in different sorts of claims.

Thankfully, engineers are forced to make pressure few assumptions when they build bridges. How many assumptions are involved in placing extinct critters in a phylogenetic tree? And isn’t that at least somewhat of a *subjective* enterprise?

Physics is undoutedly the queen of the sciences.

But it appears you have been watching too many Jurassic Park movies if you think the science of evolution is limited to some low tech field paleontologists wearing Indiana Jones fedoras.

The evolutionary sciences are multidisciplinary invoking genetics, biochemistry, paleontology, biology, geology, etc.

The Mendelian version of Darwinian evolution is supported by multiple lines of evidence -- and evolution by natural selection and gene flow has been observed in real time under both laboratory and field conditions.

On balance, Mendelian-Darwinian evolution is one of the most secure and firmly established theories in science, on a par with general relativity and quantum mechanics.
 
Physics is undoutedly the queen of the sciences.

But it appears you have been watching too many Jurassic Park movies if you think the science of evolution is limited to some low tech field paleontologists wearing Indiana Jones fedoras.

The evolutionary sciences are multidisciplinary invoking genetics, biochemistry, paleontology, biology, geology, etc.

The Mendelian version of Darwinian evolution is supported by multiple lines of evidence -- and evolution by natural selection and gene flow has been observed in real time under both laboratory and field conditions.

On balance, Mendelian-Darwinian evolution is one of the most secure and firmly established theories in science, on a par with general relativity and quantum mechanics.

It’s exceedingly difficult to find intact DNA fragments in fossils. In fact, I was always told that DNA is notoriously unstable outside of the cell. How they manage to get even fragments of DNA from fossils is beyond me but supposedly it happens.

But they use our old friend the PCR tests to amplify fragments of Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA and conclude this or that. Not saying they’re wrong or right but how many assumptions are entailed *just in that*? How do they know the PCR results weren’t contaminated with human DNA? How do they know the fragment hasn’t been degraded to such an extent it could lead to a faulty conclusion?

We actually all know how unreliable PCR results can be, right?

This is kind of my point: when someone says ‘it’s a fact that man is descended from a less evolved ancestor’ they are seemingly unaware that their ‘fact’ is actually a provisional claim that was arrived at using a few assumptions.
 
me too.

But according to one moron on the thread, the fact we were not there to witness it makes scientific inquiry into the events of the remote past moot.

No doubt if they were walking in New York and saw a body flattened on the pavement, it would forever be a mystery to them despite the evidence the person fell from a building and the approximate time they fell.

Splatter evidence, the drying of blood, the presence of bugs, all the stuff people see on CSI. You know, scientific evidence. All of that would be scorned by those who disavow science. They would throw up their hands and say "It's a mystery!" LOL
 
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