[_Stefan_]

Asyncritus, you are confusing designed and designoid objects. Don't be stupid. The Watchmaker argument simply does not hold any water.

RE: whale evolution. There are numerous transitional fossils clearly demonstrating the evolution of land mammals into whales. Those appendages clearly are vestigial legs. The very way that they swim links them to a terrestrial past - their spines move sinusoidally, just as the spines of land mammals do when they run. DNA and fossil evidence has already told us that their closest living relatives are hippos.

Asyncritus, since you can't find any positive evidence for the designer, then you could at least try to explain who designed the designer. Any intelligent being capable of creating a universe and organisms is surely too complex to have appeared out of nowhere by chance. Please note: "The creator was not created, the creator has existed for eternity", or similar, is not a suitable answer.

[Asyncritus (OP)]

Quote from: _Stefan_ on 17/12/2008 02:18:50
Don't be a hypocrite, Asyncritus! Who designed the designer?

None of the evidence indicates that the universe was designed and has an intrinsic purpose or meaning. If you want to insist that there is, you must find positive evidence for your claim.

Your criticisms of evolution are invalid because they are based in ignorance, misunderstanding, and consist almost entirely of logical fallacies. Further, even if evolution was completely falsified, there would still be no case to be made for creationism as there is no positive evidence. You continue to ignore this major point.

Don't you think this is somewhat irrational Stefan?

I've never met the designer of Mercedes cars, but I drive one.

Does that mean he doesn't exist? Or that Carl Benz is a figment of my imagination?

What say you, Stefan?

[Asyncritus (OP)]

RE: whale evolution. There are numerous transitional fossils clearly demonstrating the evolution of land mammals into whales.

Heh heh heh!

How gullible you are Stefan - and uninformed. Let me show you:

EVERY MAMMAL with a tail swishes it from side to side. Think of a cow, for example.

EVERY WHALE, on the other hand, swishes its tail UP AND DOWN for propulsion.

OK. So how did the lateral movement become a vertical one?

And before you start yelling about logical fallacies and my ignorance, try answering the question first.

[_Stefan_]

Wow, you are incredible. You don't even make an effort to understand what I am saying.

I wrote: "The very way that they swim links them to a terrestrial past - their spines move sinusoidally, just as the spines of land mammals do when they run."

Exhibit A
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=DzXW2IGcKrA&NR=1

Exhibit B
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=iarsmqA3dck&feature=related

http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/mpm/mpm_whale_limb.html

It is easy to see how the vertical tail movement could have evolved. With the natural undulation of a terrestrial mammal's spine, and a tail adapted for use as a paddle (as in otters, beavers, and the platypus), can it be any clearer?

Take your blinkers off and do your own research with the lenses of a learning thinker.

I'm still waiting for positive evidence for creationism, and a good explanation for the designer. Please do not return until you can provide them. I have asked you so many times already, but you just skip it and give us another demonstration of your ignorance.

[Asyncritus (OP)]

Wow, you are incredible. You don't even make an effort to understand what I am saying.

I'm beginning to have serious doubts about your ability to understand English. I don't speak any other language, so I really can't say this any other way. Maybe Ben or somebody can weigh in with some remedial language programs.

So here's the question again. Please try first, to understand it, and second, to answer it.

I drive a Mercedes. I have never met or seen Carl Benz.

Now does he exist, did he exist or not?

My car is proof that he did - but clearly you don't think he did, or do you?

I wrote: "The very way that they swim links them to a terrestrial past - their spines move sinusoidally, just as the spines of land mammals do when they run."

These videos are supposed to show that the sinusoidal movements of cheetahs at speed somehow evolved into the titanically powerful vertical PROPULSION  movements of whales and dolphins? You've just got to be Mr Gullible, haven't you?

Can you possibly imagine a cheetah swimming for its life UNDERWATER suddenly swishing its tail up and down? IT HAS NO MUSCLES TO DO SO. So where did they come from?

And you quoted that joker Babinski. Here's his reply:

I don't know whether the museum pics should be displayed as "vestigial hind limbs,"[/b]

Bad start!

Maybe the Baleen whale is a hipbone with a leg bone fused to it at an angle, but I can't tell. It could just be a pelvis with no vestigial hind limb. From the pics I've seen of whale pelvises, that's all it might be.

Even worse!

The vestigial leg bone in Baleen whales is usually just an ovoidal bone, the pelvis reduced to an egg-shaped bone, and I don't see that in the photo. It's often overlooked according to one of those Japanese experts on vestigial whale hind limbs. And so that may be why it isn't hanging from the ceiling in the museum. But I can't prove that.

Heh heh heh! You don't say!

All I can say is that the most you can safely say is that those whale skeletons show a vestigial pelvis.

With all that ignorance, he can still 'safely say' that? No sir, he can't. What I can say, is TRIPE.
 

It is easy to see how the vertical tail movement could have evolved.

Only if you shut your eyes and drift off into a Delightful Dawkins Daydream! I ask you again, where did those muscles come from? Where did the flukes on the end of the tail come from? Can you see any vestigial flukes on the end of the cheetah's tail? I can't, but maybe you can.

With the natural undulation of a terrestrial mammal's spine, and a tail adapted for use as a paddle (as in otters, beavers, and the platypus), can it be any clearer?

What utter tripe! Can any of these animals dive to 1.5 miles without a concrete block tied round their middles, and come back alive? Maybe you should try it sometime!

And, um, there's another lickle ting called echolocation. Ever heard of it? So did your Pakicetus or Ambulocetus or Whateverthehell-cetus take to the water and have deep diving lessons, and sonar-manufacturing techniques instruction too? How did its skin survive the soaking?

Oh yeah, I forgot. These beached whales we see every now and then are whales coming back on to land, remembering how to dry out their vestigial fur! Hm. Tough luck guys. They all die without help.

So why don't you push off till you have some intelligent answers to give? Try writing Babinski. He may have more tripe to spew. Careful. He might hit you with some of that!

Remember, the organ of thought is the brain, not the oesophagus.

I'm still waiting for positive evidence for creationism, and a good explanation for the designer. Please do not return until you can provide them. I have asked you so many times already, but you just skip it and give us another demonstration of your ignorance.

The whale is a wonderful example of creationism. There is no way it could have evolved, that rag National Geographic notwithstanding.

Therefore it was created.

[_Stefan_]

Wow, you are incredible. You don't even make an effort to understand what I am saying.

I'm beginning to have serious doubts about your ability to understand English. I don't speak any other language, so I really can't say this any other way. Maybe Ben or somebody can weigh in with some remedial language programs.

So here's the question again. Please try first, to understand it, and second, to answer it.

I drive a Mercedes. I have never met or seen Carl Benz.

Now does he exist, did he exist or not?

My car is proof that he did - but clearly you don't think he did, or do you?

It is you who is lacking the intelligence and/or the will to understand anything I'm saying.

We only know that your car was designed because we have evidence that all cars are designed and produced by humans and their equipment. We know that Benz existed because we have other lines of evidence that he did and that he designed automobiles including the Mercedes - without such evidence, anyone could have designed the Mercedes.

Similarly, we know how evolution in general works, and when specific lineages are researched vigorously, we discover how they evolved too. This comes about through finding and understanding the evidence.

Your creationist biases lead you to ignore, misunderstand, and lie about such evidence, in order to preserve your unfounded religious beliefs.

You cannot provide evidence for creation, and you cannot provide a logical explanation for how creation occurs. Therefore, you forfeit the argument to evolution, which does a very good job of providing and explaining the evidence of life's development over time.

You simply cannot say that since cars are designed by intelligence, organisms have been too. This is the Watchmaker Analogy, and it includes the logical fallacy Argument from Ignorance.

I wrote: "The very way that they swim links them to a terrestrial past - their spines move sinusoidally, just as the spines of land mammals do when they run."

These videos are supposed to show that the sinusoidal movements of cheetahs at speed somehow evolved into the titanically powerful vertical PROPULSION  movements of whales and dolphins? You've just got to be Mr Gullible, haven't you?

Can you possibly imagine a cheetah swimming for its life UNDERWATER suddenly swishing its tail up and down? IT HAS NO MUSCLES TO DO SO. So where did they come from?

The videos show that the motions are already there. The mammal tail certainly has muscles. The whale's tail has been reinforced with stronger muscle and the behaviour has been developed, over thousands of generations of evolution.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/09/080911-whale-legs.html

And you quoted that joker Babinski. Here's his reply:

I don't know whether the museum pics should be displayed as "vestigial hind limbs,"[/b]

Bad start!

Maybe the Baleen whale is a hipbone with a leg bone fused to it at an angle, but I can't tell. It could just be a pelvis with no vestigial hind limb. From the pics I've seen of whale pelvises, that's all it might be.

Even worse!

The vestigial leg bone in Baleen whales is usually just an ovoidal bone, the pelvis reduced to an egg-shaped bone, and I don't see that in the photo. It's often overlooked according to one of those Japanese experts on vestigial whale hind limbs. And so that may be why it isn't hanging from the ceiling in the museum. But I can't prove that.

Heh heh heh! You don't say!

All I can say is that the most you can safely say is that those whale skeletons show a vestigial pelvis.

With all that ignorance, he can still 'safely say' that? No sir, he can't. What I can say, is TRIPE.

You are QUOTE-MINING. Classic creationist tactic. Read the whole article, because you are ingoring what the article actually says and means. While you are there, you should read the articles in the list on this page:

http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/cgi-bin/webring/list.pl?ringid=cetacea

Especially this:

http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/whales/hind_limb_buds/ - you simple cannot ignore that whales have evolved from terrestrial mammals.

It is easy to see how the vertical tail movement could have evolved.

Only if you shut your eyes and drift off into a Delightful Dawkins Daydream! I ask you again, where did those muscles come from? Where did the flukes on the end of the tail come from? Can you see any vestigial flukes on the end of the cheetah's tail? I can't, but maybe you can.

Tails already have muscles! They need only be reinforced to the extent that they are in whales.

Re: flukes:

http://home.tiac.net/~cri_b/reviews/acker10.html

With the natural undulation of a terrestrial mammal's spine, and a tail adapted for use as a paddle (as in otters, beavers, and the platypus), can it be any clearer?

What utter tripe! Can any of these animals dive to 1.5 miles without a concrete block tied round their middles, and come back alive? Maybe you should try it sometime!

And, um, there's another lickle ting called echolocation. Ever heard of it? So did your Pakicetus or Ambulocetus or Whateverthehell-cetus take to the water and have deep diving lessons, and sonar-manufacturing techniques instruction too? How did its skin survive the soaking?

It's called evolution by mutation and natural selection. That means new structures and functions develop from changes to the DNA that was already there. There is no learning involved.

Echolocation is most likely a result of the elongation of the skull and the change in ear position. I am not an expert on this; perhaps instead of being an idiot you could do your own research.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_Cetaceans

Oh yeah, I forgot. These beached whales we see every now and then are whales coming back on to land, remembering how to dry out their vestigial fur! Hm. Tough luck guys. They all die without help.

You have to be kidding.

So why don't you push off till you have some intelligent answers to give? Try writing Babinski. He may have more tripe to spew. Careful. He might hit you with some of that!

You misrepresented his work; the tripe being spewed is all your own.

Remember, the organ of thought is the brain, not the oesophagus.

Nothing you have ever written on this forum indicates that you are capable of following your own advice.

I'm still waiting for positive evidence for creationism, and a good explanation for the designer. Please do not return until you can provide them. I have asked you so many times already, but you just skip it and give us another demonstration of your ignorance.

The whale is a wonderful example of creationism. There is no way it could have evolved, that rag National Geographic notwithstanding.

Simply, no. Try being honest and sincere next time. Find some real evidence for creation. Currently, evolution satisfies whale origins.

Therefore it was created.

No. Again, the Argument from Ignorance. Do not return until you have something better than that. I keep telling you that even if evolution was wrong, creation is not a sufficient alternative.

I will refrain from posting here until you have demonstrated that you have fully understood evolutionary science, and science in general. When you really understand the science, you'll have no use for creationism. Until such time, we can only conclude that you have no clue and refuse to understand. Further argument is beyond pointless.

[lyner]

Asyncritus
Why do you bother to post on a Science forum if you don't subscribe to the Scientific approach?
Your attitude towards evidence is the ratchet system: use supporting evidence and reasoning to confirm what you believe and ignore the contrary evidence and reasoning. That's a win win for your (as I see it, erroneous) beliefs.
Do you have any appreciation of the concepts and statistics involving large numbers? If you haven't, then I can see how evolution could seem difficult to understand.
btw, is God male or female?

[Asyncritus (OP)]

Asyncritus
Why do you bother to post on a Science forum if you don't subscribe to the Scientific approach?
Your attitude towards evidence is the ratchet system: use supporting evidence and reasoning to confirm what you believe and ignore the contrary evidence and reasoning. That's a win win for your (as I see it, erroneous) beliefs.
Do you have any appreciation of the concepts and statistics involving large numbers? If you haven't, then I can see how evolution could seem difficult to understand.
btw, is God male or female?

I hold an honours degree in Agriculture - an applied biological subject Sophie.

For that reason I refuse to allow garbage to parade as christmas presents.

There is no contrary evidence. There is ALLEGED contrary evidence - but as shown above, it is hopeless, meaningless, and should be trashed. All we have is CLAIMS.

There is that joker Stefan writing this absolute nonsense:

Echolocation is most likely a result of the elongation of the skull and the change in ear position. I am not an expert on this; perhaps instead of being an idiot you could do your own research.

I have done my own research, and guess what? They haven't a clue how it could have evolved - but they're dead sure that it did!

He's on your side, but I'm sure that even you can recognise that quote as fit for the Council garbage collector. A bone becoming longer, and the ear position changing, produces an echolocating device that the US Navy is even now racking its collective brains to copy? What does he think you are? Stupid? I hope not. But if you do believe it... heh heh heh!

And yes, I have a Diploma in Teaching Applied Mathematics too, which was mostly statistics and differential equations. What have you got?

And since you don't believe in God, what does it matter if He's male?

[lyner]

OK
Apart from your gut feeling and your faith, what have you that you can call evidence that someone 'made us'?
If you insist that it has to be true because of the small probability of things evolving then you also should say that, when a coin comes down 'heads' then God made that happen too. They are both problems in probability; one is easy to assess and the other involves very big numbers and very small probabilities and is very hard to assess
Your attitude to the timescales and numbers involved with evolution theory has let you down because you don't want it to be true. I hope that, in your statistics lessons, you insist that your students are made aware of statistical significance and numbers and that they go with their results.
When you make statements like "they haven't a clue" about how whales developed echo location you are clearly emotionally involved. "They" aren't obliged to have a clue about something as specific as that. The pathways in evolution are very complex and there will always be unexpected reasons for a particular development.

Are you saying that God keeps introducing new strains and species of bacteria just to keep us on our toes? Is it too hard to accept that a strain of bacteria which just manages to survive the onslaught of a new drug will live to reproduce whilst the target strain is killed off? Or is that allowed in your model?
Where is the essential difference between that and the development of fast  enough predators and fast enough prey?
You can have no proof of your faith until your God comes along and shows us it happening overnight and under a repeatable conditions. Unsurprisingly, your faith doesn't include that sort of evidence - just statements like "It stands to reason" and "evolutionists are all crazy".

The qualifications game is a non starter; 2+2 doesn't make 5, whoever says so - BSc, PhD or whatever.

SO why not refer to God as 'her' or 'it'? Thatt would demonstrate some degree of open mindedness.

[BenV]

Asyncritus, why are you still here?

You may have noticed that the people on this forum do not accept your explanation of the origin of species - this is because it is based on the illogical assumption that there is a god.  As others here do not share your assumption, your explanation is not, and can not be, relevant to them.

Every problem you see with evolution is based not on the science, but on your assumption of a creator.

You may have also noticed that many people have asked you for positive evidence for your creator - it should ring warning bells for you that you will never be able to supply this evidence.  This is because religion is a philosophy, and not a science.  You can't supply a scientific alternative to evolution. Creationism is not a science, nor will it ever be.  You are, as I have said before, calling a foul in football based on the rules of cricket.

I have tried a number of times, as have others on this forum, to explain why evolution is the obvious explanation for the diversity of species on Earth.  I realised a short while ago that we are banging our heads against a brick wall.

[lyner]

I wish that the creationists would realise that, by insisting that God did things 'their way' they are, in fact, being just plain arrogant.
There is no reason why you can't have a God who is supreme and who created things in the very beginning and even a 'personal' God who can care for humans.  That doesn't, in any way, deny the possibility of Evolution. Many people of religion can believe it in this way.
BUT, the crashing presumption of these Creationists is to dictate to a SUPREME being, from the experience of a few brief years of human history, how it must have arranged its Universes. Can they really be so arrogant if they believe in one so omnipotent??

At least the Scientist try to test their ideas destruction and always consider themselves as on a journey rather than to have arrived.

[Asyncritus (OP)]

OK
Apart from your gut feeling and your faith, what have you that you can call evidence that someone 'made us'?

This is no 'gut feeling'. Set up any criteria you like that will demonstrate the Intelligent Design of an object,and we'll see if the whale meets them. Or the eye, or the flight of birds as simple examples.

If you insist that it has to be true because of the small probability of things evolving then you also should say that, when a coin comes down 'heads' then God made that happen too. They are both problems in probability; one is easy to assess and the other involves very big numbers and very small probabilities and is very hard to assess.

I don't think the statisticians would agree with you here. The current scientific biological attitude is 'give it long enough, and anything can happen'.

That, however is not true. Giving a chemical reaction long enough merely produces an equilibrium, not new, more and increasingly complex products.

Your attitude to the timescales and numbers involved with evolution theory has let you down because you don't want it to be true. I hope that, in your statistics lessons, you insist that your students are made aware of statistical significance and numbers and that they go with their results.

Calculation of compound probabilities is a large part of probability theory, and the probability of a single protein emerging by chance has been calculated by far better statisticians than myself: Fred Hoyle is the prime example. He came up with the figure of 1 in 10 exp 40,000. Now as a biologist, indeed as any reasonable scientist, biologist or not, I know that any probability lower than 1 in 10 exp 100 is an impossibility. Therefore, notwithstanding the whining and special pleading of the abiogeneticists,life itself could not have occurred by chance. So what's the probability of a whale evolving from a land mammal with fur/hair? I'll leave that one with you to chew over.

When you make statements like "they haven't a clue" about how whales developed echo location you are clearly emotionally involved. "They" aren't obliged to have a clue about something as specific as that. The pathways in evolution are very complex and there will always be unexpected reasons for a particular development.

You in your turn are equally emotionally involved, because you refuse to admit the possibility that things did not evolve. I have put up many things on this board for which evolution cannot provide even a theory of origins. Yet you hold on to it!

So let me ask you directly, is there ANY possibility in your mind that evolution did not, could not have occurred?

Are you saying that God keeps introducing new strains and species of bacteria just to keep us on our toes? Is it too hard to accept that a strain of bacteria which just manages to survive the onslaught of a new drug will live to reproduce whilst the target strain is killed off? Or is that allowed in your model?

Please don't misunderstand me. I think that variation occurs, even speciation in a very restricted number of cases. But above genus or family level? There's no incontrovertible evidence that it does.

Where is the essential difference between that and the development of fast  enough predators and fast enough prey?

There's no essential difference - until you come to serious differences. Stefan was trying to show that the sinusoidal up and down movement of a running cheetah could somehow produce the vertical movements of a whale's tail, flukes and all. That's a whole new ball game, and extrapolations of that magnitude are never justifiable.

You can have no proof of your faith until your God comes along and shows us it happening overnight and under a repeatable conditions. Unsurprisingly, your faith doesn't include that sort of evidence - just statements like "It stands to reason" and "evolutionists are all crazy".

I don't remember having made such inflammatory statements.

You, however are struggling with two impossible things:

1 Evolution (in a serious way, I mean, above genus level) has never been shown to happen and

2 You are demanding that we somehow return to the days of creation. I'm sorry, but I can't oblige.

The qualifications game is a non starter; 2+2 doesn't make 5, whoever says so - BSc, PhD or whatever.

I agree. But you started this particular one:

Asyncritus
Why do you bother to post on a Science forum if you don't subscribe to the Scientific approach?
Your attitude towards evidence is the ratchet system: use supporting evidence and reasoning to confirm what you believe and ignore the contrary evidence and reasoning. That's a win win for your (as I see it, erroneous) beliefs.
Do you have any appreciation of the concepts and statistics involving large numbers? If you haven't, then I can see how evolution could seem difficult to understand.

Evolution isn't difficult to understand, merely impossible to accept for very good reasons already given.

SO why not refer to God as 'her' or 'it'? Thatt would demonstrate some degree of open mindedness.

I am a believer in the Bible, which does not leave much room for manoeuvre on that issue.
 

[BenV]

I am a believer in the Bible, which does not leave much room for manoeuvre on that issue.

And this is why people find your position on evolution untenable. You have already blindly accepted an idea that is at odds to evolution, despite the fact that there is no, and can never be any evidence for it - as it is a philosophy, rather than a science.

You will never accept evolution regardless of how much evidence is presented to you - so why do you keep asking for more?  You have already made up your mind, and as such, closed it.

[_Stefan_]

Complexity does not simply arise by pure chance. Variation needs to be selected upon in some way over multiple generations for that to occur. Evolution results from minute changes in allele frequencies as alleles are subjected to environmental factors over generations. In other words, small chance events are filtered and built upon successively. Since time, reproduction, mutation and recombination are all verified facts, you cannot say that evolution does not occur.

Then your problem is with phylogeny. Phylogeny uses hindsight. Phyla are simply what species that have diverged sufficiently over sufficient time become. Modern phylogeny only applies to how we classify the tree of life AFTER it has reached the present day. Millions of years ago, the basal organism of each kingdom was just another species. As such, ancestral organisms were exposed to the same factors necessary for evolution to occur as modern animals are. Therefore your argument that evolution does not occur above genus level is false.

In regards to whale movement, if you cannot see the basic motion similarities, what is wrong with you? When a downward moving spine has no legs and ground to push on, where does the rest of the spine go? Down! Then you need further adaptations such as stronger muscles, more flexible tail, and fluke. These are not difficult to develop. Did you seriously not read the resources I provided RE whale evolution?

Insufficient evidence for evolution above genus level? You mean the literally billions of pieces of fossil, embryological, genetic, and physiological evidence supporting evolution are not enough for you? When you cannot provide a single scrap of evidence for creation or your god? Seriously, don't be a hypocrite.

Have YOU considered the possibility that YOU are wrong? If not, then please stop wasting posts and go away.

[lyner]

If it were all, in fact, 'designed', why are there so many vestigial organs in so many species? Was it for production line economy that we have an appendix? Do we have a coccyx just so that we can bruise it when we sit down hard?
Did the 'designer' run out of ideas and, thus, use design bodges so that we get back trouble which we wouldn't get if we were on four legs?
Why use virtually the same set of bones is so many mammalian skeletons? Why were all the little (unused) bones in a horse's foot (corresponding closely to my own carpels and tarsals)  put in there when the horse actually walks on one finger / nail and one toe / nail?
And I haven't seen any proof that short term evolution is NOT occurring in disease organisms.
If this guy was so smart, don't you think he would have been a bit more efficient?
Is it an 'intelligent up-dater' too?

[lyner]

And how does sexual reproduction fit in with the idea of a designer? How many complex organisms reproduce vegetatively? If they were designed right in the first place, organisms wouldn't need 'genetics'.

[lyner]

So let me ask you directly, is there ANY possibility in your mind that evolution did not, could not have occurred?

There is not the slightest shred of doubt in my mind that evolution occurred. I am open to the possibility of some very strange event (or even intervention of some kind) which triggered the 'life thing' but that has nothing at all to do with 'design'.

[Asyncritus (OP)]

We have several fine instances of hypocrisy here, if we define hypocrisy as saying one thing and doing another.

Here are 3 of you, all condemning me for having a fixed idea that evolution is not a tenable scientific theory for reasons already given abundantly above, and for which you have not the slightest vestige of an explanation.

Here are you 3, with evolution dogma fixed in your heads at least as firmly as non-evolution is fixed in mine, and condemning me for having a fixed idea.

Sophie says she is unshakably convinced. Ben and Stefan, you both give me that selfsame impression.

Why then should I leave? Just so the pro-evolutionist views can rampage unchecked? Is that the kind of science you want where any opposition is firmly squashed? How does that differ from the church's behaviour against Galileo and others in the past?

Do we really want to go back down the same road? I hope not.

Remember too, that there are very large numbers of readers of these debates I am involved in. If you look, you'll see that there have been over 7,000 views of this thread alone. Not all of them disagree with me, that's for sure.

So do I shut up and cease representing them? Don't they have a voice too? Shame on you guys.

[BenV]

Can anyone who agrees with Asyncritus please explain why they do so in this thread?

No hypocrisy here - if I see evidence for a better explanation than evolution I will accept it.  However, as the evidence for evolution is enormous and convincing, it will take more than someone's personal belief in an old book to convince me.  I'm sure the others would agree.

We would like you to go away because there is no debating with you - how can you say it's stifling debate when you have already made up your mind to believe in fairy tales rather than reality?  You are against evolution and will continue to be so, regardless of what we explain.

[lyner]

Asyncritus
I'm sure they can speak for themselves - if they feel strongly enough.

Apart from your ranting, I have not seen much sign of good reasons from you why evolution is not a reasonable explanation.
There are some questions you might address to help explain the details of what you believe.
How, where and when does / did this design take place?
If the formation of strata is in strict chronological order, it would appear that certain organisms were around at a different time from others. Many species seem to have become extinct - why was this allowed, when a swift modification would have allowed them to survive. The process could be interpreted as a very cruel experiment. That's just not nice; is it 'intelligent but heartless' design?
Do you really believe that, if there is a supreme being, that you would be capable of understanding its reasoning behind what it is doing? How can you dare to presume that about your maker?
You describe evolution as dogma but it is, in fact, the most open minded explanation possible for what we see. The concept of evolution leaves everything completely free. and doesn't need to produce tableaux of happy prehistoric children playing with long extinct animals to make itself attractive to the new generation. It doesn't need to massage any evidence to  make it fit.
Despite your claimed training in statistics, you don't seem to understand numbers.
You show the same level of appreciation as the 'peanut butter man' in this link.
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=17371.msg205053#msg205053