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When critical thinking questioning mindless evolution is introduces, we ask : "Where is your evidence?"

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There are thousands upon thousands of books, journals and articles describing in detail the evidence of evolution from decades of expirmentation, reasearch and other scientific studies. Feel free to read them.

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Yeah unk, didn't you ever see the X-files? The truth is out there

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OOPS! You got me there! I guess I shouldn't have skipped class on film day.

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ORIGINAL: unclemonkey

I started this thread to answer a statement made in a thread it didn’t fit.
ORIGINAL:BVZ

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When critical thinking questioning mindless evolution is introduces, we ask : "Where is your evidence?"

That is the critical thinking that is banned from public schools. When anyone tries to point out that the supposed evidence for evolution presented in the public schools consists of bait and switch con games and “musical” definitions they are taken to court and banned.

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ID and YEC take butt-kickings in court because they cannot establish that they are science, not religion.

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ORIGINAL: unclemonkey

ORIGINAL: cow451

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ID and YEC take butt-kickings in court because they cannot establish that they are science, not religion.

YEC supporters don't want creation taught in public schools. ID is consistantly thrown out because people believe the lies told about it.

If ID is not science then every time an archaeologist deems an artifact a stone tool rather than just a rock he is doing so on religious conviction rather than science.

How about we get back on topic?
Why don’t you take my challenge and present something you consider valid evidence for evolution? That would be appropriate since that is the topic of this thread. I say it is because you know that it will fit one of the categories I predicted.

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Unclemonkey, if you cannot understand the difference between inference of use of a tool unearthed by an archaelogist, and inferring design elsewhere, then I really don't know what to say.

There's a clear difference between the two. Namely, that we know humans, know their habits, culture, etc. We know that humans make tools. Therefore, it is not just some wild speculation when we find artifacts in a given site, and presume that they were fashioned deliberately, and with design.

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If we had to same evidence for a creative force shaping the universe/Earth/etc, then you'd be right, they would be very similar issues. As it stands, that is not the case.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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OOPS! You got me there! I guess I shouldn't have skipped class on film day.

It's understanable, most of the docs are locked up at a hidden base in Roswell, NM.

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You got to get off this ID kick, Jhud. There is no alien ID and Roswell has grown to mythical proportions.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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You got to get off this ID kick, Jhud. There is no alien ID and Roswell has grown to mythical proportions.

Usually people who try to cover this up are one of them.

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Read the OP. You stated, without evidence, that critical thinking is "banned" from public schools. You brought up the court thing.

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you don't like your topic, that's your bad.

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It's understanable, most of the docs are locked up at a hidden base in Roswell, NM.
You got to get off this ID kick, Jhud.

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ORIGINAL: unclemonkey
Please present some of that evidence so we can examine it. I say whatever you present will fail to be real evidence for evolution.

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ORIGINAL: unclemonkey

ORIGINAL: Aristocrat

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It's understanable, most of the docs are locked up at a hidden base in Roswell, NM.
You got to get off this ID kick, Jhud.

You need to read a little closer. Jack said nothing about ID evidence at Roswell. What he was talking about is the valid evidence for evolution. He figures it is hidden there because you certainly can't find any anywhere else.

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ORIGINAL: unclemonkey
You obviously need reading lessons. I stated that questioning the evidence for evolution is banned.

It happens even without the courts getting involved. Here are a couple of examples.

“TOPEKA, Kan. -- The Kansas state Board of Education yesterday repealed science guidelines questioning evolution…The board yesterday removed language suggesting that key evolutionary concepts -- such as a common origin for all life on earth and change in species creating new ones -- were controversial and being challenged by new research.
Also approved was a new definition of science, specifically limiting it to the search for natural explanations of what is observed in the universe.” - http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/02/14/kansas_yanks_guidelines_questioning_evolution/
What they have done is redefine science as materialism. That is anti-science.

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As to your challenge, endogenous retroviruses (ERV's) are a prime example.

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ORIGINAL: unclemonkey

ORIGINAL: Method

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As to your challenge, endogenous retroviruses (ERV's) are a prime example.

That has been answered.
"In any event, not all ERVs are nonfunctional. Some are transcriptionally active, and studies have revealed ERV protein expression in humans. (Sverdlov, 1.) We simply do not know all that ERVs (or other transposons) may be doing in an organism or what roles they may have played in the past. Sverdlov writes:

[S]ometimes the hosts exploit the capacity of TEs [transposable elements] to generate variations for their own benefit. The retroelements can come out as traveling donors of sequence motifs for nucleosome positioning, DNA methylation, transcriptional enhancers, poly(A) addition sequences, splice sites, and even amino acid codons for incorporation into open reading frames of encoded proteins.

The number of described cases in which retroelement sequences confer useful traits to the host is growing. Retropositions can therefore be considered as a major pacemaker of the evolution that continues to change our genomes. In particular HERV [human endogenous retrovirus] elements could interact with human genome through (i) expression of retroviral genes, (ii) human genome loci rearrangement following the retroposition of the HERVs or (iii) the capacity of LTRs [long terminal repeats that are common to ERVs] to regulate nearby genes. A plethora of solitary LTRs comprises a variety of transcriptional regulatory elements, such as promoters, enhancers, hormone-responsive elements, and polyadenylation signals. Therefore the LTRs are potentially able to cause significant changes in expression patterns of neighboring genes. (Sverdlov, 1-2.)

The functionality of ERV LTRs is suggested by the fact some elements within them are highly conserved. This means that “[t]here probably exists a kind of selection protecting the elements from mutational erosion. . . . It supports the idea that the LTRs (and perhaps other TEs) are of importance for some genomic purposes.” (Sverdlov, 5.) The bottom line is that “[w]e do not know how important the involvement of LTRs is in genome functioning.” (Sverdlov, 5.)

Of course, if ERV sequences have a function, then God may have had a functional reason for initially placing them at the same chromosomal location in separately created species. He also may have had a functional reason for designing a system to favor the insertion of certain ERV sequences at certain loci. In other words, maybe retroviruses are a corruption of an original complex system that was designed to facilitate diversification within kinds (per Wood). What was designed as an “altruistic genetic element,” now shows only vestiges of that original benevolent purpose. In that case, the fact ERVs (and other transposons) now have mostly deleterious effects is because the original system has degenerated as a result of the Fall, not because they arose by random processes."

I would say that puts this "evidence for evolution" in the class of "overzealous misinterpretation of the evidence".

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ORIGINAL: unclemonkey

I started this thread to answer a statement made in a thread it didn’t fit.
ORIGINAL:BVZ

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When critical thinking questioning mindless evolution is introduces, we ask : "Where is your evidence?"

That is the critical thinking that is banned from public schools. When anyone tries to point out that the supposed evidence for evolution presented in the public schools consists of bait and switch con games and “musical” definitions they are taken to court and banned.