Lots of bashing for the belief of God....

[Final-Fan]

First off, Joe this is terrible.  I hate that style of reply.  But I'll work with it. 

Hell, I'll just delete the whole quote nest since your reply is so massive and reply to what I see as your assertions.  Feel free to check to see I didn't misinterpret your points or miss important ones. 

1.  Macroevolution isn't testable. 
Talkorigins' rebuttal
You haven't detailed your ideas about microevolution vs. macroevolution to my knowledge (though you probably have at some point in another thread), so I have to shoot in the dark a little bit here.  But you're simply wrong that there is actually any distinction in the mechanism of evolution; the only difference is that over time what you call microevolutionary change adds up and adds up and adds up until it has caused what you would call a macroevolutionary change.  If you don't think that would happen, I invite you to propose a testable hypothesis that science is unaware of that would account for this being impossible. 

2.  The "Lucy" skeleton is incomplete (2/3 gone) and was found in scattered pieces. 
That particular specimen is 40% complete but was found in one location AFAIK.  I think you may be referring to a completely false claim that grew out of a misunderstanding and is now one of the many zombie lies perpetuated bby prominent antievolutionists. 

3.  There are no transitional fossils.  There are no fossils linking dinosaurs and birds. 
There are plenty of transitional fossils. 
There are fossils linking dinosaurs and birds, most famously Archaeopteryx.  However, due to the age and obscurity of the dinosaur-bird evolution, it is only to be expected that there are fewer fossils left than the more recent evolutionary changes. 

4.  I am stereotyping "Creationist theology" when I say that it doesn't produce testable hypotheses that would discredit it if they were incorrect. 
It's only a stereotype if it's wrong, and you didn't say anything that indicated I was wrong.  Specifically, intelligent design doesn't do so because AFAIK it basically says "everything happened exactly like "evolutionists" say, only it is orchestrated by God", which cannot be disproven and does not make any testable predictions about how the world works, which is what I was talking about.  For that reason, it is not scientific.  If it was scientific it would make such predictions, which would either prove to be correct or incorrect, and if it was always correct and never incorrect that would indicate that it was right. 

5.  I said that a biology professor who believes in God is not a scientists, while one who doesn't is one. 
No I didn't. 

6.  Some guy in the Smithsonian supported creationism with facts and got fired. 
I suppose you are referring to Richard Sternberg, who was an editor of a scientific journal until he decided to violate procedure to get an article published that supported intelligent design because he knew it wouldn't measure up to standards and wasn't even the right subject for that publication. 

7.  I know biologists, etc. who are creationists.  Are you saying they aren't scientists? 
I'm saying that creationism isn't science, and whatever they do to further the cause of creationism is also not science.  If they were doing science they could publish it in scientific journals, which I guearantee you they aren't doing. 

8.  Evolutionary theories aren't any more scientific than creationist theories. 
Yes they are, see (4).

9.  People think Darwin was always right, but he wasn't. 
I assure you scientists are well aware that no one is infallible and any of Darwin's theories that are demonstrably wrong have long since been abandoned. 

10.  Talkorigins is not a credible source because it hates creationism. 
This is ridiculous.  Talkorigins is as reliable as its sources.  If it was so wrong you should be able to easily find creationists who have similar sites disproving lots of the very specific claims on the talkorigins site.  In fact you should be able to find creationists suing talkorigins for libel.  Good luck with that. 

I wouldn't waste my time citing a website like that just to appeal to authority, I go there to find (for instance) specific rebuttals to creationist zombie lies that have been proven wrong a thousand times already.  Why should I reinvent the wheel if it's easier to look for it there? 

You act like this is a war of Appeal to Authority -- you'd like that because it ends with you calling in God on your side.  Well no, this debate is about the facts and talkorigins is stuffed full of facts that your authorities can't prove wrong. 

11.  Evolutionary theology and creationist theology...
Stop right there, you're confusing "theory" and "theology".  Actually, that would explain quite a bit...

Seriously though, you are trying again and again to drag science into the mud so you can say it's all just religion and your religion is just as good.  This craven attack on science is never going to be true no matter how much you wish it or say it. 

12.  "Any Hypothesis or idealogy that cannot be proven right or wrong are theories." 

WRONG WRONG WRONG.  What you described is precisely what a scientific theory is NOT.  The whole POINT of science is to put forth a hypothesis and test it (i.e. try to prove it wrong).  And if you can, then it was wrong and you can either fix the hypothesis if it was close or throw it out if it was totally off.  And if you can't prove it wrong, and if people try and try and try but you've fixed your hypothesis and it's just not wrong anymore, then it gets to be a theory ... until someone proves it wrong. 

You never "prove a theory is right".  You only prove it was correct about something -- made a correct prediction.  That is why things like intelligent design that make no predictions are not scientific theories and not science. 

13.  Macroevolution has no proof because we haven't watched very large changes like dinosaurs to birds. 
Like I said above, theories make predictions.  There's a great article that you should read called "Evolution as Fact and Theory" by Stephen Jay Gould that illustrates this:

Evolution lies exposed in the imperfections that record a history of descent. Why should a rat run, a bat fly, a porpoise swim, and I type this essay with structures built of the same bones unless we all inherited them from a common ancestor? An engineer, starting from scratch, could design better limbs in each case. Why should all the large native mammals of Australia be marsupials, unless they descended from a common ancestor isolated on this island continent? Marsupials are not "better," or ideally suited for Australia; many have been wiped out by placental mammals imported by man from other continents. This principle of imperfection extends to all historical sciences. When we recognize the etymology of September, October, November, and December (seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth), we know that the year once started in March, or that two additional months must have been added to an original calendar of ten months.

So, for instance, the idea of common descent would say that mammals all started out with the same skeletal structure.  Therefore mammals nowadays will have fundamentally similar skeletons even where it would make more sense for them to be completely different considering the function that skeleton is currently put to, and where there ARE differences the fossil record will show that they used to be more similar. 

These are testable hypotheses that in fact have been tested and they have proven to be correct predictions. 

Similarly, looking at the months' names might cause a historian to form a hypothesis that there was a calendar dividing years into ten months (not 12), and they would test this by looking through historical documents. 

14.  No missing link has ever been found. 
That is just a lie, tons of missing links have been found.  You just always say, "well where's the link between the links?"  I'm sorry to say that not every single animal ever is preserved as a fossil for all time. 

15.  If animals appear suddenly in the fossil record, that suggests creation. 
It could just as easily suggest aliens.  What predictions does your alleged theory make?  Is God likely to make unicorns suddenly appear with a natural range throughout the Ohio Valley?  How do we test that? 

Or perhaps they just weren't preserved as fossils up until then.  There have been species of fish thought to be extinct for tens of millions of years because they disappeared from the fossil record ... and then somebody caught one. 

16.  What I am saying is that all of our scientific theories are still theology, they are theories not scientific fact. 


No.  Your religion is based on faith, our science is not.  Thoery is not equivalent to theology.  You are in dire need of a good long look at your misconceptions. 

And if I understand you correctly, you think a "scientific fact" is a theory that has been proven correct once and for all.  That does not exist. 

17.  If an idea is not testable, repeatable, observable, and falsifiable then it is not scientific fact. 
What you are describing is a theory.  But I think you have an over-restrictive idea of what "observable" is. 

18.  Maybe you should realize your just as much of an uneducated nutjob, no pun intended. 
What pun?  If you are hallucinating that would also explain much. 

19.  Theories are theology until they are proven as fact.   
No, and no. 

20.  The theory that the earth is round was proven as fact, just as the theory that the earth was flat was proven false. 
No!  In fact this perfectly illustrates how theories are not "proven right".  There's a great essay you should read called "The relativity of wrong" by Isaac Asimov.  It is a very fun read, go read it right now! 

21.  Do you even know the definition of theology? 
I'm no longer sure I know what YOU think it means. 

22.  Evolutionary theory is a religion. 
... Sigh.  This only betrays that you have no idea what science is, and simply equate the confidence in its results with your own uncritical faith in God.  But the two could not be more different.  Science is based on criticism and trying to disprove its ideas; religion is about faith without proof. 

23.  It takes more faith... 
Science can lead to very extraordinary ideas, but we still have great confidence in them because of the rigorousness with which those ideas are tested.  How ridiculous that ATOMS could have the power to destroy cities!  And yet science led us inexorably to nuclear power.  What insanity that gravity could [edit:  cause] TIME to be different; and that's nothing compared to SPEED doing the same thing, and you get heavier too!?  You don't even know how many ideas you accept as ordinary that would have been completely crazy if you didn't grow up in a world where they were already well-known.  The only reason evolution isn't the same way is because of pushback from religion that physics is mostly free from. 

24.  There are churches of Darwin. 
I wouldn't know about that.  Even if they aren't jokes like Pastafarianism, the fact that SOME people have made a religion out of evolution doesn't mean anything to science, except perhaps an interesting case study. 

25.  Atheism is a religion. 
Well, only for those who have FAITH that there's no God, as opposed to the many more that just think it's too unlikely to seriously consider that there is any God.  And in any case that's irrelevant. 

26.  Epilogue
I bet you'd love for me to say "you know what science is just a religion and your religion is just as valid as it", but you know what, that's a lie.  Science is not religious, evolution is not theological, and you are wrong.  Keep your faith out of science, as science keeps out of faith. 

You are afraid of science, and in your fear you are trying to [edit: tear] down the greatest achievement of humankind.