the Bible's historic backing is not only as good as, but an order of magnitude BETTER than anything comparable.
Don't you dare make me go back to whupping your *** on
that field of debate as well.
However, there is just no other reasonable explanation for the disciples behavior faced with certain death
Yes, and meanwhile, Islam is equally accurate because people were willing to put their lives on the line for it in its early year, and even today. Or any other massive cult suicide. Newsflash: people fall for dumb cults and kill themselves because they were convinced by some ridiculous swindler (in this case: Jesus). Congratulations in putting your religion on the same level as
Heaven's Gate. But hey, this is off topic, and that's why I'm shoving it to the front of my post. ^_^
Now, on to the meat of your post!
2. Wrong, an irreducible complex argument does not have to be an argument from ignorance. Take the example of a mousetrap, there's 5 components that each have to be in working order and assembled correctly for the device to work. Without any of said components, the trap does nothing. It's a good example of "irreducibly complex", and that's not an argument from ignorance at all.
The mousetrap is a really bad example. Ironically, this paragraph is a really,
really good example of what we're talking about when we say "argument from ignorance". You know why? Because you are
dead-set in the idea that you cannot "reduce" the mousetrap... And yet you can!
First off, if you want to retain the "trap" functionality, then there's only one piece you can really get rid of, but it's still important: the
base of the trap can be removed without any problem. Suddenly, the mousetrap has very different qualities... and one less part. So already, even in this case which seemed
blatantly obvious, you were too ignorant to see how it could have possibly been reduced!
Secondly, you say "the trap does nothing" as if the only role certain things have is the role they are given. Newsflash: that's not how it works in nature. Let's take the classic creationist dead horse of the Bacterial Flagellum... Sure, remove a part, and the whole thing stops working as a flagellum. But does that mean that the rest of the parts are worthless? Not at all! In fact, at least one form of it (with only about half the parts!) can be shown to have a positive impact on the Bacteria's chances for survival: not as a mode of transportation, but as a way to inject toxins into the area around it. So it had every reason to be there. And, in the case of the mousetrap,
remove two parts and you have a perfectly serviceable tie clip.
3. Where'd you get that figure? I haven't exactly researched it, but my impression was that it was about a third of the field as a whole. (IIRC one of the chapters of "A Case for a Creator" mentioned a conference objecting to evolution of around a hundred scientists objecting, some of whom were at the forefront of their field. I don't have the book with me though, so I can't check right now.)
There was a list of around 800 ... About 100 american biologists. Compared to Project Steve, which has over
550 signatures from biologists alone.
Dre's point is that if evolution were to be true, you'd expect a lot more fossils that aren't of species that have survived to the present point.
Like, say,
all of the ****ing dinosaurs?
Play word games with the definitions of macro evolution and transitionary forms all you want, but if evolution is true, there should be plenty of fossils for each link in the evolutionary chain, or else you're stuck with "This species somehow got multiple random major beneficial mutations in a relatively short time period", which is simply not how natural selection is theorized to work.
...Two things.
1.
There are.
2. You're
seriously overestimating the likelihood of fossilization.
I really don't understand what you're asking for, to be honest. The transitional forms of ancient species to modern species? In a lot of cases, we have that. At least, in enough cases to excuse those where the more or less random process of fossilization couldn't help us. In the case of the line of great apes, for example, we have basically the entire lineage mapped out on a species level. What makes this incredibly difficult, of course, is that speciation is not a line break, but rather a gradient. You aren't Homo Erectus one day and Homo Habilus the next. Demanding each link in the evolutionary chain is essentially demanding a fossil for every single animal ever.
And as far as the transitionary forms you already have, I personally am quite skeptical of them in the same way you'd be skeptical of a miracle. There's already been well known and highly touted "examples" of evolution in action that were later proven to be fake.
Uh... What?
Hang on, lemme get this straight. You are skeptical of fossil evidence because...
there were cases of it being faked? Like what? Piltdown man? Here's Wikipedia's take on it:
From the outset, there were scientists who expressed skepticism about the Piltdown find. G.S. Miller, for example, observed in 1915 that "deliberate malice could hardly have been more successful than the hazards of deposition in so breaking the fossils as to give free scope to individual judgment in fitting the parts together."[6] In the decades prior to its exposure as a forgery in 1953, scientists increasingly regarded Piltdown as an enigmatic aberration inconsistent with the path of hominid evolution as demonstrated by fossils found elsewhere.[1] Skeptical scientists only increased in number as more fossils were found.
In fact, I found a grand total of 3 such cases; none of which lasted particularly long. You're using this as a basis to reject the transitional fossils? Furthermore you are comparing this denialism to a doubt of written accounts of people
violating the laws of physics which have essentially never been validated in any way, shape, or form? This argument is like saying, "George W. Bush lied, therefore I will never trust any human again because humans are known to lie." Come on, dude, you've got to do better than that.
Also, one other thing I want to know is why there aren't laboratory examples of reproducing macro-evolution.
This has been done many, many times, and others have pointed out the experiments to you in this thread.
Amusing note:
When you think about it, there's a surprising similarity to the demands on each side here.
Atheist demand a miracle.
Are highly skeptical of claimed ones due to past hoaxes.
Want to see it in action and subjected to the scientific method.
I'm demanding an example of evolution in action.
I'm pretty skeptical of transitional forms because there have been past high profile hoaxes unrevealed until much later.
And I want to see a reproducible example in action.
The differences that you somehow failed to mention? There has never,
ever been a verified case of a miracle.
EVER. They involve bending or breaking the laws of nature, providing supernatural events, and generally the kind of thing that simply doesn't happen. Meanwhile, we have validated fossils. We understand how fossilization works. We
have seen reproducible examples of evolution in action.
I'm sure at least one person is going to start yelling about how wrong I am and how their position has all the backing and mine has none, but I found it interesting to think about.
Yeah, about that...
Atheist reply #1: Rather than address the actual argument at hand, insult the person presenting it and claim without evidence that the argument is crap.
We're off to a good start.
I just thought I'd address this.
Nicolas, in a politics debate, how do you respond to the person who claims that Obama is a secret muslim, that Obamacare will put grandma to death, and that every type of government expenditure beyond defense is Communism at work? Do you write out long, explanatory posts on why he's wrong? Or do you either back away and ignore them or tell them that they're stupid and move on? I do the latter, because any feedback is better than none.
That's what's going on here. Your arguments are the same rehashed creationist crap which
nobody who is not either very ignorant or very dishonest should be spouting as a serious argument. When you offer childish arguments, people will tend to look down on you. And before you ask what the difference is between you and Dre., here's a tip: he's apparently somewhat ignorant on a few finer points, but he's
asking, trying to honestly inform himself, and when he gets his answers, he accepts them. You? You're
asserting. You're not
asking "well, how does X work", you're
stating "X couldn't work because of problem Y"; simply formulating it as a question does not change the tone of your devolved Gish gallop.
I'm only responding to you because I'm a very bored person with a lot of time on his hands, because I don't particularly
like you, and because trouncing your poor arguments makes me look smart, at least in my own head. I'm normally interested in the potential of learning something new from the person I'm debating, but this is not as case where this would be a relevant concern by any means. I am sorry, but denying evolution is like denying Relativity and Atomic theory: sure, you can't
see it on a day-to-day basis, but if you deny it, you still look really,
really dumb. Evolution is a validated theory, built up of thousands of individual scientific facts. To claim otherwise is either ignorant or dishonest.
I invite you to stop asking these questions as if you were about to break the theory of evolution over your knee, and start asking these questions as though you were aware that your knowledge on the subject is extremely lacking, and you have very serious biases in regards to it. Until you do that, I will keep treating you like I would treat any creationist: only worth debating if I'm really,
really bored.