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I'm from the UK. Hardly anyone here questions the scientific explanations of the origins of the universe, or evolution, because we understand how science works.

I'm from the UK. Hardly anyone here questions the scientific explanations of the origins of the universe, or evolution, because we understand how science works. Darwin is on the £10 note for a reason, the universe is 13.9 Billion years old according to the cosmic microwave background radiation, you lost this argument some time ago, get over it. (on a side note, I am completing a PhD in a geology department, and the guy who sat behind me for two years was studying how those giant woodlouse things evolved for his whole PhD, using fossils. In addition to that inadmissible anecdata, I can assert that the scientific consensus on Evolution is much more emphatic that you claim.) Secondly, yes, like many young people I was brought up in a (UK version of a) religious house and attended a faith school. I am now a Secular Humanist (you seems to call that an Atheist, although it would be more accurate to say that I don't believe anything about deities, than to say I actively refute their supposed existence,) and this transition is entirely common here. Frankly, I think there are much more important things to do in the world than debate unprovable things about gods. For example: persuading people that gun ownership is bad; state-funded healthcare is good; and that religous extremism/violence (including Christian violence that occurred in Europe centuries ago) would be silly if it weren't so damn serious. (also, I'm sad that your comment is a direct child of mine, and thus I am prohibited from downvoting it.)

PPLwynSPFJ5p 12y ago
Ah, a Humanist, that explains a lot. Woodlice first appear in the fossil record 50 million years ago, and remain unchanged to this day, i.e STASIS, not evolution (as in every other case in the fossil record). If you have a picture of a woodlouse changing into anything else then please post it here. Or did you mean a trilobite by any chance? If so, I would expect a PhD geology student to know the difference between a woodlouse and a trilobite (and trilobites didn't evolve into anything else either - they just became extinct). The cosmic microwave background (CMB) actually poses problems for Big Bang. Obviously you are unfamiliar with the most recent findings from 2001, so I suggest you start learning about it here: http://creation.com/recent-cosmic-microwave-background-data-supports-creationist-cosmologies http://creation.com/recent-cosmic-microwave-background-data-.... Furthermore, the CMB merely PRESUPPOSES a big bang in the first place (and big bang is by no means certain - as many astrophysicists will tell you), so there are many assumptions involved in drawing inferences from it. The CMB is also very smooth - contrary to big bang predictions - and the observed mass density does not agree with big bang predictions either. There is no evidence, observational or otherwise, to prove that a big bang actually occurred (which is why many scientist disbelieve in it) nor is there any definitive evidence that the universe is billions of years old (I think that old chestnut arose from uniformitarian geologists' misguided counting of strata, mistakenly believing each layer to have been laid down over 'millions of years', even though recent laboratory experiments as well as direct field observation, have proved it can happen in hours or days). Like any typical atheist (even though you describe yourself here as a Secular Humanist)you refer to "Christian violence that occurred in Europe centuries ago", forgetting of course that the most appalling violence, including mass genocide, took place in modern history at the hands of exclusively atheistic regimes, all of whose despotic leaders followed Darwinian theories completely (e.g. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mau Tse Tung, etc). As it happens, I am from the UK too (and I'm an astrophysics major). You are free to refute the "supposed existence" of God in your own home, but please do not try to impose your own secular values on me, or on other people of faith in the UK, and especially not on my child's chance of benefiting from a decent indoctrination-free education. That's something I WILL defend, vigorously.
- mixmastamyk 12y ago
  > If you have a picture of a woodlouse changing into anything else then please post it here. With that statement (and others) it is quite clear you have no idea what you're writing about. Please take your misinformation campaign elsewhere.
  - PPLwynSPFJ5p 12y ago
    So I guess there are no pictures of woodlouse fossils changing into anything else then (nor of any other animal, for that matter) which is why many PROFESSIONAL SCIENTISTS are opposed to this kind of unsupported nonsense being forcibly taught in our UK schools. For example, most textbooks state that dinosaurs 'evolved' into birds, yet we now know that dinosaurs actually ATE them (because birds lived at the same time, already fully formed). See here, for example: Thornhill, T., First proof of bird-eating dinosaur has scientists in a flap, www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2064952/Microraptor-First-proof-bird-eating-dinosaur-scientists-flap.html, 23 November 2011. You are entitled to your opinion, namely that, "it is quite clear that you have no idea what you are writing about" but I have to disagree with your assessment. I know EXACTLY what I am writing about and I have the experience and scientific qualifications to back it up. If you regard my comments, or links, as "misinformation" then you are slighting those PhD scientists who produced the research in the first place - not all of whom are 'Creationists' as you would label them. Science simply follows the evidence wherever it may lead. If you happen to disagree with that evidence (because of your rigid, blinkered, evolutionary/Humanist mindset) that is your prerogative, but please do not insist on our UK schools infecting innocent children's minds with this kind of diabolical nonsense. One thing that is coming out of this tiresome dialogue with you is that all you have going for you is a typical atheistic 'Ya-boo-hiss' invective, while at the same time producing NO scientific evidence WHATSOEVER to support your many bald assertions or to inform other intelligent readers in this debate. I'm sorry, but Darwin's knickers are completely threadbare, and each time you write another a vacuous post, you are simply lifting his skirt higher for all the world to see.
  - mixmastamyk 12y ago
    No sorry, nothing personal, but you have no idea what you're writing about, simple as that. You've taken a fundamental misconception about evolution and turned it into a diatribe.

PPLwynSPFJ5p 12y ago

Ah, a Humanist, that explains a lot. Woodlice first appear in the fossil record 50 million years ago, and remain unchanged to this day, i.e STASIS, not evolution (as in every other case in the fossil record). If you have a picture of a woodlouse changing into anything else then please post it here. Or did you mean a trilobite by any chance? If so, I would expect a PhD geology student to know the difference between a woodlouse and a trilobite (and trilobites didn't evolve into anything else either - they just became extinct). The cosmic microwave background (CMB) actually poses problems for Big Bang. Obviously you are unfamiliar with the most recent findings from 2001, so I suggest you start learning about it here: http://creation.com/recent-cosmic-microwave-background-data-supports-creationist-cosmologies http://creation.com/recent-cosmic-microwave-background-data-.... Furthermore, the CMB merely PRESUPPOSES a big bang in the first place (and big bang is by no means certain - as many astrophysicists will tell you), so there are many assumptions involved in drawing inferences from it. The CMB is also very smooth - contrary to big bang predictions - and the observed mass density does not agree with big bang predictions either. There is no evidence, observational or otherwise, to prove that a big bang actually occurred (which is why many scientist disbelieve in it) nor is there any definitive evidence that the universe is billions of years old (I think that old chestnut arose from uniformitarian geologists' misguided counting of strata, mistakenly believing each layer to have been laid down over 'millions of years', even though recent laboratory experiments as well as direct field observation, have proved it can happen in hours or days). Like any typical atheist (even though you describe yourself here as a Secular Humanist)you refer to "Christian violence that occurred in Europe centuries ago", forgetting of course that the most appalling violence, including mass genocide, took place in modern history at the hands of exclusively atheistic regimes, all of whose despotic leaders followed Darwinian theories completely (e.g. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mau Tse Tung, etc). As it happens, I am from the UK too (and I'm an astrophysics major). You are free to refute the "supposed existence" of God in your own home, but please do not try to impose your own secular values on me, or on other people of faith in the UK, and especially not on my child's chance of benefiting from a decent indoctrination-free education. That's something I WILL defend, vigorously.

mixmastamyk 12y ago
> If you have a picture of a woodlouse changing into anything else then please post it here. With that statement (and others) it is quite clear you have no idea what you're writing about. Please take your misinformation campaign elsewhere.
- PPLwynSPFJ5p 12y ago
  So I guess there are no pictures of woodlouse fossils changing into anything else then (nor of any other animal, for that matter) which is why many PROFESSIONAL SCIENTISTS are opposed to this kind of unsupported nonsense being forcibly taught in our UK schools. For example, most textbooks state that dinosaurs 'evolved' into birds, yet we now know that dinosaurs actually ATE them (because birds lived at the same time, already fully formed). See here, for example: Thornhill, T., First proof of bird-eating dinosaur has scientists in a flap, www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2064952/Microraptor-First-proof-bird-eating-dinosaur-scientists-flap.html, 23 November 2011. You are entitled to your opinion, namely that, "it is quite clear that you have no idea what you are writing about" but I have to disagree with your assessment. I know EXACTLY what I am writing about and I have the experience and scientific qualifications to back it up. If you regard my comments, or links, as "misinformation" then you are slighting those PhD scientists who produced the research in the first place - not all of whom are 'Creationists' as you would label them. Science simply follows the evidence wherever it may lead. If you happen to disagree with that evidence (because of your rigid, blinkered, evolutionary/Humanist mindset) that is your prerogative, but please do not insist on our UK schools infecting innocent children's minds with this kind of diabolical nonsense. One thing that is coming out of this tiresome dialogue with you is that all you have going for you is a typical atheistic 'Ya-boo-hiss' invective, while at the same time producing NO scientific evidence WHATSOEVER to support your many bald assertions or to inform other intelligent readers in this debate. I'm sorry, but Darwin's knickers are completely threadbare, and each time you write another a vacuous post, you are simply lifting his skirt higher for all the world to see.
- mixmastamyk 12y ago
  No sorry, nothing personal, but you have no idea what you're writing about, simple as that. You've taken a fundamental misconception about evolution and turned it into a diatribe.