As I said, the quote is my own, from another video on the subject.

As for the toxicity of ammonia, here is a link to the Health Effects portion of the CDC's Toxicological Profile for Ammonia.

Lots to read, but basically it shows that, except in huge doses of concentrated ammonia, ammonia is readily converted by the liver into urea (hence the ammonia smell of urine). Ingesting ammonia in quantities that are harmful (though still not fatal) causes burns, and ulceration of the mouth. Obviously if there was that much in the food, there would be a problem.

The report points out, "In a study of volunteers, ingestion of a single ammonium chloride tablet (approximately 15 mg NH4+/kg/day) led to a small transient increase (33% above fasting levels) in arterial blood concentrations of ammonium ion in 11 out of 20 subjects (Conn 1972); no change was noted in the remaining nine subjects in this group.[...]These data indicate that ingested ammonia is readily absorbed from the digestive tract and that the liver plays a large role in removing it from the blood (Conn 1972).



Basically, the FDA allows the use of ammonia to sterilize food products because, 1. the quantities needed to harm a human would cause said humans not to eat the products and 2. being naturally occurring, and necessary for life (for the provision of nitrogen for amino acid synthesis), the ingestion of ammonia in these quantities has no long-term health effects.

I'm not trying to argue that eating that pink goo is good for you - but the obsession with the ammonia is the wrong approach to attacking it. Phosphorus, sodium, potassium, magnesium, etc. are also poisonous in the right quantities, and they are also all necessary for human life.

If there is any common thread to my rants here on the sift, it's that people attacking the wrong subject, regardless of their intentions, makes them look stupid and reduces their credibility to those of us who care to know the truth. I completely agree with Maher's point that the republicans just attack anything the liberals support, but when he makes that point using misleading/wrong information, he's just as bad as them.>> ^Yogi:

>> ^Skeeve:
While I don't disagree with Maher's point, I'm getting really sick of people screaming about the ammonia used to treat the pink goo that is turned into chicken nuggets. As I said regarding another video:
"ammonia is a natural chemical that is necessary for human life. The amount of ammonia one would have to ingest to be harmful to a human is huge, and actually ingesting that much would be unthinkable because of the horrendous taste it would impart to the food."

This is like seeing someone sprinkle some sodium-free salt on their food and saying, "OMG that's potassium chloride! That's the lethal chemical in a lethal injection! That's going to kill you!!"
People just don't seem to care that a lot of chemicals that are popularly considered "toxic" are necessary for life or require unfathomably large doses to be harmful.

Where the hell is that quote from and is there any truth to it is what needs to be asked. To me that sounds like something a PR person would say, like in that video about Global Warming where they made the point that "CO2 is natural".
You've got more to answer for Skeeve and if you don't I'm bidding you a hearty GOOD DAY To You Sir!

I have claimed that there are methods to synthesize information that do not require the interaction of a mind. I have provided an example of one such system.

You object, but without either asserting that the simulation is a mind, or that it does not synthesize information, but instead you make some vague assertion about how it's instead not an example.

A mind created and designed it, therefore a mind is involved, therefore it is an invalid example..

Abiogenesis is, like all real knowledge, unproven. None the less it is, at present, the only coherent explanation for what can be demonstrated to exist.

Abiogenesis is unproven because there is no evidence, it is just metaphysics. It's your faith that it is true. It is not the only coherent explanation, it is just the explanation that you have to believe because you have ruled out an intelligent designer apriori.

There is no ID hypothesis, Behe came the closest to actually trying, and any competent high school biology student could pick his little charade to pieces in a few hours with a half decent encyclopedia.

Here is the hypothesis

http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/1156

Here is a story about ID being published in a biology journal making predictions for cancer research

http://www.discovery.org/a/2627

I am arguing not that there are no differences in the world, but that there is no concrete distinction between life and chemistry. You can assume there is, you can assert there is, but until you can demonstrate that there is I have nothing to disprove.

There is obviously a concrete difference since life doesn't come from non-life, and has never once been observed doing so. You have everything in the world to prove here. Everything in the Universe is made up of atoms, does that mean there is no difference between you and me? Is there no difference between a duck and a neutron star? You can't just say that because there are trivial similarities that they are the same thing.

And if you think like that, and you just believe we are all chemicals in motion, then you can't trust your own mind because if our mental processes are just chemical reactions, then there is no reason to believe anything is true. If our mental states have their origin in non-rational causes, rationality can't be trusted. You can't know if the rationality we have from evolutionary processes is discerning the truth of the world or not. Even Darwin realized this:

"With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?"

The bottom right hydroxyl group is the only difference between RNA and DNA, to suggest that molecules can't lose parts, is to argue that the universe is not as it observably is.

Since the step you clearly label (MAGIC) in the RNA-> DNA path is so obviously trivial, why should anybody believe that the other step you label (MAGIC) is any more complex
?
Well this is plainly false. RNA to DNA is far more probable than ROCKS to RNA. The reason it is labeled magic is because there is no proof. It doesn't mean that they are both equally likely. It is less likely by large orders of magnitude.

The magic is RNA self-replication:

http://www.lifesorigin.com/chap10/RNA-self-replication-3.php

And if you had bothered to do any real research, you would see that the leap from soup to these complex molecules is anything but trivial..here is a list of just of basic issues...

http://www.godandscience.org/evolution/chemlife.html

Some quotes for you:

Instead of revealing a multitude of transitional forms through which the evolution of the cell might have occurred, molecular biology has served only to emphasize the enormity of the gap. We now know not only of the existence of a break between the living and non-living world, but also that it represents the most dramatic and fundamental of all the discontinuities of nature. Between a living cell and the most highly ordered non-biological system, such as a crystal or a snowflake, there is a chasm as vast and absolute as it is possible to conceive....

Molecular biology has also shown that the basic design of the cell system is essentially the same in all living systems on earth from bacteria to mammals. In all organisms the roles of DNA, mRNA and protein are identical. The meaning of the genetic code is also virtually identical in all cells. The size, structure and component design of the protein synthetic machinery is practically the same in all cells.

In terms of the basic biochemical design, therefore no living system can be thought of as being primitive or ancestral with respect to any other system, nor is there the slightest empirical hint of an evolutionary sequence among all the incredibly diverse cells on earth. For those who hoped that molecular biology might bridge the gulf between chemistry and biochemistry, the revelation was profoundly disappointing."

Dr. Denton, Ph.D (Molecular Biology),
An evolutionist currently doing biological research in Sydney, Australia

Now we know that the cell itself is far more complex than we had imagined. It includes thousands of functioning enzymes, each one of them a complex machine in itself. Furthermore, each enzyme comes into being in response to a gene, a strand of DNA. The information content of the gene (it's complexity) must be as great as that of the enzyme it controls.

A medium protein might include about 300 amino acids. The DNA gene controlling this would have about 1,000 nucleotides in its chain, one consisting of a 1,000 links could exist in 41000 different forms. Using a little algebra (logarithms) we can see that 41000 = 10600. Ten multiplied by itself 600 times gives us the figure '1' followed by 600 zeros! This number is completely beyond our comprehension."

Frank Salisbury,
Evolutionary biologist

Perhaps an "effort", but not a method, or a hypothesis. ID makes no predictions, it simply tries to find arguments to prop up a baseless assumption, that is the opposite of science.

If any ID proponent, or any theologian for that matter, can demonstrate even one example of anything true that their ideology can reliably tell us that we don't already know I will admit that it has predictive power, and that it could qualify as a hypothesis, and then eventually a theory. I'm betting you can't find one.

I did, see above. Here is a bunch more: http://www.discovery.org/a/2640


>> ^dgandhi:
>> ^shinyblurry:
What I insist is that you substantiate your claims, which you have failed to do.
I have claimed that there are methods to synthesize information that do not require the interaction of a mind. I have provided an example of one such system.
You object, but without either asserting that the simulation is a mind, or that it does not synthesize information, but instead you make some vague assertion about how it's instead not an example.
>> ^shinyblurry:
Abiogenesis is purely metaphysics and unproven.
Abiogenesis is, like all real knowledge, unproven. None the less it is, at present, the only coherent explanation for what can be demonstrated to exist.
There is no ID hypothesis, Behe came the closest to actually trying, and any competent high school biology student could pick his little charade to pieces in a few hours with a half decent encyclopedia.
Given two possibilities, one being unlikely, and the other being false, I'll go with unlikely.
>> ^shinyblurry:
So you acknowledge that information is trivially synthesized, by
non-minds? That's the opposite of your original claim. Is that a
retraction?
No, see above.

You said, and I quote: "if you already have DNA, you can certainly expect a cell to form."
Do you mean that DNA must already have the information required to do so? because lots of DNA does not, otherwise are you asserting that DNA is somehow "mind", which you claim would be required for that information to come into being?
>> ^shinyblurry:
The distinction between "life" and "non-life" does not exist.
So there is no difference between you and a rock? I can admit I see similarities, heart wise..:)
Let's see some evidence for your claim that there is no difference between life and non-life.

I am arguing not that there are no differences in the world, but that there is no concrete distinction between life and chemistry. You can assume there is, you can assert there is, but until you can demonstrate that there is I have nothing to disprove.
You can't disprove unicorns, I can't disprove the life boundary, and we have no reason to believe either exists.
>> ^shinyblurry:
It's not false. This is your pathway to DNA: RNA - (MAGIC) - DNA This is your pathway to RNA: ROCKS - (MAGIC) - RNA Just because you can get RNA to self-replicate doesn't automatically mean it is either likely or plausible this could happen.
Please consider this image: http://en.citizendium.org/images/thumb/f/f6/RNA_base_vs_DNA_base.jpg/350px-RNA_base_vs_DNA_base.jpg
The bottom right hydroxyl group is the only difference between RNA and DNA, to suggest that molecules can't lose parts, is to argue that the universe is not as it observably is.
Since the step you clearly label (MAGIC) in the RNA-> DNA path is so obviously trivial, why should anybody believe that the other step you label (MAGIC) is any more complex?
>> ^shinyblurry:
It is an effort to empirically detect whether the "apparent" design in nature, which biologists acknowledge, is actual design. It is only useless to you because you have ruled out design apriori, which is just simply ignorant.
Perhaps an "effort", but not a method, or a hypothesis. ID makes no predictions, it simply tries to find arguments to prop up a baseless assumption, that is the opposite of science.
If any ID proponent, or any theologian for that matter, can demonstrate even one example of anything true that their ideology can reliably tell us that we don't already know I will admit that it has predictive power, and that it could qualify as a hypothesis, and then eventually a theory. I'm betting you can't find one.

No, lets not. I provided counter evidence to one absurd baseless assertion of yours , that "information" only comes from "minds", you have not provided any basis on which to defend your original position.

Actually, I did. I pointed out that your simulation doesn't do what you said it does, even in a trivial way. I said information only comes from minds, so you provide a simulation programmed by a mind. I stated this only illustrates my point, but you insisted the output proved information doesn't have to come from minds. I just got finished pointing out that the whole thing is analogous to randomly piecing together letters of an existing language until you get a new word by chance. You still need the language for the word to mean anything, otherwise it is just nonsense. And you don't get the word without the language in the first place. If the boxcar simulation could produce helicopters, that might be something, but you're still dealing with the chicken and the egg problem. A system created by information which outputs information by design is not doing so without the involvement of a mind. A mind was behind the entire process and none of it could have happened without a mind so it doesn't count as an example. You can't use a design to prove there is no design needed. That's like saying you can prove you don't need a factory to build a car but you buy all of your parts to build the car from the factory.

Your "this is going badly, let's start over" tactic is cute, don't get me wrong, but you insist that your ideological position be taken seriously, and I intend to do so, until it lies in tattered shreds on the floor.

What I insist is that you substantiate your claims, which you have failed to do. Your overconfidence is amusing, but misplaced; the facts are not on your side. Abiogenesis is purely metaphysics and unproven.

So you acknowledge that information is trivially synthesized, by
non-minds? That's the opposite of your original claim. Is that a
retraction?

No, see above.

So now you accept that once you have atoms, gravity, time,
electromagnetism, you inevitably have the possibility of self
replicating molecular systems, and therefor "life"?

Nope, see above.

You seem to have decided that life is a magical barrier, but this distinction is false.

There most certainly is a barrier. Again, abiogenesis is pure metaphysics; it doesn't happen in the real world. Life doesn't come from non-life. Pasteurization, and the food supply in general, relies upon this fact.

The distinction between "life" and "non-life" does not exist.

So there is no difference between you and a rock? I can admit I see similarities, heart wise..:)

Let's see some evidence for your claim that there is no difference between life and non-life.

You acknowledge that once a mechanism for inheritance exists the rest
is inevitable, I agree, you simply lack the sense of scale on which
the universe operates, which makes the preceding step entirely
plausible.

No, I admit that if you don't have to do the work to get wheels and bodies, and you have a design that churns them out, boxcars are inevitable. If you already have the materials, and the blueprints, of course you're able to build the house. Without any of those things, it is an impossible proposition.

This is simply false. RNA codes for proteins, but RNA requires no
proteins for it's own replication, it is entirely plausible, arguably
likely, that once you have RNA, DNA would get a chance to compete.

It's not false. This is your pathway to DNA: RNA - (MAGIC) - DNA This is your pathway to RNA: ROCKS - (MAGIC) - RNA Just because you can get RNA to self-replicate doesn't automatically mean it is either likely or plausible this could happen.

You assume that the argument is Random -> RNA -> DNA, but it is not. There are many simpler organic self replicators that, in the absence of an RNA ecosystem, would be able to prime the pump, by converting simple molecules into those more likely to contribute to spontaneous RNA synthesis, very much in the same way that cells work by creating conditions where the high concentration of particular ingredients allows proteins to replicate DNA, which proteins would not be able to do in the wild.

The best science has been able to do is create some amino acids which is worlds away from a complex molecule like RNA. The difficulties are legion and many are just intractable. There is no proof that RNA could even survive in that kind of environment, because it is extremely fragile.

ID is not even a postulation, much less a hypothesis, it provides no information, illuminates nothing, it is theology dressed up in the garb of science. It's only science if it reliably predicts things, ID fails at this basic task, because, like all theology, it is useless
.

It most certainly is a theory and it is not theology; intelligent design only needs an intelligent designer, not an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent deity. It is a theory which states that certain elements and features of the Universe are better explained by intelligent causation than an undirected process like natural selection. It is an effort to empirically detect whether the "apparent" design in nature, which biologists acknowledge, is actual design. It is only useless to you because you have ruled out design apriori, which is just simply ignorant.

>> ^dgandhi:
>> ^shinyblurry:
Let's start over because you're just going all over the place

No, lets not. I provided counter evidence to one absurd baseless assertion of yours , that "information" only comes from "minds", you have not provided any basis on which to defend your original position.
Your "this is going badly, let's start over" tactic is cute, don't get me wrong, but you insist that your ideological position be taken seriously, and I intend to do so, until it lies in tattered shreds on the floor.
>> ^shinyblurry:
This is the point: Your entire example is irrelevent. Yeah, you can generate all sorts of stuff when a system is already in place, when you have a preprogrammed design that itself generates designs. If you already have wheels and a chassis, you can build a boxcar pretty easily. Boxcars are inevitable at this point.

So you acknowledge that information is trivially synthesized, by non-minds? That's the opposite of your original claim. Is that a retraction?
So now you accept that once you have atoms, gravity, time, electromagnetism, you inevitably have the possibility of self replicating molecular systems, and therefor "life"? You seem to have decided that life is a magical barrier, but this distinction is false. The distinction between "life" and "non-life" does not exist.
You acknowledge that once a mechanism for inheritance exists the rest is inevitable, I agree, you simply lack the sense of scale on which the universe operates, which makes the preceding step entirely plausible.
>> ^shinyblurry:
You have to have proteins to create DNA and you have to have DNA to create proteins.

This is simply false. RNA codes for proteins, but RNA requires no proteins for it's own replication, it is entirely plausible, arguably likely, that once you have RNA, DNA would get a chance to compete.
>> ^shinyblurry:
Science has attempted to solve this problem by saying that RNA molecules evolved from the soup, yet there is no logical pathway for this to happen, because natural selection and mutation cannot account for it.

You assume that the argument is Random -> RNA -> DNA, but it is not. There are many simpler organic self replicators that, in the absence of an RNA ecosystem, would be able to prime the pump, by converting simple molecules into those more likely to contribute to spontaneous RNA synthesis, very much in the same way that cells work by creating conditions where the high concentration of particular ingredients allows proteins to replicate DNA, which proteins would not be able to do in the wild.
>> ^shinyblurry:
The problems are far too vast to overcome, and experiment has yieled no conclusive results. So, my point stands, that intelligent design is a better explanation for the complex coded information in DNA, which naturalistic processes cannot account for.

ID is not even a postulation, much less a hypothesis, it provides no information, illuminates nothing, it is theology dressed up in the garb of science. It's only science if it reliably predicts things, ID fails at this basic task, because, like all theology, it is useless.

@SDGundamX

Everything that humans do that isn't provided directly thru our biology is a cultural system.

Science and Religion are both results of cultural evolution.

Before scientific journals and 150 page papers on nucleotides came about, peer review was this:
"Hey man! I discovered this new way to get girls to show up at our parties! Gin rummy & Pinochle!"

'WTF dude, I know for a fact that the only girls that play pinochle are 65 year old ladies. That method will never work'

You are a scientist from birth. Science therefore is essential.
You are not religious from birth. Religion therefore is not.
~~~

To clarify, I said religion & science are geared toward "understanding the universe".
I never said "understanding the physical world".

That was your straw-man so you could talk about some metaphysical gobbledygook I guess.

But you're in even worse footing there because metaphysical things can't be proven.

Religion is useless gobbledygook and serves no purpose in a society that has advanced beyond the need for it.
~~~
Here, I'll use the example how your diet evolved to provide more support for this position.

Humans are carnivorous because early hominids found animal protein - meat - beneficial because it promoted brain & muscle growth.

Eating meat was essential because without it, early human population would have been to weak & stupid to survive.

In 2011, there is absolutely need to consume meat.

We have discovered numerous combinations of plants - like rice & beans - that provided complete proteins and some that provide all essential amino acids outright, like soybeans.

Eating meat nowadays involves massive amounts of resources - land, water, crops - not to mention all the harmful effects like - deforestation, infectious outbreaks, & increased chronic or "lifestyle" diseases like grease encrusted heart muscles.

Consuming meat - like practicing religion - is unnecessary and destructive to our environment.
You only continue to engage in it because of ignorance, propaganda and emotional attachment.
~~~

Sooo, you can keep flappin' your gums.
But until you submit some evidence and not just personal feelings..

This sift talk will continue to head nowhere very quickly

Your refutations were (in order)

"This guy believes in evolution"

"We can never prove anything about the fossil record"

"this quote is old"

"this guy is crazy"

"this quote is old"

"this guy is a probable creationist"

Yeah, amazing refutations..which you got from a website, while calling me out on doing the same thing. Evolutionists, biologists, palentologists etc DO dispute the theory of evolution..you were right though..the ones I provided were kind of weak. You'll have an infinitely harder time refuting these:

"With the failure of these many efforts [to explain the origin of life] science was left in the somewhat embarrassing position of having to postulate theories of living origins which it could not demonstrate.

After having chided the theologian for his reliance on myth and miracle, science found itself in the unenviable position of having to create a mythology of its own: namely, the assumption that what, after long effort could not be proved to take place today, had, in truth, taken place in the primeval past."

Loren C. Eiseley,
Ph.D. Anthropology. "The Immense Journey". Random House, NY, p. 199

"We have no acceptable theory of evolution at the present time. There is none; and I cannot accept the theory that I teach to my students each year. Let me explain:

I teach the synthetic theory known as the neo-Darwinian one, for one reason only; not because it's good, we know it is bad, but because there isn't any other.

Whilst waiting to find something better you are taught something which is known to be inexact, which is a first approximation."

Professor Jerome Lejeune,
Internationally recognised geneticist at a lecture given in Paris

"Considering its historic significance and the social and moral transformation it caused in western thought, one might have hoped that Darwinian theory ... a theory of such cardinal importance, a theory that literally changed the world, would have been something more than metaphysics, something more than a myth."

Michael Denton,
Molecular Biologist. "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis". Adler and Adler, p. 358

"The fact of evolution is the backbone of biology, and biology is thus in the peculiar position of being a science founded on an unproved theory - is it then a science or a faith? Belief in the theory of evolution is thus exactly parallel to belief in special creation-both are concepts which believers know to be true but neither, up to the present, has been capable of proof."

L.Harrison Matthews,
British biologist

"[The theory of evolution] forms a satisfactory faith on which to base our interpretation of nature."


L. Harrison Matthews,
Introduction to 'Origin of Species: The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life', p. xxii (1977 edition).


"I reject evolution because I deem it obsolete, because the knowledge, hard won since 1830, of anatomy, histology, cytology, and embryology, cannot be made to accord with its basic idea. The foundationless, fantastic edifice of the evolution doctrine would long ago have met with its long deserved fate were it not that the love of fairy tales is so deep-rooted in the hearts of man."

Dr Albert Fleischmann. Recorded in Scott M. Huse, "The Collapse of Evolution", Baker Book House: Grand Rapids (USA), 1983 p:120

"Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent."


William B. Provine,
Professor of Biological Sciences, Cornell University, 'Evolution: Free will and punishment and meaning in life', Abstract of Will Provine's 1998 Darwin Day Keynote Address.


"The origin of life by chance in a primeval soup is impossible in probability in the same way that a perpetual machine is in probability. The extremely small probabilities calculated in this chapter are not discouraging to true believers ? [however] A practical person must conclude that life didn’t happen by chance."


Hubert Yockey,
"Information Theory and Molecular Biology", Cambridge University Press, 1992, p. 257


"As I said, we shall all be embarrassed, in the fullness of time, by the naivete of our present evolutionary arguments. But some will be vastly more embarrassed than others."


Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, Principal Research Associate of the Center for Cognitive Science at MIT, "Inevitable Illusions: How Mistakes of Reason Rule Our Minds," John Wiley & Sons: New York, 1994, p195)


"In 10 million years, a human-like species could substitute no more than 25,000 expressed neutral mutations and this is merely 0.0007% of the genome ?nowhere near enough to account for human evolution. This is the trade secret of evolutionary geneticists."

Walter James ReMine,
The Biotic Message : Evolution versus Message Theory


"Today, a hundred and twenty-eight years after it was first promulgated, the Darwinian theory of evolution stands under attack as never before. ... The fact is that in recent times there has been increasing dissent on the issue within academic and professional ranks, and that a growing number of respectable scientists are defecting from the evolutionist camp. It is interesting, moreover, that for the most part these 'experts' have abandoned Darwinism, not on the basis of religious faith or biblical persuasions, but on strictly scientific grounds, and in some instances regretfully, as one could say. We are told dogmatically that Evolution is an established fact; but we are never told who has established it, and by what means. We are told, often enough, that the doctrine is founded upon evidence, and that indeed this evidence 'is henceforward above all verification, as well as being immune from any subsequent contradiction by experience'; but we are left entirely in the dark on the crucial question wherein, precisely, this evidence consists."


Wolfgang Smith,
Mathematician and Physicist. Prof. of Mathematics, Oregon State University. Former math instructor at MIT. Teilhardism and the New Religion: A Thorough Analysis of the Teachings of de Chardin. Tan Books & Publishers, pp. 1-2


"If there were a basic principle of matter which somehow drove organic systems toward life, its existence should easily be demonstrable in the laboratory. One could, for instance, take a swimming bath to represent the primordial soup. Fill it with any chemicals of a non-biological nature you please. Pump any gases over it, or through it, you please, and shine any kind of radiation on it that takes your fancy. Let the experiment proceed for a year and see how many of those 2,000 enzymes [proteins produced by living cells] have appeared in the bath. I will give the answer, and so save the time and trouble and expense of actually doing the experiment. You would find nothing at all, except possibly for a tarry sludge composed of amino acids and other simple organic chemicals.
How can I be so confident of this statement? Well, if it were otherwise, the experiment would long since have been done and would be well-known and famous throughout the world. The cost of it would be trivial compared to the cost of landing a man on the Moon.......In short there is not a shred of objective evidence to support the hypothesis that life began in an organic soup here on the Earth."


Sir Fred Hoyle,
British physicist and astronomer, The Intelligent Universe, Michael Joseph, London, pp. 20-21, 23.


"...(I)t should be apparent that the errors, overstatements and omissions that we have noted in these biology texts, all tend to enhance the plausibility of hypotheses that are presented. More importantly, the inclusion of outdated material and erroneous discussions is not trivial. The items noted mislead students and impede their acquisition of critical thinking skills. If we fail to teach students to examine data critically, looking for points both favoring and opposing hypotheses, we are selling our youth short and mortgaging the future of scientific inquiry itself."


Mills, Lancaster, Bradley,
'Origin of Life Evolution in Biology Textbooks - A Critique', The American Biology Teacher, Volume 55, No. 2, February, 1993, p. 83


"The salient fact is this: if by evolution we mean macroevolution (as we henceforth shall), then it can be said with the utmost rigor that the doctrine is totally bereft of scientific sanction. Now, to be sure, given the multitude of extravagant claims about evolution promulgated by evolutionists with an air of scientific infallibility, this may indeed sound strange. And yet the fact remains that there exists to this day not a shred of bona fide scientific evidence in support of the thesis that macroevolutionary transformations have ever occurred."


Wolfgang Smith,
Ph.D Mathematics , MS Physics Teilardism and the New Religion. Tan Books and Publishers, Inc.


"... as Darwinists and neo-Darwinists have become ever more adept at finding possible selective advantages for any trait one cares to mention, explanation in terms of the all-powerful force of natural selection has come more and more to resemble explanation in terms of the conscious design of the omnipotent Creator."


Mae-Wan Ho & Peter T. Saunders,
Biologist at The Open University, UK and Mathematician at University of London respectively


"In other words, when the assumed evolutionary processes did not match the pattern of fossils that they were supposed to have generated, the pattern was judged to be 'wrong'. A circular argument arises: interpret the fossil record in terms of a particular theory of evolution, inspect the interpretation, and note that it confirms the theory. Well, it would, wouldn't it?"


Tom S. Kemp,
'A Fresh Look at the Fossil Record', New Scientist, vol. 108, 1985, pp. 66-67


"We have proffered a collective tacit acceptance of the story of gradual adaptive change, a story that strengthened and became even more entrenched as the synthesis took hold. We paleontologists have said that the history of life supports that interpretation, all the while really knowing that it does not."


Niles Eldredge,
Chairman and Curator of Invertebrates, American Museum of Natural History, "Time Frames: The Rethinking of Darwinian Evolution and the Theory of Punctuated Equilibria," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, 1985, p144)


... by the fossil record and we are now about 120-years after Darwin and the knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded. We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the situation hasn't changed much.
The record of evolution is still surprisingly jerky and, ironically, some of the classic cases of Darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information."


David M. Raup,
Curator of Geology. Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago "Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology". Field Museum of Natural History. Vol. 50, No. 1, p. 25


"Thus all Darwin's premises are defective: there is no unlimited population growth in natural populations, no competition between individuals, and no new species producible by selecting for varietal differences. And if Darwin's premises are faulty, then his conclusion does not follow. This, of itself, does not mean that natural selection is false. It simply means that we cannot use Darwin's argument brilliant though it was, to establish natural selection as a means of explaining the origin of species."


Robert Augros & George Stanciu,
"The New Biology: Discovering the Wisdom in Nature", New Science Library, Shambhala: Boston, MA, 1987, p.160).







>> ^MaxWilder:
What the hell are you talking about? I refuted every one of your quotes point by point! I provided links to further information. The whole point was that your "evidence" of paleontologists speaking out against evolution was utter bullshit!
The only one where I discredited the source was from some no-name Swedish biologist that nobody takes seriously. Every other source was either out of context (meaning you are not understanding the words properly), or out of date (meaning that science has progressed a little since the '70s).
You have got your head so far up your ass that you are not even coherent now.
But you know what might change my mind? If you cut&paste some more out of context, out of date quotes. You got hendreds of 'em! </sarcasm>
>> ^shinyblurry:
So basically, you cannot provide a refutation to the information itself but instead try to discredit the source.

Heres my live-comment on the video

"New knowledge has shaken the foundations of Darwins theory"

No. In fact, everything in biology, especially the discovery of DNA in 1953 have confirmed, and established once and for all that the foundation of Darwins theory based on the Natural selection of hereditery properties (Darwin called them traits, we now call them genes) is true.

"When Darwin was alive, they thought the cell was a simple blob"

Wow, that was only like 3 seconds between lie #1 and lie #2! Impressive, Behe. Lets drag up Darwins corpse, and see what he had to say, even if its largely irrelevant to the fact of evolution and the practice of modern biology:
http://scienceblogs.com/afarensis/2007/07/16/darwin_and_the_cell_not_just_p/

"Like a car factory where everything has to fit together"


Not really, cells are messy things, and the processes inside is based on chemical reactions and physical laws (such as entropy) They look nothing like these tidy animations meant for illustration purposes. The production of proteins, for instance,is a process where the amino acids float around and bind themselves chemically to rna, not in an orderly "wait my turn"-style, but they latch on naturally to the RNA because they are chemically attracted to the 5 different nucleic acids on the RNA chain. It would be more similar to a redox reaction you can do with electrodes in water where the iron rod attracts the oxygen molecules, forming rust.(in the sense that theres nothing intelligent going on, just chemistry.)

"Darwinism was a lot more plausible when we thought the cell was a blob"

No.

"Flagellum"

A , Behes flagship of his idiot argument, he always pulls it out, all debunking be damned, he cant even hear how people have destroyed this silliness over and over:

http://youtu.be/a_5FToP_mMY

Utter bullshit.

Okay, the theory is that something mutates and creates something beneficial which then is selected to survive because it reproduces...well..how does natural selection choose for parts for components that dont exist and dont work? why would a creature with 1/40th of a working part be selected to survive so that it could get another part for a component that still doesnt work it just does not explain things like the flaggelums tail..thats what irreducible complexity is all about..there is no reason why flaggelums with a 10th an onboard tail motor would be selected to survive..just because each component could independently grow in some scenerio doesnt mean anything..no mutation for a non working part is beneficial..there would be no reason to continue on down that line or why the creature would survive in the first place.

another problem for evolution is that we can observe it in action..a generation of bacteria grows in no time..and at no time has there ever been observed one kind of bacteria mutating into another kind. we can test evolution this way..yes things mutate all the time..but they don't produce new kinds. not even once. so evolution is just not happening today

>> ^TheGenk:
>> ^shinyblurry:
Professor Edwin Conklin observed, "The probability of life originating from accident is comparable to the probability of the Unabridged Dictionary resulting from an explosion in a printing shop." or
Sir Fred Hoyle, of Cambridge University stated that statistically the chances of one cell evolving was the same as a tornado passing through a junkyard and giving you a fully functional Boeing 747
it's just taken on faith that it happened, of course..but there isn't even a good theory for it. pea soup getting electrocuted a cell does not create. its just not plausible.
Those quotes are all true, but the fail on one point: They assume a very complex endproduct (Here: the unabridged dictionary, the boeing 747 and the cell). Which is simply false.
Arguments about the statistical chances of something happening being very unlikely when it demonstrably happened are moot.
I could use that to argue that statistically the chance of you being created from the genetic material of your parents is so small that therefore you could not possibly exist. But clearly you do.
I'll just address the last one:
No one claims that the fully formed cell was the first "life" to pop into existance. There are other more "primitive" forms which came first. I can't find the articles but I know of at least one which demonstrates how a less complex version of a cell membrane every cell enjoys today "creates itself" in a primordial soup like environment. Add the amino acids that form in the same environment and you got yourself a very primitive cell.

>> ^shinyblurry:

Professor Edwin Conklin observed, "The probability of life originating from accident is comparable to the probability of the Unabridged Dictionary resulting from an explosion in a printing shop." or
Sir Fred Hoyle, of Cambridge University stated that statistically the chances of one cell evolving was the same as a tornado passing through a junkyard and giving you a fully functional Boeing 747
it's just taken on faith that it happened, of course..but there isn't even a good theory for it. pea soup getting electrocuted a cell does not create. its just not plausible.
Those quotes are all true, but the fail on one point: They assume a very complex endproduct (Here: the unabridged dictionary, the boeing 747 and the cell). Which is simply false.


Arguments about the statistical chances of something happening being very unlikely when it demonstrably happened are moot.
I could use that to argue that statistically the chance of you being created from the genetic material of your parents is so small that therefore you could not possibly exist. But clearly you do.

I'll just address the last one:
No one claims that the fully formed cell was the first "life" to pop into existance. There are other more "primitive" forms which came first. I can't find the articles but I know of at least one which demonstrates how a less complex version of a cell membrane every cell enjoys today "creates itself" in a primordial soup like environment. Add the amino acids that form in the same environment and you got yourself a very primitive cell.

Historically, meat was a shortcut to a fuller diet for proto-humans. Not every human population had access to a full array of vegetables that could procure all amino acids, fat (e.g. better bioavailabilty of omega-3-6-9) and proteins necessary for the development of a higher metabolism. In fact, some think that cooked meat was the greatest accelerator, both because of the changes made to the meat by heating it and for the conservation properties of the heat treatment (basically proto-pasteurization).

Of course, using meat nowadays can be considered wasteful, but what we should do is think how to better exploit the available resources (i.e. the domesticated animals) rather than how to stop using them. For example, we could harvest the methane produced by cows, etc. Instead, vegans want to "liberate" the domesticated animals thus letting them take up valuable real estate with no benefit to us. I mean, where do the vegans think all these animals will live when liberated? At the bottom of the sea? Plus, domesticated animals can only live in the ecosystem that they have been engineered for, meaning they can only live in a human-centered environment. If we would let them go, we would have to re-engineer them for wild life... talk about waste!

The word "Hippopotamus" comes from Greek for "River Horse." The Greeks though them to be a relative of the horse, but recent research shows that their closest living relatives are actually whales.

I'm not terribly surprised that a hippo raised from birth around humans could be reasonably tame. Even though they are known to be very aggressive, they're still very intelligent.

>> ^rougy:
Hippos are pretty quick on their feet.


That they are, although the they aren't exactly distance runners, you'd still need a head-start on them.

>> ^Wikipedia:
Even though they are bulky animals, hippopotamuses can run faster than a human on land. Estimates of their running speed vary from 30 km/h (18 mph) to 40 km/h (25 mph), or even 50 km/h (30 mph). The hippo can maintain these higher speeds for only a few hundred meters.


Other neat facts:

On the National Geographic Channel television program, "Dangerous Encounters with Brady Barr", Dr. Brady Barr measured the bite pressure of an adult female hippo at 1,821 lb (826 kg)

...

Their skin secretes a natural sunscreen substance which is red-colored. The secretion is sometimes referred to as "blood sweat," but is neither blood nor sweat. This secretion is initially colorless and turns red-orange within minutes, eventually becoming brown. Two distinct pigments have been identified in the secretions, one red (hipposudoric acid) and one orange (norhipposudoric acid). The two pigments are highly acidic compounds. Both pigments inhibit the growth of disease-causing bacteria; as well, the light absorption of both pigments peaks in the ultraviolet range, creating a sunscreen effect. All hippos, even those with different diets secrete the pigments, so it does not appear that food is the source of the pigments. Instead, the animals may synthesize the pigments from precursors such as the amino acid tyrosine.


Cool!

I wish these scientists would have the REAL smack-downs ready!

Evolution IS up for debate! If you can bring a single shred of hard evidence that contradicts evolutionary theory, any scientist would LOVE to publish that and become instantly famous. The problem is that all the evidence fits into the theory of evolution!

And I would even agree that there is a place in the classroom to teach the gaps in the theory. Like how life first came together, what made those amino acids first begin to form? There are people working on that issue, but there is no consensus yet. And discussing it may just inspire students to become scientists and look for the answer themselves. Discussing gaps in the fossil record may inspire new paleontologists. There are plenty of things science doesn't have nailed yet, and having a logical discussion of those things could inspire people to figure them out.

But telling kids that "God is the reason" does just the opposite. It stifles curiosity and investigative thinking. It could tip the balance for a child from becoming a scientist to becoming a mindless drone who accepts what they are told. And that's where you can see the real agenda here.

Once again, the liars are taking what they do and assigning it to their opposition. They claim scientists are stifling argument, when that is really what religion does best. And now that their brain-drain is finally being pushed out of the classroom, they are pissed! If people start thinking for themselves, who is going to give 10% of their income to the church? That steady supply of fresh altar boys may dry up! They might have to get real jobs and start actually... working, eww!

There are gradations each respective side of the debate refuse to acknowledge. Vid Chick epitomizes the 'religious people are idiots' side. Persons of such stripe refuse to discuss creationism as religious philosophy, instead recasting the matter as an unyielding test of evidenciary proofs. They probably do this because they feel goaded or vexed by 'certain' Creationists who try to recast religion as science (a fruitless endeavor). Ultimately both sides reject each other's basic premises and treat each other with insults, disrespect, mockery, and boorishness.

For a creationist, the origin of life is a matter of faith. If you are a believer, then it would seem eminantly possible that God would have to be a very intelligent fellow. Such a being would likely use or influence natural laws in ways not currently understood.

Could such a being, if existant, 'create' life? According to evolutionary theory, sure! Scientists in labs today can put primordial soup into electrical currents and plasma to 'create' amino acids. From that perspective, isn't evolutionary theory no more than the most basic, rudimentary, stumbling first step of humanity's attempt to grasp this God guy's far more advanced methodology?

But, there is no scientific evidence for that position because it starts with a faith-based premise that God exists. Accepting such a premise isn't in the cards for people like Vid Chick. It involves apriori thinking of a philosophical nature which goes into areas Vid-Chick would rather not. So it gets ignored in favor of far easier to wrangle strawmen.

Some creationists do the same thing the other way around and refuse to give any scientific evidence the time of day. The problem isn't one sided. Both sides refuse to acknowledge that they are coming from completely different viewpoints, and so both end up looking like intolerant bigots.

Aha! Nice.

In reply to this comment by StukaFox:
So a planetoid strikes a perfect glancing blow on early Earth, which rips the planetoid apart but doesn't blow protoearth into smithereens.

The result of the collision is that Earth receives an addition of iron to its core, which in turn generates a stronger magnetic field, thus keeping the solar wind from stripping off our atmosphere, a la Mars.

The collision also imparts a slight axial wobble to Earth, allowing for an uneven heating and cooling of the planet, generating weather systems in our atmosphere and supplying a near-constant temperature that's perfectly suited for complex amino acids to form chains.

Finally, the remains of the collision hang in our sky, providing us with a fairly workable asteroid shield, tides -- and at the right moment in time, -perfectly- block the sun, allowing a group of astronomers to confirm the predictions of a Swiss patent clerk and thus understand the fundamental nature of the universe.

Your god is an awsome god? My science makes your god look like a toddler.

So a planetoid strikes a perfect glancing blow on early Earth, which rips the planetoid apart but doesn't blow protoearth into smithereens.

The result of the collision is that Earth receives an addition of iron to its core, which in turn generates a stronger magnetic field, thus keeping the solar wind from stripping off our atmosphere, a la Mars.

The collision also imparts a slight axial wobble to Earth, allowing for an uneven heating and cooling of the planet, generating weather systems in our atmosphere and supplying a near-constant temperature that's perfectly suited for complex amino acids to form chains.

Finally, the remains of the collision hang in our sky, providing us with a fairly workable asteroid shield, tides -- and at the right moment in time, -perfectly- block the sun, allowing a group of astronomers to confirm the predictions of a Swiss patent clerk and thus understand the fundamental nature of the universe.

Your god is an awsome god? My science makes your god look like a toddler.

>> ^MINK:
according to the survey, 6/10 people believe the new ideas that everything can be rationally understood.
"evolution is the explanation for our existence"
HOW? explain to me how evolution is the explanation for our existence you pompous twat. I watched loads of your videos and all you can prove is that we evolved. From WHAT motherfucker?


Abiogenesis ?

Are you talking about the formation of amino acids and proteins from inert base gases with an electric catalyst ?

Evolution is the process by which something very very simple, undergoes natural selection, and evolves into something complex. Its been shown in the lab time and time again, without evolution we wouldn't need AIDS medication, nor anti-biotics, as germs wouldn't evolve...but alas, they do.

We've also shown in lab environments that we can create life from non-life materials.

We can also see through Doppler principle and phase shift of the stars, that literally everything in the universe originated in a single point, about 14 billion years ago.

We can also model accurately with the laws of physics, the evolution of the universe, which eventually unfolds basic hydrogen and helium into the more complex, heavier elements. We can also show how solar systems, stars, planets, moons etc. can form.

Its truly amazing what hydrogen can do given 14 billion years.

If you cant wrap your head around it, don't presume its false. I cant wrap my head around non-euclidean geometry, that doesn't mean I'm about to run around claiming that its a load of crap, and the relativists out there are all in it for the grant money.....the scientific method ensures that theories (the highest scientific standing of any hypothesis), are the best model of our understanding of how stuff works.

In science, the word "fact" does not exist. It ranges from guesstimate, to theory, with theory being as close to the laymen understanding of fact as you can get.

Reaching your intellectual limitations and claiming that something beyond your understanding is false, is supremely arrogant.

Evolution is the framework for which the natural selection mechanism allows simple life to become complex and adapt, and it most certainly not a random process. Think of it similar to a binary accumulation search algorithm.

Im thinking of a number between 1 and 100, each guess I will tell you if you are higher or lower. The binary search dictates you guess in the middle each time, it should only take 7 guesses max to reach the number (if its less than 128). This is very similar to evolution via natural selection.

Lets try this gene...is it better or worse than its pre-decessor ?

If better - propogate it, else, kill it. Very very simple.