SlavicWolf

There are basically two groups of creationists: The first group are simply liars. They now very well that their claims are BS and lie deliberately, for financial or political gains. This group includes (probably) all creationist gurus - do you think all these creationist "scientists" with MSc's or PhD's REALLY don't know that e.g. atoms don't bond by random chance? Their claims would be akin to seeing a physicist claiming that when you drop a ball, the chances that it will start falling downwards (and not upwards or to the left) are so small that it requires an "intelligent pusher" to explain this. The second group are ordinary people. They either don't have enough brains or are in such a deep state of denial that no evidence can convince them. In my whole (albeit short) life I've seen just one case of creationist becoming an evolutionist - and that was the case of an Iranian apostate from Islam, Ali Sina.

I've begun having doubts as whether debating creationists makes any sense at all. Most creationists have no intention to learn anything at all and two people have already told me that when creationist begin to lose the debate, they simply delete the posts. Live debates seem to be no better, the most common creationist strategy is not to actually debate but to flood the opponent with such an overwhelming barrage of pseudoscience and logical fallacies that the opponent is unable to refute them all on time and this, combined with the use of scientifically sounding language and pompous style of presenting oneself, gives an impression of winning. The most important weak spot of creationists is that they all seem to rely on a preprepared set of arguments and are incapable of discussing anything else. So any attempt to discuss evolution outside of that set automatically causes them to panic and flee in disorder...

I got banned on that board for insulting their deity, so the discussion takes place without me. This thread has no purpose now. You may delete it, close it or leave it open as you wish.

Thread to delete.

Shouldn't psychology be treated in the same manner as pseudosciences? As it is fundamentally non scientific.

I agree that IQ tests aren't an ideal way to measure intelligence but it's the only one we have. If we reject them, we won't be able to tell absolutely anything about one's intelligence.

If someone directed me to them, it would be a nice boost. Thanks for responce btw.

Not responding at all is the worst thing once you have engaged in a discussion. As I mentioned,, one of the discutants supposedly has a degree in genetics/molecular biology (or they copy arguments of a one), so debating them is tough if one of your opponents wants you to describe the process of speciation down to molecular level and is easily capable of distinguishing copied arguments from original ones. They say that chromosomal fusion causes nothing but cancer and want me to describe the evolution beggining with abiogenesis and ending on complex organisms, all using scientific data. As I am not good enough, I (and other proponents of evolution) are unable to do this.

Ok, thanks for your answer. The problem we have on that board is that declared evolutionists seem to be not qualified enough to discuss the theory (I speak for myself as well). It is only now that I realized that defending evolution requires extensive knowledge of not only the evolutionary theory itself but also of genetics, history of life on earth, even geology and chemistry which at the first glance may seem to be completely unrelated to it. As the creationists post some scientifically sounding arguments (one of them or a guy whom they quote claims he has a Ph.D in genetics) and then beat their chests claiming that they have all the evidence to refute "pseudo-science". So a help of a knowledgeable person would be more than appreciated - creationists often panic badly when such a person shows up.

I remember rreading that in Stockholm alone there are around 2000 professional fortune tellers. And they are doing fine. This is regress, not even to polytheism but to shamanism - something even more primitive.

Of course that doesn't PROVE god. It proves that most people aren't capable of being rational and when they reject one BS, they automatically pick up another. There are thousands of "rational atheists" who believe in ghosts, homeopathy or aliens, others treat Che Guevara almost like a god... That's my point.

I think we have an inborn need of spirituality, of having a higher being to believe in. If you examine cultures that rejected god, you'll find that they don't become more progressive by doing this. Take North Korea for example - even though they openly reject all religious as lies, their own ideology does not differ much from other religions - the leaders of the country are portrayed as absolutely perfect human beings and worshiped like gods. There are even miracles and other supernatural abilities attributed to them, and various personal items that previously belonged to them are treated like relics. So I may say that the country indeed has a personal god - they simply replaced a transcendental god with a secular one.

One question: One user has remarket that we share 50 percent of our genes with bananas and 97-8 percent with fruit fflies (Drosophila) and that it does not denote common descent. I find both statements, especially the latter, suspicious. Can a knowledgeable persone explain this?

It seems that I failed to find anyone. Nobody interested in furthering the cause of science?

1. While many arctic annd temperate species will die out (we have zoos and botanical gardens so they won't die out completely), their niche will be filled by tropical plants and animals, moving northwards/southwards. So the total amount of biomass produced will actually increase. 2. Regarding rainfall patterns - they depend mostly on the differences in temperature between lower and higher layers of atmosphere, not between latitudes. So tropical areas on average have more rainfall than temperate latitudes.

1. Who the f... invented the idea that global warming reduces biodiversity? The most biologically diverse land ecosystems (for water ecosystems the opposite is true) are all located in tropical climates. 2. How did they reach the conclusion that global warming will increase hunger? First - roughly 90% of warming takes places in high latitudes while tropical areas are mostly unaffected, second - warmer water temperature = more evaporation = more rainfall = less deserts = more productive agriculture. Deserts reached their peak during the last glacial maximum. Many areas of Africa that are now covered by forests were just savanna due to lack of water. Same is true for South US. 3. Far more people freeze to death than die because of thirst. Deaths among elderly also tend to peak in winter months, not during summer. Also - where do all people build their lavish residences when they have money? In Alaska? Hardly.

Welcome. Are you guys sure that the effects of global warming will be catastrophic and not beneficial? Remember that during the last interglacial 125,000 years ago we had lush forests growing in North Cape and oaks growing in Finland as far north as 65th degree north... 50 mln years ago during the thermal maximum tropical forests were even on Siberia and Greenland and temperature differences between the equator and the poles were far smaller than they are now. Wouldn't you like to have palm trees and bananas growing in Yukon?

If this is a wrong subforum - move my thread. I need a person (people) who is well versed in genetics and theory of evolution to help in a debate against creationists - it looks like I have implicated myself in a discussion without enough knowledge so it would be weird if it turns out that TOE losses to creationists. If you are interested - PM me.

No.

Maybe. I'm not entirely convinced though (besides intelligence things such as hard work are genetic to some degree too). Also, if people choose their mates based on intelligence, it would be possible to significantly increase the average IQ of the population in just a few generations. If I'm not mistaken, that's how Ashkenazi Jewish intelligence developed.

You missed my point. Everybody can learn piano or e.g. math? Right, that's true. But if we take a person with no talent and an exceptionally gifted person and train them for e.g. 4 hours every day for 5 years, they'll achieve different results. The first person probably will learn high school level math decently (provided he/she isn't mentally retarded) but they won't know it as well as gifted high school or college students.. The second person will become a master. In IQ research there's some research dealing with Asian culture and so called "tiger moms". The research has shown that such upbringing doesn't actually make people smarter. All it does is creating more or less average people with a lot of knowledge and a free baggage of (completely unnecessary) psychological problems. Less intelligent people are well... less ntelligent. They don't solve problems as well as the smart ones, they don't recognize patterns as well and they learn more slowly... And if they understand a given topic, their understanding is often superficial.

I didn't want to discuss race and intelligence. My topic was about something entirely different and I mentioned Blacks just to give an example. Let's sum it all up: 1. People differ in their abilities. Not everyone can learn physics as well as physics Noble Prize winners, not everyone can play piano as well as the greatest pianists and not everyone can run as fast as Olympic runners. Does anyone have any doubts about it? 2. These differences are caused by differences between people's bodies (brains). Any doubts...? 3. These differences are caused mostly by genetics. Any doubts...? 4. As their cause is genetic, they can be inherited. For example, I love music and I have a musical talent, with a great sense of rhythm and tone My mother, father and sister also have these traits. My mother, on the other hand, is hard working and reliable, while I'm lazy like my father. Galton, Terman etc. have long since discovered that intelligence (and dullness) tends to run in families. 5. As they are inherited, the mechanisms by which the inheritance works is the same as for any other polygenic trait. Selection of such traits is a basis of evolutionary change. Once again - any doubts? Regarding IQ - any papers confirming what iNow said? I've read that though upbringing indeed plays a role, it's role is not that big - you can screw up a gifted person but you can't make a gifted person out of an average one, that would require a major overhaul of brain structure and chemistry. Some people just CAN"T learn college math no matter how hard they try to. Others grasp it without any problems. A hypothetical situation - let's say we have two physics students. One is merely average student (IQ let's say, 110), the second one is a whiz (IQ = 140). They may achieve the same results but only under very specific conditions - if the average student studied for months, several hours every day and the gifted one just breezed through without caring about learning, then their results may be similar. Maybe the weaker student will even win. But what if the gifted student also studied for hours every day? Then the weaker one would have no chances of even catching up with him. It would be like a tortoise trying to outrun a cheetah - hard work is good. But hard work and giftedness is the best combination.

Biological fitness is measured for a genotype, not for a particular, individual phenotype. If what you are saying is true, then you still can't make a smart person out of an average on or a dumb one - if you take 100 ghetto black children and teach them e.g. physics, maybe 10 will learn HS stuff passably. But even they won't become PHDs or professors. At best you'll have 10 people who memorized physics textbooks but have no clue about the science itself.

Are you sure about that? If other polygenic traits such as skin color, stature etc. are heritable, why isn't intelligence heritable in the same way? For example, if you look at biographies of scientists, you'll learn that a great portion, if not the majority of them came from families with a strong academic tradition. In other words - they had gifted parents. This is heritability of IQ estimated by one study: Same person (tested twice) .95 Identical twins—Reared together .86 Identical twins—Reared apart .76 Fraternal twins—Reared together .55 Fraternal twins—Reared apart .35 Biological siblings—Reared together .47 Biological siblings—Reared apart .24 Unrelated children—Reared together—Childrens .28 Unrelated children—Reared together—Adults .04 Cousins .15 Parent-child—Living together .42 Parent-child—Living apart .22 Adoptive parent–child—Living together .19 After realizing my limitations and learning a bit about how evolution works I no longer believe in a traditional vision of love and marriage. Now I treat my future marriage as a business contract, a long term investment. When you own a business and want to have the largest profits possible, you don't choose random people for partnership. You choose the best partners possible. In business the game is about gaining money, in reproduction you gain the fitness of your offspring.

Hello. I am a 19 yr male university student, coming from Central/Eastern Europe. I am not a stupid person, my intelligence is above average (I'd estimate it at about 105-110), my parents are both high school graduates (high school in Central Europe is tougher than in US/UK) , my mother has a master's degree (few people in communist Poland pursued higher education), my sister has a M.A in law and works in law enforcement.However I'm not an extremely smart person either. Since 7th grade (the subjects of physics and chemistry are introduced in 7th grade here) my strongest area of science was chemistry and I also liked it the most, then math, then physics. However, I have some terrible traits - I have a harsh, unpleasant personality inherited from my paternal grandfather and I'm prone to anxiety and hypochondria, inherited from my paternal grandmother. I'm also extremely lazy and envious of others, especially people who are smarter and more hard-working than me. So recently I began thinking that if I'll have kids in the future, then I'll do everything so that they are smarter than me and don't have my bad traits. And there is my question - if I choose a mate who is smarter than me, with an IQ of e.g 135-140 (a science whiz), how will my changes of having gifted children increase? If I choose someone coming from a family with a prior history of academic excellence, will they be increased more than as if I choose a gifted person who doesn't have gifted parents? What about inheriting psychological traits?