H W Copeland

This is nothing new. I recall watching a nature show about 10 years ago and being surprised to see monkeys of some kind, breaking nuts by laying them on a rock and hitting them with another rock.

Also, during another show, I saw monkeys, (again of some kind) who would scoop up rice mixed with sand and then put it into the water to sort the sand from the rice--Hell, I know people who aren't that smart.

Sea birds regularly pick up clams and such, fly high into the sky and drop them onto rocks to break them open.

Using things that easily come to hand (or paw or talon) is one thing, Making tools to do a particular job is quite another.

Wake me up when someone finds an ape knapping flint.....

And I get sick and tired of apparently educated people on a science forum displaying illogic' date=' bias and using snide debating tricks to 'win' arguments.

I believe you know perfectly well that a large body of Christians hold the view that the story of creation in Genesis is a metaphor for what occured. That is the point that was being made, as I perceive it, by lucaspa.

So you have a scientific atheist's viewpoint that says the Universe appeared, unaccountably, out of nothing; or, the mainstream scientific Christian's viewpoint that says the Universe appeared through an unaccountable act by an entity, which act is poetically described with the words "Let there be light."

To a card carrying agnostic there ain't a whole lot of difference twixt those two positions.

And if you do mean no disrespect perhaps phrases such as "spare me your bullshit", "I had enough of patronising.....", and "I don't care what you think" could be toned down.[/quote']

 

Well put old man, very well put indeed.

How would the scientific community define life? Would they define it as an encyclopedia defines it? You know, it must be responsive, have some sort of metabolism, grow, reproduce, etc.