lucaspa

I have read that they do. It's just that, at those sizes, the waves are so small as to be unnoticeable. For instance, I have read the the wave function of you and I is smaller than the diameter of an atom. Much too small to be noticed or measured.

As Skeptic said, they reconstructed the virus. Also, what the poster is ignoring is that the ERV's are not just between chimps and humans, but there is a nested hierarchy of nested ERV's in all the great apes. We share more with chimps than we do with gorillas. And then we have some unique ones not in any of the other apes. Here's one place where the entire ERV hierarchy is laid out: http://www.christianforums.com/t96639 You also have to remember that the part of the virus integrated not only varies from virus to virus, but from infection to infection in the same virus. So, for all chimps or all humans to have an ERV, it means that they all descended from a common ancestor that had the ERV -- evolution.

Apples and oranges. Or a strawman. In looking at chromosomes, you can determine the similarity of chromosomes by banding patterns. People can identify merged chromosomes, translocations, fusions, truncations, and other changes to a chromosome by looking at the banding patterns. It's all well-documented in the scientific literature dealing with issues other than the chimp-human genome. And that's what we are talking about here: chromosome fusion.

And I submit that this is as inappropriate in a science forum as those promoting science as proving God exists. Science is agnostic. By its legitimate methods, science cannot comment on the issue of God's superintendence over nature. As scientists, we neither affirm nor deny it; we can't comment. (from a quote by Gould). To quote Eugenie Scott, Ph.D., head of the National Center for Science Education: "for a nonreligious professor to interject his own philosophy into the classroom in this manner is as offensive as it would be for a fundamentalist professor to pass off his philosophy as science." Eugenie Scott in the essay Creationism in The Flight from Science and Reason, New York Academy of Sciences, volume 775, 1995, pg 519. That does not follow. Most Christians are not creationists. Some Christians are creationist, just as some scientists are atheist. But being Christian does not mean you are a creationist anymore than being a scientist means you are atheist. I'm afraid it doesn't. Natural selection removes an argument for God as a valid argument: the Argument from Design. Natural selection means that God does not have to directly manufacture each species, but it certainly does not mean that God is not necessary. I'm afraid you misunderstood the science. I'm afraid Carl lied. Most of Christianity reacted the way Carl described. Carl Sagan is an example of someone who mistakenly tried to make his faith into a conclusion of science. Dawkins is another. In that regard, they warp science as badly, or worse, than any creationist. Ah, one of the myths of militant atheism: people only believe because their parents said so! You have a poor opinion of scientists, don't you? You trust them to imagine the "world outside the box" to make their discoveries, but then don't trust them to keep thinking "outside the box" when it comes to deity. At least 40% of scientists are theists by a very conservative definition. Provine tried to rationalize this contrary bit of data to the myth by saying that scientists "checked their brains at the door" when it comes to religion. I submit that militant atheists are the ones that check their brains at the door. Djamarrco's position is exactly that of Charles Darwin in Origin of Species. Darwin had God directly manufacturing life by had species originate by the secondary cause of evolution by natural selection: "There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved." C. Darwin, On the Origin of Species, pg 450. Now, "secondary cause" is a religious concept that has been forgotten by modern day creationists. You apparently were never taught it. Many theists look for "gaps" to insert God into. Djamarrco did so. However, both science and theology has advanced since Darwin's day. There are secondary causes -- chemistry -- to get life from non-life. And theologians realize that god-of-the-gaps theology is non-Christian: "There are profound biblical objections to such a "God-of-the-gaps," as this understanding of God's relation to the universe has come to be called. By "gap" it is meant that no member or members of the universe can be found to account for regularly occurring phenomana in nature. God is inserted in the gaps which could be occupied by members of the universe. This is theologically improper because God, as creator of the universe, is not a member of the universe. God can never properly be used in scientific accounts, which are formulated in terms of the relations between members of the universe, because that would reduce God to the status of a creature. According to a Christian conception of God as creator of a universe that is rational through and through, there are no missing relations between the members of nature. If, in our study of nature, we run into what seems to be an instance of a connection missing between members of nature, the Christian doctrine of creation implies that we should keep looking for one. ...But, according to the doctrine of creation, we are never to postulate God as the *immediate* cause of any *regular* [emphases in original] occurrence in nature. In time, a "God of the gaps" was seen to be bad science as well as bad theology. Science now is programamatically committed to a view of nature in which there are no gaps between members of the universe." Diogenes Allen, Christian Belief in a Postmodern World, pp. 45-46. Four, I don't care that you went from theist to atheist. However, you should care that you did so for invalid reasons. You want to look for the valid reasons for believing deity does not exist. Trying to cite science as a valid reasons means that it is necessary to defend science from that abuse. Science is not a way to convert people to your faith.

1. When I said "see Sayonara" I meant that he gave a good answer to your previous post. 2. Did you stop and notice that the website I gave for the definition of "abstract" was exactly the website you gave? So, yes, "there"! 3. You can't use wikipedia as a source in a serious discussion. It is not referreed and people can put into it whatever they like. There is no way to ensure that what is in Wiki is accurate. That's why I used Merriam-Webster. But in doing so you missed the context of my comments. The thread had already been taken out of science by the poster who said "I believe all animals have souls ..." What you specifically objected to was what you considered denigration of the intelligence of dogs. If that is the case, then you have destroyed the only basis for your claim that dogs dream! Sam, you need to remember what the claims were. It was your claim that dogs dream: "GEEEZE, dogs even have dreams ya know." Now you have just destroyed 1) your own claim and with it 2) a major basis for your claim of canine intelligence! Thank you for backing my position and destroying yours, but in the future you might want to keep track of what you are doing a bit better. So how do you know those are "dreams"? Yes, you "call" it, but this is a science forum. What data do you have to back your opinion? I at least was relating the correlation between REM sleep and dreams in humans --which data you deny! So on one hand you deny the considerable scientific data correlating REM sleep and dreaming but on the other hand you "call it" without any data whatsoever! Science isn't about stating your opinon as "fact", but about reaching logical conclusions from the data and recognizing when the data doesn't allow conclusions. However, that still doesn't get us anywhere nearer answering the question whether dogs are capable of abstract thought. How do any of your stories demonstrate abstract thought in the animals you mention? None of them even particularly represent "play". They could equally well test the reactions of other animals in their environment. The deer are checking whether the cows are dangerous and will chase them. Not abstract, but concrete thought. None of the stories had anything to do with dogs.

See Sayonara. You didn't post a source for your definition but it seems you got it here: wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn. This uses a non-standard definition of "abstract". "1 a: disassociated from any specific instance " Merriam-Webster As I have seen the term used in scientific papers, abstract thought involves the use of symbols and concepts that don't exist in a concrete form or are dissociated from a concrete form. "soul" is an example, which is what we were talking about in the post you quoted me from. "soul" is not any specific instance and is dissociated from anything physical. Coherent and logical thinking can, and often does, involve specific instances. They appear to in that they have REM sleep. However, without the ability to communicate, you don't know whether those dreams involve concrete sense impressions or the more symbolic, abstract dreams that humans have. I have. They are capable of quite impressive problem solving skills. That still doesn't translate to abstract thought. Now octupi, OTOH, do seem capable of the abstract concept "play". But then they have pretty complex brains.

ROFL! The problem with this is that Adam and Eve sinned by eating the fruit. So they were sinning before the fruit had a chance to fuse the chromosomes! However, on a more serious note, natural selection does explain the human tendency to sin. Think about it. Natural selection can only be selfish. So what is sin? Selfishness. Doing what we want instead of what Yahweh wants or what is good for our fellow humans. That's why Adam and Eve disobeyed Yahweh to eat the fruit: supposed benefits to them (selfishness). Humans are sinners as a result of the very process that Yahweh used to create us (assuming you believe in Yahweh). So evolution provides an answer to one of the major puzzles of theology. Ironic, isn't it? Of course, it is ironic that, historically, evolution was regarded in the late 1800s as rescuing Yahweh from Special Creation/ID.

1. Pretty much you are correct in the general drawing of a chromosome. Chromosome #2 for humans doesn't follow this pattern. Here is a good source: http://learning.swc.hccs.edu/members/david.schwartz/humanandapechromosomes "Human chromosome #2 has an inactive centromere exactly where the active chimp centromere is positioned, and at the human centromere, DNA sequencing has shown the order pre-telomere, telomere, telomere, pre-telomere; exactly what would be predicted by a head to head fusion of two chromosomes into one. " 2. This is an ad hoc hypothesis: it's purpose is to keep the main hypothesis -- special and separate manufacture of humans and chimps -- from being falsified by the hypothesis the our 23 pairs comes from fusion of 2 chromosomes in the 24 pairs in chimps. The person is conceding that our 23 comes from fusion of 2 chromosomes, but instead of the fusion resulting during evolution, the ad hoc hypothesis is that it is due to the Fall. IOW, the fusion is conceded, but the cause is different. That's a very difficult ad hoc hypothesis to refute scientifically, because how do you refute "the Fall" by science and what can happen via such a "Fall"? Now, the quote above shows that chromosome #2 has an inactive centromere where the chimp has an active one. You can try to play the "odds" game against the creationist and ask what the odds are that the human genome would correspond so closely to the chimp genome, including the fused chromosome! The creationist is going to reply "similar design", but the reply is: if chimps and humans are so very different and are very different animals (as creationism says), then where is the similarity of design? If there is such a "similarity of design", then chimps and humans aren't that different. IOW, the creationist ad hoc hypothesis puts him/her on the horns of a dilemma. If you want to step away from science and argue on the creationist's turf -- theology -- then there is a more powerful argument. Go to Genesis 3 and read carefully the punishments meted out for Adam and Eve's transgressions. They are very specific and very limited. If the creationist is taking the Bible literally, then to be consistent the creationist can't go beyond the literal Bible. There is no mention of "fused chromosomes" or any other genetic alteration in either Adam or Eve. If we can add this to the Bible, then what is to stop us from adding anything we want. Perhaps we can add that, when Jesus said "Let the little children come unto me" he then went off and molested them! What would stop us if the rules for making things up to add to the Bible are suspended? The creationist has put himself on the horns of a theological dilemma: wanting to asset the absolute authority of scripture, she is actually destroying that authority. Let us know how it turns out. BTW, there are other very solid refutations of the "similarity of design" argument if you are interested.

I'm not quite sure what you are referring to here as "a few wrong predictions". Can you enumerate them? Most of the objections I see is that many of the current theories in physics violate what some people see as "common sense". Too bad for common sense. Right now in physics are 2 major overarching theories: Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. The problem is that they are incommensurate. There is no way, currently, to quantize gravity. At least none that has has gained consensus within the physics community. Gravitons is one proposed theory to do this. In order to be accepted, the theory must have better concordance with the data. You are using Monday morning quarterbacking with heliocentrism. At the time, Copernicus' theory actually predicted the observed position of planets worse than geocentrism. That was why it was not accepted (and what got Galileo in so much trouble). It was emotionally appealing because it gave a huge universe. But emotion is not the correct way to evaluate a theory. So Copernicus' theory was debated and generally rejected until, as you note, Kepler used elliptical orbits and now, for the first time, heliocentrism made better predictions than geocentrism. No, it's not. It's just a very difficult requirement to meet. But it is precisely the requirement that must be met for a theory to be accepted in the scientific community. What we usually see, however, is that the theory makes no predictions. And that is where I, for one, want them to publish. Or at least try to publish. I think people come here because they think they can convince people who are not professional physicists and therefore gain acceptance that they cannot gain in the scientific community. I disagree with the alternative because of the second. If you look at this thread, many of the theories have had holes poked in the theory. The problem is that the person proposing the theory doesn't accept the holes! This makes it much more frustrating and a waste of time than giving good information to people who actually ask for it and appreciate it. If you are serious about proposing a new theory, then one requirement of your personality is that you be willing to accept criticism and modify your theory accordingly. I, unfortunately, see very little ability of the proposers to learn from the process. If they were willing to learn, I for one would enjoy the process in the hope that, one day, we really would get a valid new theory. THAT would be very exciting.

An assumption of science is that the universe is unified. QM did not "abandon" theories. Instead, there was no way to reconcile QM and Relativity because gravity was not quantized. So we had 2 separate theories that explained different parts of the universe very well. Both corresponded to the data in that area of the universe EXTREMELY well. Remember, theories are driven and controlled by data, not the other way around. Since then, many people have tried to find a theory of quantum gravity or a way to get around the quantization or indeterminism of QM. Both are approaches to getting a theory that would unify Relativity and QM. So far, no one has been successful. There are several choices: 1. It is possible that the basic assumption of science -- that the universe is unified -- is wrong. 2. No one has found the correct unified theory and we should keep looking. Yes. In submitting to PNAS, you also can use sponsors. The role of the sponsor is to review and critique the manuscript and make sure it is ready for publication. The sponsor does not have to initially agree with your views, only agree that the paper is scientifically sound and be willing to send it in. So, if you send it to a sponsor, you will get an initial review. The sponsor may decide that the paper is deficient, in which case he will tell you that. 1. Complete citation, please? 2. I don't see that the sequence above fits the equation B1-(A2B1) It only looks like the part in the parentheses fits that equation! Otherwise, the numbers at the front of the sequence (1/3, 2/5, etc) are completely arbibrary. 3. And by "fit the sequence", what exactly are you referring to? The width of the rings? The spacing between them? What about the rings around other comets? Do they fit this sequence? If only the rings around Haley-Bop fit the sequence, then you have coincidence, not a principle. You lost me at that leap of logic. Go back and take it step by step. The "cause" is the same one you used for the sequence above: it fit the data! Pot, meet kettle. Uh, no, it can't. You said "The sequence for particle structure is also a fractions of the remainder sequence, but the opening fractional sequence is 1, 1/2 1/3, 1/4 etc" The sequence above uses 1/3, 2/5, 4/9, etc. So how does your theory get that fraction of the remainder sequence from your fraction of the remainder sequence? There are posts by "elas" and posts by "merlin wood". Those posts talk about what appears to be 2 different theories. Are you saying that "elas" and "merlin wood" are the same person talking about the same theory?

By noting that the required intelligence requires a large and complex brain in order to contemplate abstract thought. Dogs don't have the required brain. Which means 2 things: 1. You don't know dogs have souls, because the only reason we think humans have souls is because humans can discuss the subject with other humans. As you stated "I believe that all animals have souls." That's fine. You have stated a belief. But you can't go from that belief to taking it as a factual premise without the data. And, as you admit, you can't get the data! 2. My point wasn't only about "verbalizing thought", but having the ability to form abstract thoughts to begin with. Rhe only reason we even consider that babies have souls is because, as adults, we have the ability to formulate and communicate (verbalize) abstract thought. Dogs don't have that ability as adults. Therefore you have no means of determining whether dogs have souls.

Yes, they do. Because issues on the philosophy of science show up on other forums. For instance, in the Medicine forum now was a thread on Occam's Razor. That's philosophy of science -- theory evaluation. That's because the argument was in the next paragraph! You might try reading the entire post and argument next time before you reply.

No impact on the fact that ERV's falsify creationism and strongly support evolution. The main argument about ERVs was NOT that they were "random", but rather, if they were random or not, then there should be no pattern of relatedness to them. Think about this. If the insertion is not random but targets specific areas of the DNA, then every species with those areas should have the ERV. The problem is that this isn't what we see. Gorillas have some ERVs in common with us and chimps, from when the common ancestor was targeted. BUT, they don't have others even when the DNA area is the same. Yet your hypothesis says that they should, because the virus should put the ERV in every species where there is that sequence. Now, if the insertion is random and species are not related thru common ancestry, then there also should be no pattern of relatedness.

Elas: I have spotted an elementary flaw in your analysis. You are misrepresenting Einstein. "The problem with Einstein's formula is that it gives the energy in the direction of movement (the energy on the compressed lead radial). If the speed is zero then E = m regardless of volume! " E=mc^2 does not give "energy in the direction of movement". It gives the relation of energy to mass. The formula is essentiall E=km where k = a constant. It turns out that the constant is c^2 (remember, the speed of light in a vacuum is constant in Relativity). Thus, the formula works if the particle is at rest. You start with a premise that is a mistaken notion of what the E = mc^2 equation is. Therefore, with a wrong premise, all your logic from that point is also going to be wrong. This is probably one reason that you can't get your paper published. BTW, there seems to be 2 "new theories" here, with 2 different web pages. I have confused the two upon occasion.

How do you know classical terms require a sponsor? Have you tried? If so, can we see the e-mail telling you that you must have a sponsor? You are still not looking at this the same way I am. You are looking for a sponsor to give validity to your paper. I'm having you look for a sponsor to get qualified review of your paper. There is no guarantee that anyone you approach is going to agree to sponsor your paper. The point is to get feedback as to why they won't sponsor your paper. IOW, a critique by a physicist. You can then either decide that your ideas are totally wrong or modify the paper to address the criticisms. Please walk us thru how the CLF model gave you the equation B1-(A2*B1) and also how CLF gave you the constant such that "a constant is used to reduce the scale to that of the wavelength (diameter) table so that the observations can be matched to the wavelength table without further adjustment. (The observations will only match in one position)." Without the constant it appears that the scale is way above that of the wavelength.

Cool! I never found that link. As you said, it would not be difficult to find an "endorser" and send the paper to him/her. If the endorser refuses to endorse the paper, at least the endorser would give reasons -- acting like a peer-reviewer. And thus Merlin Wood would get peer-review critique of the work.

Merlin wood/elas: From your webpage http://foranewageofreason.blogspirit.com/ "Then given our hypothesis we could reason that if this spherical vortex was reflected as a causation off at least one additional dimension of space, it would be universalised so as to pervade all 3D space as spherical causal vortices. Since the energy density of the cosmos would reduce as it expands this would explain how the energy of radiation decreases as its wave length increases. " There are equations describing the relationship of the energy of electromagnetic radiation as a function of wavelength. They are: lambda x nu = c Or, wavelength x frequency = c. The there is: E = h x nu. or Energy = Planck's constant x frequency. nu = c/lamba. So, the relationship of Energy to wavelength is E = h x c/lambda. What you need to do is start from the hypothetical "spherical vortex" and show how to derive that equation. You state that you can do so. So do it!. That is just one example out of dozens, but it gives you a place to start. BTW, notice that the equation E = h x c/lambda has nothing to do with the expansion of space. At any given instant (when space is not expanding since expansion involves time), the relationship of energy to wavelength holds. So your "cause" should also reduce to the equation above when delta t = 0 (where change in time = 0 and therefore there is no expansion of space occuring).

Martin, simply go to the webpages I posted. On the page on submission requirements, it says simply that you have to be registered to submit. It then goes on to lay out the format the submission must be in. No mention of a sponsor. Go to the registration page and all it says you need to register is a name and e-mail address! I can't find mention of a "sponsor" anywhere. If you can, please let me know. That's right. Open but not selective. It puts the paper out there where people can make critical comments on it. Which is the whole point for elas/ merlin wood (either I'm getting the 2 of them confused or they are the same person with 2 different names). Get some competent critical review from physicists. But this critical review is being avoided. Instead, I get criticism of my critical review, which is then taken by elas/merlin wood that the paper is valid. The point is NOT to argue the theory/paper with those of us on sciencforums.net but to argue the paper to professional physicists. Those are the people that must be convinced, but those are the very people that are being avoided.

Yes, they do. Look up "cladistics" and you will find that it is always described in terms of mathematics. The summary is a translation of the math to English, but you must describe the cladistics mathematically. Read some original papers. Theories are not "grown-up" or expanded or more certain hypotheses. Basically, hypothesis and theory are interchangeable terms. Both are statements about the physical universe. Generally, hypotheses are more specific statements while theories are more general statements. So, since you think there are other predictions to make, then make them. The attractions of a force are described mathematically. Let's face it, gravity is a force of attraction and the equations describing it are well known! The problem with your paper is not that it contains equations and no text, but that it contains text and no equations! Your hypothesis should lead to equations that describe the physical universe. As it is, what you claim is that your hypothesis just leads to Bohmian equations, but you don't demonstrate that, you simply assert it. Translate your hypothesis to mathematics and then walk people thru the mathematical steps that end with the Bohmian equations. Of course, getting the Bohmian equations doesn't really help you. A real problem with them is they have particles following a wave path. But to do that the wave has to move thru a medium, but there is no medium. Then where are those mathematical formulae? I disagree. The hypothesis is very vague and the diagrams are useless. If you think they are "essential" to the argument, then the argument is worthless. Diagrams should be illustrations of equations. You have no underlying equations to give you the diagrams. They are merely attempted visual representations of unfounded assertions. Then you are still wrong. ST does indeed make testable predictions. The reason ST is in trouble is that it is failing those tests. Read the article I cited. Those "rolled-up" dimensions are supposed to have consequences that can be measured. Physics has gotten to the measurement scales and not found the consequences. So far, ST has been avoiding falsification by modifying the theory to make the consequences once again below detection level. But detection is getting better and better and the consequences are not there.

1. QM "owes its origin" to the observation that many phenomena happened in discreet bundles (quanta) and were not continuous! 2. Later data showed that pure determinism did not operate at the quantum level. 3. Classical physics is still very much present in Relativity. Therefore: is wrong. What they are convinced of, by the data, is that strict determinism does not work. It is up to you to convince them. After all, at one time all physicists were strict determinists. They were able to be convinced that they were wrong. Most importantly, what you are confusing is whether your paper gets published and whether it gets critiqued properly. I'm going for the second. You are providing excuses to avoid that. Not good. You are so convinced that your paper is correct that you won't submit it to find out where you might be wrong. That is not being a good scientist. arXiv.org has a section on classical physics: http://www.arxiv.org/list/physics.class-ph/recent And, no, you do not need to have a sponsor. All you need to do is register. Registration is here: http://arxiv.org/help/registerhelp and all you need is a name and e-mail address! Submission is here: http://arxiv.org/help/submit Nothing about a sponsor, but only the form your paper has to take. Elas, you are trying to feed us BS excuses why you don't submit. But we can check whether you are telling us the truth. If your paper has similar quality, no wonder you don't want to submit. It wasn't "existing" when I started 15 years ago. I remember presenting data at one meeting and having a prominent scientist come up afterward and announce dogmatically "the only stem cell in adults is the hematopoietic stem cell!" The language of physics IS mathematics and so mathematicians have always dominated physics. Newton was a mathematician, remember. Inventor of calculus. The English in the text of papers is just translations of the math. And those translations cause some trouble. What is clear in the math is not always easily said in English. That you are avoiding the math simply means that you aren't doing physics. As you said, you might be doing philosophy. But here the philosophy is not going to work unless you have the physics to back it. So, submit to arXiv.org (since your excuses for not doing so are not valid), and look at the criticisms you get. If you can answer the criticisms, then do so. If you cannot answer the criticisms reasonably, then be a mensch and admit your theory is wrong.

Send it to a physics journal. At least send it to http://www.arXiv.org. I'm a biologist, not a physicist. Therefore I can offer a criticism of only the most glaring of errors. If you really think this is a valid scientific hypothesis, then put it up for criticism of professional physicists, don't peddle it on various internet boards of amateurs. You notice I don't put my theories on adult stem cells on this board. I send them to professional journals to be reviewed by my peers who are experts in the fields of stem cells and tissue engineering! You need to do the same.

Merlin, "prediction" in science does NOT mean "predict the future". It means "predict knowledge/observations that should be there if the theory is true." That is, observations that have not yet been made. An example of this in evolution is the following: "For example, scorpionflies (Mecoptera) and true flies (Diptera) have enough similarities that entomologists consider them to be closely related. Scorpionflies have four wings of about the same size, and true flies have a large front pair of wings but the back pair is replaced by small club-shaped structures. If Diptera evolved from Mecoptera, as comparative anatomy suggests, scientists predicted that a fossil fly with four wings might be found—and in 1976 this is exactly what was discovered." Teaching about Evolution and Science, National Academy of Science Chapter 5 Frequently Asked Questions About Evolution and the Nature of Science http://books.nap.edu/catalog/5787.html You will find that paleontological papers and papers on population genetics are very mathematical. As far as I can see, your "theory" doesn't make any predictions. But physics is about describing the natural world by mathematical equations. If your "theory" can't do that, then no one is going to consider it valid. It's fine to have an English description of the math, but you MUST have the equations. 1. String Theory does make predictions in the scientific sense. In fact, it is the failure to turn up the evidence that ST predicts that has ST in trouble: Kaku M, Testing string theory. Discover August 2005 http://www.discover.com/issues/aug-05/cover/ 2. ST's equations had to describe the physical universe we see. If you look at the history of ST you will find that early versions of ST were falsified because the equations did NOT give the physical universe we already observe. That's why we need to see equations in your "theory". So far your "theory" is so vague that we can't tell whether it matches up, in detail, with the universe and observations that have already been made.

Somewhat. However, whenever areas of science that are in conflict with creationism are discussed, I submit the forum needs to allow space to discuss the interaction of science and religion. You have tried to shove these discussions off to other boards or close them entirely (I see you closed the Philosophy of Science section). Sayonara, you can't treat or limit science to simply a collection of facts. Collecting facts are the most boring and trivial part of science. What is really important in science is formulating and evaluating hypotheses/theories. This is the exciting part of science. And whenever this is done, some theories are going to be extrapolated beyond science to other areas of our lives. You can't stop it; people from PZ Meyer and Daniel Dennett to the lay interested person on this board is going to do that. Thus, if you are going to have a 'science forum', then that aspect of the scientific discussion is going to come up. You are going to have Socrates say that science and theism are in conflict. Part of science is evaluating whether that is true. You might argue that this is not part of any particular scientific theory, but it is part of how people view and use science. And it is of great importance to everyone interested in science and who might want to become a scientist. How is the public perception of science going to impact government funding of science in the next 50 years? Will it go so far as to have outside oversight as to what scientists can study? Will it even influence the conclusions scientists can reach? And I mean that on both extremes of the religion - atheism continuum. After all, there are some studies vocal atheists don't think should be done, too, and some conclusions that are not acceptable to them. So, I think you are either going to have to find a place for these discussions of science and the wider society or they are going to keep cropping up piecemeal as posters make comments about science.

How do you or djmacarro know dogs have souls to begin with? How do we objectively and intersubjectively identify a soul? Part of our discussion of soul is based upon the ability to conceive and verbalize abstract thoughts. Dogs certainly don't have the ability to verbalize. If the ability to have abstract thoughts is dependent on brain size (and much evidence suggests it is), then dogs don't have large enough brains.

I know it "seems" that way to you, but you are still mistaken. Remember, in the original post, those 2 statements are not together. They are separated by several paragraphs. Go back and look. There is no "because" or "ergo" linking them. It is a fallacy to insert the "because" or "ergo". As I stated, the conclusion that Fundamentalism is not Christianity is independent of the stance on evolution. So, I have two separate claims: 1. Christians accepted evolution. 2. Fundamentalism is not Christianity. I did explain how Fundamentalism contradicts the Nicene and Apostle's Creeds. Look at my replies to Sisyphus. Basically, the Nicean and Apostle's Creeds are about God and Jesus. Fundamentalism is about a collection of books. Also, I never said the Nicean or Apostle's Creeds implied acceptance of evolution. I merely said that they state "God created" without specifying how God created. Fundamentalism specifies a literal and inerrant Bible. The reason it came up in a discussion about evolution is because Socrates claimed that we were witnessing a conflict of science vs theology. In Socrates' view, Fundamentalism was standing for all of theology or all of theism. In order to state the correct conflict, it was necessary to point out that the opposition to evolution is coming from a particular religion -- Fundamentalism -- and not all of theism. And yes, for reasons I have gone into, Fundamentalism is not Christianity. It is a new, separate religion that calls itself Christianity but isn't. Now, the wolf in sheep's clothing that is Fundamentalism is a problem Christianity has to deal with. It's not science. However, the reality is important to science in terms of politics and sociology. If science continues to misidentify Fundamentalism as Christianity, then science risks alienating its most valuable allies in keeping evolution taught in public schools and excluding creationism as being misrepresented as a valid scientific theory. In all the court cases against creationism (and in favor of evolution) in the United States, the plaintiffs have always been Christians. Not just theists, but Christians. The plaintiffs were not atheists and not scientists. Scientists only come in to give expert testimony, not to initiate the lawsuits to begin with. In the famous 1982 case of MacLean vs Arkansas that prohibited the teaching of young earth creationism, there were 26 plaintiffs. 23 were ministers or rabbis; the other 3 were educators and Christians. In the recent Dover case that prohibited teaching intelligent design creationism, there were 8 plaintiffs. Again, all were Christians. If the Christian community is alienated by saying science is in conflict with theism and forcing that community to choose either atheism or rejecting science, then science loses the social and political battle. Worse, putting science in conflict with theism misrepresents science! It warps and distorts what science is, what it can and cannot tell us, and how science works. Creationism attacks individual theories. Saying that science refutes theism attacks the very foundations of science. Don't be silly. You are not applying the reasoning I used. The First Commandment is foundational for Judeo-Christianity. It says there is only one god and that believers can only worship that god. It clearly states that turning anything else into a god is against the religion. OTOH, the Deut 21:18-21 is a minor rule. It is not in any sense foundational for two reasons: 1. Stoning recalcitrant children is not in the creeds. Believing in Yahweh is. 2. Paul states that the Laws no longer apply, but the Commandments do. Therefore this Law is not a necessary part of Christianity. As I told Sisyphus, accepting evolution is logical conclusion from the foundational beliefs/statements of Christianity. Fundamentalism has different foundational beliefs/statements. From those foundational beliefs -- belief in a literal and inerrant Bible -- it is "logical" to reject evolution/geology/physics/cosmology because they contradict much of a literal Genesis 1-8. I put "logical" in quotes as applied to Fundamentalism because Fundamentalism has many internal logical contradictions and the Fundamentalist has to arbitrarily pick and choose among the inconsistencies to get the particular "logic" involved in rejecting scientific theories.