Heart-ache: Palin wants creationism taught in public schools? Update: Oh noes, Pat Buchanan!
posted at 8:46 pm on August 29, 2008 by Allahpundit
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If you read Wired? Yes. If you read LGF and get the full context of what she said? No. That makes twice already today that quotes of hers were bowdlerized to make them more nutroots-friendly.
Lot o’ debunking to do before November 4.
In an interview Thursday, Palin said she meant only to say that discussion of alternative views should be allowed to arise in Alaska classrooms:
“I don’t think there should be a prohibition against debate if it comes up in class. It doesn’t have to be part of the curriculum.”
She added that, if elected, she would not push the state Board of Education to add such creation-based alternatives to the state’s required curriculum.
Members of the state school board, which sets minimum requirements, are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Legislature.
“I won’t have religion as a litmus test, or anybody’s personal opinion on evolution or creationism,” Palin said.
That puts her to Jindal’s left, actually. Here’s a bit more, unquoted by LGF, from the Anchorage Daily News article Charles links to:
Palin said she thought there was value in discussing alternatives.
“It’s OK to let kids know that there are theories out there,” she said in the interview. “They gain information just by being in a discussion.”
That was how she was brought up, she said. Her father was a public school science teacher.
“My dad did talk a lot about his theories of evolution,” she said. “He would show us fossils and say, ‘How old do you think these are?’”
I don’t know how to parse all that — she’s happy to let it come up in classroom discussion so long as it’s introduced by kids’ questions and not the teacher himself, I guess — but as long as she doesn’t want to add it to the curriculum I can’t believe she’ll have any problem with independents. In any case, creationism’s not what this election’s about. What this election’s about is whether Palin supported a guy nine years ago who’s still — tragically — so mainstream that you can’t turn on MSNBC or Fox News without stumbling across him. Ben Smith cites old press reports indicating that Palin backed Steve Forbes in 1999, but Buchanan, ever eager to slay the neocon dragon even if it means blaming Churchill for World War II, evidently claimed on Hardball tonight that she was one of his. I can’t wait for the “Countdown” segment explaining why anyone who would associate with Pat Buchanan is unfit for office, followed immediately by yet another 20-minute pundit roundtable featuring Pat Buchanan.
Update: A crucial news bulletin: Palin never actually donated to Buchanan but may have been at a fundraiser for him 12 years ago. Ergo, she hates Jews. I literally laughed aloud at the thought of Chris Matthews trying to paint her as a hatemonger with the hatemonger-in-chief sitting right across from him on his own show.
Blowback
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It is curious that Charles Darwin, perhaps medicine’s most famous dropout, provided the impetus for a subject that figures so rarely in medical education. Indeed, even the iconic textbook example of evolution-antibiotic resistance-is rarely described as “evolution” in relevant papers published in medical journals [1].
link
you keep shooting blanks jimmy, perhaps you should try some ED drugs…
right4life on August 30, 2008 at 12:31 PM
its pretty obvious jimmy is just another atheist who thinks they’re SOOOOOO clever….soon he’ll bring up the dread FSM, and of course win the argument by the very mention of it!!!
they’re such legends in their own minds…
right4life on August 30, 2008 at 12:33 PM
Wow, you guys sure do get worked up in a hurry. Well, I want you to know I don’t take it personally. No harm done.
Jim Treacher on August 30, 2008 at 12:34 PM
thanks for the laughs….
right4life on August 30, 2008 at 12:35 PM
I’m not sure what an FSM is, but thank you for formulating my evil plan for me. ;)
Jim Treacher on August 30, 2008 at 12:36 PM
No problem at all. Much though I enjoy these debates I’d like to think we all have other (and better) things to do.
I find there to be a very simple problem with your argument: It presumes that the starlight we see did in fact originate with the stars rather than having been created in-situ, so to speak. However if the universe was in fact created then there is no logical reason why that presumption should be true.
If the universe was created then certain things must have come into existence with the appearance (to somebody who arrived after the creative act) of having a connection to something else that never actually existed. Take the classic chicken and egg … if a chicken was created then anybody who met the chicken might think that it had originated from an egg, but no such egg would ever have existed. Similarly if a tree were created, it would appear to be essentially the same as trees that had grown from seeds, but the created tree would have no relationship to any prior seed. Soil on the ground would in every way resemble decomposed plant matter, but there would have been no prior plants to have decomposed. Clouds created in the sky would appear essentially identical to clouds that would later form from the evaporation of water from the land, but no such evaporation would have yet occurred. This apparent connection to things that never existed is an inherent quality of an ex nihilo creation paradigm: it applies to absolutely everything that is alleged to have been created ex nihilo, including light that appears to be from stars.
The ‘problem’ that you are alluding to is a problem only because you are attempting to assess a creation paradigm using the ‘rules’ (I use the term loosely) of some other paradigm, but that is a logically invalid method of assessment. The ‘rules’ of one paradigm, by definition, cannot be presumed to apply to another competing paradigm because the rules are themselves part of the paradigm. If (all) the rules did automatically apply then there would only be one paradigm.
I find that this type of error of logic occurs frequently on both sides of the debate. An equivalent error from, for example, Christians is that when they are challenged about something they will respond with an appeal to the will of God as revealed by scripture. However, such an appeal is only meaningful within a paradigm that has already accepted that such a deity exists and that the text is a valid representation of the deity’s opinions. I think most non-Christian people easily this error when Christians make it, but I find that the opponents of the Christians make the same type of error just as frequently and both sides are generally oblivious to their own error.
YiZhangZhe on August 30, 2008 at 12:46 PM
you’re welcome, you need all the help you can get
right4life on August 30, 2008 at 12:48 PM
Levitiucs deals with the ‘law’ that the Israelites were supposed to follow as part of their relationship with God. Jesus claimed that he came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. This is a passage frequently misunderstood by people who claim to believe the bible so its not surprising that non-Christians get confused.
The contrast Jesus makes in that quote is not between ‘getting rid of the law’ and ‘keeping the law’ as is often thought but between two different ways of getting rid of the law.
Abolishment and fulfilment are legal terms that pertain to contracts and the law as it was given to the Israelites was given as a covenant, i.e. a form of contract.
‘Abolishment’ is one way that a contract can be ended, and ‘fulfilment’ is another. These two concepts are exactly the same as those used today in contract law.
Thus the ‘rules’ of Leviticus do not apply because the law has been ‘fulfilled’. In other words if the quote attributed to Jesus is correct and true, then the obligations of the Israelite law (as per Leviticus and other places) have been fully discharged (i.e fulfilled). Once a contract is fulfilled then each party to the contact has no further obligations under that contract.
Anybody who is especially interested in this question could refer to a more coherent and detailed explanation.
YiZhangZhe on August 30, 2008 at 1:04 PM
I wouldn’t attempt to argue your great post, merely to affirm that I accept that starlight is the result of a large mass going nuclear - just as our sun did. I also accept that such light travels at a constant speed, radiating out from the source.
I further maintain that, if said light has taken 12 billion years or so to reach us from the current limits of our observation, the visible universe is at least that old. Regardless of how the light was created, it still has to obey the laws of physics, and a 6000 year old system doesn’t compute - unless the speed of light is completely wrong. Now, that would open a real can of worms.
OldEnglish on August 30, 2008 at 1:20 PM
Yes. I am aware of it. It was an ingenious positional instrument. The knowledge I referred to was in the area of composition, age, distance, etc.
OldEnglish on August 30, 2008 at 1:25 PM
I don’t fear creationism…evolution is only a nearly baseless theory, after all these years. If you have the guts, read Ann Coulter’s book, Godless…wait a minute, an atheist wouldn’t be caught dead doing that. Nevermind.
I don’t agree with Palin’s extreme stance on abortion but that’s just one issue. Do you really think that she will overturn Roe v. Wade and/or MAKE the public schools teach creationism? If you had any kids in school you would know that they would rather die than admit evolution explains next to nothing and that ‘creationism’ can explain more. Alas…the great, fearful divide.
Christine on August 30, 2008 at 2:38 PM
Occam’s razor. It’s entirely possible that the universe was created yesterday, and that all the laws of the universe, and all the matter subject to those laws, was created to give the appearance of a 13 billion year old universe; the simpler explanation is that the universe really is 13 billion years old. It’s not just that the chicken appears to have come from an egg, or the tree from a seed, it’s that the histories of the chicken and the tree, though completely unrelated in the ex-nihilo scenario, are perfectly consistent with the history of all the rest of the matter in the universe.
Not all paradigm’s are equally useful, either. The ex nihilo scenario says nothing about what will happen tomorrow, and is useless in answering important historical questions. The whole idea of causality is meaningless if there’s a chance the laws of the universe might change arbitrarily. e.g. A murderer might reasonably argue under the ex nihilo scenario that he didn’t really commit a crime - it just looks like he did because the universe was created that way a few hours ago.
Accepting the harmonious conclusions of all the lines of evidence is the more rational paradigm. You can argue that rationality itself is a paradigm, and again I’d have to ask, how useful is a paradigm that doesn’t admit rationality?
RightOFLeft on August 30, 2008 at 2:40 PM
We agree, but a key word here is *if*.
(For the sake of my best attempt at brevity, I shall assume that light consists only of photon particles)
Within the creation paradigm the photons of light can be created independently of any star. Indeed if a photon is created ex-nihilo then, by definition, it has no source, it hasn’t come from a star. Thus in the creation paradigm at the moment that light is created the universe will be full of photons; some will be near to earth and some will be distant and none of them will, at that moment, have travelled to or from anywhere. The first photons will have no relationship to a star just as the first chicken will have no relationship to an egg.
Yes, but it only needs to obey those laws after it is created. The photons that were created more than 6000 light years distant would not yet have arrived but any photon created less than 6000 light years distant would by now have arrived, at exactly the time predicted by the laws of physics.
It doesn’t compute if you apply the rules of one of the ‘big-bang-etc’ paradigms because those paradigms exclude the possibility of ex-nihilo creation and thus, within those paradigms, every photon must have originated at a star. By contrast the creation paradigm allows photons to be created anywhere and with no connection to a star. The conclusions of the creation paradigm are inconsistent with (”don’t compute with”) the rules of a different paradigm … but that is neither unexpected, nor unreasonable.
We can probably agree about the origins and existence of that can of worms you mentioned; I have no intention of opening it. :)
YiZhangZhe on August 30, 2008 at 2:40 PM
That’s convenient for Leviticus. What about the rest of Genesis? The bible actually refers to two different creation events. I don’t just mean the two versions of creation, of course, but the creation of the rainbow after the flood. Apparently light didn’t refract before the flood. According to the Bible, the universe was created, and then tweaked to change the fundamental properties of light. This wasn’t an ex-nihilo event. God didn’t recreate the universe, going by a literal reading of the bible, he changed the rules at a specific time in the history of the universe, which should make anything that happened beforehand appear irrational (since the universe had been following unknowable rules). But that’s not how the universe looks, is it?
I can’t believe I’m actually pointing out something this obvious, but you’re obviously reasonable, so I’m hoping you’ll agree that a literal reading of Genesis is irrational (whether or not it’s true).
RightOFLeft on August 30, 2008 at 2:49 PM
Ok, the bit of snark in my last post was entirely gratuitous. It’s just a character flaw on my part, don’t take it personally…
RightOFLeft on August 30, 2008 at 3:00 PM
no it doesn’t. sorry the bible wasn’t written in 21st century style. I doubt you’re really interested, but…
maybe you should try reading it sometimes. how do you know there were no rainbows before the flood? were you there? Did bread and wine exist before Jesus used them as a sign for the new covenant?
you’re not as clever as you think you are.
right4life on August 30, 2008 at 3:21 PM
It only gives that appearance if you have already adopted a non-creationist paradigm. A creationist and a big-bangist look at the same evidence and come to different conclusions; not because one is being less rational than the other, but because they have different paradigms.
There is nothing simpler about that conclusion. In fact both of the hypotheses about the origins of the universe are equally preposterous.
The creationist says: In the beginning a deity (whatever that is, wherever it came from) created everything (except itself) out of nothing.
The big-bangest says: In the beginning there was nothing, not even an abstract concept of nothing. Then for no reason at all (because reasons didn’t yet exist) the nothing exploded, and out of the explosion of nothing came everything, including matter and time and energy and consciousness and reason and abstract concepts.
Logically it is impossible to get behind either of those explanations. They are both equally impenetrable, they are both equally unprovable, equally unrepeatable. The tools of science are utterly incapable of investigating either of them.
I quite disagree. In the creation paradigm those relationships aren’t needed and thus their absence isn’t a problem that needs to be considered or resolved. In the non-creationist those relationships must exist however they cannot be demonstrated by evidence or by reason.
The big-bang-evolution hypothesis requires that everything should have emerged from that explosion of nothing. Once the nothing explodes into something the evolutionary process can begin. Ultimately that process needs to be able to explain everything (not necessarily today but it must be logically possible). Presently the evolutionary hypothesis can explain almost nothing. It cannot explain how atoms were formed, how non-life became life, it cannot explain what life is, it cannot explain what consciousness is, it cannot explain the existence of abstract concepts. What little it can explain presupposes the existence of things (objects, process or concepts) that it hasn’t even got close to explaining.
We agree. The evolutionary paradigm explains pretty much nothing; it has to be one of the most useless paradigms ever conceived :)
The ex-nihilo paradigm includes the possibility of acquiring new knowledge, and is very good for predicting all manner of things, including those that pertain to biological outcomes, psychological outcomes, and social outcomes. It might be fair to say that people who subscribe to the ex-nihilo paradigm are bad at predicting things, but that is a failure of their ability to apply the paradigm, not a deficiency of the paradigm itself.
I don’t understand this point; sorry if I am am being dense. I don’t find any aspect of any prior event (to the extent that we know such events) that is inconsistent with the ex-nihilo paradigm.
Nobody is seriously proposing that the laws of the universe can or do change arbitrarily. In the ex-nihilo paradigm the laws are inherent to the paradigm, and whilst our grasp or understanding of them could change, there is no reason to believe that the rules themselves could ever change (I know that some people do argue that they have a deity that can do anything including changing the laws of the universe but possibly we would agree that those people are muddle-headed).
The murderer could claim that the universe was created with the corpse on the floor and the knife in his hand. However his claim would then need to be assessed by the normal rules of logic and evidence. There are creationists who believe the evidence best indicates that the universe is about 6000 years old and there are creationists who believe the evidence best indicates the universe to be much older than 6000 years old. Nobody finds the evidence to indicate a universe less than 6000 years old so the jury would reject his claim for want of evidence. Logically you are correct, his claim could be true, but logically his situation is no different to any other defendent: he makes his claim and then must present supporting evidence that others can accept.
However the big-bang-evolutionists have a far bigger problem to address. You have mentioned ‘meaninglessness’ but in an big-bang-evolutionary universe you have to explain how the concept of ‘meaning’ came into existence. In the ex-nihilo paradigm ‘meaning’ is inherent to the paradigm and thus while its origins are impenetrable it is, post creation, available as a tool. In the big-bang-evolution paradigm the concept of ‘meaning’ is not inherent because it starts with nothing and the concept of ‘meaning’ is one of the things that has to emerge from the explosion of nothing.
Rationality is the tool by which each paradigm can be assessed. The evolutionary paradigm isn’t greatly supported by evidence; the available data does not fit harmoniously with the paradigm and is, for the most part, inconsistent with the paradigm or cannot be explained by the paradigm. The paradigm only works when it is applied or expressed in the most general and vague terms. When you try to determine the steps required for macro evolution to occur it rapidly degenerates from the unknown to the improbable to the ludicrous.
No use at all, but I don’t think anybody is proposing that. It is impossible to reason one’s way to unreason or to gain reason from unreason. Unfortunately this leaves the big-bang-evolution paradigm with a bit of a problem because rationality (predicate logic, reason) is one of the things that somehow needs to emerge from the explosion of nothing, and until it does, there is (quite literally) no reason to believe the paradigm. The only way that you can make progress with that paradigm is to begin by saying “we don’t know how reason came into existence and logically it is impossible to give a reason because reason must exist before we can use it to reason our way to an explanation, nonetheless even though it is logically impossible to find a reason to believe our paradigm we are going to believe it anyway.” I’d like to say that this is irrational, but that would be judging it by the ex-nihilo paradigm rules; within the non-creationist paradigm it isn’t irrational because rationality doesn’t exist! Yes it is a merry little pickle.
The only other way forward is to modify the paradigm to allow reason to exist independently of anything else (including time, space, matter) which means that reason exists even before the nothing explodes into everything else. Actually we can’t say that because we haven’t yet got as far as time, so there isn’t yet any ‘before’, and because we are stuck with reason we must modify the ‘nothing’ to ‘nothing-else’. If reason exists independently of everything else (including time) then reason is eternal (i.e. existing outside time, having neither beginning nor end). In order for this to have any meaning the statement must be true and meaningfulness must exist. Thus reason, truth and meaning must all be eternal. The rest of the paradigm still doesn’t work, but at least it now has rational foundation on which to fall over. :)
YiZhangZhe on August 30, 2008 at 4:38 PM
All texts (including those that are called scripture) need to be interpreted and in order to do that it is necessary to understand (or at least make a guess at) why the text was written, who it was for, what it was intended to convey.
My understanding of the Genesis accounts is that they are merely the introduction to a story. The story is that of a deity, sometimes known as Jehovah, and his relationship with some people latterly known as Israelites.
The Genesis creation accounts explain why there is a relationship in the first place, how it came about. It is cursory background material for what follows. Those accounts don’t set out to give a detailed, technically precise account of the creation process. That doesn’t mean that they are false or even misleading.
Every question can be answered at different levels of detail and from different perspectives. For example:
Q. Where do babies come from?
A1. Mummy’s tummy.
A2. They wriggle out from between a woman’s legs.
A3. The maternity ward.
A4. The fruit of a loving partnership.
A5. A sperm combined with an ova.
A6. An expression of passion and joy.
A7. A biochemical process of cell division.
All the answers are true, none of them are precise and, superfically, they all contradict one another. Even taken together they are still not a full explanation. Nonetheless I am confident that everybody reading this blog knows how to interpret those answers and nobody will misunderstand. We interpret such statements correctly without even thinking about it.
However, a problem that I often encounter with people and ‘religious’ texts is that people treat the ‘religious’ texts differently to any other text. Normally people can easily recognise poetry or hyperbole or simile or the multitude of other linguistic techniques that are used to convey information, and having recognised them they then evaluate the text as the author intended. Similarly people can usually (not always) correctly assess the perspective from which the author is approaching the issue: is the style that of romance, or reportage, diatribe or declaration … With ‘religious’ texts it seems to me that many people apply wholly different and unjustifiable interpretation techniques.
I didn’t reallky notice. In any case, being unnecessarily sarcastic is a character flaw we can happily share, especially when it is way past sleeping time. Thank you for your contributions, I am off to bed.
YiZhangZhe on August 30, 2008 at 5:06 PM
Well, we finally agree Ars. You, and I both, we are descendants of Adam. The Bible says in Acts 17:26 that God has “made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth.” So there are no races. Yes, there are different people groups, but only one human race. So we are all the same, and I am very much against racism! Don’t let evolution make a monkey out of you.
apacalyps on August 30, 2008 at 5:38 PM
That’s a very long post.
A little bit of rain on your parade: cosmology has a plausible scenario, backed by observations, that traces the observed universe back to a very small (sub-atomic) section of space with very few degrees of freedom (a scalar field with a potential), and the laws of physics as we know them. Given that, with is significantly (orders of magnitude) less information than is in you, we can evolve the universe forward to get, well, everything.
That’s pretty simple.
Of course, it doesn’t rule out the possibility that the universe was created just for us a few thousand years ago with meticulous attention to details that suggest otherwise. But, then it would still be an interesting question of what said creator was trying to tell us by arranging everything so.
Hypothetically, mind you.
Count to 10 on August 30, 2008 at 5:47 PM
oops.
with=which
Count to 10 on August 30, 2008 at 5:48 PM
uh yeah sure they’ve got it all figured out
and of course dark energy and dark matter is solved
right, the scientists think it makes up most of the universe, and we don’t have a clue what it is…ok
is inflation deflated?
is our universe even natural?
we’re down to either the multiverse, which is totally beyond science, or the anthropic principle…
oh yeah they’ll have the evolution of the universe figured out about the same time they figure out 137
right4life on August 30, 2008 at 6:15 PM
wishful thinking. they don’t know what dark matter, and dark energy are, which make up most of the universe….so they say….
and they’re even asking if the universe is natural
we’re down to the multiverse, or the anthropic principle….they’ll have the evolution of the universe figured out about the same time they figure out 137
right4life on August 30, 2008 at 6:18 PM
sorry about the double post….thought the first one was rejected because of too many links…
right4life on August 30, 2008 at 6:21 PM
That’s right. Barry has provided zero proof for evolution. What evolutionists like him do is when somebody like me asks for evidence of a transitional species, they will post articles they barely understand and this is their proof we evolved from a rock 4.6 billion years ago. In this case, Barry posted an article he said proves Pakicetids evolved into whales over 8 billion years. Um, okay. So I asked him, “Barry, what is a Pakicetids?” I wanna make sure he knows what he was talking about. I don’t think he was expecting me to ask that cuz he changed the subject and said it’s up to me to prove it ..lol..
apacalyps on August 30, 2008 at 6:35 PM
I thought it was 4.5 billion years you guys were claiming for the age of the earth?
Anyway, I was asking for pictures of the bones. You guys insist that the evidence for transitional fossils exist but I’m not seeing it. And obviously if such bones existed the proponents of evolution would have pictures of them and they would be widely distributed as the proof of evolution. Where are they? If evolution is true, transitional fossils should be MORE abundant than regular fossils, again, where are they?
You also say the evidence is strong for the earth being very old (billions of years). But the only evidence I am aware of that supports such long ages are based on carbon 14, Potassium-argon or other forms of radiometric dating.
Forget those types of dating, they are proven totally inaccurate. The same rock submitted to the various types of dating will yield wildly different results. Scientist have known from the beginning that these dating methods were not accurate but they have pushed it to the public as fact anyway in order to protect their “sacred cow”… evolution. Why carbon-14 dating is not reliable.
There are other methods of dating the earth which do not rely on any type of radiometric dating. The methods I’m talking about all agree the earth is very young, only six to ten thousand years old.
Here are a few of the ways we know the earth is not billions of years old.
1) Not enough salt in the oceans.
2) Not enough helium in the atmosphere.
3) Not enough supernovas.
4) Earth rotation slows down over time. The earth would have been spinning so fast as to fly apart 4.5 billion years ago.
5) River delta show only enough sediment to date back approximately to the time of Noah’s flood.
6) Oldest living trees date back approximately to the time of Noah’s flood.
There are other methods also but the ones I listed above are not very technical and are easy to understand as to why they are valid. Then of course there is the “Rate Project” which is technical, but it is showing the earth as young.
I have links for most (if not all) of the information I spoke of above. I’m not posting all the links because comments with many links usually don’t don’t get through the filter. So please ask if you want me to post any link that explains the items above in detail and I will provide it.
Some of them are truly fascinating.
Maxx on August 30, 2008 at 6:37 PM
Sorry, I’m so used to thinking of dark mater and scalar fields as part of known physics that I forgot to include them. But they are really just two more small pieces in that tiny lump of assumptions. There is argument past that, questions of where they come from and what are their exact properties, but that doesn’t change the scenario.
We don’t know where any of it comes from, so you can insert your creator there if you want to with little difficulty. After that, though, it becomes more and more, well, contrived. Essentially, the creator has to have set up creation as if it had evolved from that starting point, and things go from fairly simple to mindbogglingly complex very quickly.
So, if he went through so much trouble to set things up that way, wouldn’t you want to know? The theories of evolution and cosmology are really just frameworks on which we hang our biology and physics. They simplify and make the knowledge more accessible and intuitive.
Count to 10 on August 30, 2008 at 6:45 PM
Folks, whale evolution is a lie. Did you know that in 1859 Darwin said whales came from bears? He came up with this story about how a bear fell into the ocean and became a whale. Thing is, there are no part-bear, part-whale fossilized bones. So embarrassed by criticism he removed the hypothetical swmming bears from later edition of the Origin of Species. Then, early in the 20th century, Eberhard Fraas and Charles Andrews suggested that primitive carnivores were the ancestors of whales. Then later, WD Matthew of the American Museum of Natural History said whales descended from rat-like creatures, but his idea never gained much support. And then, Everhard Johannes Slijper tried to combine the two ideas. He said that whales descended from carnivorous rat-like creatures. And the current version is what Barry’s trying to peddle here; that whales evolved from a wolf-like creature. Folks, no missing links have been found! Even David Raup who believes in evolution says,
“In the years after Darwin, his advocates hoped to find predictable progressions. In general, these have not been found yet the optimism has died hard, and some pure fantasy has crept into textbooks.” Raup, David M. (U. of Chicago-Field Museum). “Evolution and the Fossil Record.” Science, vol. 213 (July 17, 1981). p 289 .
“… there are gaps in the graveyard, places where there should be intermediate forms but where there is nothing whatsoever instead. No paleontologist writing in englich denies that this is so. It is simply a fact. Darwin’s theory and the fossil record are in conflict.” David D. Berlinsky, Ph.D. Mathematics, Princeton University, Sept. 1996, p. 28
Folks, Barry told you one big whale of a tale.
apacalyps on August 30, 2008 at 6:57 PM
oh please, whats ‘contrived’ is thinking this just got here by ‘evolution’, by chance. you have to give up common sense to think there is a great intelligence behind all that is. As dawkins said, biology is the study of complex things that appear designed, but aren’t…sure.
if you haven’t noticed, the anthropic principle is about the only one that makes sense. the physicists are tying themselves in knots trying to come up with a naturalistic explanation of the universe. their theories, like the string theory, are either falling apart, or unable to explain what is observed.
and the theory of evolution is a science stopper…for example junk dna (so called) it turns out, its not junk.
right4life on August 30, 2008 at 7:00 PM
evolution is atheism posing as science.
right4life on August 30, 2008 at 7:05 PM
Guilty conscience? I didn’t in any way imply that you might be a racist. But if you some issues you want to work through, I will be happy to listen.
Just to nit pick a little, human is a genus not a race. Don’t worry about evolution making a monkey of me it has made a human of me already.
Ars Moriendi on August 30, 2008 at 7:51 PM
You need to tell that to the news media or anybody else who is on TV talking about race-relations. But, hey! Speaking of names, you’re evolution buddies are now calling humans, ‘Homo sapiens sapiens,’ which means ‘wise wise man.’ That’s interesting, the Bible says, “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,” Romans 1:22
imple fact that you think your ancestors swung by their tails is proof-positive evolution has made a monkey out of you. And I would point out going, now I don’t believe this at all, but going from an ape to a human is a relative minor change, compared to going to a rock to a human. And ultimately the evolutionist, at least the atheistic evolutionist, must believe that everything started off from a rock and the rock came from nothing. So have fun with that. I know Satan is laughing his head off at you.
apacalyps on August 30, 2008 at 8:32 PM
Grrr. This happens alot. Words getting garbled after I press the submit button. Below should read like this before it got scrambled:
The simple fact that you think your ancestors swung by their tails is proof-positive evolution has made a monkey out of you.
apacalyps on August 30, 2008 at 8:34 PM
Evolution really has nothing to do with rocks, maybe geology. In any case it is clear that you have no idea what evolution is.
An imaginary supernatural being is laughing at me? Gosh that’s terrible, I just hope the Easter bunny isn’t laughing at me also. I hate it when the Easter bunny laughs at me.
Just relax apacalyps; take some deep breaths and try to calm down and repeat after me “The internet is serious business”!
Ars Moriendi on August 30, 2008 at 10:13 PM
Apparently, according to genesis, God made the grass and herb and fruit tree on the third day, but the sun on the fourth day. NUTS!
OldEnglish on August 30, 2008 at 10:55 PM
What about the nuts?
YiZhangZhe on August 30, 2008 at 11:11 PM
I didn’t change the subject. I told you to read the link which had the definition:
Whale Evolution - The Fossil Evidence
“Pakicetus was about the size of a wolf. It looked nothing like a whale, and more like a cross between a large dog and a rat, having a long, thick tail. Despite this, many features of its skeleton link Pakicetus more closely to whales than to any other family.”
Although short, the article does provide evidence:
“The first fossil evidence for early whales arrived with the 1840 discovery in Egypt of Basilosaurus, an enormous, 40-million-year-old creature with a long, serpentine body, which was very whale-like in appearance, but also had tiny, useless hind legs indicative of a land-based origin.”;and
“However, these amazing transformations can now be observed in the fossil evidence of creatures that represent intermediate stages in the process.”
Those of you who keep saying the article has no proof are only fooling themselves. I’m sure the BBC wouldn’t have put it up unless it had merit and was accepted by the scientific community.
Now apacalyps, do you believe the fossil record shows the whale evolving from the pakicetus?
barry norris on August 30, 2008 at 11:17 PM
Heh!
OldEnglish on August 30, 2008 at 11:18 PM
Do you believe the earth cooled down from a hot fiery mass about 4.6 billion years ago?
apacalyps on August 30, 2008 at 11:47 PM
You’re so dumb. You ask the same questions over and over again. You’re obviously not interested in learning. You just want to be a thorn in people’s side. You may be a reprobate. There is a very good chance you are a reprobate.
apacalyps on August 30, 2008 at 11:57 PM
Nope. Not the same light. Read the Bible again.
OldEnglish on August 31, 2008 at 12:13 AM
You are right. I’m sorry. I’ll try to be more concise in future.
Simple? Or just simplistic?
What is conciousness? How did it evolve?
Your ‘interesting question’ presupposes that it is rational to interpret the conclusions of paradigm Q1 through the premises of paradigm Q2. However such a process is logically invalid and the problems that are perceived to arise are artifacts of the flawed analysis method, not of the paradigm.
It is illogical (hence impossible) to analyse the validity of one paradigm by comparing it with another paradigm that attempts to explain the same thing (in this case the origins of our present universe). To know whether the paradigm Q1 makes logical sense, you must determine whether the premises of Q1 are logically consistent with the conclusions of Q1. The conclusions of Q1 do not need to be consistent with the premises of Q2, or vice-versa.
YiZhangZhe on August 31, 2008 at 12:21 AM
Who do you think you’re kidding? How many times does a person need to ask you what a Pakicetids is? 5-6 times before we get an answer? My guess is the only reason you climbed out from under your rock is because I confirmed it was a wolf-like creature.
Ah, don’t give me that. Didn’t you read the facts I posted before about Darwin saying whales came from bears? And how he changed his book because of the embarrasment? And all the other land-animal to whale guesses proven wrong since 1859? Now you want us to believe whales came from a wolf?? Do you even realize what you’re saying — that a wolf evolved into a whale. Good grief. Folks, the Bible has marine mammals coming before land mammals. Things in the water came first on day 5, and land animals made on day 6. Evolution is the opposite. Evolution has land animals first, and then they evolved back into the ocean. Think about that. Evolutionist says, “Oh yes, some fish came up out of the water, evolved legs walked on land, turned around went back into the water became a whale — evolved on to land and then evolved back.” It’s ridiculous. Just use your common sense and think about a wolf evolving into a whale and how many changes that would entail. Every feature of the wolf has to virtually be changed. Breathing, lungs, hearing, eyes, skin, body, it has to live it’s entire life under water, it needs a diving aparatus, etcetera. Oh, but of course they will say, some details remain fuzzy, and they’re under investigation, but we know for certain this “back to water” investigation did occur …lol.. what?!!
Barry, the BBC post all kinds of false information. They admit they are bias toward the left and anti-Israel . The BBC are an anti-semitic news organization. They lie. Not only that, but they tell you the Big Bang is real and we all know that nothing cannot explode and produce all the matter in the universe. The Big Bang is a BIG DUD. Just like your wolf evolving into whales. It didn’t happen.
apacalyps on August 31, 2008 at 12:50 AM
‘Gelology’ and ‘biology’ are entirely artifical intellectual boundaries.
The hypothesis of biological evolution proceeds from a paradigm that begins with an explosion of nothing and ends with us tapping on our keyboards. Any sub divisions into the classes of geology, chemistry, physics, biochemistry, sociology and whatnot are arbitrary abstractions, inventions of our own minds, and are something we impose. They are not inherent qualities of the information being considered.
When the first ‘rock’ (whatever that means) became ‘alive’ (whatever that means), ‘geology’ and ‘biology’ possibly didn’t exist unless, perhaps, the rock first became ‘conscious’ (whatever that means) before it became alive.
What emerged first from the explosion of nothing into everything? Life, consciousness, matter or something else?
If they emerged independently how did they become connected. If they are not independent, what came first and how did/does it give rise to one of the others?
YiZhangZhe on August 31, 2008 at 1:14 AM
It doesn’t matter if you don’t believe Satan exists. Doesn’t mean he’s not there. No one has ever seen love, you’ve only experienced it, but it’s there. What is gravity? Who made it? Give me a jar of it and paint it red while you are at it. It’s there. Good and evil exists. We know that. So may say, I don’t believe in hell. Well, it doesn’t matter what you believe Ars. Try believing you won’t get hit by a truck standing in the middle of the freeway. You’re gonna get squashed. I feel sorry for those whom the Devil has deceived into believing his lies. Y’know, I joke around alot but, if you’re willing to take the chance on thinking that you have everything figured out.. I am even frightened for you.. You’re risking your eternal life for a silly lie.
apacalyps on August 31, 2008 at 1:18 AM
You think you’re being real clever here don’t you? You wrote:
In otherwords, you’re saying how could God make the plants on the third day, if the sun was made on the fourth day, and plants need light? Is this not what you’re insinuating? If not please explain.
apacalyps on August 31, 2008 at 1:34 AM
That has nothing to do with the fossil record which is real evidence. The fossil record shows the full transition from pakicetus to whale. The fossil record shows the Bible to be wrong about the whale (i.e., the whale was not created in the beginning but resulted from evolution):
Genesis 1:21 (King James Version)
“And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.”
But is the fossil record of the whale a lie?
barry norris on August 31, 2008 at 1:44 AM
Actually He turns on the lights in verse 3. What Bible are you reading? He makes plant life on the third day, as you said and the sun, moon and stars on the fourth day.
But even assuming there was no light when the plants were made (which is clearly wrong, see verse three) what kind of plant do you know of that dies due to a few hours or even days of darkness?
Maxx on August 31, 2008 at 2:00 AM
Where is the link to the pictures, I really want to see this. Drawing don’t count. I need to see pictures of the bones, link please.
Maxx on August 31, 2008 at 2:08 AM
The light referred to in verse 3 is that of separating light from dark, as in knowledge from ignorance. If you read throughout the Bible, you will see this clearly referenced in relation to the Messiah being the light.
The sun, according to Genesis, comes after the light of knowledge.
OldEnglish on August 31, 2008 at 2:15 AM
OldEnglish on August 31, 2008 at 2:15 AM
Words mean things OldEnglish, the above words could not be any plainer.
Maxx on August 31, 2008 at 2:19 AM
barry norris on August 31, 2008 at 1:44 AM
Are these the drawings you are getting so excited about barry?
Maxx on August 31, 2008 at 2:21 AM
Yes, the light of Christ, before the world came into being.
Or does the rest of the Bible mean nothing?
OldEnglish on August 31, 2008 at 2:27 AM
OldEnglish on August 31, 2008 at 2:27 AM
OK, have it your way. Nevertheless plants would survive a day without light, so I still don’t know what point you are trying to make.
Maxx on August 31, 2008 at 2:35 AM
My Palin video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quvBbcFDPI0
D0WNT0WN on August 31, 2008 at 2:42 AM
You find some old Sumerian tablets containing a story similar in some respects to the flood of Noah, and this “disproves” the authenticity of the Bible?
You should know that many cultures across the world with no connection to one another have their own flood stories with some similarities to each other. The Epic of Gilgamesh is just another one of these, primarily notable for being written at a very early date rather than handed down by oral tradition.
The existence of the story doesn’t disprove anything about the Bible. About the only thing it accomplishes is a slight corroboration that there was at one point a major flood widely credited with destroying much of civilization.
This is very typical of the kind of reasoning that takes one existing animal and the skeletons of several now extinct animals, arranges them in a certain order, and proclaims that this proves one evolved into another.
Sadly, many of the proofs of evolution are just this bad: they paint a picture of how evolution might have happened, and declare this to be proof that the evolution actually did happen.
This is usually followed by berating anyone who doesn’t accept this “proof” as “ignorant.”
Your link to the evolution of the whale is exactly the same sort of non-proof masquerading as proof. From an article describing how evolutionists believe the whale may have evolved, you proclaim proof that it did evolve.
To have actual proof of evolution, you must have something that could have no other explanation than evolution. Such as, observing the process of evolution actually occurring. It’s not enough though to show minor adaptation to the environment, unless all you want to prove is such minor adaptations. To prove macro-evolution, you need to show the evolution actually happening.
Show life developing from non-living matter, or show fish evolving into amphibians, or amphibians into reptiles, or reptiles into mammals or birds. Because, let’s face it, the existence of amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals does not prove that the amphibians evolved into reptiles, or the reptiles into birds and mammals. All it proves is that as some point, all of the above existed.
theregoestheneighborhood on August 31, 2008 at 2:54 AM
To get directly back to the topic starting this post, evolution is meant to be a scientific theory. Government figures have no business getting involved in defining what is and is not valid science, and the wise scientist would prefer to keep politics far away from such discussions.
In other words, a separation of science and state seems quite as advisable as a separation of church and state.
theregoestheneighborhood on August 31, 2008 at 2:57 AM
That’s right, Maxx. Well done. People say “how did we have days before the sun was here?” Answer: God is light! The Bible says, “The LORD is my light and my salvation” (Pslam 27:1). God made the light before He even made the sun. And you can have a 24 hour day even if the sun is not out. Our day starts at midnight even if the sun is not out. And you are right to add even if there was no light, which clearly there was, what kind of plant dies due to a few hours or even days of darkness?
“This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” 1 John 1:5
This is only a guess, but maybe God made the sun later in the creation week just so His children would know not to worship it. How many cultures around the world worship the sun? All kinds of them, okay. You go to Mexico and all over you see pottery and things hanging on the wall of the sun, y’know, the sunburst/sunbird? It’s a sun worship culture. Um, first 13 verses of Genesis they have no sun — they still have light.
apacalyps on August 31, 2008 at 3:05 AM
And not to beat a dead horse but another answer to that question is simply that a “day” is one rotation of the earth. The earth rotates with or without the sun. So you can have “days” without the sun yet being created.
Maxx on August 31, 2008 at 3:49 AM
Sure glad you’re on our team (smiles). May the Lord bless us in our searching and our questions, and open the eyes of our friends who aren’t saved yet. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.
apacalyps on August 31, 2008 at 1:02 PM
apacalyps on August 31, 2008 at 1:02 PM
Amen Brother. I try to keep the atheist in this forum in my prayers. May they find our merciful Father who is the only true God, an Awesome God and the Magnificent Engineer all.
Maxx on August 31, 2008 at 1:40 PM
Irrelevant. The principles that apply meaningfully to geologic structures (like rocks, canyons etc) are different from the principles that apply meaningfully to biological structures (like plants, animals etc) are different from the principles that apply meaningfully to physics-related objects (like atoms, stars and so forth). The boundary that we create to separate objects to which different principles apply may be entirely artificial, but it is also common sense.
Bull. Evolution is a theory of how life forms differentiate over time. It’s not meant to explain the Big Bang, the formation of the stars or the Earth, or the origin of life. Evolutionary principles like genetic drift and natural selection do not apply meaningfully to nonliving objects. Again, the boundary is an artificial construct (like science itself), but it is also common sense.
This statement is such a convincing demonstration of ignorance regarding geology, biology, and abiogenesis (the current naturalistic conjecture about the origins of life) that I need not respond at all.
What emerged were black holes, micro black holes, neutron stars, most likely representatives of all the different elements, and antimatter complements of everything. This is assuming you’re talking about the Big Bang theory, which is the “explosion of nothing into everything.” So matter came billions of years before life or consciousness.
The current conjecture is that matter gave rise to life, which gave rise to consciousness. I say “conjecture” and not “theory” because there is, as yet, no known complete path from non-life to life, and consciousness is an ill-understood phenomenon, scientifically speaking. The only one who expects scientists to have all the answers is you; the rest of us realize that nobody has all the answers (except possibly God, but he’s not going to come down and tell us everything, is he?).
Math_Mage on August 31, 2008 at 2:05 PM
I find it highly offensive that you think my non-belief in God is due to a belief that I have all the answers. I believe there is no God, but I know I can’t prove it. Can YOU prove there IS? No: you have your belief, I mine. Please don’t insinuate that my belief is due to Satan’s pride.
Math_Mage on August 31, 2008 at 2:17 PM
Barry, there is no fossil record. There’s a bunch of bones in the dirt. It’s not a record okay. Haven’t you figured out yet that they dig up dead animals and then an artist draws a picture so it looked like it had just splashed into the sea, and is chasing fish? This is silly. All you’re doing is putting your interpretation on those bones you dig up in the dirt. Now some people say Basilosaurus was a fully aquatic creature, and others because it was very whale-like think it was a whale, but it was hardly transitional between land mammals and whales. Even the BBC article you trust so much says, “…the discovery of Basilosaurus did not help greatly with the major questions of whale ancestry, since the creatures were so similar to modern whales that it remained difficult to imagine what their land-based ancestors were like.” And something else, whales do not have legs. Those “tiny, useless hind legs” the BBC article says Basilosaurus had, I’m sorry sir, but those bones serve as anchor points for muscles. Without them whales cannot reproduce. That’s how they scooch up to the miss’s and make more baby whales. They have nothing to do with walking on land. So no, I’m sorry Barry, you have not provided any transitional fossil evidence for evolution.
apacalyps on August 31, 2008 at 2:29 PM
An article with various drawings:
http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoEvidence.html
Btw, theregoestheneighborhood, some of the drawings feature fish-to-amphibian transitions.
And an article that links to pictures (specifically regarding the evolution of the nostril) from an article in Nature magazine:
http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/showthread.php?p=2231462
You won’t understand the pictures, though (at least I didn’t), so I don’t know if you’ll care.
theregoestheneighborhood:
I like how you keep using the word “prove” as if it means something scientifically. Science is a field of theories, conjectures, hypotheses, experimentation, evidence. Proof does not exist. Disproof exists, and is the basis of the scientific method, but it is impossible to eliminate all explanations but one through the scientific method.
So I’ll admit for whoever you’re responding to that transitional fossil evidence is not proof. Frankly, though, that’s meaningless, since scientific proof does not exist.
Well, I gave a link to an article that (among other things) documents the fossil evidence for fish-to-amphibian transition earlier in this comment. It’s a start.
Math_Mage on August 31, 2008 at 2:44 PM
No, I don’t Barry. I don’t believe some fish came up out of the water, evolved legs, walked on land, turned around went back into the water, and became a whale. And that’s exactly what evolution says. Evolution has land animals first, and then they evolved into the ocean. So no, I don’t believe whales evolved from Pakicetus (which is a wolf-like creature). That isn’t even a mathematical probability.
apacalyps on August 31, 2008 at 2:59 PM
Creationism explains everything and, in doing so, becomes meaningless. Unless you’d like to show how creationism could be falsified…compared to that, yes, evolution explains next to nothing.
Math_Mage on August 31, 2008 at 3:03 PM
No. No it isn’t. Why is that relevant?
Math_Mage on August 31, 2008 at 3:16 PM
apacalyps,
What is silly is for you and your ilk to readily dismiss the bones that are being found. According to the creationist point of view, these bones should not exist and yet there they are. Evolution explains it, creationism doesn’t.
apacalyps,
Evolution can be both: that creatures first came from the waters then evolved to land creatures then one or more evolved back to sea creatures. To me this is the perfect explanation for the whale and answers the question: why is a whale a mammal and not a fish?
theregoestheneighborhood,
It proves that the story is not the word of God and that the Jews/Moses were not its original writers. Also it heavily implies that the Jews got much of their biblical ideas from the Sumerians and Babylonians.
@Maxx,
I’m gonna search for those pictures, just give me a little time to get back to you. Thanks for your patience.
barry norris on August 31, 2008 at 3:38 PM
There are no missing links. The whole chain is missing. It’s not a link they’re looking for folks. Even Stephen Gould said,
“The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages … has been a persistent and nagging problem for … evolution.” Dr. Stephen J. Gould, Evolution Now p. 140 Marxists Professor at Harvard University in Boston
Yeah! It sure is! This is why Miles Eldridge and Stephen Gould have kinda resurrected the “Punctuated Equilibrium” idea that came from actually Richard Goldschmidt. Goldschmidt said,
“The first bird hatched from a reptilian egg.” Richard B. Goldschmidt, The Material Basis of Evolution, Yale University 1940 page 395.
They got so frustrated looking for missing links they couldn’t find any, they said, “Well, this just proves evolution happened quickly.” Good grief … lol ..
apacalyps on August 31, 2008 at 3:45 PM
Genesis chapter 1, verse 3 through 5 says, “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.” Genesis 1:3-5
I don’t know what you’re talking about OldEnglish. This doesn’t say God is separating “knowledge from ignorance”. It doesn’t say the “light of knowledge”. You’re adding something to the Scriptures that is clearly not there. Anybody reading this can see God divided the light from the darkness and called the light day and the dark night — morning and evening. It’s plain and simple.
apacalyps on August 31, 2008 at 4:04 PM
barry, why are you even bothering to try to discredit the Biblical story of creation? An omnipotent omniscient God could have made light without a sun, along with whatever other impossibilities there are. There’s no point to your activities on that front.
Not that you’ll accept a link from talkorigins, but I’ll give it anyway:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html
Then there’s this place, which has, among other things, numerous well-sourced articles on the subject of the fossil record:
http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoEvidence.html
But I’m guessing that since you’d rather quote a singe statement from an “evolutionist” than look at the actual record, you might not bother to look at what I’ve posted.
Math_Mage on August 31, 2008 at 4:32 PM
Actually, I can logically defend “God created the heaven and the earth”, as it fits nicely with what we see in our present world. That goes well with real science. Christianity is not a blind faith Mage. It is the only religion that can prove itself… there is a lot of evidence supporting the Bible.
I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking to somebody else. I said Sata*1xBdl and his job is to separate you from God. See, Satan hates God, but since he can’t do anything to God, he wants to destroy man instead. Why do you think he came up with this nutty idea that man evolved from rocks? How many people are going to go to hell for believing such a crazy thing! Lot’s of people are being decieved by this lie. They are really being fooled. But on the flip-side of that, others know it’s a lie. The Bible says they are, “Willingly ignorant” (2 Peter 3:5). In the Greek, that means “dumb on purpose.” They just don’t want God in their lives so God gives them over to their lusts and they start believing a lie. And still others are scoffers. In II Peter chapter 3 it says, “Knowing this first, there shall come in the last days scoffers.” Did you know there are people that scoff at the Bible? I come across them all the time.
“Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.” Colossians 2:8
apacalyps on August 31, 2008 at 4:42 PM
I appreciate your good faith reply but let me save you a little time. The neither the bones or the pictures of the bones exist. How do I know this you might ask…. have I search the entire internet for them? … NO.
I know this because if they did exist they would be front and center as exhibit A in the evolution debate and proponents of evolution would make sure everyone knew about them. Clearly that’s not the case, so they don’t exist. Keep that in mind if you go looking for them.
Maxx on August 31, 2008 at 4:43 PM
Exactly.
apacalyps on August 31, 2008 at 4:45 PM
Good grief … lol..
apacalyps on August 31, 2008 at 4:47 PM
What are talking about! Explain this.
apacalyps on August 31, 2008 at 4:53 PM
On or more? Uh, yeah. I like how you lessen the impossibilty of it happening by saying oh, “one or more” creatures came up out of the water, evolved legs, walked on land, turned around went back into the water, and became a something completely different .. lol… one or two… how about hundreds and thousands or more! And the fact that you don’t see how it is mathematically impossible for this to take place; y’know like a cow evolving into whale is… is… shocking!! Every feature of has to virtually be changed. Breathing, lungs, hearing, eyes, skin, body, it has to live it’s entire life under water, it needs a diving aparatus, feeding itself, etcetera, etcetera. And that’s going from land to water! It’s not including it originally coming from water to land! Don’t you see this is not good reasoning. Barry, I’m trying to help you man.
apacalyps on August 31, 2008 at 5:06 PM
Hey, it was the first article with actual pictures that I found. I could go on a wild-goose chase to convince you that the guys who use drawings of bones aren’t making up fake bones in their peer-reviewed articles, but I don’t find that to be a meaningful use of time. Since the articles I sourced don’t rely solely on reconstructions as picture evidence, I don’t see that you have any reason to complain.