The following is a record of another
of my evolution vs creationism debates,
this time against some anonymous person
________________________________________________________________________________________________
In May of 2003, I wrote an article to the Talk.Origins usenet group
explaining the heirarchy of the taxonomic tree of life.
The article was favorably received and voted Post-Of-The-Month.
Six months later, I received an email that included a link
and a warning about how others outside the group were treating my post.
From: "David Novak" <darkprimus@hotmail.com>
To: ilcunl@hotmail.com
Subject: Plagurism of your essay
Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2003 23:26:16 -0600
This post contains blatent plagurizations from your essay "You Are an Ape", and to add insult to injury, is an essay intended to show that intelligent design is feasible.
I thought you would like to know. I can post a message for you there, if you wish to press the issue.
I read the link and found that a poster called NuclearX thought he was making fun of me.
He thought I was using flawed logic, and he admitted to plagiarizing as much of my article as he could
to make his point. However, in reading the article, I found he had no point to make.
I took up Novak's offer, and he relayed my message to NuclearX.
Thank you for the heads up on this. Yes, I would like you to respond for me since I don't have time to get involved in anything else right now. I've much too much on my plate at the moment, so would you just post the following for me?
First, I would like you to point out that NuclearX did not 'prove' creation just like I did not 'prove' evolution. Evolution is already demonstrably true, and creation is already disproved, but not by me. I did present profound evidence for evolution however, which NuclearX still has not done for creationism. In fact, I openly challenge him to do exactly that since no creationist to date ever has.
According to evolution Theory, no one could be related to a rock, nor would try to be. I wrote another POTM about that too, remember?
When mentioning that we are eukaryotes, NuclearX failed to distinguish "human" from all other eukaryotic organisms.
The "You are a human" paragraph was put in to replace "you are an animal", and in so doing deliberately snipped the definition of what an animal is; any metazoan organism, and that includes us. So the claim that we are not animals is a willful lie.
Other animals also have the ability to reason, particularly the other apes, but also dolphins, and a number of other "higher mammals". They also have the ability to love and appreciate, and no animal is as immoral as we are, (plotting the murder of others, etc.) The only thing about us that might make us unique is the fact that we have adhered to these religious notions for thousands of years. Hopefully, we will grow out of it eventually.
There are no differences in the chemical composition of our cells to divide us from any other hominids, or other animals. By every definition of that word within the confines of biology, we are animals. If NuclearX doesn't believe that, he can look it up in a dictionary.
This writer doesn't even know what a "race" is. Neither does he realize what "vestigial canines" are, or he would have tried to lie about those too. He also doesn't realize that the word "primate" means a biological relative of all other primates including other hominids, and other species of human that he doubtless would not accept, like the Australopithecines. In fact, his criteria "you do not have a tail" would allow us to include orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, simiangs and gibbons as well as some things that aren't hominoids.
He really should understand that Eutherian, Mammal, Vertebrate and Tetrapod are all systematic clades in taxonomy, and each is a monophyletic group. NuclearX should learn what these words mean before he tries to use them to say that we are not related to any other animal because his use of each of these words means that we are included within those biological families specifically due to our descent from a common ancestor within those groups.
Then he goes on with a whole bunch of mostly irrelevant whining from pseudoscientists who are unable to be real scientists specifically because they refuse to practice any of the scientific methods, which NuclearX obviously doesn't know about either, like the purpose of peer-review and the reason for publishing to reviewed journals. "Question all assumptions" runs immediately counter to all priori mandates of faith. And it is very telling that they only publish to themselves and never submit to peer review. They cannot submit to peer-review for the very reason that the peer-review process was conceived; to vindicate statements that are true, discover and discard the errors, and to expose the frauds. Charlatans like Morris and Hovind and their ilk slink about outside the scientific mainstream in an attempt to avoid it because they know they're lying and they know their increasingly desperate rationalizations will be exposed.
If NuclearX has any doubt about that, he is welcome to participate in the Talk.Origins usenet group, or he can take me up on a challenge that has been consistently refused by every creationist that ever talked to me specifically because they're never able to weigh evidence or deal with critical questions that cannot ever support their position.
That challenge is; *if* you are willing to debate me in point-by-point, quid pro quo fashion in a series of news group or email exchanges, answering every direct question, (ignoring none) and remembering to properly address every point or challenge as I must of course do the same in return, then in one dozen exchanges or less I can and will prove to your satisfaction that biological evolution is indeed the truest, best explanation there is for the origin of our species, and that for those and several other reasons, it is the only theory of human origins with no alternatives to choose from.
Eventually, after his colleagues read the exchange
and taunted him several times on the message board,
the bold young plagiarist emailed me directly.
From: Mozart533@aol.com
To: ilcunl@hotmail.com
Subject: Hello. This is NuclearX, with regards to your challenge to a debate.
Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2003 02:21:09 EST
Hi. I am NuclearX (fake name), and I am a member of a teen forum that was discussing your article, "You are an Ape." I am seriously considering accepting your challege to debate the creation/evolution topic. However, I will need to know exactly what the conditions are. I checked debate guidelines on the web, and I would strongly suggest that we follow them were we to debate. Here is the site url: http://www.evcforum.net/ubb/DebateGuidelines.html. I will also need to know exactly what can be discussed. Just evolution? Or would you also be willing to debate abiogenesis and evidence of the flood (not the Ark)? Also, what is the best way for you to debate? I would prefer email, as it is faster and more reliable then a posting forum.
Thank you,
NuclearX
