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Yes, you are wrong, on some counts, and right on others, so there you are. Not too bad, though, mate. Although you haven’t explained them, as I asked you to.

Now, the things (partially) described by Einion Yrth are mysterious to most people, so would anyone else like to compete against the turnip? SafeSpeed? Or can we conclude that the theory of evolution (and/or Darwinism) is hard to understand for most people?

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yes.

Given infinite time why not?

Actually I don't think Darwinism is that easy to understand. It's often mis-explained or described confusingly. E.g. "men evolved from monkeys" when it should be explained as men share a recent common ancestor with chimpanzees, a more distant ancestor with monkeys, and even more distant ancestors with other life.

Also the concept that evolution is goal driven, and the expectation that it takes place over timespans that we are ordinarily familiar with, are misleading.

"How can fish suddenly decide to grow lungs" or some-such claim is sometimes made.
Fish didn't grow lungs because they wanted to leave the sea. They gradually started to evolve the ability to survive for short periods on land to help them get back to the sea before dying. (The tides were higher back then too, as the moon was closer). And they didn;t decide to do this, it was just that mutants with proto-lungs happened to survive well, so it is their descendents who are now in the world. Probably the same with legs, too. And as they developed the ability to survive on land for longer and longer, eventually their descendants could survive on land all the time.

That's assuming there was time before the universe was created...

If there is a god, you would have thought the one think it would do is make sure its life story was preserved accurately.
and if there is one god, why allow so many names, variations, customs and contradictory tradition to flourish and war between them?

Also if a theoretical god is perfect (as most religions claim) and hence never makes a mistake, everything in physical existence must be exactly as it intended. so why
a) does it allow so much destruction in its name?
b) does it allow so much persecution in its name and allow creatures and humans 'created' by it to be described and treated as evil?

I speak as an ex-roman catholic, who is now an agnostic and believes that if there is a god, it did its work at the beginning of time/big bang etc and then left us entirely for evolution to sort out.

I was SO tempted to put down 'Jedi' for the last census.

I think you'll have to admit that it's a trifle silly to elevate a amusing one line quip to such status.

The basic principles of Darwin's theory are reasonably accessible to most educated people although not accessible at all to turnips.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Not least because most turnips don't have access to a reasonable education!

edited

well in theory there wasn't, but how else do you describe it? To complicate matters further, there may be/have been more than one universe.

To complicate matters yet further there are probably an infinite number.

I'm happy to believe that space and time (and by extension the universe or universes) have no existence whatsoever except as an observer's experience.

In fact, space and time are defined purely in subjective terms, and a different sort of observer may have a completely different sort of experience. For example other creatures may experience more or fewer physical dimensions.

I don't have to deal with 'a time before the universe existed' or any such problems because it's only defined in terms of its own content.

The simple parts of my brain buck from time to time with questions like: "What if you get to the edge of the universe and carry on? Surely there's space beyond space?" But the higher intellectual levels fully accept that space and time are only defined in their own terms.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

And turnips are too stupid to take up the offer of an unreasonable education...

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

It brings up the issue of belief. If one only understands Darwin's theory superficially, then one can’t judge whether it is better than any other theory. One just “believes” in evolution, like people “believe” in God. Dawkin’s book, the Selfish Gene, is a difficult book, I reckon, by most standards. Few turnips have read it.

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God is under no obligation to provide proof. You have to make the effort to find out for yourself.

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Speed camera policy Kills

I am not a religious person, but surely the point of religion is that it requires faith and is therefore not something that can be explained in a strictly rational sense.

If there is no God, then obviously there is no intelligent design. If there is a God, which is something that can never be proved, then it is entirely plausible that there is a kind of controlling hand in the process of evolution.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Can I put in a quick word for us turnips here. We exist, therefore we are, and always will be. And we are very popular with some people in a land of no food we would be worshiped. We would be looked upon as a god who provides everything.

By the way you keep mentioning time isn't that a man made invention.

The future doesn't exist therefore does the past, except in your memory?

Did any of this really happen or is it just a figment of my imagination? Or have I watched the Matrix too often?

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Shooting is good for you and too good for some people.

I don't really feel comfortable with that claim. I'm sure it's true for the folk at the turnip end of the scale. But as you get towards the other end - super intelligent Safe Speed forum users - the need to consider the framework of personal knowledge emerges. It's not just Darwin's theory in isolation - it's Darwin's theory in context. Thoughts, let alone belief systems, are almost all 'contextual', and the degree of context needed to support a belief in an intelligent being is huge.



Very few. I grant you.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Some onions once had a go at it, and got to page 3!

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I stole this .sig

You're making it up! How would you know that? Oh wait... do you know your onions?

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Are well, space and time are curved, according to Einstein, who’s science I have every faith in, so you just come back to where and when you started from, I think !, oh so therefore I am.

It is only the first day and this forum is already up to four pages, so is that a record for a Safe Speed forum.