From owner-dros@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk Mon Apr 9 17:38:27 2001 Return-Path: Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mercury.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4561717B2C for ; Mon, 9 Apr 2001 17:38:26 +0100 (BST) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mercury.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6CC0D17B34 for ; Mon, 9 Apr 2001 17:38:24 +0100 (BST) Received: by mercury.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Postfix, from userid 6020) id 3F86217B2C; Mon, 9 Apr 2001 17:38:20 +0100 (BST) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mercury.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1BEDC17AE4 for ; Mon, 9 Apr 2001 04:17:44 +0100 (BST) Received: from chx400.switch.ch (chx400.switch.ch [130.59.10.2]) by mercury.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7A5BE17A5B for ; Mon, 9 Apr 2001 04:17:40 +0100 (BST) Received: from news.cybercity.dk ([212.242.40.196]) by chx400.switch.ch with esmtp (Exim 3.20 #1) id 14mSBG-0002xQ-00 for bionet-drosophila@moderators.isc.org; Mon, 09 Apr 2001 05:17:39 +0200 Received: (from news@localhost) by news.cybercity.dk (8.11.0/8.11.0) id f393HTT64616 for bionet-drosophila@moderators.isc.org; Mon, 9 Apr 2001 05:17:29 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from news) To: bionet-drosophila@moderators.isc.org From: Kristian Kyhl Newsgroups: bionet.drosophila Subject: Re: We need your comments! Organization: CyberCity Internet Message-ID: <3AD128F8.11A06FE4@imf.au.dk> References: <20010407133758.GZUR726.moonlight@erdemr> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: news.cybercity.dk 986786249 64568 212.242.56.100 (9 Apr 2001 03:17:29 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@cybercity.dk NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 9 Apr 2001 03:17:29 +0000 (UTC) To: Ferit Guleryuz X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.72 [en] (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en Date: Mon, 9 Apr 2001 17:38:20 +0100 (BST) Sender: owner-dros@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Hi Ferit That is some task you have ahead of you. Some time ago I stumbled upon a revisionist home page, trying to disprove the ill doings of the Nazis. When reading their 'theories' at first i was enraged, and wanted to do something against it. Now I have resignated, beleaving the best thing to do is just to ignore it, and let them live their low-life existance hoping them to go away when time is. The reason for this is that they reverse everything, turning black into white and vice versa, and it is the same when the creationists try to reject science and evolution. For example, try to argue which colour is the nicest, or which religion is best - it is not possible, is it? Genetic and evolutionary science, moleculary biology etc. is fairly new. It can not prove or disprove everything, and it is here the Yahya person comes in. As he correctly states, every scientific theory has an aspect of faith, else they would not have been theories but facts. I do not feel comfortable with Popper, but he will do here; he states that all theories will in time be falsified, and then lead to formulation of new theories and so on. Ergo what Yahya does not comprehend, is that all weak spots in evolutionary theory is in fact a question of faith, which in time will lead to more firm knowledge of the aspect, revision or rejection of the theory in question. He states that a number of scientists were religious. What is the problem of that? I myself do not believe in any God like creature taking care of us and judging our good or bad doings. But i can and will not try to disprove Him (or Her) knowing it is just as futile as trying to disprove science. What I do believe is, that there are things not explicable to man (yet?). People are free to call that God, people from another galaxy or what ever, I just call it something else; nature, chance, evolution, etc. I will not go into details about his statements about the formation of the first primitive cells, as there are multiple theories about this, some better than others, I must only state that modern science is still in its infancy in this area, leaving no doubt for me that this point will be enlightened in due time. Well, it is still not possible to 'fabricate' a cell from scratch, how then explain its exsistance in a theory that actually enlightens all aspects of it? One major thing is Yahyas downfall: EVOLUTION IS A DECEIT, The Theory of Evolution has Collapsed etc. You can not write a scientific paper using these frases. And you'll need to look further into these statements; they are the total opposite of science; they are statements produced by a man totally blind to the possibility of being wrong, leaving no place for doubt, so there are two possibilities; Yahya is in fact God (as only Gods are entitled to state absolute truth's), or he is a fool, you choose! In chapter: TO BE FREED FROM PREJUDICE - We scientists are NOT atheists. I myself am a humanist, lots of other scientists being something else. We all believe in something, else we would not be scientists, not capable of using our imagination, not able to form novel theories, let alone explain the world and its wonders, as we see them. That many of us do not believe in an old man (or woman) in the skies watching over us, doesn't make us atheists. And especially when backtracking our steps, belief is neccessary. Even in our most recent history. For instance what is the chance of me sitting at my computer tonight writing this e-mail? Probability = 0. Reason: The prob. of me reading the newsgroup p=0.5. The prob. of me responding to the mail p=0.1 (I really have not got the time for it). The probability for me starting studying biology p=0.0005 (I dropped out from another study), the prob. of me being born 0.0000001. The probability of my father meating my mother p=0.0001 (father danish, mother german), the probability that all my ancesters survived wars, famine etc. p=extremely small. And so on the product of all these probabilities being so small that even the number zero is to large. So it is by all means a miracle that any of us exists, when using his arguments. A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE THEORY - It has previously been believed that the Earth was flat, and not round. You could in the same way argue that the rejection of this theory would prove the existance of God. It did not, it lead to another theory stating that the world is round, which is still widely believed even today. DARWIN'S RACISM - Darwin was not divine. As Yahya correctly states some other place Darwin did not have the means to explain the whole world, and it must be remembered that he lived in a time where these ideas were perfectly pc, and still today some scientists believe that certain asian people are yellowish in skin, and africans are darker than europeans. They even believe that africans might even be better adapted to warmer climates than eskimos. By the way, all of us still bear "simian" features (the DNA between humans and chimps is still equal to 98.5%), else the Piltdown fake would not have fooled all scientists at the time. IMAGINARY MECHANISMS OF EVOLUTION - He asks: "Can Natural Selection Explain Complexity?" The answer: YES. He is wrong, I am right. Simple as that (see the error I just made, see above). THE FOSSIL RECORD REFUTES EVOLUTION - Lets go dig up some fossils from 15. december 49205924 b.c. That is of course not possible. I believe it is fantastic that so many fossiles from so many periods of time have been dug up. You can not expect to find fossils from all periods of time explaining all existance. Picture it as a puzzle with 5000 pieces, and only two or three pieces are present. Then try to picture the whole puzzle out of that. Furthermore some periods of time produce more fossils than others. Newer theories suggest that evolution proceeds stepwise and not continuous. Look further into that. THE TALE OF TRANSITION FROM WATER TO LAND - Hey, what's that frog doing? First being a fish, then dwelling at land. THE TALE OF TRANSITION FROM LAND TO AIR - To many words, find out yourself. DECEPTIVE FOSSIL INTERPRETATIONS OF EVOLUTIONISTS - In forensics models are created using the features from skulls, for identification of people. This approach is very successfull and has solved quite a murder mystery. Keine Hexerei. EVOLUTION FORGERIES - Surprise; a scientist being wrong. OK let us start over again, revert all science, the Earth is flat! THE SCENARIO OF HUMAN EVOLUTION - Statement: "No sound or real evidence has been put forward to prove that there is a relationship between man and ape, except forgeries, distortions, and misleading drawings and comments." Plain stupid nonsense!!! Huge amounts of mt-DNA studies support the relationship between man and ape. Factual errors: "The evolutionists call the so-called first common ancestors of men and apes "Australopithecus"". Wrong, the first common ancestor known is Proconsul. Further he calls the neanderthals for Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, implying a ancestry. They are now called Homo erectus neanderthalensis. They are nothing but our cousins, not our ancestors. Downright lie :"Neanderthals are a human race and this fact is admitted by almost everybody today". Suggested readings: Papers about evolution and mitochondrial DNA, mitochondiral Eve etc. THE IMPASSE OF MOLECULAR EVOLUTION - Again what is the probability of me being here tonight. DESIGN AND COINCIDENCE - I am using glasses, and my stereo does not make any noise before starting playing music. Ergo; God created DENON, and not me. EVOLUTIONIST CLAIMS &THE FACTS - Downright lie: "In addition to birds, [...] even on some dinosaurs, which are extinct reptiles. Not even evolutionists posit an evolutionary relationship or kinship among those four different classes of animal". About Haeckel: We the secret society of evil scientists solemnly swear that he was not one of us. He acted alone. THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION: A MATERIALISTIC LIABILITY - I still believe that the only way to evolve further after capitalism, must be where all people will share a common worlds common ressources, read Marxism in its essence. Even after the downfall of the downright fascist Soviet Union marxism is still a beautiful thought, and must not be confused with the dogma of the USSR. MEDIA: FERTILE GROUND FOR THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION - On the one hand he draws from all media (references include Discover Magazine, Nature, Scientific American, etc.) and builds his theories from these sources, and now he states them being false, lies etc. This would imply that he himself is lying, in fact telling that his book must be a fable. CONCLUSION: EVOLUTION IS A DECEIT - This is getting redicoulous. "WARNING ! The chapter you are now about to read deals with A VERY IMPORTANT MYSTERY, one that is crucial to your life. You should read it very attentively and thoroughly for it is concerned with a subject that is liable to make a fundamental change in your outlook to the external world. The subject of this chapter is not just a point of view, a different approach, or a traditional philosophical thought: It is a reality that is also proven by science today." I am getting spam mail from porn sites with similar wordings. Just making me wondering how the hell did they get my e-mail address. THE MYSTERY OF MATTER - use the same arguments to prove that the world does not exist at all. THE RELATIVITY OF TIME AND THE REALITY OF FATE - do. I have not read all of it (to many notes :-)), so I may be wrong in certain statements, it is just my humble opinion and if you want I can give you some references for further reading, yours sincerely Stud. scient. Kristian Kyhl Ferit Guleryuz wrote: I am writing to you from Istanbul, Turkey on behalf of the Philosophy Dept. students at Istanbul University. Our purpose in contacting you is asking for your kind help. Please let us briefly explain you the challenging situation we are facing in Turkey regarding the book "Evolution Deceit" published by Harun Yahya. The writer Harun Yahya has released more than 140 books and he is known by his serious attacks against the evolution theory. He is trying to make use of science against Evolution. He is trying to shoot us with our weapon. During the last year, we tried to determine the scientific mistakes in his book. We organized conferences in order to avoid youth suffering from his non-scientific and unfortunate believes in creation. His strength and capability of playing with words in the name of science even confuse us sometimes, we should regretfully confess. We will certainly be grateful if you can support us with your experience and proficiency in the area. We want to make benefit of your comments in our conferences, and other studies. You may find the original text of the book at: http://harunyahya.com/Eng/EvolDec/e1.html We'll be looking forward to receive your invaluable support in our challenging situation in Turkey. We'll be grateful to receive your comments and critiques regarding his book "Evolution Deceit." With the hope of hearing from you in the shortest period of time. Yours truly, Ferit Guleryuz --- .