Wissenschaft

Conservapedia – The Trustworthy Encyclopedia

Out there in the endless information space of the internet, a small stronghold of untainted knowledge exists that heroically resists the onslaught of information distorted by liberal democrats or satanic atheists:

Conservapedia

One example from the entry on evolution (yeah, I know, that topic again):

Lack of Any Clear Transitional Forms

Bird or dinosaur? The Thermopolis specimen

The Thermopolis specimen
By joe_tourist,
used under cc license

… today there are over one hundred million identified and cataloged fossils in the world’s museums. If the evolutionary position was valid, then there should be “transitional forms” in the fossil record reflecting the intermediate life forms. Another term for these “transitional forms” is “missing links”.
…
Charles Darwin admitted that his theory required the existence of “transitional forms.” Darwin wrote: “So that the number of intermediate and transitional links, between all living and extinct species, must have been inconceivably great. But assuredly, if this theory be true, such have lived upon the earth.” Darwin wrote: “Why then is not every geological formation and every strata full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely-graduated organic chain; and this perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against my theory.”
…
Scientist Dr. Michael Denton wrote regarding the fossil record: “It is still, as it was in Darwin’s day, overwhelmingly true that the first representatives of all the major classes of organisms known to biology are already highly characteristic of their class when they make their initial appearance in the fossil record.
…
Creationists assert that evolutionists have had over 140 years to find a transitional fossil and nothing approaching a conclusive transitional form has ever been found and that only a handful of highly doubtful examples of transitional fossils exist.
…
David B. Kitts of the School of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Oklahoma wrote that “Evolution requires intermediate forms between species and paleontology does not provide them…”.
…
… the late Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould … admitted the following:
“The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils … In a 1977 paper titled “The Return of Hopeful Monsters”, Gould wrote: “The fossil record with its abrupt transitions offers no support for gradual change….All paleontologists know that the fossil record contains precious little in the way of intermediate forms; transitions between major groups are characteristically abrupt.”
…
The senior paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History, Dr. Colin Patterson, put it this way: “Gradualism is a concept I believe in, not just because of Darwin’s authority, but because my understanding of genetics seems to demand it. Yet Gould and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no transitional fossils….I will lay it on the line — there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument.”
…
In 1980, David Woodruff wrote in the journal Science the following: “But fossil species remain unchanged throughout most of their history and the record fails to contain a single example of a significant transition.”
…
The late Ernst Mayr … a prominent Harvard biologist … a staunch evolutionist and atheist … maintained that evolution was a fact … was compelled to make the following admission regarding the fossil record in relation to the theory of evolution: “Even the fossil record fails to substantiate any continuity and all novelties appear in the fossil record quite suddenly.”
…

Ah, using decade old quotes, a strategy that never gets old. But to be fair, the following is also part of the entry:

After having been incessantly quoted by creationist … Gould stated the following in 1981: “Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists – whether through design or stupidity, I do not know – as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups.”

And now, if you are a) still reading this and b) still interested in the other side’s point of view (and honestly, why would you? All those quotes are pretty compelling, aren’t they?), here is (an excerpt) of the Wikipedia entry (reservations towards the trustworthyness of online resources apply!):

dinosaur w/saddle

The little known transitional state between
Dinosaur and riding Horse
By williac,
used under cc license

According to modern evolutionary synthesis, all populations of organisms are in transition. Therefore, a “transitional form” is a human construct
…
Not every transitional form appears in the fossil record because the fossil record is nowhere near complete. Organisms are only rarely perserved as fossils in the best of circumstances and only a fraction of such fossils have ever been discovered. … the total number of of species of all kinds known through the fossil record was less than 5% … which suggests that the number of species known through fossils must be less than 1%
…
Proponents of creationism have frequently made claims about the existence or implications of transitional fossils … some of these claims include:

  • ‘There are no transitional fossils.’ … Such claims may be based on a misunderstanding of the nature of what represents a transitional feature
  • ‘No fossils are found with partially functional features.’ Vestigial organs are common in whales (legs), flightless birds (wings), snakes (pelvis and lung), and numerous structures in humans (the coccyx, plica semilunaris, and appendix).
  • … creationists have claimed that evolution predicts a continuous gradation in the fossil record, and have misrepresented the expected partial record as having “systematic gaps”. Due to the specialized and rare circumstances required for a biological structure to fossilize, only a very small percentage of all life-forms that ever have existed can be expected to be represented in discoveries and each represents only a snapshot of the process of evolution. The transition itself can only be illustrated and corroborated by transitional fossils, but it will never demonstrate an exact half-way point between clearly divergent forms.

Also, you might want to look at the List of transitional fossils, the Evolution of the horse or the Evolution of cetaceans (Whales, dolphins etc.).

Von Mondkalendern und anderem Unsinn

Mond

Dunkel war’s, der Mond schien helle …
By MoleSon²,
used under cc license

Sehr schöner Artikel für alle, denen Mondkalender und Co. schon länger auf den Keks gehen:
Vom richtigen Zeitpunkt: Esoterischer Unsinn über den Mond. Besonders gut hat mir das Ende gefallen:

Kann man die Leute nicht einfach machen und glauben lassen, was sie wollen? Wenn jemand unbedingt seine Pflanzen nach dem Mondkalender anpflanzen will, dann stört das doch niemanden. Wer viel Geld für unnütze Mondprodukte ausgeben will, der soll das doch machen – und besonders dann, wenn es wie beim Mondholz tatsächlich ab und zu einen Mehrwert zu normalen Produkten hat. Muss man immer und überall dagegen sein, nur weil etwas nicht ins eigene “Weltbild” passt?

Ja, muss man 😉 Das hat auch nichts mit Ideologie und Weltbild zu tun oder damit, dass ich mich als Wissenschaftler von den Esoterikern angegriffen fühle. Ich will auch niemanden den persönlichen Glauben an irgendwas verbieten. Es gibt aber doch einige Gründe, warum hier (und in anderen Themenbereichen) Aufklärung absolut notwendig ist.

Warum soll es Leuten erlaubt sein, andere schamlos auszunützen und abzuzocken? Wenn ich ein Jogurth o.ä. auf den Markt bringe und z.B. behaupte, es würde den Cholesterinspiegel senken, dann muss ich dafür auch konkrete Nachweise bringen – ansonsten wäre es Betrug. Bei esoterischen Produkten aller Art muss das seltsamerweise nicht sein – hier dürfen die Verkäufer die wildesten Sachen behaupten um ihre Produkte zu verkaufen. Ich sehe nicht ein, warum es solchen Leuten erlaubt sein soll, ihre Kunden einfach abzuzocken.

Natürlich sind nicht alle Menschen, die mit Mond & Co Geld verdienen Betrüger. Viele glauben selbst an die Wirksamkeit ihrer Produkte und Regeln. Aber auch hier kann das ganze nicht ungefährlich sein. Wer sich bei der Pflanzenpflege nach dem Mond richtet, bringt im schlimmsten Fall nur ein paar Blumen um. Wer sich aber bei medizinischen Fragen kritiklos an Mondkalender hält und vielleicht Behandlungen oder gar Operationen verschiebt, nur damit sie zum “richtigen Zeitpunkt” stattfinden, der spielt mit seiner Gesundheit bzw. seinem Leben! Paungger und Poppe behaupten selbst auf ihrer Homepage dass

“Operationen und Medikamentengaben, an bestimmten Tagen durchgeführt, hilfreich sind, an anderen Tagen nutzlos oder gar schädlich – oft unabhängig von Dosis und Qualität der Medikamente, von aller Kunst des Arztes.”

Solche Aussagen sind meiner Meinung nach grob fahrlässig! Wer krank ist, sollte schnellstmöglich die richtige Behandlung bekommen und nicht erst dann, wenn der Mond richtig steht!

Aber auch ganz allgemein gesehen sind Mondkalender und Co. gefährlich. Wie viele andere Dinge aus der esoterischen und pseudowissenschaftlichen Ecke leiten sie die Menschen dazu an, kritiklos an irgendetwas zu glauben. Und das ist ein gefährlicher Zustand! Wer es gewöhnt ist, alles zu glauben, was ihm sein Guru/Heiler/Rutengeher/Astrologe/Kartenleger/etc erzählt, der ist auch ein leichtes Opfer für andere Manipulatoren.

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