On Evolution and Other Conspiracies!...

[Rockhopper]

Two clips that explain again what we know and how it is found out about Evolution, especially Human Evolution. Watch them right through and take in what is said, it will become clear to you. It's explained is very simple terms that even a child can understand!



The second one goes into all the crazy conspiracy theories that abound on the net, again watch it right through and it will explain all to you.



If you have any problems with them then take it up with the site author, I'm just the messenger!

Tim.

[Monk (in hiding)]

Why are you so fixated and fanatical on just a few topics?

Topics that you rebleat over and over and over?

Topics in which you are totally and inflexibly authoritarian?

[Rockhopper]

Why are you so fixated and fanatical on just a few topics?

Topics that you rebleat over and over and over?

Topics in which you are totally and inflexibly authoritarian?

You mean this fellow here who claimed that the moon landing was a hoax? Who thinks that Alex Jones is the greatest thing since sliced bread? Who has claimed in the past and even now that humans were created by an outside entity? Topics that you re-bleat over and over?

https://islanders.canadian-forum.com/t822-1969-moon-landing

You claimed that the Evolution Theory wasn't true and so I posted the first one to show you exactly what we know about it. It is explained in a way that even a primary school child could understand so you should be able too. I'll wager that you didn't even watch it did you! You claimed that Evolution was a religion, which is laughable because it is far from religion and involves lots of people working and studying ALL THE EVIDENCE!!

As I have said before, if you don't like what I post then don't respond! There are plenty of other places on this forum for you to post your quasi-Creationist stuff. 

When people are genuinely open-minded they go and find out all the info they can, as I do, study all sides of it and then decide for themselves what is true and what is not true.

VM/Omega there is a very accurate saying: "destructive criticism is a self-description!" Read and watch what I post and learn. I am 71 years old and I'm still learning new things and I will keep on learning, so I am not closed-minded and if you have something constructive to offer a genuine Scientific discussion then post it and back it up with REAL EVIDENCE not out-of-context comments or stuff from weird fringe sites that have no foundation in science.

Tim.

[Lenzabi]

Enjoyed the 1st vid, good description of what has happened in the communities

2nd vid the stupid burned so much I had to shy away from it! Water has always, even when at purest , caused light diffusion into a rainbow effect. wet yet sunny days we get rainbows, and suddenly, the parable of "God's Promise bot to flood the Earth again" becomes a chemical additive conspiracy. There have been naturally occurring rainbows around water since this world had such a biosphere to have water and light interact!

That video topped off the "Stupid-Git Meter"

[Rockhopper]

Aye Len that last vid shows just how bloody stupid some people can be. Nothing conspiratorial about rainbows on lawn sprinklers, been around since sprinklers were invented!

The first vid is a good one and the way that Peter Hatfield explains it is so simple and easy that even a primary schooler could understand it.

Tim.

[Lenzabi]

Aye Len that last vid shows just how bloody stupid some people can be. Nothing conspiratorial about rainbows on lawn sprinklers, been around since sprinklers were invented!

The first vid is a good one and the way that Peter Hatfield explains it is so simple and easy that even a primary schooler could understand it.

Tim.

Especially the one with the Gorilla, Orangutan and person and Banana that part made me chuckle the most.

Did you kn ow that due to such lack of info, Stalin tried to have a program of interbreeding to make him half gorilla/half human super soldiers? It failed due to the reality that while man and other apes had a common root ancestor in the Primates , we are too far divergent from each to breed.

[Rockhopper]

Yes I did know that Len. Some Chinese Scientists crossed a human with a chimp. Got a baby but it was sterile (had no genitalia) and died a few months after birth. I'll see if I can dig up some more info on it.

That divergence of humans and apes shows that the evidence for Evolution is accurate. 

I cracked up at the comment from Peter when he said that he and Kent Hovind had a falling-out and he (Peter) no longer makes prison visits!

Tim.

[Monk (in hiding)]

Nonsense, there is no evidence we evolved from apes. That thinking is very outdated now. total nonsense, faith based belief system.

[Rockhopper]

Nonsense, there is no evidence we evolved from apes. That thinking is very outdated now. total nonsense, faith based belief system.

Hmmmmm! A very dogmatic answer!

Dogmatic:

Someone who is dogmatic has arrogant attitudes based on unproved theories. If you dogmatically assert that the moon is made of green cheese, you'll just get laughed at.
The most basic definition of the adjective dogmatic is that it is related to dogma — doctrines relating to morals and faith — but what it has come to mean is attitudes that are not only based on unproved theories but are also arrogant in nature. The root of dogmatic is the Greek word dogmatikos. A synonym of dogmatic is "dictatorial" and because there are religious associations to the root word dogma, someone who is  dogmatic tends to "pontificate."

The poster constantly states that Evolution is a faith based system yet never comes up with any alternative evidence. Nor does he come up with any indication that it is.

Tim.

[Agartha]

Chinese crossed a chimp and a human? How cruel... why? I don't see the point.... that poor creature....

[Monk (in hiding)]

Chinese crossed a chimp and a human? How cruel... why? I don't see the point.... that poor creature....

Fricken sick Nazis.

The point is to create a new life form, a sub-human slave race.

[Agartha]

Don't they have that already? Billions of us in the poorest countries? Slaves without chains? Working for nothing... abused and killed without justice?

[Monk (in hiding)]

Don't they have that already? Billions of us in the poorest countries? Slaves without chains? Working for nothing... abused and killed without justice?

Maybe Sitchin was right?

Have we become like our masters.

[Rockhopper]

Chinese crossed a chimp and a human? How cruel... why? I don't see the point.... that poor creature....

It is somewhat cruel Ags. Not sure why it was done though.

And you're right, there are so many "slaves" in the world now.

Tim.

[Stirky]

Chinese crossed a chimp and a human? How cruel... why? I don't see the point.... that poor creature....

OMG really???!!!! That is terrible!!! Was done in a Michael Crichton book and of course on the Planet of the Apes films, you wonder sometimes if these scientists look at the world of fiction and think 'oh that is a good idea!!'

[Agartha]

Or maybe it's the other way round..... fiction is written based on real scientific work.

[Stirky]

I know much of Michael Crichton's work was based on facts and although a lot of his books seemed very far fetched at the time they were written, they were not that far off the mark in what could actually be done in the scientific world. He was a very clever man. So yes you are probably right there, it's just how far these scientists actually take their work, a lot is possible, but a lot is not morally right.

[Agartha]

Yep..... not morally right at all.....

[Rinoa]

Chinese crossed a chimp and a human? How cruel... why? I don't see the point.... that poor creature....

OMG really???!!!! That is terrible!!! Was done in a Michael Crichton book and of course on the Planet of the Apes films, you wonder sometimes if these scientists look at the world of fiction and think 'oh that is a good idea!!'

Scientific Ethics and Stalin’s Ape-Man Superwarriors

By Eric Michael Johnson | November 10, 2011 | Comments8

The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.


Email PrintPrint

Author’s Note: The following originally appeared at archy.
"Stalin" by Nathaniel Gold

"Stalin" by Nathaniel Gold

The anti-Darwin industry among fundamentalist Christians has produced thousands of pages of misinformation in their attempt to tar and feather the theory of evolution. I have responded to many of these false claims previously. However, one assertion that is especially outlandish is that the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin was a devoted Darwinian who funded a program to create “ape-man Superwarriors” in his goal for world domination. As Creation Ministries, publisher of the Journal of Creation and advocate of a young Earth literal interpretation of the Bible, insisted in 2006:

Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin wanted to rebuild the Red Army, in the mid-1920s, with Planet-of-the-Apes-style troops by crossing humans with apes. . . Stalin is said to have told Ivanov, ‘I want a new invincible human being, insensitive to pain, resistant and indifferent about the quality of food they eat.’

Their only legitimate source for the claim comes from a 2002 paper in the academic journal Science in Context, by the Russian historian of science Kirill Rossiianov. Rossiianov’s study follows the ill-fated attempt by the Russian physiologist Il’ya Ivanov to cross-breed humans with anthropoid apes. His research offers an important warning about the ethical abuses that can occur when proper standards are not enforced, but Rossiianov’s paper clearly demonstrates that creating “superwarriors” had no part in Ivanov’s work. The alleged quote from Stalin is not found in the paper and there is no evidence that Stalin ever made such a statement. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that Creation Ministries’ assertion has absolutely no foundation.

However, why the Soviets would fund such a human-chimp hybridization program in the first place and what can be learned from this sordid tale of ethical misconduct is an important topic and fascinating in its own right. Ivanov represents a scientist, widely respected in his field, whose dedication to find out if something could be done blinded him to ask whether it should be done. It also reminds us of the role that politics can play in the development of scientific research even if the scientists directly involved are not political themselves.

Contrary to the claims of conservative Christians, Il’ya Ivanov’s interest in hybridization occurred long before the Russian revolution of 1917 and had little connection with Marxist ideology. Following his graduation in 1896 with the equivalent of a PhD in physiology, Ivanov conducted research in bacteriology at the Institut Pasteur in Paris before working with the world famous physiologist Ivan Pavlov. Ivanov utilized the same surgical techniques that earned Pavlov a Nobel Prize and was successfully able to extract animal sex glands so as to develop techniques of artificial insemination in purebred horses. This research was subsequently expanded to farm animals more generally and Ivanov became the leading international figure in the study of artificial insemination.

Ivanov’s first mention of his idea for using artificial insemination to determine if a human-ape hybrid could be produced occurred at an Austrian zoology conference in 1910. There is no indication that he had any plans to carry out such research at this time. However, seven years after the revolution, in 1924, Ivanov was conducting experiments on sperm disinfection at the Institut Pasteur when he was offered the institute’s support for his hybridization scheme:

They offered Ivanov free access to animals at the institute’s recently organized chimpanzee facility in the village of Kindia, French Guinea, but could not pay for other operational and travel expenses of the project.

After several failed attempts to secure funding, Ivanov eventually received $10,000 from the Soviet Financial Commission and his project was subsequently approved by the Soviet Academy of Sciences (Ivan Pavlov was a distinguished member of the Academy and was present the day this decision was made). It was certainly Ivanov’s distinguished reputation that allowed the project to move forward. In his proposal to the Academy he stated that he wanted to test various hypotheses that had been suggested in the scientific literature.

One such hypothesis was that of the German scientist Hans Friedenthal whose analysis of blood cells in 1900 between chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, and humans showed that they were serologically far more similar than had previously been expected. As a result, Friedenthal proposed that anthropoid reproductive cells could be similar enough to result in a hybrid between humans and other apes. In the following two decades other researchers, such as the Dutch zoologist Hermann Marie Bernelot Moens and the German sexologist Hermann Rohleder, sought to test this prediction by inseminating chimpanzee females with human sperm. However, their attempts never got beyond the planning stage and, in the case of Moens, his research plans resulted in him being fired from his teaching position.

With his small budget and use of Institut Pasteur’s facility Ivanov and his son traveled to French Guinea in Western Africa to carry out his artificial insemination experiments in March, 1926. However, his research was hounded at every turn. The “research station” had only two veterinarians on staff and Ivanov’s presence resulted in outrage that he might report on the atrocious conditions:

Ivanov explained that the hostility of the station’s staff arose from their fears that he would report back to Paris about the real problems at the facility. According to the documentation that he managed to see, about seven hundred chimpanzees had been bought from native hunters since the founding of the station in 1923, and more than half of them had died before they could be shipped to Paris for biomedical experiments.

Local hunters had kidnapped the chimpanzees from the wild as infants and all were still juveniles when Ivanov arrived. He only attempted to inseminate three females before being forced to abandon the project as useless. Desperate to make use of his limited funding, Ivanov then made the horrific decision to attempt the insemination of African women with chimpanzee sperm without their knowledge. He made a proposal to doctors at a local hospital about his experiment and was ready to proceed when the General Governor of French Guinea, Paul Poiret, rejected the plan. Out of options and funding, Ivanov and his son decided to return home. By the time the two boarded their ship they had been in Africa for just over one month.

Ivanov hoped to pursue his experiment again in Russia through the use of women volunteers (and he found at least one who was willing to participate). However, when word got out that Ivanov had attempted to inseminate African women without their consent he was condemned by the Soviet Academy of Sciences and all support was eliminated. An investigation concluded that Ivanov’s behavior:

[M]ight undermine the trust of Africans in European researchers and doctors and make problematic any further expeditions of Russian scientists to Africa. Thereafter, the Academy did not want to deal with Ivanov and deprived him of any further support.

While some of his previous support was based in the political ideology at the time, there were strong political divisions that split scientific opinion on a range of issues and Ivanov was caught in between. To some Marxists it was hoped that a program of positive eugenics could lead to an improvement in the population similar to Marx’s description of historical materialism. Researchers in this camp, such as Herman Muller, hoped to use “scientific” techniques so parents thought to have a good genetic background would have more children, a policy in sharp contrast to the negative eugenics later employed by the Nazis that emphasized sterilization. Muller and other geneticists hoped that Ivanov’s research could lead to a better understanding of what qualities to look for. However, other scientists rejected genetic research as bourgeois or imperialist and advocated the inheritance of acquired characteristics (what is commonly known as Lamarckism). It was these researchers, led by the charismatic biologist Trofim Lysenko, who had Stalin’s support at the time.
Trofim Lysenko

Lysenko rejected genetic inheritance and advocated Lamarckian acquired characteristics. Image from Soyfer, V. N. The State and Science (Hermitage, New Jersey, 1989), Wikimedia Commons

In a telling example of the political divisions Ivanov became caught up in, Cambridge historian Martin Richards describes how Muller, one of Ivanov’s supporters, sent a letter to Stalin advocating a positive eugenic program. However, the timing couldn’t have been worse. Lysenko and his followers had warned Stalin that genetic research would lead to eugenics as well as fascism and, now, Stalin was convinced. Muller was forced to flee Moscow for fear of being arrested and, days later, received word that several of his colleagues were shot as “enemies of the people.”

It was in this atmosphere that Il’ya Ivanov met his end. After several additional attempts to receive support for his research without success, Ivanov was caught up in the ideological battle. One of his scientific enemies, Orest Neyman, accused him of “sabotage” because some of his artificial insemination farm instruments had apparently malfunctioned. On December 13, 1930 Ivanov was arrested by the secret police and convicted of “having created a counterrevolutionary organization among agricultural specialists” and banished to Kazakhstan where he died two years later. His main accuser took over Ivanov’s position as head of the laboratory.

This history raises a number of troubling issues. The fact of the matter is that Il’ya Ivanov cannot simply be dismissed as a rogue ideologue abusing science for dubious political purposes. Rather, he was an internationally respected leader in reproductive physiology and the foremost expert at the time on the artificial insemination of farm animals. His human-chimp hybridization experiments came out of collaboration with other respected scientists and with the direct assistance of the Institut Pasteur, one of the leading scientific institutions in the world at the time. Furthermore, while there was apparently no overt racism in his research, his decision to inseminate African women without their knowledge or consent can only be understood in the context of a racist and sexist colonial attitude.

While Ivanov doesn’t seem to have had a political motivation for his research, some of those involved in supporting his work certainly did. In this way Ivanov’s experiment was only made possible because of a network of individuals and institutions with specific political ambitions even though Ivanov himself wasn’t directly involved in them. When we consider scientific experimentation today, where do we draw the line between sound research and ethical violation? In what ways are funding decisions based on political considerations unrelated to the direct question a researcher hopes to answer? How does state power influence scientific research, and what relationship do scientists have with those on the receiving end of this power? Even though no one, other than the scientists involved, were ever hurt by this cross-breeding research it nevertheless raises serious concerns. While the question of the “ape-man superwarriors” myth can easily be discarded after examining this history, other questions are not as easy to dismiss.

[Rockhopper]

I suspect that the report of the Chinese experiment was an urban myth, I read in in a magazine but it may not have been a scientific one.

I have checked all the archives of the genuine Science Mags and can't find it in those either so the conclusion is that it's a myth.

Michael Chrichton was a scifi writer and often his stories were loosely based on the science known at the time. Much the same as Lovecraft and Burroughs did previously.

I am also aware of Ivanov's experiments too. Humans and Chimps have moved too far apart now to be able to hybridise but still share the same basic genes.

Tim.

[Sponsored content]