10 trillion lira offer to prove evolution

[FireGarden]

Via PZ Myers:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/09/were_all_going_to_be_rich.php

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/s...ize-for-fossil-proof-of-evolution-945289.html

A controversial creationist who successfully campaigned for Richard Dawkins' official website to be banned in Turkey has offered a multitrillion- pound challenge to scientists.

Adnan Oktar said that he has "issued a call to all evolutionists" that he will give "10 trillion Turkish lira to anyone who produces a single intermediate-form fossil demonstrating evolution" – a sum roughly equal to £4.4trn.

If I also post this in a humour thread, will I get done for spamming?

 

[Professor Yaffle]

He is probably offering it in old turkish lira - in which case it will be worth about 50c...

 

[pitbone]

He'd probably use something along the lines of Ken Hovind's "That's just another species, and you can't prove it ever procreated" idiocy.

 

[Wowbagger]

Does he have children? If so, that makes him an intermediate fossil.

 

[GodMark2]

He'd probably use something along the lines of Ken Hovind's "That's just another species, and you can't prove it ever procreated" idiocy.

Along with the ever favorite "Now you just have TWO gaps that need one of these fabled 'transitional fossils' to fill them."

 

[GreyICE]

Viral markers in the DNA mean nothing! It's a total coincidence that they happened to line up with the family trees we'd already derived! God just did that to trick stupid people!

 

[geni]

Does he have children? If so, that makes him an intermediate fossil.

Regardless of what any kids he might have may think I doubt he qualifies as a fossil from a scientific POV.

 

[Aepervius]

If what has been published up to now does not satisfy him, nothing EVER will. He will make all sort of non-scientific objection to give the prize. The same sort of woo-woo prize exists around, and always there is a loophole or a lot of subjectivity coming in making them literally non-winnable.

 

[Sideroxylon]

I wonder if a legless lizard would be my ticket to fabulous wealth. How might Adnan Hodja explain what clearly seem vestiges of former limbs?

I think he must be looking to boost his flagging profile. I saw a bunch of his books on sale the other day. All were heavily discounted - down from nine million Lira to three! (Actually they knocked six zeros off the currency three years back, making his brilliant treatise a real bargain at three Lira - that's less than the price of a chicken kebab!)

 

[Mojo]

Via PZ Myers:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/09/were_all_going_to_be_rich.php

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/s...ize-for-fossil-proof-of-evolution-945289.html

A controversial creationist who successfully campaigned for Richard Dawkins' official website to be banned in Turkey has offered a multitrillion- pound challenge to scientists.

Adnan Oktar said that he has "issued a call to all evolutionists" that he will give "10 trillion Turkish lira to anyone who produces a single intermediate-form fossil demonstrating evolution" – a sum roughly equal to £4.4trn.

Yeah, but have you seen how he defines intermediate forms?

The fact is that the living things referred to as transitional forms by evolutionists would have been very odd-looking entities, with limbs protruding from the most unlikely places, with ears where their eyes ought to be, legs protruding from their ears, with fins on one side of their bodies and legs on the other. And there would have been billions of them. There should be thousands, millions of intermediate form fossils pointing to a transition between fish and reptile fossils discovered. This should also apply to insects and flies, and there should be billions of fossils of peculiar creatures that resemble neither insects nor flies. Yet all of the 100 million or so fossils unearthed to date belong to perfectly-formed living entities.

Source.

He's sufficiently ignorant about evolution to make it unwinnable.

 

[Nero]

Even laboratory studies have failed to witness the evolutionary power of so-called evolutionary mechanisms;

I guess he hasn’t come across the work of Richard Lenski:

http://myxo.css.msu.edu/index.html

Thanks

 

[Mojo]

The fact is that the living things referred to as transitional forms by evolutionists would have been very odd-looking entities, with limbs protruding from the most unlikely places, with ears where their eyes ought to be, legs protruding from their ears, with fins on one side of their bodies and legs on the other. And there would have been billions of them.

Perhaps he'd accept a caddis fly with a fishhook where its [rule 10] ought to be.

 

[Fredrik]

Yeah, but have you seen how he defines intermediate forms?

He's sufficiently ignorant about evolution to make it unwinnable.

It was pretty obvious that that would be the case. It's kind of funny that every time a creationist explains what they would consider proof of evolution, they always mention something that would more or less disprove it. (Another example: "a monkey giving birth to a human baby").

 

[FireGarden]

Yeah, but have you seen how he defines intermediate forms?

Source

He's sufficiently ignorant about evolution to make it unwinnable.

Oh my!

The offer back in July 08 was only 10million lira. Hardly enough to be worthwhile.

"Specimens unearthed from beneath the ground should bear the signs of a strange world like that of the Island of Dr Moreau, ...."

Huh? not just the reference to fiction, but Dr Moreau was an "intelligent" designer.

 

[Kuko 4000]

Took this photo from my travels in the US in 2007, IIRC, this was from Santa Monica, LA:

 

[Perpetual Student]

No scientific theory can be “proved” without any residual doubt or areas of possible deviation. Physical laws always have the potential to be modified (even if ever so slightly) or can be totally revised based on new observations or experiments. In my view, that defines and characterizes science as unique among all areas of human endeavor.
Having said that, the theory of evolution is one of the most foundational theories in modern science. The evidence is overwhelming and astonishingly corroborated by the diverse areas of geology, taxonomy, embryology, genetics, anthropology, anatomy, breeding, vestigial characteristics, etc. For anyone to be yet searching for a “proof of evolution” indicates either a lack of intelligence, a lack of education or, if educated, a sadly brainwashed childhood or a person to be dismissed as a “flat earth” type whacko! If I have insulted anyone, so be it.