Jeepers, Creeper! Creationist answers Darwinist
1. Mitochondrial Eve:
”it is of great interest that the famous "Mitochondrial Eve" would be calculated to have lived about 6,500 years ago by rather straightforward dating of the "mutation clock" used to determine how long ago she lived. Eve, the mother of all living humans, just as the Bible says. Darwinists use other methods to determine the dating of "Eve", usually coming up with a date of about 150,000 to 200,000 years ago.”
While this matter is still far from settled, I take it you are aware that this calculation of 6500 years is based on a number of underlying assumptions, including (1) man and ape sharing a common ancestor, and (2) radiometric dating being accepted as accurate. Do you accept these assumptions? If you don’t, then how can you accept their result?
What do you make of the most recent common ancestor from whom the X-chromosomes of all people alive today descended, which indicates a much longer time? This should also indicate no more than 6500 years, shouldn’t it?
”They will also say that Eve was just one woman within an entire population of already existing humans.”
True, the calculation whose results you’re touting does depend on the assumption of a population of already existing humans (or proto-humans) as they split off from other evolutionary branches at an earlier time, including apes.
The mutation clock used by some predicts much different ages than those used by others. I thought it was interesting but it doesn't really prove a great deal. Much depends on your assumptions coming into the discussion and mine would be very different than yours. Again, I posted it as a note of interest.
2. ”The Noahic Flood, a world wide flood that lasted covered the entire planet for 150 days and rendered the earth unihabitable for approximately one year wiped out most of land life (not including invertabrates, microorganisms, etc) on earth. The exception is Noah, his family, and the animals that were brought with him aboard the Ark, a large boat with dimensions equivalent to that of a large ocean liner.”
How many “kinds” on the Ark would be necessary to account for the variety of life we see around us every day? How much would it take to feed them for at least a year? How much space would all this take up? Would a boat the size of a large ocean liner suffice?
”The word for creatures used here is for animals that generally have backbones, breath air, and live on the land. These are the kinds of animals that God caused to come to Noah to take with him on the Ark.”
How does “creation science” account for marine animals who were unable to live in either saltwater or freshwater, not a mix? Were there dinosaurs on the Ark, or weren’t there?
I am pretty sure that there were dinosaurs on the Ark. It appears they continued to exist up to the time of Job and perhaps beyond. There sure are enough "dragon stories" extant, plus drawings and clay models of dinosaurs that would indicate that dinosaurs lived on for some time.
I linked to my previous post that covered the subject of animals and space on the Ark. I stand by that posting.
The kinds of marine animals during the flood apparently had the abilities within their gene pools to adjust to waters that became increasingly brackish, or survive in waters that became increasingly fresh. Those abilities were naturally selected to keep the kind alive and some genetic information was doubtlessly lost in the process. The world-wide flood, with catastrophic events happening under the earth's crust and in the atmosphere as well, would have released large amounts of minerals into the oceans that were not there before in such quantities.
3. ”A world-wide flood is the kind of event that would explain the sedimentary layers of rock found around the world.”
An old earth would explain that just the same. A world-wide flood at that particular time (2348 BC) is contradicted by, for example, civilizations who were supposedly wiped out continuing to exist without a mention of the flood.
There is no reliable account of any civilization going back much beyond 4,000 some-odd years. The earlier years of such accounts have all been called into question.
Since uniformitarianism is nearly dead (other than in science textbooks and in the minds of numerous Darwinists) the sedimentary rock layers are, indeed, a problem and corollary hypotheses have had to have been submitted.
4. "It is remarkable that largely without exception all dinosaur tracks point uphill. At first, paleontologists speculated that dinosaurs of this kind always backed downhill, which in retrospect is humorous indeed!”
Could you point us to the research on this? The only pictures I’ve seen of dinosaur tracks were on level ground, but this sounds like a fascinating study.
"In the Grand Canyon, the Coconino Sandstone covers half a million square km and has a sand volume of 40,000 cubic km, and the angle of crossbeds plus other features show that it was deposited as sand waves under water. The enormous thickness shows that the waves were about 18 m high, which indicates that they were deposited under water 54 m deep, with sustained unidirectional currents of 90–155 cm/sec." The book goes on to explain the footprints in relationship to the flooding. See Grand Canyon: Startling Evidence for Noah’s Flood and Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe by Stephen Austin.
5. ”A world-wide flood explains polystrate fossils and megabreccias, layers that are out of order or reversed, and other aspects of the actual layers found in the world.”
How does it explain layers being out of order, or reversed? Does it do so in a different way from “old earth” geology?
For old-earthers, a layer supposed to be 120 million years old being atop a layer supposed to be 40 million years old is always a problem. Since creationists believe the layers were left by the flood, in the ebbs and flows before the flood and the ebbs and tides at its end, all the layers are from about the same time and could be in various orders without problem.
6. ” After the flood receded and the passengers of the Ark were released, the animal population and also man spread out across the new and very different world. Many of the animal kinds that thrived in the antediluvian world were not suited to the differences in terrain and climate in the new world. “
Does this mean that the Ark not only had to carry all the “kinds” whose offspring we see around us today, but all the extinct ones as well? Golly. I guess that means we have to add a few to those 16,000 or so you mentioned earlier.
No, the kinds carried on the Ark were that of all kinds of that type. That various species have gone extinct since then is obvious. Remember, the term "kind" predates "species" by thousands of years. There are sometimes several species within one kind. God made animals with rich, varied gene pools so that they could adjust to many climactic conditions and be manipulated by man. Thus, we have modern chickens, sheep, cows, turkeys and dogs, among others. A Samoyed would be an example of managed microevolution, or variation within kind. Samoyeds were bred from others of the dog kind.
7. ” Briefly, the fossil record is full of animals of varied kinds. But a Darwinist would expect to find a continuum of animals changing from one thing into another and have to add corollary assumptions to explain why this is not so.”
No, no corollary assumptions needed. Simply the recognition that we’re not talking about orthogenesis. Allopatric speciation allows for living beings evolving into different niches and reacting to all kinds of survival pressures. An animal evolving in one direction, then reversing, then evolving in another direction is not contradictory. It simply depends on the circumstances at the time. There is no reason why “bigger” or “hairier” are always advantageous – if your environment changes, the opposite may become more advantageous.
” There are up to 29 so-called transitional form possibilities that are being studied at this time and not one of them is compelling enough for the Darwinists to present as a certain transitional animal.”
Transitional between what and what?
” The suppositions are humorous, in that whales are thought to have been large land animals who decided to go back into the sea after they had millions of years earlier decided to come onto land. Couldn't they make up their minds?”
The creatures who found the water more hospitable at one point in time, or the creatures who found the land more hospitable at a completely different point in time, under different circumstances? They weren’t the same, Radar. When they went on land, there was an advantage to that; when they went back into the sea, there was an advantage to that.
It’s like saying my great-grandfather decided to move from the countryside into the city, because it presented an advantage to him at that time, and I decided to move from the city to the countryside, because that presents an advantage to me right now. It’s nothing to do with either of us not being able to “make up our minds”.
You say no corollaries are necessary and immediately launch into one!
There is no evidence that whales were land animals that went into the sea other than the fact that flippers and legs have similar designs. Since Darwinists reject the idea of an Intelligent Designer, they then must suppose that whales once lived on land and went back to the ocean. This involves all sorts of problems which make such a thing incredibly unlikely. However, weighted down with ABG (Anything But God) they must soldier on and go through long involved explanations as to how this could have been. Meanwhile, the creationist says, the Designer has a style and this is typical of His designs.
8. ” Siimilarities between the living organisms of the world are cited as a proof of macroevolution.”
They are highly consistent with macroevolution, and large-scale dissimilarity between the living organisms of the world would be a strike against evolution, and proof for creationism.
” But I say they are the proof a a common Designer, God.”
Since we can not make any predictions about how God would design something (he works in mysterious ways, right?), we can not say that this is proof of God having designed it. Since He is all-powerful and all-knowing, he could have designed it this way, or he could have designed the “kinds” truly distinctively, without any re-use, certainly of redundant or harmful parts.
The all-knowing and all-powerful God would be expected to make things in the way He saw fit best. That all living things have the same blueprint for life and share common design characteristics, they appear to have been designed. God could have left us a message to tell us how He made us, and when, and why. He could have left us a message to explain His purposes and the reason that we exist. He could have ensured that it was preserved. Guess what? He did. I call it the Bible.
In the Bible, God tells us about creation, He doesn't go into great detail, since it is a narration and not a textbook. This is how I take the Bible, as an eyewitness account.
Parts you consider redundant, that is your opinion. They may have been necessary 2,000 years ago or could be of use 200 years from now. The Designer would have reasons for the design.
The similarities among organisms and genomes makes evolution along a certain path (parallel to the phylogenetic tree) more likely than design. It does not conclusively “prove” either. It doesn’t disprove either, though the absence of this would have disproven evolution.
The high number of extinctions throughout the ages makes design less likely than evolution, unless we’re talking about a highly “trial-and-error” oriented design process, which is tantamount to evolution anyway. Again, what speaks against God having used what we call evolution as his design process? Only the stubborn insistence on seeing a document of dubious authorship as intended to be taken literally, unlike any other creation myth out there. (When I say creation myth, I use the definition of myth as “A traditional, typically ancient story dealing with supernatural beings, ancestors, or heroes that serves as a fundamental type in the worldview of a people, as by explaining aspects of the natural world or delineating the psychology, customs, or ideals of society”)
” Sometimes genetic information will be lost”
Could you name a specific example? How does genetic information get lost in microevolution?
” Salamanders may become largely blue, they may not be able to mate with red ones, but they will never become frogs. This is what is actually found in the world,”
Given, for argument’s sake, that an old earth and macroevolution are true, what rate of change would you expect to see in your human lifetime, or even in historical times? Is it your impression that the theory of evolution says you would see macroevolution in such a short time?
"Ring evolution" is an example of information being lost from the gene pool. Extinctions within kinds occur when segments of the population become specialized, which involves the loss rather than gain of genetic information. This makes these creatures less able to adopt to changes in environment and more likely to become extinct. Natural selection enables the kind to adjust to conditions but sometimes may more or less back a part of the population into a corner.
There is no continuum of transitional creatures found in the fossil record, either in small pockets or large populations. Puncuated equilibrium was devised to explain this away, so I suppose if it were true then one might see it in a lifetime. How many generations of fruit flies must die for the cause of Darwin before you agree that macroevolution cannot be demonstrated? In science fiction movies, you shoot radiation at ants and they evolve into 30-foot-high monster. In real life, you get more deadly or useless mutations but organisms remain what they are.
I expect to see variation within kinds but nothing changing into another kind of creature no matter how much manipulation by Darwinists.
9. ” Darwinist scientists must continually make up fanciful stories about how the things that are could have come to be.”
Okay, which fanciful stories are you talking about? Are they more fanciful than an omnipotent being waving a magic wand?
God didn't wave any wands. In fact, nothing magical about God. He says it, it happens, no bells and whistles.
Macroevolution happens too slow to leave evidence in the fossil record, so punctuated equilibrium is thought up to solve the problem. Is it tested and proven? Of course not. But stories of unseen bacteria with unprovably more primitive kinds of DNA and other systems are made up to explain how the remarkably complex systems of photosynthesis could have evolved. Remarkably unbelievable scenarios are painted in which all sorts of unused enzymes just happen to be "walking through the park one day", all come together somehow and begin working together as part of a previously unknown system. Almost-amino acids and other non-life kind of float around and form prehistoric life we cannot see on the way to becoming something akin to what is living today. Houses being built of straw, fairy tales from a thesaurus, that is what it looks like to a creationist. Because the evidences for macroevolution are not there, stories about how what is here now must have come to be must be made up.
” The result apparently changed one large continent surrounded by shallower seas into split continents with taller mountains separated by much deeper seas. Evidences of a resulting ice age are there. Formations such as the Grand Canyon fit into the scenario of receding waters through wet layers of not-yet-hard sediments, as do so many of the twisted and rolling rocks found in the wild.”
This is easily covered by old-earth geology.
More easily explained by the Flood.
”In fact, the rock record has anomalies that must be continually explained away if you are a uniformitarian.”
The theory of evolution does not argue against uniformitarianism. Who defends uniformitarianism?
Uniformitarianism is alive and well in textbooks and the lesson plans of science teachers in our school systems. I have dialogued with a few Darwinists who still believe in it.
10. ”We creationists are often ridiculed and asked large numbers of questions at once about what we post, while many of the points we present are left unaddressed.”
Which points did we leave unaddressed? Tell us and we’ll get on it. I thought we’d covered them all, but just let us know. While we’re at it, there is quite a stack of questions you have yet to get around to.
Sure. How did life appear? I know, you don't know so you can't answer other than with more fanciful stories. I post what I believe to be truth and I have taken the time to answer you today. Questions don't scare me.
By the way, there is no reason why you, Radar, a non-scientist who has been the victim of some horrendous educational experiences (I still think you should warn others about whatever that school was), blogging away in the Midwest, should have to plague yourself with such questions in the first place – creation scientists should be on this, engaged in active research to show that what is empirically true is 100% in line with a literal reading of Genesis. There are many ways to do this, and many rather obvious questions that can be asked and, if pursued successfully, would give “creation science” much of the credibility it so disastrously lacks. Perhaps you don’t wonder why they don’t do this, and instead constrict themselves to taking dishonest potshot at evolutionary theory, but I certainly do.
Ad hominem attack, here it comes! What makes you any more qualified than I to blog on the subject? Valid sites like ICR and AIG and Discovery.org present creationist/ID information from scientists of the highest order. Part of my intent is to point the way to those sites, much like a town crier announcing a coming meeting in the town hall. The information available in those sites comes from the cutting edge of science, from the point of view of those who believe we were designed rather than a happenstance. No one who has commented here has the standing in the scientific community even of a Behe or a Dembski but you are willing to stand on the sidelines and call them, and me, names. That does nothing to advance your cause. My education has taught me to think critically, to consider all sides, to seek truth and be afraid of nothing intellectually other than complacency. I seek out dialogue from Darwinists to hear what they will say. Critical thinking and no fear of unpopular ideas, these are good qualities which I have sought to teach to my children. The entrenched Darwinist community is in danger of becoming wedded to their doctrine and incapable of learning anything new.
I’ve posted questions about how, if creationism were valid, and if such a thing as “creation science” actually existed in any meaningful sense, it would explain the world around us in scientific terms. Here are some of them:
If eight people of one particular race existed in approx. 2350 BC, how were they able to evolve so quickly into the different races we see today? It supposes not only that evolution doesn’t exist, but that it exists and is much more rapid than anything proposed by the theory of evolution. (Cranky old fart brought this up as well, calling it super-evolution, in response to which you played dumb.) Why don’t we still see this kind of rapid evolution going on today?
No way, you consider this a valid question? I look almost nothing like my grandmother. My eye color, hair color, body shape, height, weight, all very different. Ask Mendel if the characteristics of an entire population could be held within eight individuals. This is simply variation within kind, explained to students before they hit eighth grade. No dumb was played in the answering of this question.
The population of the earth today is consistent with population growth beginning with one family 4,500 years ago.
Is it possible for the variety of life to have bloomed to such an extent from what could be contained on Noah’s Ark?
If there was a global flood in approx. 2350 BC, is it possible for the variety of life we see around us today to have bloomed to such an extent? What rate of evolution would this require, and do we see this rate around us today?
Where did Noah’s Ark land? Can we come to a reasonable conclusion based on migration patterns? If there were two elephants on the Ark when the Ark landed, how did their offspring migrate and evolve? What about all the other "kinds"? The migration spreading out from the Ark's landing point should be well recognizable in the migration and evolution of these "kinds" as they spread to all the other continents. How long did it take them to reach the other continents, now separated by oceans, and how did they get there?
What were the “kinds”, how many of them were there, how much space did they take up? (If dinosaurs lived after the flood, as Radar now also claimed, they would need space on the Ark too.) How much would it take to feed them for six months or a year, or even longer – a year plus whatever time it takes to grow food on soil ruined by saltwater?
What about saltwater and freshwater marine animals? Were they left to die?
Endless questions that would require scientific research to answer, but in response we get people like Radar making stuff up. Seriously, in addressing these questions, do you go to your big book about the scientific view of creationist natural history, or are you left to your own devices and a couple of websites? Do you now have to make up an answer about what happened to the marine animals, or will you go to AiG or ICR... or will you have an actual scientific study you can go to that addresses this?
The above is re-asking of previously asked and answered questions.
11. ” It may be outside of your belief system, but you do have to admit that it is entirely logical and fits with what is seen in the real world.”
No, Radar, it doesn’t seem all that logical, and it doesn’t seem to fit in with a great many things seen in the real world. You could surprise me, though, with your answers. You really could. As a matter of fact I would be astonished.
But somehow I get the feeling there is no such thing as “creation science”. Really. I look around on the Internet, and for evolutionary science there is a seemingly endless parade of scientific research conducted, building on existing knowledge, and vigorous debate among scientists. Next up is Intelligent Design, and people like Dembski who at least make a genuine effort to track down instances of irreducible complexity.
And then there’s “creation science”, which consists of little more than some religious content and, for the most part, potshots at the theory of evolution that have a difficult time surviving the first rebuttal. Not one of them (none of the ones I’ve seen anyway) takes itself seriously and says: “Genesis is true, which gives us these testable hypotheses, and we’re going to set out to test these – and confirm them.”
I may well be wrong on this, and I have asked you before about such a site. I suspect that you put up this post in response to that question, but what I was really more interested in was the scientific angle on this, and if that is the case, I appreciate your effort. But where is the scientific research that attempts to show us that it is indeed possible for people of one race to evolve into the races we know today in a few thousand years? Or that bothers to delineate the “kinds”?
As I said, the ICR site, the AIG site and Discovery.org has truckloads of material on the subject for those who are truly interested.
Dan S., I hope this blog hasn’t seen the last of you yet. I’ve really enjoyed your contributions on this topic.
Well, Dan, you come to us like an explorer wearing his pith helmet, walking into a jungle of ignorance and having a good laugh while doing so. I like your style, though, so I am glad to see you come in and sometimes you are funny. Wish you were on the "right" (from my perspective) side.
FINALLY, I worked in the automobile industry for almost two decades, involved in the manufacture of parts supplied to all the major automakers found in the USA. I labored in the plant before going into the process engineer side of things and also management. I saw the design process at work. Small parts for a car to be made 5-6 years in the future were planned, mocked up and tested and compared to other possibilities and finally we would begin producing them well before any such car was to be made. There was a lot of work put into the design. Of course, part of that was because men were the designers and sometimes made mistakes.
General Motors was our biggest client. We had an entire wing of the plant devoted to their style of parts. The same materials and approximate process was used for every GM car, but depending on the make we would vary a die here or there and a weight or a dimension. But you could tell a GM part by sight. Ford had a different design structure for their parts, although the parts served the same purpose.
So it is with life. One Designer, with a style and blueprint common to all forms of life, whose existence is hinted at by the commonality of the design. One Designer, who told us that He designed in the Bible. Posters to this blog have yet to be able to give me one bit of information that impacts the idea of creationism negatively. I see the world around me and it fits in with the creation model. I don't have to bring in all sorts of stories and corollaries to make it fit reality.
I believe God created. Many great scientists believe this as well. I am not required to be a great scientist to believe. The lack of a Ph.D in a related field does not preclude my participation in the discussion nor does it guarantee that I am right or wrong. Any of us can be wrong, we are human, after all. What I believe is logical and supported by the evidence. So far, posters to this blog have fallen short in the attempt to take God out of science.
It really is too bad that Darwinists were not afraid of opposing views. If all agreed to consider all evidences without closed minds, both our schools and our overall scientific endeavors would be better served.
”it is of great interest that the famous "Mitochondrial Eve" would be calculated to have lived about 6,500 years ago by rather straightforward dating of the "mutation clock" used to determine how long ago she lived. Eve, the mother of all living humans, just as the Bible says. Darwinists use other methods to determine the dating of "Eve", usually coming up with a date of about 150,000 to 200,000 years ago.”
While this matter is still far from settled, I take it you are aware that this calculation of 6500 years is based on a number of underlying assumptions, including (1) man and ape sharing a common ancestor, and (2) radiometric dating being accepted as accurate. Do you accept these assumptions? If you don’t, then how can you accept their result?
What do you make of the most recent common ancestor from whom the X-chromosomes of all people alive today descended, which indicates a much longer time? This should also indicate no more than 6500 years, shouldn’t it?
”They will also say that Eve was just one woman within an entire population of already existing humans.”
True, the calculation whose results you’re touting does depend on the assumption of a population of already existing humans (or proto-humans) as they split off from other evolutionary branches at an earlier time, including apes.
The mutation clock used by some predicts much different ages than those used by others. I thought it was interesting but it doesn't really prove a great deal. Much depends on your assumptions coming into the discussion and mine would be very different than yours. Again, I posted it as a note of interest.
2. ”The Noahic Flood, a world wide flood that lasted covered the entire planet for 150 days and rendered the earth unihabitable for approximately one year wiped out most of land life (not including invertabrates, microorganisms, etc) on earth. The exception is Noah, his family, and the animals that were brought with him aboard the Ark, a large boat with dimensions equivalent to that of a large ocean liner.”
How many “kinds” on the Ark would be necessary to account for the variety of life we see around us every day? How much would it take to feed them for at least a year? How much space would all this take up? Would a boat the size of a large ocean liner suffice?
”The word for creatures used here is for animals that generally have backbones, breath air, and live on the land. These are the kinds of animals that God caused to come to Noah to take with him on the Ark.”
How does “creation science” account for marine animals who were unable to live in either saltwater or freshwater, not a mix? Were there dinosaurs on the Ark, or weren’t there?
I am pretty sure that there were dinosaurs on the Ark. It appears they continued to exist up to the time of Job and perhaps beyond. There sure are enough "dragon stories" extant, plus drawings and clay models of dinosaurs that would indicate that dinosaurs lived on for some time.
I linked to my previous post that covered the subject of animals and space on the Ark. I stand by that posting.
The kinds of marine animals during the flood apparently had the abilities within their gene pools to adjust to waters that became increasingly brackish, or survive in waters that became increasingly fresh. Those abilities were naturally selected to keep the kind alive and some genetic information was doubtlessly lost in the process. The world-wide flood, with catastrophic events happening under the earth's crust and in the atmosphere as well, would have released large amounts of minerals into the oceans that were not there before in such quantities.
3. ”A world-wide flood is the kind of event that would explain the sedimentary layers of rock found around the world.”
An old earth would explain that just the same. A world-wide flood at that particular time (2348 BC) is contradicted by, for example, civilizations who were supposedly wiped out continuing to exist without a mention of the flood.
There is no reliable account of any civilization going back much beyond 4,000 some-odd years. The earlier years of such accounts have all been called into question.
Since uniformitarianism is nearly dead (other than in science textbooks and in the minds of numerous Darwinists) the sedimentary rock layers are, indeed, a problem and corollary hypotheses have had to have been submitted.
4. "It is remarkable that largely without exception all dinosaur tracks point uphill. At first, paleontologists speculated that dinosaurs of this kind always backed downhill, which in retrospect is humorous indeed!”
Could you point us to the research on this? The only pictures I’ve seen of dinosaur tracks were on level ground, but this sounds like a fascinating study.
"In the Grand Canyon, the Coconino Sandstone covers half a million square km and has a sand volume of 40,000 cubic km, and the angle of crossbeds plus other features show that it was deposited as sand waves under water. The enormous thickness shows that the waves were about 18 m high, which indicates that they were deposited under water 54 m deep, with sustained unidirectional currents of 90–155 cm/sec." The book goes on to explain the footprints in relationship to the flooding. See Grand Canyon: Startling Evidence for Noah’s Flood and Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe by Stephen Austin.
5. ”A world-wide flood explains polystrate fossils and megabreccias, layers that are out of order or reversed, and other aspects of the actual layers found in the world.”
How does it explain layers being out of order, or reversed? Does it do so in a different way from “old earth” geology?
For old-earthers, a layer supposed to be 120 million years old being atop a layer supposed to be 40 million years old is always a problem. Since creationists believe the layers were left by the flood, in the ebbs and flows before the flood and the ebbs and tides at its end, all the layers are from about the same time and could be in various orders without problem.
6. ” After the flood receded and the passengers of the Ark were released, the animal population and also man spread out across the new and very different world. Many of the animal kinds that thrived in the antediluvian world were not suited to the differences in terrain and climate in the new world. “
Does this mean that the Ark not only had to carry all the “kinds” whose offspring we see around us today, but all the extinct ones as well? Golly. I guess that means we have to add a few to those 16,000 or so you mentioned earlier.
No, the kinds carried on the Ark were that of all kinds of that type. That various species have gone extinct since then is obvious. Remember, the term "kind" predates "species" by thousands of years. There are sometimes several species within one kind. God made animals with rich, varied gene pools so that they could adjust to many climactic conditions and be manipulated by man. Thus, we have modern chickens, sheep, cows, turkeys and dogs, among others. A Samoyed would be an example of managed microevolution, or variation within kind. Samoyeds were bred from others of the dog kind.
7. ” Briefly, the fossil record is full of animals of varied kinds. But a Darwinist would expect to find a continuum of animals changing from one thing into another and have to add corollary assumptions to explain why this is not so.”
No, no corollary assumptions needed. Simply the recognition that we’re not talking about orthogenesis. Allopatric speciation allows for living beings evolving into different niches and reacting to all kinds of survival pressures. An animal evolving in one direction, then reversing, then evolving in another direction is not contradictory. It simply depends on the circumstances at the time. There is no reason why “bigger” or “hairier” are always advantageous – if your environment changes, the opposite may become more advantageous.
” There are up to 29 so-called transitional form possibilities that are being studied at this time and not one of them is compelling enough for the Darwinists to present as a certain transitional animal.”
Transitional between what and what?
” The suppositions are humorous, in that whales are thought to have been large land animals who decided to go back into the sea after they had millions of years earlier decided to come onto land. Couldn't they make up their minds?”
The creatures who found the water more hospitable at one point in time, or the creatures who found the land more hospitable at a completely different point in time, under different circumstances? They weren’t the same, Radar. When they went on land, there was an advantage to that; when they went back into the sea, there was an advantage to that.
It’s like saying my great-grandfather decided to move from the countryside into the city, because it presented an advantage to him at that time, and I decided to move from the city to the countryside, because that presents an advantage to me right now. It’s nothing to do with either of us not being able to “make up our minds”.
You say no corollaries are necessary and immediately launch into one!
There is no evidence that whales were land animals that went into the sea other than the fact that flippers and legs have similar designs. Since Darwinists reject the idea of an Intelligent Designer, they then must suppose that whales once lived on land and went back to the ocean. This involves all sorts of problems which make such a thing incredibly unlikely. However, weighted down with ABG (Anything But God) they must soldier on and go through long involved explanations as to how this could have been. Meanwhile, the creationist says, the Designer has a style and this is typical of His designs.
8. ” Siimilarities between the living organisms of the world are cited as a proof of macroevolution.”
They are highly consistent with macroevolution, and large-scale dissimilarity between the living organisms of the world would be a strike against evolution, and proof for creationism.
” But I say they are the proof a a common Designer, God.”
Since we can not make any predictions about how God would design something (he works in mysterious ways, right?), we can not say that this is proof of God having designed it. Since He is all-powerful and all-knowing, he could have designed it this way, or he could have designed the “kinds” truly distinctively, without any re-use, certainly of redundant or harmful parts.
The all-knowing and all-powerful God would be expected to make things in the way He saw fit best. That all living things have the same blueprint for life and share common design characteristics, they appear to have been designed. God could have left us a message to tell us how He made us, and when, and why. He could have left us a message to explain His purposes and the reason that we exist. He could have ensured that it was preserved. Guess what? He did. I call it the Bible.
In the Bible, God tells us about creation, He doesn't go into great detail, since it is a narration and not a textbook. This is how I take the Bible, as an eyewitness account.
Parts you consider redundant, that is your opinion. They may have been necessary 2,000 years ago or could be of use 200 years from now. The Designer would have reasons for the design.
The similarities among organisms and genomes makes evolution along a certain path (parallel to the phylogenetic tree) more likely than design. It does not conclusively “prove” either. It doesn’t disprove either, though the absence of this would have disproven evolution.
The high number of extinctions throughout the ages makes design less likely than evolution, unless we’re talking about a highly “trial-and-error” oriented design process, which is tantamount to evolution anyway. Again, what speaks against God having used what we call evolution as his design process? Only the stubborn insistence on seeing a document of dubious authorship as intended to be taken literally, unlike any other creation myth out there. (When I say creation myth, I use the definition of myth as “A traditional, typically ancient story dealing with supernatural beings, ancestors, or heroes that serves as a fundamental type in the worldview of a people, as by explaining aspects of the natural world or delineating the psychology, customs, or ideals of society”)
” Sometimes genetic information will be lost”
Could you name a specific example? How does genetic information get lost in microevolution?
” Salamanders may become largely blue, they may not be able to mate with red ones, but they will never become frogs. This is what is actually found in the world,”
Given, for argument’s sake, that an old earth and macroevolution are true, what rate of change would you expect to see in your human lifetime, or even in historical times? Is it your impression that the theory of evolution says you would see macroevolution in such a short time?
"Ring evolution" is an example of information being lost from the gene pool. Extinctions within kinds occur when segments of the population become specialized, which involves the loss rather than gain of genetic information. This makes these creatures less able to adopt to changes in environment and more likely to become extinct. Natural selection enables the kind to adjust to conditions but sometimes may more or less back a part of the population into a corner.
There is no continuum of transitional creatures found in the fossil record, either in small pockets or large populations. Puncuated equilibrium was devised to explain this away, so I suppose if it were true then one might see it in a lifetime. How many generations of fruit flies must die for the cause of Darwin before you agree that macroevolution cannot be demonstrated? In science fiction movies, you shoot radiation at ants and they evolve into 30-foot-high monster. In real life, you get more deadly or useless mutations but organisms remain what they are.
I expect to see variation within kinds but nothing changing into another kind of creature no matter how much manipulation by Darwinists.
9. ” Darwinist scientists must continually make up fanciful stories about how the things that are could have come to be.”
Okay, which fanciful stories are you talking about? Are they more fanciful than an omnipotent being waving a magic wand?
God didn't wave any wands. In fact, nothing magical about God. He says it, it happens, no bells and whistles.
Macroevolution happens too slow to leave evidence in the fossil record, so punctuated equilibrium is thought up to solve the problem. Is it tested and proven? Of course not. But stories of unseen bacteria with unprovably more primitive kinds of DNA and other systems are made up to explain how the remarkably complex systems of photosynthesis could have evolved. Remarkably unbelievable scenarios are painted in which all sorts of unused enzymes just happen to be "walking through the park one day", all come together somehow and begin working together as part of a previously unknown system. Almost-amino acids and other non-life kind of float around and form prehistoric life we cannot see on the way to becoming something akin to what is living today. Houses being built of straw, fairy tales from a thesaurus, that is what it looks like to a creationist. Because the evidences for macroevolution are not there, stories about how what is here now must have come to be must be made up.
” The result apparently changed one large continent surrounded by shallower seas into split continents with taller mountains separated by much deeper seas. Evidences of a resulting ice age are there. Formations such as the Grand Canyon fit into the scenario of receding waters through wet layers of not-yet-hard sediments, as do so many of the twisted and rolling rocks found in the wild.”
This is easily covered by old-earth geology.
More easily explained by the Flood.
”In fact, the rock record has anomalies that must be continually explained away if you are a uniformitarian.”
The theory of evolution does not argue against uniformitarianism. Who defends uniformitarianism?
Uniformitarianism is alive and well in textbooks and the lesson plans of science teachers in our school systems. I have dialogued with a few Darwinists who still believe in it.
10. ”We creationists are often ridiculed and asked large numbers of questions at once about what we post, while many of the points we present are left unaddressed.”
Which points did we leave unaddressed? Tell us and we’ll get on it. I thought we’d covered them all, but just let us know. While we’re at it, there is quite a stack of questions you have yet to get around to.
Sure. How did life appear? I know, you don't know so you can't answer other than with more fanciful stories. I post what I believe to be truth and I have taken the time to answer you today. Questions don't scare me.
By the way, there is no reason why you, Radar, a non-scientist who has been the victim of some horrendous educational experiences (I still think you should warn others about whatever that school was), blogging away in the Midwest, should have to plague yourself with such questions in the first place – creation scientists should be on this, engaged in active research to show that what is empirically true is 100% in line with a literal reading of Genesis. There are many ways to do this, and many rather obvious questions that can be asked and, if pursued successfully, would give “creation science” much of the credibility it so disastrously lacks. Perhaps you don’t wonder why they don’t do this, and instead constrict themselves to taking dishonest potshot at evolutionary theory, but I certainly do.
Ad hominem attack, here it comes! What makes you any more qualified than I to blog on the subject? Valid sites like ICR and AIG and Discovery.org present creationist/ID information from scientists of the highest order. Part of my intent is to point the way to those sites, much like a town crier announcing a coming meeting in the town hall. The information available in those sites comes from the cutting edge of science, from the point of view of those who believe we were designed rather than a happenstance. No one who has commented here has the standing in the scientific community even of a Behe or a Dembski but you are willing to stand on the sidelines and call them, and me, names. That does nothing to advance your cause. My education has taught me to think critically, to consider all sides, to seek truth and be afraid of nothing intellectually other than complacency. I seek out dialogue from Darwinists to hear what they will say. Critical thinking and no fear of unpopular ideas, these are good qualities which I have sought to teach to my children. The entrenched Darwinist community is in danger of becoming wedded to their doctrine and incapable of learning anything new.
I’ve posted questions about how, if creationism were valid, and if such a thing as “creation science” actually existed in any meaningful sense, it would explain the world around us in scientific terms. Here are some of them:
If eight people of one particular race existed in approx. 2350 BC, how were they able to evolve so quickly into the different races we see today? It supposes not only that evolution doesn’t exist, but that it exists and is much more rapid than anything proposed by the theory of evolution. (Cranky old fart brought this up as well, calling it super-evolution, in response to which you played dumb.) Why don’t we still see this kind of rapid evolution going on today?
No way, you consider this a valid question? I look almost nothing like my grandmother. My eye color, hair color, body shape, height, weight, all very different. Ask Mendel if the characteristics of an entire population could be held within eight individuals. This is simply variation within kind, explained to students before they hit eighth grade. No dumb was played in the answering of this question.
The population of the earth today is consistent with population growth beginning with one family 4,500 years ago.
Is it possible for the variety of life to have bloomed to such an extent from what could be contained on Noah’s Ark?
If there was a global flood in approx. 2350 BC, is it possible for the variety of life we see around us today to have bloomed to such an extent? What rate of evolution would this require, and do we see this rate around us today?
Where did Noah’s Ark land? Can we come to a reasonable conclusion based on migration patterns? If there were two elephants on the Ark when the Ark landed, how did their offspring migrate and evolve? What about all the other "kinds"? The migration spreading out from the Ark's landing point should be well recognizable in the migration and evolution of these "kinds" as they spread to all the other continents. How long did it take them to reach the other continents, now separated by oceans, and how did they get there?
What were the “kinds”, how many of them were there, how much space did they take up? (If dinosaurs lived after the flood, as Radar now also claimed, they would need space on the Ark too.) How much would it take to feed them for six months or a year, or even longer – a year plus whatever time it takes to grow food on soil ruined by saltwater?
What about saltwater and freshwater marine animals? Were they left to die?
Endless questions that would require scientific research to answer, but in response we get people like Radar making stuff up. Seriously, in addressing these questions, do you go to your big book about the scientific view of creationist natural history, or are you left to your own devices and a couple of websites? Do you now have to make up an answer about what happened to the marine animals, or will you go to AiG or ICR... or will you have an actual scientific study you can go to that addresses this?
The above is re-asking of previously asked and answered questions.
11. ” It may be outside of your belief system, but you do have to admit that it is entirely logical and fits with what is seen in the real world.”
No, Radar, it doesn’t seem all that logical, and it doesn’t seem to fit in with a great many things seen in the real world. You could surprise me, though, with your answers. You really could. As a matter of fact I would be astonished.
But somehow I get the feeling there is no such thing as “creation science”. Really. I look around on the Internet, and for evolutionary science there is a seemingly endless parade of scientific research conducted, building on existing knowledge, and vigorous debate among scientists. Next up is Intelligent Design, and people like Dembski who at least make a genuine effort to track down instances of irreducible complexity.
And then there’s “creation science”, which consists of little more than some religious content and, for the most part, potshots at the theory of evolution that have a difficult time surviving the first rebuttal. Not one of them (none of the ones I’ve seen anyway) takes itself seriously and says: “Genesis is true, which gives us these testable hypotheses, and we’re going to set out to test these – and confirm them.”
I may well be wrong on this, and I have asked you before about such a site. I suspect that you put up this post in response to that question, but what I was really more interested in was the scientific angle on this, and if that is the case, I appreciate your effort. But where is the scientific research that attempts to show us that it is indeed possible for people of one race to evolve into the races we know today in a few thousand years? Or that bothers to delineate the “kinds”?
As I said, the ICR site, the AIG site and Discovery.org has truckloads of material on the subject for those who are truly interested.
Dan S., I hope this blog hasn’t seen the last of you yet. I’ve really enjoyed your contributions on this topic.
Well, Dan, you come to us like an explorer wearing his pith helmet, walking into a jungle of ignorance and having a good laugh while doing so. I like your style, though, so I am glad to see you come in and sometimes you are funny. Wish you were on the "right" (from my perspective) side.
FINALLY, I worked in the automobile industry for almost two decades, involved in the manufacture of parts supplied to all the major automakers found in the USA. I labored in the plant before going into the process engineer side of things and also management. I saw the design process at work. Small parts for a car to be made 5-6 years in the future were planned, mocked up and tested and compared to other possibilities and finally we would begin producing them well before any such car was to be made. There was a lot of work put into the design. Of course, part of that was because men were the designers and sometimes made mistakes.
General Motors was our biggest client. We had an entire wing of the plant devoted to their style of parts. The same materials and approximate process was used for every GM car, but depending on the make we would vary a die here or there and a weight or a dimension. But you could tell a GM part by sight. Ford had a different design structure for their parts, although the parts served the same purpose.
So it is with life. One Designer, with a style and blueprint common to all forms of life, whose existence is hinted at by the commonality of the design. One Designer, who told us that He designed in the Bible. Posters to this blog have yet to be able to give me one bit of information that impacts the idea of creationism negatively. I see the world around me and it fits in with the creation model. I don't have to bring in all sorts of stories and corollaries to make it fit reality.
I believe God created. Many great scientists believe this as well. I am not required to be a great scientist to believe. The lack of a Ph.D in a related field does not preclude my participation in the discussion nor does it guarantee that I am right or wrong. Any of us can be wrong, we are human, after all. What I believe is logical and supported by the evidence. So far, posters to this blog have fallen short in the attempt to take God out of science.
It really is too bad that Darwinists were not afraid of opposing views. If all agreed to consider all evidences without closed minds, both our schools and our overall scientific endeavors would be better served.