More on evidences for creation versus evolution via comments
Commenters in italics, my replies in ordinary text.
Some highlights from radar's flood series:
"In an antediluvian world with just one continent, covering the tallest peak by twenty feet could happen with an outpouring of water that had been trapped underground and rising of sea floors"
I also presented the amount of water available in the oceans now and suspended in the air and that amount just happens to coincide with my statement. Xiangtao, being unable to refute it, just mocks it instead.
"In order for the life we now have on this planet to have been contained in the Ark, that life that could not have been sustained outside of the Ark, there would have had to have been about 16,000 kinds of vertebrates and birds carried along with Noah. Based upon the nutrional needs of these animals, Noah and his family could have theoretically worked in shifts and cared for their needs. It is certainly reasonable, however, that because of both the emotional impact that such a voyage would have on the animals and also the strain of constant care that would be placed upon the crew, that God caused the animals to enter some kind of state of hibernation for a good part of the voyage and that he probably sent along the smallest viable juveniles rather than full-grown adults."
There was documentation presented for that number of 16,000. I also showed that the dimensions of the Ark were plenty big enough for the task, and that the design was much like modern huge ocean-going vessels. God was only 4,000 years or so ahead of us when it came to boat design. I also pointed out that the Bible called for a certain type of animal to be taken on the Ark and with certain numbers. The speculative part was simply exploring some possibilities about how the animals might have been sustained while on the Ark. Since evolutionists would, if honest, admit that almost the entirety of their assertions are speculative I am not ashamed to present a few of my own.
I also recommend looking into various links found on this page for further reference concerning Noah's Ark and the Flood.
"There are clues in the fossil record that the Earth's atmosphere was somewhat different pre-Flood. The physical structure of dinosaur remains seem to tell us that the world included an atmosphere that was more oxygen-rich and that animals, like humans, had longer lifespans. Dinosaurs, being a kind of lizard, likely just continued to grow during their lives and therefore for them to reach such amazing proportions would have had the ability to live far beyond the lifespans of modern animals. However, these creatures should not have been able to live in an atmosphere like we have today."
Yes, the size and structure of the larger dinosaurs and extinct mammals and other clues in the fossil record indicate that atmospheric conditions and certainly other environmental conditions were different pre-Flood. If this becomes a bone of contention requiring a separate post, I may do one.
These are a few selections of many that are assertions of things that "might" have happened, with no evidence that they actually did happen. If you go back and read the comments of these articles, you will find plenty of comments along the lines of "evidence please". Naturally these requests are ignored.
No, these requests are not ignored. I tend to present far more facts than the commenters, who usually just mock and deride and bring nothing new to the table. Both macroevolution and creationism must use primarily the same evidences, and the differences are in how these evidences are interpreted. Unlike evolution, though, creation assertions remain basically unchanged, for they still fit the evidences. Evolution has to keep changing as more evidence comes forth.
For instance? Uniformitarianism was once a key part of macroevolution teaching. The fossil record was supposed to have been in layers laid down over long millions of years, step by step, in a uniform manner. Creationists said all along that the fossil record is that of catastrophism because it is a record of the flood and the dynamic events immediately following that flood, including ice ages as the globe adjusted to the new continents and temperatures, etc, associated with the Noahic Flood.
Whereas the fossil rock layers are not uniform around the world, they have some major things in common: They are sedimentary rocks and they were caused by the action of water and their size and ubiquity means catastrophism. With so many layers, creationists see the working of flood dynamics, which lay down layers of sediment, and also see the post-flood actions of massive mud and landslides and the workings of glaciation, etc. which all lead to the various massive layers now found.
How do macroevolutionists explain these layers? Multitudes of separate catastrophes?
lava said...
Radar,
First of all, let me say I really enjoy reading your blog. While I don't agree with almost anything you say, you post some interesting arguments/ideas. It is interesting to hear how the other half thinks.
Yep, that is one reason I love doing this blog!
Second, this whole Noah's Ark thing and a 6,000 year old earth just baffles me. I'd love to know at some point in the future your thoughts on how humans spread and different races "occured". I don't know how many people were supposedly on the ark, but I just don't get how its possible that those people repopulated, spread to the 4 corners of the earth, and so many different/distinct races "occured". All in under 6,000 years. A follow up to that question is, do you believe current dating techniques are just wrong? Evidence suggests humans have been around a whole lot longer then that.
Lava, I recently posted on rapid speciation, which applies to mankind as well in terms of racial characteristics. If you note, in the last Egypt post there are historic references to the time of Peleg and the division of the earth, when various groups set off to populate different areas. Just before the formation of Egypt, the families of Ham, Shem and Japheth (the sons of Noah) went their separate ways. It is a fascinating thing that the genealogies of people in every "corner" of the planet list one of these three men as being patriarchs. Some genealogies mention Noah and even Adam! You might check out some of my posts on genealogies (I think I spelled it "geneology" in a couple of cases, blah!) to view some of the evidence available.
In truth, there is no reliable evidence of mankind being around much before about 2300 BC. This is what a creationist would expect, that the Flood would wipe out all traces of the prior civilization. Or, almost all, since now and then an anachronistic artifact will show up in a rock layer or in coal. Furthermore, pretty much any dating method favored by evolutionists has proven to be unreliable much past maybe three thousand or so years back, and even then often not. No, it is a macroevolutionists best weapon to scoff at a short history for mankind, since real evidence is not available to them. Like it or not, the only truly reliable historical documents we have that stretch back much beyond 700 BC or so is the Bible and there is nothing that claims to go beyond about 2300 BC that can be believed.
To get into more detail about the races of mankind, I posted Is that Alleles there is? That is a good starting point. This one may be of interest, too. You'll find that with most posts like this, I later follow up to deal with questions and assertions made by commenters. There are about 19 posts that deal most particularly with the Ark in some way, for instance.
xiangtao said...
What we recommended to you radar was that you learn something about biology and evolution NOT from creationist sources. I'll give a shot at answering some of this but if you want better answers, you really should go talk to someone in the biology department at a nearby university. I know you have plenty of good ones in your area.
This is becoming insulting, Xiangtao. My grade point average in college was well above 3.5 and as I have mentioned previously, I have taken courses in Biology, Physics, Chemistry and Anthropology as well as Geology and I had seriously considered a career in Paleontology. I have been an amateur fossil collecter since I was a child and an observer of the rock record for longer than you have been alive, I would imagine. When will you quit using this simplistic and arrogant device to take the focus off of the actual discussion?
As to quick changes in the population, I'm not aware that anyone said minor changes (limb length, body size, etc.) could not change rapidly. We see that sort of thing happen all the time. For example, I am considerably shorter than the other males in my family. My wife is also short so there is a good chance our son will be short. Keep this up for a few generations and we have a much shorter population than before. What does take millions of years is the kind of evolution that goes from fish to amphibian.
So you say. The difference is, I have presented hard evidence that rapid speciation does take place and that such speciation is a result of the loss of genetic information and operates by natural selection in order to ensure the survival of the kind. You, on the other hand, make a baseless, unobservable assertion that fish becomes amphibian.
The topic of new genetic information is where you most desperately need to find some better sources. Mutation quite often produces new genetic material, usually through the mechanism of gene duplication. Again I ask you, if genetic information were a problem for evolution, why would someone such as Francis Collins believe in it?
Francis Collins has his own mind, which I have not read recently. But as I have said before, world view plays a large part in what you believe. In addition, many scientists whose fields are not precisely or even generally in the same field as those who study evolution will tend to simply believe the majority opinion. Some eventually decide to study this opinion for themselves and there are certainly large numbers of creationists who are former believers in evolution. I am one of their number.
I have never doubted that mutations occur and that sometimes such mutations wind up making changes to the gene pool. Most of these mutations either make no change to the creature itself, because of the portion of the DNA string where they reside, and the vast majority of the rest are deleterious. Scientists have had the opportunity to study or be aware of millions of generations of bacteria and have never observed bacteria converting into paramecium. Xiangtao can present no evidence of mutation driving a change of a kind of organism either through millions of bacteria generations or thousands of fruit fly generations nor even hundreds of generations of daisies.
We will go into more detail in a later post about this subject to further illustrate the paucity of the argument that a macroevolutionist brings to the discussion in this arena.
lava said...
RE: Noah's Ark as is brought it again here. I just can't fathom this happening. There are soooooo many questons. So, the animals got off the ark- how did they get to all the continents? Animals that feed off of other animals, for example an Owl and mice, how did they live? The owl has to eat the mice, but the mice have to duplicate to live. I don't get it. Also aren't there issues of inbreeding?
Lava, kindly read this particular article concerning some of your further questions. Also, I earlier provided a link to several flood/ark posts. This one is a start. This one is good.
RE: the rest of this article. There is just this leap from showing animals can adapt quickly to saying this helps support creationism/discredit evolution. The author justifies this leap by saying "But since evolutionists mistakenly interpret all such adaptation/speciation as ‘evolution happening’, they are left stunned when it happens much faster than their traditional interpretations of the fossil record would allow." I don't think thats right.
Well, this is the name of that tune- Rapid speciation, having been proven to occur, means that all of the myriad varieties of living organisms found on earth today that would have been preserved within the Ark within the gene pool of the ancestral kinds can be shown to have had plenty of time to have arisen. Rapid changes also philosophically go against the evolutionary grain, which demands long time frames for evolution to occur, conveniently meaning that we cannot be expected to observe it happening. Therefore the "science" of macroevolution is far more speculative than that of creationism.
Darwin observed variation in kind, or microevolution, and from that eventually came his postulation about macroevolution. But he didn't really understand genetics at all, or have a concept of microbiology, or understand that all the operations he considered in the population of finches and other creatures on the Galapagos were simply natural selection working from a pre-existing pool of genetic traits imbedded in the DNA. His ignorance allowed him to be pretty confident in his assertions and macroevolutionists have been covering up sad-but-truths ever since. Macroevolution is "THE GREAT AND POWERFUL OZ" while the evidence supporting it are one small, timid man behind a curtain.
Some highlights from radar's flood series:
"In an antediluvian world with just one continent, covering the tallest peak by twenty feet could happen with an outpouring of water that had been trapped underground and rising of sea floors"
I also presented the amount of water available in the oceans now and suspended in the air and that amount just happens to coincide with my statement. Xiangtao, being unable to refute it, just mocks it instead.
"In order for the life we now have on this planet to have been contained in the Ark, that life that could not have been sustained outside of the Ark, there would have had to have been about 16,000 kinds of vertebrates and birds carried along with Noah. Based upon the nutrional needs of these animals, Noah and his family could have theoretically worked in shifts and cared for their needs. It is certainly reasonable, however, that because of both the emotional impact that such a voyage would have on the animals and also the strain of constant care that would be placed upon the crew, that God caused the animals to enter some kind of state of hibernation for a good part of the voyage and that he probably sent along the smallest viable juveniles rather than full-grown adults."
There was documentation presented for that number of 16,000. I also showed that the dimensions of the Ark were plenty big enough for the task, and that the design was much like modern huge ocean-going vessels. God was only 4,000 years or so ahead of us when it came to boat design. I also pointed out that the Bible called for a certain type of animal to be taken on the Ark and with certain numbers. The speculative part was simply exploring some possibilities about how the animals might have been sustained while on the Ark. Since evolutionists would, if honest, admit that almost the entirety of their assertions are speculative I am not ashamed to present a few of my own.
I also recommend looking into various links found on this page for further reference concerning Noah's Ark and the Flood.
"There are clues in the fossil record that the Earth's atmosphere was somewhat different pre-Flood. The physical structure of dinosaur remains seem to tell us that the world included an atmosphere that was more oxygen-rich and that animals, like humans, had longer lifespans. Dinosaurs, being a kind of lizard, likely just continued to grow during their lives and therefore for them to reach such amazing proportions would have had the ability to live far beyond the lifespans of modern animals. However, these creatures should not have been able to live in an atmosphere like we have today."
Yes, the size and structure of the larger dinosaurs and extinct mammals and other clues in the fossil record indicate that atmospheric conditions and certainly other environmental conditions were different pre-Flood. If this becomes a bone of contention requiring a separate post, I may do one.
These are a few selections of many that are assertions of things that "might" have happened, with no evidence that they actually did happen. If you go back and read the comments of these articles, you will find plenty of comments along the lines of "evidence please". Naturally these requests are ignored.
No, these requests are not ignored. I tend to present far more facts than the commenters, who usually just mock and deride and bring nothing new to the table. Both macroevolution and creationism must use primarily the same evidences, and the differences are in how these evidences are interpreted. Unlike evolution, though, creation assertions remain basically unchanged, for they still fit the evidences. Evolution has to keep changing as more evidence comes forth.
For instance? Uniformitarianism was once a key part of macroevolution teaching. The fossil record was supposed to have been in layers laid down over long millions of years, step by step, in a uniform manner. Creationists said all along that the fossil record is that of catastrophism because it is a record of the flood and the dynamic events immediately following that flood, including ice ages as the globe adjusted to the new continents and temperatures, etc, associated with the Noahic Flood.
Whereas the fossil rock layers are not uniform around the world, they have some major things in common: They are sedimentary rocks and they were caused by the action of water and their size and ubiquity means catastrophism. With so many layers, creationists see the working of flood dynamics, which lay down layers of sediment, and also see the post-flood actions of massive mud and landslides and the workings of glaciation, etc. which all lead to the various massive layers now found.
How do macroevolutionists explain these layers? Multitudes of separate catastrophes?
lava said...
Radar,
First of all, let me say I really enjoy reading your blog. While I don't agree with almost anything you say, you post some interesting arguments/ideas. It is interesting to hear how the other half thinks.
Yep, that is one reason I love doing this blog!
Second, this whole Noah's Ark thing and a 6,000 year old earth just baffles me. I'd love to know at some point in the future your thoughts on how humans spread and different races "occured". I don't know how many people were supposedly on the ark, but I just don't get how its possible that those people repopulated, spread to the 4 corners of the earth, and so many different/distinct races "occured". All in under 6,000 years. A follow up to that question is, do you believe current dating techniques are just wrong? Evidence suggests humans have been around a whole lot longer then that.
Lava, I recently posted on rapid speciation, which applies to mankind as well in terms of racial characteristics. If you note, in the last Egypt post there are historic references to the time of Peleg and the division of the earth, when various groups set off to populate different areas. Just before the formation of Egypt, the families of Ham, Shem and Japheth (the sons of Noah) went their separate ways. It is a fascinating thing that the genealogies of people in every "corner" of the planet list one of these three men as being patriarchs. Some genealogies mention Noah and even Adam! You might check out some of my posts on genealogies (I think I spelled it "geneology" in a couple of cases, blah!) to view some of the evidence available.
In truth, there is no reliable evidence of mankind being around much before about 2300 BC. This is what a creationist would expect, that the Flood would wipe out all traces of the prior civilization. Or, almost all, since now and then an anachronistic artifact will show up in a rock layer or in coal. Furthermore, pretty much any dating method favored by evolutionists has proven to be unreliable much past maybe three thousand or so years back, and even then often not. No, it is a macroevolutionists best weapon to scoff at a short history for mankind, since real evidence is not available to them. Like it or not, the only truly reliable historical documents we have that stretch back much beyond 700 BC or so is the Bible and there is nothing that claims to go beyond about 2300 BC that can be believed.
To get into more detail about the races of mankind, I posted Is that Alleles there is? That is a good starting point. This one may be of interest, too. You'll find that with most posts like this, I later follow up to deal with questions and assertions made by commenters. There are about 19 posts that deal most particularly with the Ark in some way, for instance.
xiangtao said...
What we recommended to you radar was that you learn something about biology and evolution NOT from creationist sources. I'll give a shot at answering some of this but if you want better answers, you really should go talk to someone in the biology department at a nearby university. I know you have plenty of good ones in your area.
This is becoming insulting, Xiangtao. My grade point average in college was well above 3.5 and as I have mentioned previously, I have taken courses in Biology, Physics, Chemistry and Anthropology as well as Geology and I had seriously considered a career in Paleontology. I have been an amateur fossil collecter since I was a child and an observer of the rock record for longer than you have been alive, I would imagine. When will you quit using this simplistic and arrogant device to take the focus off of the actual discussion?
As to quick changes in the population, I'm not aware that anyone said minor changes (limb length, body size, etc.) could not change rapidly. We see that sort of thing happen all the time. For example, I am considerably shorter than the other males in my family. My wife is also short so there is a good chance our son will be short. Keep this up for a few generations and we have a much shorter population than before. What does take millions of years is the kind of evolution that goes from fish to amphibian.
So you say. The difference is, I have presented hard evidence that rapid speciation does take place and that such speciation is a result of the loss of genetic information and operates by natural selection in order to ensure the survival of the kind. You, on the other hand, make a baseless, unobservable assertion that fish becomes amphibian.
The topic of new genetic information is where you most desperately need to find some better sources. Mutation quite often produces new genetic material, usually through the mechanism of gene duplication. Again I ask you, if genetic information were a problem for evolution, why would someone such as Francis Collins believe in it?
Francis Collins has his own mind, which I have not read recently. But as I have said before, world view plays a large part in what you believe. In addition, many scientists whose fields are not precisely or even generally in the same field as those who study evolution will tend to simply believe the majority opinion. Some eventually decide to study this opinion for themselves and there are certainly large numbers of creationists who are former believers in evolution. I am one of their number.
I have never doubted that mutations occur and that sometimes such mutations wind up making changes to the gene pool. Most of these mutations either make no change to the creature itself, because of the portion of the DNA string where they reside, and the vast majority of the rest are deleterious. Scientists have had the opportunity to study or be aware of millions of generations of bacteria and have never observed bacteria converting into paramecium. Xiangtao can present no evidence of mutation driving a change of a kind of organism either through millions of bacteria generations or thousands of fruit fly generations nor even hundreds of generations of daisies.
We will go into more detail in a later post about this subject to further illustrate the paucity of the argument that a macroevolutionist brings to the discussion in this arena.
lava said...
RE: Noah's Ark as is brought it again here. I just can't fathom this happening. There are soooooo many questons. So, the animals got off the ark- how did they get to all the continents? Animals that feed off of other animals, for example an Owl and mice, how did they live? The owl has to eat the mice, but the mice have to duplicate to live. I don't get it. Also aren't there issues of inbreeding?
Lava, kindly read this particular article concerning some of your further questions. Also, I earlier provided a link to several flood/ark posts. This one is a start. This one is good.
RE: the rest of this article. There is just this leap from showing animals can adapt quickly to saying this helps support creationism/discredit evolution. The author justifies this leap by saying "But since evolutionists mistakenly interpret all such adaptation/speciation as ‘evolution happening’, they are left stunned when it happens much faster than their traditional interpretations of the fossil record would allow." I don't think thats right.
Well, this is the name of that tune- Rapid speciation, having been proven to occur, means that all of the myriad varieties of living organisms found on earth today that would have been preserved within the Ark within the gene pool of the ancestral kinds can be shown to have had plenty of time to have arisen. Rapid changes also philosophically go against the evolutionary grain, which demands long time frames for evolution to occur, conveniently meaning that we cannot be expected to observe it happening. Therefore the "science" of macroevolution is far more speculative than that of creationism.
Darwin observed variation in kind, or microevolution, and from that eventually came his postulation about macroevolution. But he didn't really understand genetics at all, or have a concept of microbiology, or understand that all the operations he considered in the population of finches and other creatures on the Galapagos were simply natural selection working from a pre-existing pool of genetic traits imbedded in the DNA. His ignorance allowed him to be pretty confident in his assertions and macroevolutionists have been covering up sad-but-truths ever since. Macroevolution is "THE GREAT AND POWERFUL OZ" while the evidence supporting it are one small, timid man behind a curtain.