Challenging Evolution

Not provable? Of course it's provable and proven from at least three lines of concordant evidence: comparative morphology, DNA sequencing and paleontology.

I am getting more and more confused by your phrase "strains of theories". Just how does it apply in this instance?

What instances, please? What reproductive problems? Are you sure they apply to the proposed radiation of mammalian carnivores from a single ancestral species?

What are you suggesting that creationism proves in this scenario? I know it asserts there is a limit to how much a kind can vary, but I have never seen an iota of evidence to support the assertion. How does ID explain anything relevant to this issue?

You had really better re-check your own posts. Now you are saying that a principle of what you called "the original theory of Creationism as precented in the bible" has not been proven to successfully occur, that principle being "that all living things reproduce after it's kind."

I would think that principle is shown to successfully occur many times daily.

Let me use a short analogy to explain, based on a family tree.

My great-grandmother had 5 children. Two died young and had no children of their own. The others had respectively 1, 3 and 9 children. Aunt Gertie's single child had no children, so by the third generation, that line had died out. Two of Aunt Lena's three children did have children of their own, but with one thing and another, that line had died out completely in the 5th generation. So when we get to the 6th generation, all the living descendants of my great-grandmother come through a single line (my grandmother) in spite of the fact that my grandmother was one of 5 siblings.

Now let's apply this to what I said about kinds. Suppose God created 5 original kinds, told them to "be fruitful and multiply". And they did, to the best of their ability. But accidents happen, disease takes its toll, by 500 years later, two of those kinds are extinct. All living organisms are part of the three remaining kinds.

Another 500 years later, one of those is extinct, and all living organisms are descendants of only 2 of the original created kinds. And a 1000 years later, one of those has completely died out. Now all living species trace their origin back to the same original kind.

That is just a thought analogy. We do not know how many kinds God originally created. Maybe it was only one. Maybe it was 5 or 50 or 5000. What we do know is that all but one of them has become extinct. All current evidence about living things shows them all to be descendants of one common ancestor. Doesn't matter how many may have been originally created. Only one has survivors, and those survivors make up the whole panoply of living species today.

In short, the theory of evolution makes no assumption about the number of originally created kinds. But, based, on the evidence, it does come to a conclusion about how many originally created kinds are represented among the various species of living organisms on earth today. And that conclusion is that all of them together are the descendants of one and only one common ancestor. Furthermore, we can also conclude that said common ancestor must have been a species of prokaryote or a precursor to prokaryote species. And that it inhabited the earth more than 3 billion years ago.

And let me stress that this is not religious belief. It is not hypothesis yet to be tested. It is not unsupported assumption. This is conclusion from available evidence.

Oh? Please substantiate how I have done so. Otherwise this is just blowing smoke.

And chordates are still chordates. what is your point here?

In order to keep this response somewhere within reason, I am dividing it into two posts.

When I, among others, suggested you did not have a good grasp of scientific method, your response was: "Not at all, just the assumptions that are going along with the scientific method that I have a problem with."

And when I asked what assumptions you were referring to, you mentioned assumptions about the theory of evolution which have nothing to do with scientific method.

As for scientific method answering all of life questions, of course it doesn't. It applies to what it was designed to apply to: the scientific study of nature. It does not answer metaphysical questions.

This is news to me. What parts of the theory of evolution do you consider to be untestable?

So what? Scientists cannot be held accountable for the way people misuse their techniques and theories. The real question here, as you have pointed out several times, is whether we are dealing with fact or theory or both. Focusing on beliefs people derive from the fact and/or theory of evolution is a distraction. Leave aside the red herring and focus on the point which you earlier insisted on.

I agree, it is an important distinction and I do understand it. If creationists and IDers were content to hold their ideas as a matter of faith, I wouldn't bother with these discussions. (Well, actually, I would, as a matter of apologetics, as I consider them wrongheaded theology, not just pseudo-science.)

But they present them as "science" and want them to be given a place in the science classroom. Therefore they leave themselves open to scientific analysis and evaluation. And on that basis they both fail in their pretensions, for neither offers a coherent or testable theory that explains our observations of nature.

1. Your opinion is always relevant to any discussion in which you are a participant. I should think that would be self-evident.

You have often mentioned "strains" of theories. I am aware of variations in creationist theory, especially on the matter of kinds. You said that your research suggests that "kinds" means "family groups" such as lions and tigers. You also said that mules, since they cannot reproduce, support the concept of kinds.

What I am asking for is clarification of these ideas you have presented. In your original two points, the second was that species reproduce after their kind---a principle evolution fully agrees with. As stated, that principle did not suggest the separate creation of kinds, only that species reproduced after their kind.

But what you are saying here suggests the separate creation of kinds. I am trying to confirm that this is your theory.

Secondly, you mentioned, as examples of "family groups" lions and tigers. Since many creationists would put these two into the same family group, I am asking for some clarity on how you see these groups as they were created. I have offered two possibilities. That originally the family group consisted of one species (e.g feline species, bean species) which then produced more species via evolution (feline--> lions and tigers, bean-->kidney bean and soy bean and romano bean, etc.). The second possibility is that the kind was created with species diversity already a part of it.

Many creationists would not consider lions and tigers, for example, to be separate family groups, but groups within the same kind. Similarly, many creationists do not consider the horse and the donkey to be separate family kinds, but groups within the same kind. But your description of why the mule is sterile suggests that you would not consider the horse and the donkey to be part of the same family group.

So we are dealing here with some of the different "strains" of creationism you were speaking of, and, since there is no point my wasting time on a "strain" of creationism you do not subscribe to, I am asking for clarification on your particular take on the creationist concept of "kind".

Is that too much to ask?

Btw, the theory of evolution does hold that the horse and donkey have a common ancestor and so are the same "kind" of critter. Have you any idea how the TOE explains the sterility of the mule?

Again, this suggests that you have very little understanding of the basics of genetics. For one thing you are implying that a single mutation is equivalent to a new species, which is far from being the case. While there are a few scenarios in which that can happen, they are not the principal methods of evolution. In most cases, an organism with a mutated gene has no difficulty in reproducing. We would certainly be in a bad way as a species if this were the case, for studies suggest that individual humans carry, on average, 100 mutations in their DNA.

It would appear as well, that you conceive of the new species as emerging in a single individual. But in most cases, the new species occurs as a species, i.e. as a group of inter-fertile individuals. So there is no difficulty in finding a mate among the other organisms which are part of the new species.

In short, again you have been making an incorrect prediction based on an imperfect understanding of TOE. The "flaw" you speak of does not exist, because evolution does not work as you have imagined it to work.



In that case it is wrong.

The part that requires millions of years to test

My point, however, also understand that elements of C and ID can be sustantiated through scientific methods.

How can this be if all the theories have elements of each other in them. ... So how then can the theory of C be totally falsified, or ID found to be unscientific? That would be a contridiction unless, we are talking about specific areas of teaching within the theories which is what I mean when I talk about strains of the theory.


And what evidence do we have to prove or disprove any of the theories? We can prove or disprove parts of the theories but that is as far as it goes and to claim otherwise, would mean that all the theories are valid or invalid because each has woven into it elements of the other two. In other words, if say that the theory of C is totally disproven would mean that the elements of E that are woven into the theory are also disproven. It may be about semantics, but it is also about argueing rather than communicating.


But to disprove a theory that has elements of E worked into it, would mean that you also disprove E.

As discussed already, this cannot be fact, for it would invalidate E as theory as well. If each theory contains elements of the other two as you yourself have assurted, then to claim C to be false is to also claim E and ID false. To claim ID as unscientific, is to also claim E and C unscientific. If you would rather claim that science has disproven elements of C and elements of ID unscentific, that is not to claim the entire theory as such, then your evaluation is sound.

If kind is salamander, then they are still reproducing after their kind and we have not proven or disproven any theory. Now have we?

I have never seen this argument before. And I can only say one thing about it.

IT IS COMPLETELY BONKERS!

How about geologic layers that are tested at 500 million years old will not contain bipedal terrestial organisms? Testable?