A Challenge for Anti-evolutionists

[lucaspa]

The genealogy of the Bible, Genesis, and numerous verses throughout the rest say otherwise. People are becoming so overwhelmed with ToE that they feel they have to dismiss these things as metaphors or fictional morals, but I see no reason why. What has caused this disruption of faith in these contexts?
Subjective evidence for a theory? Has blatant lies of ToE's solidity really taken over in such a way? ...
It's just theory, with the only thing rising being it's new found appeal.

First, no one is "dismissing" Genesis 1-8. What we are doing is looking for what the text actually meant and the theological messages contained in them.

Second, the evidence supporting evolution is not "subjective". That's the problem for creationists: the evidence is objective and intersubjective. That means the evidence is outside ourselves (in God's Creation) and is the same for everyone under approximately the same circumstances.

And yes, evolution took over immediately because it rescued God from problems created for Him by creationism. Within 25 years of the publication of Origin of Species, evolution was accepted within Christianity:
"When my Father [Frederick Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury] announced and defended his acceptance of evolution in his Brough Lectures in 1884 it provoked no serious amount of criticism ... The particular battle over evolution was already won by 1884." F.A. Iremonger, William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, His Life and Letters, Oxford Univ. Press, 1948, pg. 491.

So the idea that evolution has only "new found appeal" doesn't take into account the actual history of Christianity.

Ask any pro-evolutionist about a parrot or a bat. Ask them about the substantial evidence indicating that man and dinosaurs once lived in unison. Ask them what actually concludes the idea of DNA hierarchy. Ask them what dating techniques actually show instead of them ranting on about what a scientist concludes with it. Ask them what is in fact dated.
And you will be liberated from the ridiculous idea that Christians should conform to it in any fashion.

What do you want to know about any of these? You really want me to go into the faked evidence that humans and dinos once lived together? That evidence is so patently fake that both ICR and AiG (2 premier YEC organizations) say not to use it anymore!

 

[Sum1sGruj]

First, no one is "dismissing" Genesis 1-8. What we are doing is looking for what the text actually meant and the theological messages contained in them.

Second, the evidence supporting evolution is not "subjective". That's the problem for creationists: the evidence is objective and intersubjective. That means the evidence is outside ourselves (in God's Creation) and is the same for everyone under approximately the same circumstances.

And yes, evolution took over immediately because it rescued God from problems created for Him by creationism. Within 25 years of the publication of Origin of Species, evolution was accepted within Christianity:
"When my Father [Frederick Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury] announced and defended his acceptance of evolution in his Brough Lectures in 1884 it provoked no serious amount of criticism ... The particular battle over evolution was already won by 1884." F.A. Iremonger, William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, His Life and Letters, Oxford Univ. Press, 1948, pg. 491.

So the idea that evolution has only "new found appeal" doesn't take into account the actual history of Christianity.


What do you want to know about any of these? You really want me to go into the faked evidence that humans and dinos once lived together? That evidence is so patently fake that both ICR and AiG (2 premier YEC organizations) say not to use it anymore!

Faked? More like dismissed because it doesn't fit into the ToE canon. Just like every single thing else that hurts ToE. It's blatant and ridiculous. A fool's game.
Parrots, bats, beans, ants- their is an entire kingdom of organisms that hurt ToE substantially. It's not even scientists that will keep this being realized, they will just sit back and let the laymen deny that nothing hurts the theory.

Because ToE can explain it's paranoid system to the majority of animals, it somehow becomes a 'truth'. It has less problems then Relativity?
That is not scientific, that is just the foolishness of banding pro-evolutionist laymen.
All it takes is one problem and theory stays shackled to inquiry. ToE just happens to have many, so that makes it shackled, hung, nailed, and glued to inquiry.

With all due respect, integrating ToE and the Bible is doomed to be more wrong then either creationism or atheism.

 

[lucaspa]

Faked? More like dismissed because it doesn't fit into the ToE canon. Just like every single thing else that hurts ToE. It's blatant and ridiculous. A fool's game.

Sorry, but faked. The Paluxey tracks were altered by people living in the area during the Depression (1930s). They were very poor and they hoped that the "man" and dino tracks would attract tourism. Go here and you will see the Paluxey tracks listed as "arguments to be avoided": Get Answers - Answers in Genesis

The supposed Inca carvings are also fake. The people who did the fake statues confessed.

Parrots, bats, beans, ants- their is an entire kingdom of organisms that hurt ToE substantially. It's not even scientists that will keep this being realized, they will just sit back and let the laymen deny that nothing hurts the theory.

None of the list is a "kingdom" in the taxonomic classification system. Plants is a kingdom; animals are another kingdom.

I've seen bats used as an example of an order that doesn't have fossil ancestors. True, fossils in the bat lineage are few, because the bones are fragile and most bats live in areas (such as dry mountains or caves) were fossilization is poor. However, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Unless, of course, you are an atheist and try to use that argument to "prove" God doesn't exist.

I do not know what the problem with parrots is, unless it is the ability to mimic human speech? Parrots do have their own form of verbal communication. It just shows that language is not a uniquely human characteristic.

What is the problem with ants? Their eusociality is explained by evolution. That was the work that gained fame for EO Wilson.

Because ToE can explain it's paranoid system to the majority of animals, it somehow becomes a 'truth'. It has less problems then Relativity?

I said evolution has as much support as Relativity. I guess I had better explain that. In science, the goal is to falsify (or show it is wrong) a hypothesis/theory. When an honest attempt has been made to show a hypothesis/theory to be wrong, and the data is what we would expect if the hypothesis/theory were true, then that data is said to be support for the hypothesis/theory.

Evolution is evaluated as "truth" the same as we evaluate all scientific theories: against the observations/data. Now, those observations/data are made in God's Creation. So we evaluate evolution and all scientific theories against what God tells us. YEC was evaluated that way and shown to be wrong.

All it takes is one problem and theory stays shackled to inquiry. ToE just happens to have many, so that makes it shackled, hung, nailed, and glued to inquiry.

First, you state "one problem". That is "naive falsification" and even Popper (who described that science works by falsification) rejected it. Major successful theories are not discarded by one apparently false observation. Newtonian gravity was not discarded because of the observations of Uranus' orbit, for example.

Second, the "problems" don't get a free ride. They get examined to see if they are valid. Yes, theories are criticized, but the criticisms are also criticized. So far, none of the criticisms of evolution have been valid.

With all due respect, integrating ToE and the Bible is doomed to be more wrong then either creationism or atheism.

With all due respect, we need to listen to God in both His books. Truth cannot contradict truth. See the first quote in my signature to see how Christians decided to resolve conflicts between God's Creation and an interpretation of the Bible. That was in response to overwhelming evidence showing 1) an old earth and 2) that there was no global flood.

That continues the tradition within Christianity of having extrabiblical evidence guide the interpretation of scripture. The classic example is Luke 2:1. The Greek is very specific: the entire world was enrolled. But we know thru extrabiblical evidence that no one outside the Roman Empire was enrolled in the census. That extrabiblical evidence is so accepted that some translations (such as the NLT and NIV) state "Roman world".

We are not "integrating" so much as letting scripture and God's Creation do what each does well. They have different tasks:
Scripture tells us the Who and why of creation; scripture is about theology.
God's Creation tells us the how He created; God could leave the evidence there for us to find when we have learned enough to understand it.

The problem comes when some people decide to place a particular interpretation of scripture above God. These people become so concerned about defending their human interpretation of scripture that they stop listening to God.

 

[Sum1sGruj]

Sorry, but faked. The Paluxey tracks were altered by people living in the area during the Depression (1930s). They were very poor and they hoped that the "man" and dino tracks would attract tourism. Go here and you will see the Paluxey tracks listed as "arguments to be avoided": Get Answers - Answers in Genesis

The supposed Inca carvings are also fake. The person who did the first fake statues confessed.

The evidence exists in the idea that human remains and dinosaurs being found in the same stratum. Scientists dismiss this on it not fitting into ToE. That is the blindfold that has been put over logic.
Many ancient civilizations have recorded accounts of dragon-like creatures and such, even the Bible speaks of this. Metaphors, I guess, just like the entire Pentateuch.
It is rejected only because it doesn't work for what ToE pushes. Nothing more, nothing less.
If all else fails, scientists will smack creationists with a burden of proof that neither they have themselves outside of their subjective idea.
As if a starving creationist is any different then a starving theory just because it can point at something and make any alien idea about it.

None of the list is a "kingdom" in the taxonomic classification system. Plants is a kingdom; animals are another kingdom.

I was merely stating that there is an entire nation of anti-evolutionary organisms.

I've seen bats used as an example of an order that doesn't have fossil ancestors. True, fossils in the bat lineage are few, because the bones are fragile and most bats live in areas (such as dry mountains or caves) were fossilization is poor. However, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Unless, of course, you are an atheist and try to use that argument to "prove" God doesn't exist.

Fossils do not have anything to do with it. In fact, that is what makes ToE so foolishly appealing. It's the traits of bats that hurt ToE.

I do not know what the problem with parrots is, unless it is the ability to mimic human speech? Parrots do have their own form of verbal communication. It just shows that language is not a uniquely human characteristic.

Everything about a parrot hurts ToE. Verbal communication is one of many things about the bird that keeps it an anomaly to the theory. It's pigmentation cannot be explained, it's lifespan or evolutionary ancestors cannot be explained. Nothing, except that it is somehow part of the family of birds. Their coloring cannot be explained even by the theory of tigers and their stripes, which is a long-shot in itself.

What is the problem with ants? Their eusociality is explained by evolution. That was the work that gained fame for EO Wilson.

The problem is with their replication and sheer number. worker ants do not replicate, but somehow every generation not only develops better traits, but so much so that they.. cancel out the other ants? No, it's just plain non-sense. One can theorize all day, and nothing will make that plausible.

I said evolution has as much support as Relativity. I guess I had better explain that. In science, the goal is to falsify (or show it is wrong) a hypothesis/theory. When an honest attempt has been made to show a hypothesis/theory to be wrong, and the data is what we would expect if the hypothesis/theory were true, then that data is said to be support for the hypothesis/theory.

Evolution is evaluated as "truth" the same as we evaluate all scientific theories: against the observations/data. Now, those observations/data are made in God's Creation. So we evaluate evolution and all scientific theories against what God tells us. YEC was evaluated that way and shown to be wrong.

To be frank, honest attempts are just neutralized with the illusion that ToE is above all, with failed attempts providing ad hominems for pro-evolutionists to use when real talk is talked.
Relativity and quantum mechanics cannot both be right. Hawkings even states this, as their is a reason why theory never becomes fact in science.
See, relativity would have become fact if not for this junction, because it explains the working of gravity extremely well and even bears an equation that we use to this day. But, it can be completely wrong all the same. That is the irony of scientific discovery that pro-evolutionists not only cannot wrap their head around, but completely ignore the counter evidence of ToE.

First, you state "one problem". That is "naive falsification" and even Popper (who described that science works by falsification) rejected it. Major successful theories are not discarded by one apparently false observation. Newtonian gravity was not discarded because of the observations of Uranus' orbit, for example.

Newtonian gravity is law, Einstein's relativity is a theoretical extension of it. Not a lot of people actually realize that, nor the splitting difference between science and theoretical science.

Second, the "problems" don't get a free ride. They get examined to see if they are valid. Yes, theories are criticized, but the criticisms are also criticized. So far, none of the criticisms of evolution have been valid.

..Yes they have. ToE providing a far-fetched, unobserved rationale or letting 'extremely improbable but true' trample them is not science.

With all due respect, we need to listen to God in both His books. Truth cannot contradict truth. See the first quote in my signature to see how Christians decided to resolve conflicts between God's Creation and an interpretation of the Bible. That was in response to overwhelming evidence showing 1) an old earth and 2) that there was no global flood.

There was no global flood according to science because they claimed evidence for other ideals, assuming the initial conditions of Earth.
The overwhelming evidence is just overwhelming subjection. That is the truth of the matter. Pro-evolutionists should just drop the word 'overwhelming', as it can only be prescribed to the gravity of ToE's appeal.

We are not "integrating" so much as letting scripture and God's Creation do what each does well. They have different tasks:
Scripture tells us the Who and why of creation,
God's Creation tells us the how.

I hear this all the time, but you know, the Bible is the most best-selling book in the world.
And I gotta tell you, I see nothing in scripture that gives evolution even a fighting chance. Quite the back flips one must do to even muster up a loose indication that some of it is metaphorical.

The problem comes when some people decide to place a particular interpretation of scripture above God. These people become so concerned about defending their human interpretation of scripture that they stop listening to God.

No, placing God over human observation. God can do whatever He wills, and somehow subjective theory can state he did it a certain way. It's ludacrous.
But that is to be expected when mixing atheistic ideas with divinity.
Even using the idea that God is not the author of confusion on creationists..
..what?

There is no reason to accept ToE. There is no reason to accept that dating techniques prove how long Earth has been around. And lastly, there is no reason to say God created everything and then put some kind of limit on Him.

 

[The Outlier]

Yes. So if it is no problem to attribute it to one god, why not multiple gods, and then how would one distinguish?

What does this have to do with evolution? God's and natural forces are two different things.

Yes, and mutation/other genome changing methods (like sexual reproduction) and pressures from the environment work well as guides.

The word "guides" is a bit problematic, but i see what you mean. So, they work like guides with a brain?

Mutations change genes. They change teh genome by definition, and so certain mutations will change genes. Changed genes may or may not confer a benefit. The animal/plant/single celled organism cannot control where or how often or which mutations occur.

Which makes it even more unlikely that any positive change will happen, muchless a linear transformation for a single-celled organism to a primate. I did read in your post further down about evolution not happening across species, but it didn't make any sense. Sorry.

There are certain sheep even though they are slow and stupid because humans keep them that way. Sheep that live among predators are not the same in behavior or body build, etc. After all, domestic sheep are only one species in a genus.

I didn't quite catch the first sentence, but I assume you are saying that domesticated sheep are dumb because people do everything for them?

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Yes, and there are several outside forces imparting energy. Solar radiation, undersea thermal vents, etc.

That sounds like a good answer, but it just raises more questions. Where did these outside forces come from? The skyhook argument is starting to re-appear again. Every answer to my questions comes from something that was already in existance with pre-existing atomic structure and energy that was already there.

The body's ability to fight diseases and "heal itself' ... happened by chance.

1) But that deterioration is not the change in energy that entropy describes.
2) Again, it is a bare assertion.

I don't fully understand your answer, although much of it is the length and complexity of this thread. Deterioration still happens in life forms, regardless of what any law of entropy says.

Mutations happen. Where the mutation happens is random, what the mutation is is random. The mutation changes a gene (or more than one). The effect on the gene(s) is not random, but is fixed, based on how the gene was changed. This change is expressed by the being’s cells (not random). This leads to some (not random) change in the animal. This change in the animal is (not randomly) selected for, selected against, or acted upon neutrally (which is not random, it is determined by what the change is and what the environment is.)

My question to this has always been: How does the environment change the DNA of the offspring of the animal effected by the environment. What you are talking about is observable in people, since there are all different races. But people are all within the same species/genus. Change across bigger classifications of life are not the same thing.

And it also seems your ‘surviving species were there to begin with’ is based on a flawed understanding.
How it works is, according to mutations and selection, changes will build up in the current species, until it will have changed so much, it could not breed with its predecessors... or a separate population of what was the same species that was isolated. I can expound if you wish.

You can expound, but you are still talking about negative changes. What are some documented examples of positive changes across species that anyone can observe or research?

It assumes that because it assumes there is no creator.
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Because there is no evidence for a creator.
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Assuming that design is not evidence. We're back to the circle again, but we're not going so fast that I should vomit, so lets keep going.​

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It makes perfect sense that the strongest would survive in theory but I'm asking what is evolution's answer to how they became the strongest.​

It doesn't say how everything began, but just tries to explain how it behaves and assumes that the way it behaves is how it began.

But that is what evolution is designed to do. The beginning of life is outside the field of evolution. ONCE LIFE STARTED, it was not perfectly replicating (the DNA I mean), so there were mutations from the beginning, and the way they were expressed and the environment determine what is the fittest. “Fittest” is subjective based on the environment. This is essential to understanding.

The highlighted portion is the very problem with evolution in a nutshell. That's what I mean when I use the word "skyhook". It still starts with something that was already there. And yes, in creationism there is this same assumption- that there was already something there in the first place.

ut creationism does not pass itself off as following the scientific method.
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But the ToE actually DOES.

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ToE?

Scientists put faith in research already done by other scientists, and put faith in the idea that what they see and understand is all the puzzle pieces needed to complete the whole puzzle.
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But this is not the same as religious faith. This is an equivocation.

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It is the same. People of faith see evidence of their creator in ther lives and in the world- things that are observable. One can argue with some of their conclusions, but they still see noticeable changes that you can not always say are not valid. They put their faith in documents (ie the Bible) just like scientists put their faith in documents written by other scientists. The validity of the Bible is based on faith in God and on faith in the people who canonized the Bible and the people who made the copies of the scrolls, how long it has stood the test of time, how little inaccuracies have occured in the time elapsed since its recording, and on how well it describes the world and diagnoses its problems and solutions. Is it totally concrete?- no, but neither is science. While religion and science are separate realms, they both require faith. Scientists put faith in other people's research. They don't just re-work every experiment before doing their own. They don't get paid enough to do that.
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For evolution to be true and for stronger species to evolve out of weaker species, there must be some force that makes them change and not just die off.
A force like... natural selection. Like the fitter surviving long enough and spreading enough through the gene pool to change the population’s makeup.

How could the net change be positive to allow for species who have been around for 1000's of years? If you want me to explain that, I can expound that question.

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Evolution across kingdoms, phylum, ect are what I don't believe in- even with millions of years to evolve.
Nothing evolves ACROSS a phylum, or a kingdom. The kingdoms evolved from a split in something that did not yet possess distinguishing features of any kingdom that it split in to.

That doesn't make any sense. Can you elaborate?
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Its also common sense.
But common sense doesn’t work in science. Common sense would tell you things are solid, not that a human being has little enough matter to barely see under a microscope and is 99%+ empty space. Common sense would not tell people the correct answer to the Monty Hall problem. Common sense would not say that the Sun is millions of times more massive than the earth, or tell us anything about the distance to the moon. Common sense would tell you you could NOT walk on a 1:10 mixture of corn starch and water. And so on.

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Common sense does work like science, in a sense. It comes from trial and error, much like the scientific method. Common sense says don't try to pull a mad cat out from under a bed, because after one has done such a thing before, its not an action worth repeating. Besides, there's aresol.....or better yet water in a spray bottle.

IE a creator that was never created. ...There had to be energy there to begin with.
There is no evolutionISM. Evolution does not assume a creator of any kind. ..... If you go back further than that, to the Big Bang, then go read my earlier thing about the 1st LoT

I'll have to do that, although starting another thread about that would not be a bad idea since these posts are out of control.

I'll have to address the second part of your post tomorrow. There is not internet where I live so I use the computer at work or the library.
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[lucaspa]

The evidence exists in the idea that human remains and dinosaurs being found in the same stratum. Scientists dismiss this on it not fitting into ToE. That is the blindfold that has been put over logic.

There is no such stratum. Human fossils and dino fossils are never found in the same strata.

Many ancient civilizations have recorded accounts of dragon-like creatures and such, even the Bible speaks of this. Metaphors, I guess, just like the entire Pentateuch.

Western dragons and Chinese dragons are very different. And the stories are passed from culture to culture.

Not the entire Pentateuch is metaphor. Exodus is history and, along with Leviticus and Deuteronomy it is a compendium of the Law. Genesis 1 isn't metaphor. It's a monograph for monotheism and creation by Yahweh and the non-existence of the Babylonian pantheon. Genesis 2-3 is allegory and a refutation of the current Egyptian religion.

It is rejected only because it doesn't work for what ToE pushes. Nothing more, nothing less.

Again, you need to look at Christian history. St. Augustine argued against a literal Genesis 1-3 in the 400s. John Calvin talked of Genesis 1 being partly metaphor in the 1500s in his Commentary on Genesis. In 1715 several Christian ministers noted that Genesis 1-3 is 2 separate creation stories that, if read literally, contradict on several major points. All of these happened long before the first theories of evolution were proposed in the early 1800s.

If all else fails, scientists will smack creationists with a burden of proof that neither they have themselves outside of their subjective idea.

Again, you need to look at history, this time the history of science. Creationism was the accepted scientific theory from 1500 to 1800. The scientists were Christian and many of them were ministers. By 1800 none of these scientists thought the earth was 6,000 years old. The earth was recognized as tens of millions of years old by 1830 (while Darwin was still a creationist). These scientists, again all of whom were theists, all but one or 2 were Christian, and most of whom were ministers, looked at the data in God's Creation and realized that YEC was falsified. These same scientists later looked at the data from biogeography and comparative morphology and decided in the period 1830-1870 that special creation was false. Creationism was falsified by 1870. The data that falsified it then has not gone away.

I was merely stating that there is an entire nation of anti-evolutionary organisms.

And I'm pointing out that, when examined, these "nations" are not anti-evolution.

Fossils do not have anything to do with it. In fact, that is what makes ToE so foolishly appealing. It's the traits of bats that hurt ToE.

Not the arguments I have heard. The argument starts with echolocation but moves to the lack of a fossil record on the evolution of echolocation. However, a quick google search shows several papers discussing the evolution of echolocation: bat echolocation evolution - Google Search Perhaps you should read some of them. Mostly this creationist argument is based upon ignorance; the professional creationists hope the rank and file (you) will remain ignorant and not look at the information that is available on the evolution of echolocation in particular and bats in general.

Everything about a parrot hurts ToE. Verbal communication is one of many things about the bird that keeps it an anomaly to the theory. It's pigmentation cannot be explained, it's lifespan or evolutionary ancestors cannot be explained. Nothing, except that it is somehow part of the family of birds. Their coloring cannot be explained even by the theory of tigers and their stripes, which is a long-shot in itself.

1. Birds are a Class -- Aves.
2. Parrots are all put in a single Order.
3. Coloring is explained by sexual selection, not camoflauge. However, if you mean the pigments, those are known.
4. There are few fossil parrots, but phylogenetic studies give indications of their evolutionary history. Shoot, even the Wikipedia article on parrots gives info on their evolution! This site, which I found in less than a minute of searching, discusses pigmentation in parrots and evolution: Parrot Bio-geography and Evolution
Once again it seems creationists are relying upon the Argument from Ignorance and god-of-the-gaps theology.

The problem is with their replication and sheer number. worker ants do not replicate, but somehow every generation not only develops better traits, but so much so that they.. cancel out the other ants? No, it's just plain non-sense. One can theorize all day, and nothing will make that plausible.

It's more than theorizing, there is a lot of observations and math to back it. In terms of evolution, each colony acts as an individual, since they all get their genetics from a single queen. It's not "nonsense". Well, maybe it is to you, but not to others. I truly suggest reading the work of EO Wilson on the subject. I don't care for Wilson's philosophical beliefs, but he did some great science there.

To be frank, honest attempts are just neutralized with the illusion that ToE is above all, with failed attempts providing ad hominems for pro-evolutionists to use when real talk is talked.

The scientific literature is filled with honest attempts to falsify evolution. Honest attempts but failed attempts.

You also seem to be confusing the tactics of some evolutionists with the evidence that is there.

Relativity and quantum mechanics cannot both be right. Hawkings even states this, as their is a reason why theory never becomes fact in science.

Actually, they can both be right and Hawking has said so. Both accurately describe observations within their domains. It's just that, so far, gravity has not been successfully quantized. Maybe it can't. One of the assumptions about the universe that science works with is that the universe is unified. Relativity and QM may show that assumption to be false.

That is the irony of scientific discovery that pro-evolutionists not only cannot wrap their head around, but completely ignore the counter evidence of ToE.

Again, evolutionists do not ignore "counter evidence". They do address it, even the most outrageous claims by creationists, i.e. that evolution is counter to the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics or that evolution is completely random. But remember I said that the criticism doesn't get a free ride. It too can be criticized. And that is what has happened to the "counter evidence" such as polystrate fossils, parrot coloration, etc. In contrast, the evidence falsifying creationism is never answered.

Newtonian gravity is law, Einstein's relativity is a theoretical extension of it.

First, "laws" are just well supported theories. The term dates to a time in the history of science when scientists did think there were invariable laws and that they (the scientists in the 1600s and 1700s) were finding these laws.
Second, you have it backwards. Newton's "law" of gravity is a special case of General Relativity. At low accelerations, Einstein's Relativity equations reduce to Newton's.

Continued next post.

 

[lucaspa]

Yes they have. ToE providing a far-fetched, unobserved rationale or letting 'extremely improbable but true' trample them is not science.

Kinda sidestepped that creationist objections to evolution don't get a free ride, didn't you? There is a difference between absence of evidence and evidence to the contrary. I'm not sure what you are referring to with "extremely improbable". Can you be more specific? But the objections to specific creationist criticisms have always been answered in detail. Now, a particular layman evolutionist may be unaware of the detailed answer, but the answer has been done.

There was no global flood according to science because they claimed evidence for other ideals, assuming the initial conditions of Earth.

There was no global flood because the geological evidence we observe simply can't be there if there were a global flood. For instance, unconformities (of which Siccar Point is a famous example) can't have formed in a single flood. Neither can varves. What's more, the evidence that should be there if a global flood happened simply isn't there. The last attempt to assign some strata to a global flood was (Rev) Buckland's in the 1820s, where he assigned the most superficial gravels and morraines to a global flood. However, by 1831 even Buckland admitted that those features could not be explained by a flood and had other, more regional, explanations.

The overwhelming evidence is just overwhelming subjection. That is the truth of the matter. Pro-evolutionists should just drop the word 'overwhelming', as it can only be prescribed to the gravity of ToE's appeal.

It's not "subjective". Science limits itself with objective, intersubjective evidence. What's more, as I noted, a global flood was falsified before evolution had even occured to Charles Darwin. So you can't blame evolution for the falsification of a global flood.

I hear this all the time, but you know, the Bible is the most best-selling book in the world.

The Iliad is also a bestseller. Do you think that means the Greek pantheon exists? But what does the Bible being the best selling book in the world have to do with my argument that:
"Scripture tells us the Who and why of creation,
God's Creation tells us the how."

You sidestepped that, didn't you?

And I gotta tell you, I see nothing in scripture that gives evolution even a fighting chance.

That's the problem. You are looking only at scripture. God has two books. You are ignoring the second, and that is where God makes clear that He created the diversity of life by evolution.

Quite the back flips one must do to even muster up a loose indication that some of it is metaphorical.

Not really. The contradictions between the 2 creation stories are a large neon sign telling you not to read them as history. It amazes me that people can miss it.

No, placing God over human observation. God can do whatever He wills, and somehow subjective theory can state he did it a certain way.

Human observation of what? God's Creation. Yes, God can do whatever He wills. The evidence He left us in His Creation tells us He created by the processes discovered by science. It's not a "subjective" theory. That's a method to try to denigrate the theory. It's a logical fallacy called Appeal to Ridicule.

But that is to be expected when mixing atheistic ideas with divinity.

Ah, the old evolution = atheism canard. I wondered how long it would take you to bring that up.

Let's be clear: evolution is not atheism. Nor is it "atheistic". Ironically, it is creationism that is atheistic. So this claim is projection in the psychological sense.

Let's go to Origin of Species to dispel the idea that evolution is atheism or atheistic. We'll start with at the end of the book:
""To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual." C. Darwin, On the Origin of Species,pg. 449.

See that "secondary causes"? That's a Christian phrase, not a scientific one. You need to look up what it means. But basically it is saying that evolution is the process by which God created the diversity of life on the planet. Now let's go back to the Fontispiece at the beginning of the book. Darwin uses 3 quotes, all from Christians and all ministers:
"But with regard to the material world, we can at least go so far as this -- we can perceive that events are brought about not by insulated interpositions of Divine power, exerted in each particular case, but by the establishment of general laws" Whewell: Bridgewater Treatise.

"To conclude, therefore, let no man out of a weak conceit of sobriety, or an ill-applied moderation, think or maintain, that a man can search too far or be too well studied in the book of God's word, or in the book of God's works; divinity or philosophy [science]; but rather let men endeavour an endless progress or proficience in both." Bacon: Advancement of Learning

Those are the first and 3rd quotes. But it is the second quote that is the most telling:
"The only distinct meaning of the word 'natural' is stated, fixed, or settled; since what is natural as much requires and presupposes an intelligent agent to render it so, i.e., to effect it continually or at stated times, as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it for once." Butler: Analogy of Revealed Religion.

Read that carefully. It's an idea that creationists don't use. Instead, they accept the atheist idea that natural = without God. Unless God is performing a miracle, creationism doesn't think God is present.

There is no reason to accept ToE. There is no reason to accept that dating techniques prove how long Earth has been around. And lastly, there is no reason to say God created everything and then put some kind of limit on Him.

1. There is every reason to accept evolution. Denying the evidence in His Creation is denying that God created.
2. Even without radiometric dating, those scientists/ministers could tell that the earth was tens or hundreds of millions of years old. They didn't know the exact number, but the data falsified any age younger than that. But the radiometric dating techniques are accurate. Even the famous creationist Duane Gish admitted as much:
"Furthermore, it will be maintained that even though any given age measurements may be completely erroneous due to leaching or emanation or some other effect, there are many cases now known where the age estimate has been checked by two or more different methods, independently. It would seem improbable that the elements concerned would have each been altered in such a way as to continue to give equal ages; therefore, such agreement between independent measurements would seem to be strong evidence that alteration has not occurred and that the indicated date is therefore valid." Duane Gish, The American Biology Teacher, March 1973, pg. 136.

3. We are not putting a limit on God. Yes, God created. But how did God create? We are simply looking at the evidence God left us to determine how. We aren't limiting God to a choice of methods; God did that Himself when He chose His methods.

 

[lucaspa]

What does this have to do with evolution? God's and natural forces are two different things.

No, they are not. What is "natural" requires God just as much as miracle. That's a basic belief of Christianity and comes from the belief that God sustains the universe.

The word "guides" is a bit problematic, but i see what you mean. So, they work like guides with a brain?

Not really. What happens is that the environment sets up a design problem for the population. Natural selection picks the best designs available in the population. Each individual represents a design, and natural selection selects those individuals with the best designs.

Which makes it even more unlikely that any positive change will happen, muchless a linear transformation for a single-celled organism to a primate. I did read in your post further down about evolution not happening across species, but it didn't make any sense. Sorry.[/quote]
First, evolution produces new species. This has been observed in the fossil record and in real time in the lab and in the wild.
Second, 994 out of 1,000 mutations are either neutral or beneficial. And what is neutral in the present environment may well be beneficial if the environment changes. But what you are missing is that the detrimental mutations (designs) are weeded out of the population by natural selection. This is rough on the individuals, but evolution doesn't work on individuals, but on populations.
Third, there is no "linear transformation" from single-celled organism to primate. Evolution is a branching bush. Yes, you can trace ancestry back to a common ancestor which would be a single-celled organism, but you are tracing thru an incredibly complex branching bush.

I didn't quite catch the first sentence, but I assume you are saying that domesticated sheep are dumb because people do everything for them?

No. Rather, as people bred sheep by artificial selection, intelligence was not one of the traits they used for selection. They wanted other traits such as good wool and nice tasting mutton much more, so if those traits were present but decreased intelligence was also present, the human breeders accepted the decreased intelligence.

That sounds like a good answer, but it just raises more questions. Where did these outside forces come from?

He told you. Radiation from the sun is "outside" energy for the earth. It comes from fusion reactions in the sun. There are also hydrothermal vents in the ocean. Those are where lava is exposed to the seafloor. The energy to heat lava comes from radioactive decay and compression of the earth by gravity. Now, eventually you trace everything back to the Big Bang. What caused the Big Bang? We believe God did. But after that you have secondary causes at work (look up the term secondary cause).

Remember, we are not arguing atheism here. This is a forum for Christians only. So all the evolutionists here are Christians.

My question to this has always been: How does the environment change the DNA of the offspring of the animal effected by the environment.

What you are talking about is observable in people, since there are all different races. But people are all within the same species/genus. Change across bigger classifications of life are not the same thing.

1. The environment does not change the DNA of the offspring. DNA is changed by processes unrelated to the needs of the individual or the population. Yes, there are chemicals in the environment that mutate DNA; there is also radiation. However, these are not usually what we refer to as "the environment" when we are talking about evolution.

So, let's try an example: an environment that is getting warmer. Just as many deer will be born with longer fur as shorter fur. But only the deer with shorter fur will do well in that environment. Selection picks the individuals with the mutations that, accidentally, do well in that environment.

Or let's do a real world example. A plant in Japan that makes nylon dumps its waste into a pond. So the pond contains lots of strands of nylon. The bacteria in the pond can't use the nylon for food because they lack any enzyme that can break down the nylon into simpler compounds they can use for food. But then one bacterium has a deletion mutation in part of its DNA. That completely changes the "reading frame" after the deletion, so the DNA there now codes for a new protein. It turns out that protein is an enzyme that can break down nylon (it's a nylonase) to the smaller molecules the bacterium can use as food. Now that particular bacterium has a whole new food source open to it. So it keeps getting enough food for the energy to divide, and the daugher bacteria get enough food to divide, and so on. The "offspring" of that bacterium also get the nylonase enzyme, because every time the bacterium divides, it copies the new enzyme and the offspring have it too. Because they can use all the old food sources and nylon, within 10 years most of the bacteria in the pond can digest nylon because they are all descended from that one lucky bacterium with the mutation. 1. Birth of a unique enzyme from an alternative reading frame of the pre-existed, internally repetitious coding sequence", Ohno, S, Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 81:2421-2425, 1984. Frame shift mutation yielded random formation of new protein, was active enzyme nylon linear oligomer hydrolase (degrades nylon) Evolution and INFORMATION - the Nylon Bug!

In evolution, new traits compete with gene flow between populations, especially in sexually reproducing species like humans. So far, the changes due to the different environments humans find themselves in, such as skin color, are passed around the entire human population by breeding between populations. That breeding between populations is called "gene flow". BUT, there are at least 3 examples where we are seeing the beginnings of new species coming from H. sapiens. One is the highlands in Tibet and the Himalayas, another is in the Andes. In both places the humans who live at that high altitude have different physiologies (genetic adaptations). Both populations are semi-isolated from the lowlanders. The other example is the !Kung that live in the Kalahari desert in Africa. They too have unique genetic adaptations, this time to living in a very dry desert. What's more, !Kung who marry outside the !Kung must live outside the !Kung. So there is no gene flow from the surrounding peoples into the !Kung. And the !Kung don't regard much of the rest of humanity as potential mates. That mate selection is one of the early steps to speciation. If this continues for a hundred or more generations, we will have a new species of Homo.

You can expound, but you are still talking about negative changes. What are some documented examples of positive changes across species that anyone can observe or research?

1. G Kilias, SN Alahiotis, and M Pelecanos. A multifactorial genetic investigation of speciation theory using drosophila melanogaster Evolution 34:730-737, 1980. A new species of Drosophila that can live at colder temps than the parent species.
2. D Dodd. Reproductive isolation as a consequence of adaptive divergence in Drosophila pseudoobscura. Evolution 43(6): 1308-1311, 1989. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0014-3820(198909)43%3A6%3C1308%3ARIAACO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-K In this case it is new species of Drosophila, one that can live off starch and one off of malt. New food sources; now one species is "potato" flies.
4. Butters, F. K. 1941. Hybrid Woodsias in Minnesota. Amer. Fern. J. 31:15-21. New species of azaleas that can survive cold winters. I loved azaleas when I lived in Georgia but didn't think I could have them in New York. I have 2 of thse new species.
6. Toxic Tailings and Tolerant Grass by RE Cook in Natural History, 90(3): 28-38, 1981 http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=51246188 discusses selection pressure of grasses growing on mine tailings that are rich in toxic heavy metals. These are several species of plants that can grow on the mine tailings that have heavy metals in the ground.

All of these should meet your criteria of "positive changes", since the new species can live where the old could not.

It makes perfect sense that the strongest would survive in theory but I'm asking what is evolution's answer to how they became the strongest.

It's "fittest", not "strongest". They got to be "fittest" because their genetic variations gave them the best designs for that particular environment.

The highlighted portion is the very problem with evolution in a nutshell. That's what I mean when I use the word "skyhook". It still starts with something that was already there.

You are thinking that evolution = atheism. That's not what we are talking about. Every scientific theory has limitations and assumes the existence of something. Relativity assumes the existence of spacetime. Chemistry assumes the existence of atoms. Evolution assumes the existence of living organisms. Given living organisms, evolution explains the diversity of life. We are not advocating atheism here. We here believe God existed and God created the universe. God is the ultimate source of matter/energy and spacetime. Once these existed, then God used secondary causes to create everything else in the universe.

People of faith see evidence of their creator in ther lives and in the world- things that are observable.

As people of faith, we believe we see evidence of God in our lives. We have a personal relationship with God. And yes, we believe the theological messages in scripture. Get this very clearly: here evolution is not atheism. You are among fellow Christians here.

They put their faith in documents (ie the Bible) just like scientists put their faith in documents written by other scientists.

Scientists don't do that. Ultimately, science works with data. And that data is available to everyone willing to take the time and effort to do the same work: look at the same fossil, look at the geology, do the experiment.

I would say we Christians put our faith in God. Not in the Bible. The Bible helps us find God, but our faith is in God and Christ, not the Bible.

The validity of the Bible is based on faith in God and on faith in the people who canonized the Bible and the people who made the copies of the scrolls,

I submit we have trust that the people who wrote down the accounts of their experience with God did so accurately. That is, the gospel authors got the story of the empty tomb and encounters with the risen Jesus from oral histories from the disciples and they told an accurate story. Paul told an accurate account of an encounter with the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus.

Is it totally concrete?- no, but neither is science.

I'm glad you aren't holding to inerrantism. However, remember that science is also reading a book by God. Science studies God's Creation. And, while we are not going to get more Bible, God still has more evidence for us to discover in His Creation. So, if we get our ideas wrong, God will eventually correct us. As He did with creationism by having evidence in His Creation that it is wrong.

You see, this isn't a war between science and religion.

Continued in next post.

 

[lucaspa]

While religion and science are separate realms, they both require faith. Scientists put faith in other people's research. They don't just re-work every experiment before doing their own. They don't get paid enough to do that.

You are correct that we don't repeat everyone's experiment exactly. But we do end up repeating them. I need to explain this to you. You see, hypotheses are not tested individually; they are tested in huge bundles. We accept all but one of the hypotheses to be true. BUT, if it turns out to not be true, we will find that out when our experiments don't work.

Let me give you and example from my work. Many years ago Dr. Marshall Urist showed that, if you implant bone from which the mineral has been removed by acid (demineralized bone matrix or DBM) in the thigh muscle of another animal of the same species, the DBM will cause the formation of new bone in the muscle. I work with adult stem cells. I wanted to see if the adult stem cells would respond in vivo to DBM to make bone. So I took some C57 mice, removed their limb bones, and made DBM from them. I also isolated stem cells from a C57 mouse that had been manipulated so that each cell produced the bacterial green fluorescent protein. This allows me to track the cells. So I put the DBM into the thigh muscle of regular C57 and also injected the stem cells. The hypothesis I am testing is that the stem cells will become bone cells. BUT, I am also repeating Urist's work of having DBM cause the formation of new bone. Now, if I had not seen new bone form in the thigh muscle, then I would question whether the earlier work was correct.

Do you see this? We build upon previous experiments and work. We use previous work as background and essential to the new experiment. If the new experiment doesn't "work" as planned, it may be because the previous work was not correct. I can give you some examples how this has actually found some bad work in science.

Science isn't "faith" the way religious faith is. We don't "trust"; we can check. But religion and science, for Christians, are both about God. Science is about God's other book and reading it.

 

[CTD]

Ah, the old evolution = atheism canard. I wondered how long it would take you to bring that up.

Let's be clear: evolution is not atheism. Nor is it ''atheistic''. Ironically, it is creationism that is atheistic. So this claim is projection in the psychological sense.

Let's go to Origin of Species to dispel the idea that evolution is atheism or atheistic. We'll start with at the end of the book:
"''To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual.'' C. Darwin, On the Origin of Species,pg. 449.

Bait & switch. Evolutionism today is quite distinct from what Darwin preached. As Darwin allowed for the possibility of a creator, his ideas must in todays terms be called ID. Evolutionism prohibits a creator for life in no uncertain or compromising terms.

 

[shernren]

Bait & switch. Evolutionism today is quite distinct from what Darwin preached. As Darwin allowed for the possibility of a creator, his ideas must in todays terms be called ID. Evolutionism prohibits a creator for life in no uncertain or compromising terms.

But how is the science of evolution different today from Darwin's?

(There are substantial differences, to be sure, but they all adjust his idea of natural selection rather than overturning it.)

 

[CTD]

But how is the science of evolution different today from Darwin's?

Assertion remains assertion. Calling assertion 'science' remains bogus. Science is the systematic search for truth; evolutionism systematically avoids it.

Evolutionism, that which you call 'science', insists life was not created, not even ''seeded'' by space aliens. They insist someday they will prove this, and doubting their claim is ''unscientific''. (Actually they employ worse language.) Darwin obviously did not consider the claim to be fact, so by their own criteria he's subject to all the same insults they spew against honest folk.

 

[Assyrian]

John Calvin talked of Genesis 1 being partly metaphor in the 1500s in his Commentary on Genesis. In 1715 several Christian ministers noted that Genesis 1-3 is 2 separate creation stories that, if read literally, contradict on several major points.

Do you have references for these?

 

[Sum1sGruj]

How life came about bears no real logic period. It's an anomaly that eludes all. Atheists will have nothing to do with it, commonly saying that it has no bearing on evolution. See, they use ToE as a shield as well as a sword.
After all, if life cannot occur naturally, it was God, and I doubt he just set out an RNA sequence and watched life grow like a Chia Pet.

 

[LanceCohen]

But religion and science, for Christians, are both about God. Science is about God's other book and reading it.

And so is history, sociology, physics, politics, art, etc.

And surely for anyone who confesses to seek truth - such as, supposedly, any and all scientists(?) (or are they pursuing fame, glory, riches instead?) - any book not true is not worth reading.

And science, the good ones, certainly has some truth, in the manner that science is true, ie staggering, with great inertia, from false theories to maybe a little less false theories, each time maybe closer to the truth, but never certain. However it has been certainly useful, as evidenced by space travel, this Internet itself, and so on.

But on the other hand there are weak sciences too, which includes evolution, some aspects of cosmology, eg inflation, and sub atomic physics; and the latter is increasingly becoming just conjectures and mathematics chasing data, which may or may not be there.

There is no problem with weak sciences, eg Einstein theory of relativity was all in his mind until Eddington's observations, which could also have falsify his theory. Until then it was merely a conjecture.

And we need such conjectures and hypotheses, constantly: for that what make science science. The worst thing for science is to kill such hypotheses - and anyone having such alternative perspectives - and insist on, and teach only, the orthodoxy, which in this present thread is evolution, especially when the orthodoxy is itself just another hypothesis, albeit one that have lasted longer, and seemingly established, but also unfalsifiable.

But the evolution hypothesis really begs a big question, namely, why the need to explain for the great diversity of life at all?

Why can't we make the null hypothesis to be that the diversity was there from the beginning, if not a greater diversity, as species have certainly died off. No one to date has made any observation of one species becoming another, so where is the evidence even to suggest that the species we know today are different from what they were millions and millions of years ago? Why not instead the simpler notion that all species have been as they were in the past?

And to falsify this null hypothesis just show, ie produce evidence and not merely explain, for just any one species, eg giraffes, that it was different, ie a different species, in the past, or will be so in the future.

 

[Greg1234]

Ironically, it is creationism that is atheistic.

Lol this just keeps getting better

 

[Greg1234]

Birth of a unique enzyme from an alternative reading frame of the pre-existed, internally repetitious coding sequence", Ohno, S, Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 81:2421-2425, 1984. Frame shift mutation yielded random formation of new protein, was active enzyme nylon linear oligomer hydrolase (degrades nylon) Evolution and INFORMATION - the Nylon Bug!

Not only was the enzyme less efficient than its precursor, but it was also not random.
Why Scientists Should NOT Dismiss Intelligent Design | Uncommon Descent

Nor is it clear that in the evolution of nylonase that anything like pure neo-Darwinism was operating. Instead, we see something much more like what James Shapiro describes as “natural genetic engineering” (go here). And how do systems that do their own genetic engineering arise? According to Shapiro, Darwinism (whether neo or otherwise) offers no insight here.
​

1. G Kilias, SN Alahiotis, and M Pelecanos. A multifactorial genetic investigation of speciation theory using drosophila melanogaster Evolution 34:730-737, 1980. A new species of Drosophila that can live at colder temps than the parent species.

http://eebweb.arizona.edu/courses/ecol525/readings/dodd_1989.pdf

The mechanism of the isolation in this system is as yet unknown. IGlias et al. (1980) noted for one of their nine combinations that females adapted to one regime (cool, dry) mated more frequently than females from the second regime (warm, humid). Yet in another case,males reared in the warm, humid regime were more active than the cool-adapted males. Overall, there was no significant difference in sexual activity, as measured by numbers of each type mating, in either sex.

​

Assortative mating - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

2. D Dodd. Reproductive isolation as a consequence of adaptive divergence in Drosophila pseudoobscura. Evolution 43(6): 1308-1311, 1989.

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0014-3820(198909)43%3A6%3C1308%3ARIAACO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-K In this case it is new species of Drosophila, one that can live off starch and one off of malt. New food sources; now one species is "potato" flies.

The results of the mating-preference tests between starch-adapted and maltose-adapted populations are given in Table 1. Contingency chi-square tests reveal that 11 out of the 16 combinations show significant deviation from expectations based on random mating. The isolation indexes of these crosses all indicate positive assortative mating, ranging from 0.30 i0.13 to 0.49 + 0.10. The crosses that do not show significant departure from random mating also have positive isolation indexes, ranging from 0.18 + 0.14 to 0.24 i0.13. A one-tailed sign test (Champion, 198 1 pp. 276-280) on the indexes shows that the probability of obtaining 16 positive indexes for 16 crosses is less than 0.00 1.

The results of this study also demonstrate that reinforcement of premating isolating mechanisms through selection is not necessary for the development of significant levels of behavioral isolation. The isolation observed here developed in complete allopatry. The populations were maintained separately at all times, and thus there was no opportunity for reinforcement through selection against hybrids. The isolation is due solely to the process of adaptation to the novel regimes. This process led to consistent changes in all four populations under each regime. Each of the four populations subjected to the same regime acquired the same (or similar) changes in mating behavior, such that flies from different populations under the same regime are not isolated.
​

Assortative mating - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

4. Butters, F. K. 1941. Hybrid Woodsias in Minnesota. Amer. Fern. J. 31:15-21. New species of azaleas that can survive cold winters. I loved azaleas when I lived in Georgia but didn't think I could have them in New York. I have 2 of thse new species.

This says it all. JSTOR: An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie

6. Toxic Tailings and Tolerant Grass by RE Cook in Natural History, 90(3): 28-38, 1981 http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=51246188 discusses selection pressure of grasses growing on mine tailings that are rich in toxic heavy metals. These are several species of plants that can grow on the mine tailings that have heavy metals in the ground.

So some plants have adapted to more toxic environment. What does that have to do with anything?

 

[sfs]

Not only was the enzyme less efficient than its precursor, but it was also not random.
Why Scientists Should NOT Dismiss Intelligent Design | Uncommon Descent

Some evidence, please, that the enzyme was less efficient than its precursor? It was certainly a great deal more efficient than its precursor at digesting nylon, which is the point. But it also seems to be the case that the precursor, whose function is unknown, wasn't even an enzyme. So how could it have been less efficient? As for randomness, nothing Dembski write offers any reason to think that this was anything other than a random mutation. (What he does show is that the precursor was unusual, but so what?)

http://eebweb.arizona.edu/courses/ecol525/readings/dodd_1989.pdf

The mechanism of the isolation in this system is as yet unknown. IGlias et al. (1980) noted for one of their nine combinations that females adapted to one regime (cool, dry) mated more frequently than females from the second regime (warm, humid). Yet in another case,males reared in the warm, humid regime were more active than the cool-adapted males. Overall, there was no significant difference in sexual activity, as measured by numbers of each type mating, in either sex.
​

What's your point? That we should ignore cases of speciation if we haven't worked out the precise mechanism by which it happened? Why?

The results of the mating-preference tests between starch-adapted and maltose-adapted populations are given in Table 1. Contingency chi-square tests reveal that 11 out of the 16 combinations show significant deviation from expectations based on random mating. The isolation indexes of these crosses all indicate positive assortative mating, ranging from 0.30 i0.13 to 0.49 + 0.10. The crosses that do not show significant departure from random mating also have positive isolation indexes, ranging from 0.18 + 0.14 to 0.24 i0.13. A one-tailed sign test (Champion, 198 1 pp. 276-280) on the indexes shows that the probability of obtaining 16 positive indexes for 16 crosses is less than 0.00 1.

The results of this study also demonstrate that reinforcement of premating isolating mechanisms through selection is not necessary for the development of significant levels of behavioral isolation. The isolation observed here developed in complete allopatry. The populations were maintained separately at all times, and thus there was no opportunity for reinforcement through selection against hybrids. The isolation is due solely to the process of adaptation to the novel regimes. This process led to consistent changes in all four populations under each regime. Each of the four populations subjected to the same regime acquired the same (or similar) changes in mating behavior, such that flies from different populations under the same regime are not isolated.

​

Right. Speciation occurred, driven by natural selection, which was why Lucaspa cited it. What do you think the quoted part shows?

So some plants have adapted to more toxic environment. What does that have to do with anything?

That organisms can adapt, via evolution, to new environments and form new species. Quite unremarkable, really, and something that virtually every biologist accepts. Why do you reject it, again?

 

[lucaspa]

Bait & switch. Evolutionism today is quite distinct from what Darwin preached. As Darwin allowed for the possibility of a creator, his ideas must in todays terms be called ID. Evolutionism prohibits a creator for life in no uncertain or compromising terms.

"Evolutionism" is not a scientific term. The theory of evolution is pretty much the same now as then. Darwin proposed 5 theories:
"1. The nonconstancy of species (the basic theory of evolution)
2. The descent of all organisms from common ancestors (branching evolution).
3.The gradualness of evolution (no saltations, no discontinuities)
4.The multiplication of species (the origin of diversity)
5. Natural selection." Ernst Mayr, What Evolution IS. pg 86

Those 5 theories are still intact. There have been additional auxiliary theories since then, such as allopatric speciation and endosymbiosis, but the 5 are still intact.

Nor can Darwin be classed with ID. Darwin was against the basic principles of ID: that God directly manufactured whole species or parts of them.

Evolution today allows the possibility of creation by God just as Darwin announced.
" To say it for all my colleageues and for the umpteenth millionth time (from college bull sessions to learned treatises): science simply cannot (by its legitimate methods) adjudicate the issue of God's possible superintendence of nature. We neither affirm nor deny it; we simply can't comment on it as scientists." SJ Gould, Impeaching a self-appointed judge. Scientific American, 267:79-80, July 1992.

What we have today are a small group of scientists who are atheists who try to misrepresent evolution as prohibiting God. There are lots of scientists who are atheists, but the vast majority of them recognize the truth of what Gould summarized. A few of them -- Dawkins, PZ Myers, Sagan, Atkins, Wilson -- step beyond what science can say to their particular faith, but misrepresent that faith as evolution.

 

[lucaspa]

Science is the systematic search for truth; evolutionism systematically avoids it.

Science is the study of the physical universe. It cannot be the search for all truth, since science is a limited form of knowing.

Evolutionism, that which you call 'science', insists life was not created, not even ''seeded'' by space aliens.

So, "evolutionism" means abiogenesis to you, with connotations of atheism thrown in. No one in science uses the term "evolutionism" and certainly never as a synonym for science.

Let me ask you: how can abiogenesis say that life was not created? It appears that you have a very special meaning of "created": God directly manufactures the first cell. This isn't "created", it's a very specific way that God must work. That's a huge limitation on God. I wouldn't have the chutzpah to tell God how He must do things. I can't see how it can end well to do so.

As it turns out, chemistry is the secondary cause by which God created life from non-living chemicals. And it's already "proved". More on that later. No, Darwin did not know how abiogenesis happened. Nor did he care! All scientific theories have boundaries and assume the existence of something. Relativity assumes the existence of spacetime. Chemistry assumes the existence of the elements. Evolution assumes the existence of life. If life exists, then evolution explains the origin of new species and the diversity of life on the planet.

Since Darwin there has been much research on the question of how life can arise from non-living chemicals. It looks like there are several ways this can happen (and maybe did happen by one or all of them). The method I think has the most convincing data and in which you end up with a living cell is thermal polymerization of amino acids to protein, and then the proteins spontaneously organize themselves into a living cell -- called "protocell". You can start reading about it here and we can discuss it in as much detail as you want:
The Harbinger. My Scientific Discussions of Evolution for the Pope and His Scientists

Does this negate that life was created? Not at all. Back to this:
"The only distinct meaning of the word 'natural' is stated, fixed, or settled; since what is natural as much requires and presupposes an intelligent agent to render it so, i.e., to effect it continually or at stated times, as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it for once." Butler: Analogy of Revealed Religion.

Chemistry simply becomes another secondary cause that God uses.