Why I do not accept evolution part one

[Shemjaza]

Have you? Yes I have, rather I borrowed Stephen Jay Gould (The Panda's Thumb) from an online library and scanned thru much of it and concentrated on the bottom line...the actual paleontological observations and not the speculation!

I wasn't claiming that his book demonstrated the opposite of his life's work and conclusions.

There is a long history of Creationists dishonestly quoting scientists out of context and then other Creationists quoting that a source without ever actually reading it in its original context.

Gould pointed out a gap in our knowledge about some lines of species and he pointed out an explanation that is consistent with the evidence.

You should also realise that when Gould is talking about changes "little and in such superficial ways" that would include humanity evolving from an animals that would colloquially be called an ape.

 

[DaveISBA]

All science involves inference from observations. We have many contemporary examples of rapid evolution, and a few from the fossil record (e.g. fossil sticklebacks in North American lake deposits), and we have a simple model that explains why we don't see more examples of rapid evolution in the fossil record.

If you want to criticise the explanation, you need to show that it can't account for the observations and/or present a better explanation that also explains everything else the current model does. Your Nobel Prize awaits

Account for the observations? What observations? According to those who have proposed PE the evidence will never be found and that it is unlikely to be observed!
Steven M. Stanley, American paleontologist and evolutionary biologist (New Evolutionary Timetable): pp.110 "The point here is that if the transition was typically rapid and the population small and localized, fossil evidence of the event would never be found."

Douglas Joel Futuyma, evolutionary biologist. ( Science on Trial): The Case for Evolution, p. 82,83
"The majority of major groups appear suddenly in the rocks, with virtually no evidence of transition from their ancestors. The transitional forms that evolve so quickly, and in such a small area, are (very unlikely to be picked up in the fossil record). My emphasis!

Professor Robert Wesson, professor of political science, senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution
(Beyond Natural Selection, p. 45): "The gaps in the record are real, however. (The absence of any record of any important branching is quite phenomenal.) Species are usually static, or nearly so, for long periods, species seldom and genera never show evolution into new species or genera but replacement or one by another, and change is more or less abrupt."
My emphasis!

The only clear observations in the history of most some argue all species is abrupt, fully formed appearance followed by (stasis) remaining recognizably the same!

 

[DaveISBA]

You claim "Gould pointed out a gap in our knowledge about some lines of species and he pointed out an explanation that is consistent with the evidence."

Some lines? He pointed out no such thing Stephen Jay Gould (The Panda's Thumb): pgs 181 "The history of (most fossil species) includes two features particularly inconsistent with gradualism: 1. Stasis. (Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth)"

You claim "You should also realise that when Gould is talking about changes "little and in such superficial ways" that would include humanity evolving from an animals that would colloquially be called an ape."

You're putting words into his mouth! I read of no such conclusion! On the contrary let me repeat what he actually states!
Stephen Jay Gould (The Panda's Thumb): pgs 181-182 : The (history of most fossil species) includes two features particularly inconsistent with gradualism: 1. Stasis. (Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth). They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear; morphological change is usually limited and directionless. 2. Sudden appearance. In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; (it appears all at once and "fully formed.)" My emphasis!

You do realize that your skull pictorial displays either fully ape or full human skulls and why only the skulls? Because the rest of the skeleton would show the clear difference between ape and human!

Niles Eldredge, is a biologist and paleontologist, speaking in a public interview:
"But the smooth transition from one form of life to another which is implied in the theory is . . .not borne out by the facts. The search for `missing links' between various living creatures, like humans and apes, is probably fruitless . . . because they probably never existed as distinct transitional creatures. This oddity has been attributed to gaps in the fossil record which gradualists expected to fill when rock strata of the proper age had been found. In the last decade, however, geologists have found rock layers of all divisions of the last 500 million years and no transitional forms were contained in them. If it is not the fossil record which is incomplete then it must be the theory."

 

[DaveISBA]

I wasn't claiming that his book demonstrated the opposite of his life's work and conclusions.

There is a long history of Creationists dishonestly quoting scientists out of context and then other Creationists quoting that a source without ever actually reading it in its original context.

Gould pointed out a gap in our knowledge about some lines of species and he pointed out an explanation that is consistent with the evidence.

You should also realise that when Gould is talking about changes "little and in such superficial ways" that would include humanity evolving from an animals that would colloquially be called an ape.
View attachment 278839

You claim "Gould pointed out a gap in our knowledge about some lines of species and he pointed out an explanation that is consistent with the evidence."

Some lines? He pointed out no such thing Stephen Jay Gould (The Panda's Thumb): pgs 181 "The history of (most fossil species) includes two features particularly inconsistent with gradualism: 1. Stasis. (Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth)"

You claim "You should also realise that when Gould is talking about changes "little and in such superficial ways" that would include humanity evolving from an animals that would colloquially be called an ape."

You're putting words into his mouth! I read of no such conclusion! On the contrary let me repeat what he actually states!
Stephen Jay Gould (The Panda's Thumb): pgs 181-182 : The (history of most fossil species) includes two features particularly inconsistent with gradualism: 1. Stasis. (Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth). They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear; morphological change is usually limited and directionless. 2. Sudden appearance. In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; (it appears all at once and "fully formed.)" My emphasis!

You do realize that your skull pictorial displays either fully ape or full human skulls and why only the skulls? Because the rest of the skeleton would show the clear difference between ape and human!

Niles Eldredge, is a biologist and paleontologist, speaking in a public interview:
"But the smooth transition from one form of life to another which is implied in the theory is . . .not borne out by the facts. The search for `missing links' between various living creatures, like humans and apes, is probably fruitless . . . because they probably never existed as distinct transitional creatures. This oddity has been attributed to gaps in the fossil record which gradualists expected to fill when rock strata of the proper age had been found. In the last decade, however, geologists have found rock layers of all divisions of the last 500 million years and no transitional forms were contained in them. If it is not the fossil record which is incomplete then it must be the theory."

 

[Shemjaza]

You do realize that your skull pictorial displays either fully ape or full human skulls and why only the skulls? Because the rest of the skeleton would show the clear difference between ape and human!
"

That's total nonsense.

Especially since if you view the whole body they are more similar to humans then the skull would indicate.

The majority of the hominid and australopithecus species are upright with an almost human gait. (Slightly longer arms and rolling motion).

But if we are talking about "fully human" and "fully ape" as concepts, do you have a definition of either?

Because short of using "pointy nose" as the pinnacle of what it means to be human, there really isn't any kind of barrier between "ape" and "man".

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Account for the observations? What observations? According to those who have proposed PE the evidence will never be found and that it is unlikely to be observed!

Not really; in some circumstances no evidence will be left to find, and in others we will be unlikely to find the evidence. That is how things are in the real world - it doesn't mean there's no information and it will never be found. In fact, the more we look the more we are likely to find and the more we do find - I even posted a link to just such an example. Every example we find fits the theory, and the theory continues to make fruitful predictions.

Until you come up with some reliable contradictory evidence or a better theory, we have no reason to take your objections seriously.

 

[Speedwell]

Humans are unique. God gave us a spirit and only man has a spirit. Animals have a soul but no spirit. You are looking at DNA but God is focused on the spiritual not appearances.

But apparently creationists are not sharing that focus with God, as they seem entirely preoccupied with the origin of our mere physical bodies.

 

[coffee4u]

But apparently creationists are not sharing that focus with God, as they seem entirely preoccupied with the origin of our mere physical bodies.

You are simply viewing threads where creation/evolution is the topic of discussion, do you think that is all we ever think about?

 

[pitabread]

So basically God's creation doesn't fit your idea of what a creation made by one God should look like? Who said you get to decide what it should look like? Maybe take that up with God then. Probably because he wanted too? I'm sure he could have made them all look different if he had wanted to but why do that? The 'constraints' as you call it are whatever God wants them to be.

And that's the point: if lifeforms were independently created, they were created with the appearance of hereditary constraints. In other words, the same constraints required by biological evolution.

Which begs the question: why would a supernatural entity independently create a bunch of living things with the appearance that they evolved via common ancestry?

You see forms that you assume conform to evolutionary patterns because this is what you believe. Similarities are just similarities. That doesn't prove or disprove how they came to be there.

It's not about similarities. It's about patterns. And the patterns in living things suggest evolutionary ancestry, not independent creation.

Humans are unique. God gave us a spirit and only man has a spirit. Animals have a soul but no spirit. You are looking at DNA but God is focused on the spiritual not appearances.

Measuring the "spirit" is not something that is scientifically demonstrable. That is purely a philosophical position.

Biological speaking, we are not unique; we share numerous biological characteristics with other living things.

 

[coffee4u]

And that's the point: if lifeforms were independently created, they were created with the appearance of hereditary constraints. In other words, the same constraints required by biological evolution.

Which begs the question: why would a supernatural entity independently create a bunch of living things with the appearance that they evolved via common ancestry?

God said that he created 4 types of flesh.
1 Corinthians 15:39
Not all flesh is the same: People have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another.

Then it also says he created kinds. So a big cat kind, a dog kind, a horse kind. These were also split into categories. Wild, domesticated and crawling on the ground.
The Biblical equivalent to your scientific clarification of animals.

Genesis
24 And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

When you say separate I don't think you mean it the way I mean it.
God didn't shape a tiger then a leopard and then a lynx. He created a big cat kind. The kinds were separated into domesticated and wild, so a domestic cat is not the same kind as big cat. From the big cat kind eventually came the tiger, the leopard and the lynx.

The only look like they have comen ancestry to you and people who believe as you do, they don't look that way to me. To me they share common design features. Why would anyone want to redesign each one separately? If you have a working model you reuse it and reshape it. Why would you redesign an eye if you have it perfected? You might tweak the shape but it is still the same basic working structure.

It's not about similarities. It's about patterns. And the patterns in living things suggest evolutionary ancestry, not independent creation.

Patterns/similarities are the same thing. And each animal alive today was not independently created. They were kinds.

Measuring the "spirit" is not something that is scientifically demonstrable. That is purely a philosophical position.

Biological speaking, we are not unique; we share numerous biological characteristics with other living things.

It has nothing to do with DNA or biological characteristics.
The spiritual is as real as the physical. Who said it can be scientifically demonstrated? Not by me. Science only works on the tangible. Which is why science is completely missing a key element.

 

[Speedwell]

You are simply viewing threads where creation/evolution is the topic of discussion, do you think that is all we ever think about?

That is certainly the context of these discussions. In the larger scheme of things, the origin of our mere physical bodies does not seem a very important issue except to scientists who are curious about it.

 

[coffee4u]

That is certainly the context of these discussions. In the larger scheme of things, the origin of our mere physical bodies does not seem a very important issue except to scientists who are curious about it.

The origin of life is an important area though as it is split between naturalistic and no God needed vs a God who both created it who expects things from us.
Which of course is the crux of the argument, God vs No God.

Of course there are always those who try and marry them together even though they fit as well as Rob Zombie singing opera and other odd mash-ups of flat earth or alien seeding or second creation and goodness knows what else. Those are more side topics though.

 

[Speedwell]

The origin of life is an important area though as it is split between naturalistic and no God needed vs a God who both created it who expects things from us.
Which of course is the crux of the argument, God vs No God.

Not really in this forum. Here, the issue is evolution vs. biblical creationism.

 

[coffee4u]

Not really in this forum. Here, the issue is evolution vs. biblical creationism.

Biblical creationism is based on God while evolution can be based on nothing more than nature doing it's thing, so it's very much a God vs no God argument.

 

[Kylie]

Biblical creationism is based on God while evolution can be based on nothing more than nature doing it's thing, so it's very much a God vs no God argument.

My husband believes that evolution is a tool that God used, so there's that...

 

[Shemjaza]

Biblical creationism is based on God while evolution can be based on nothing more than nature doing it's thing, so it's very much a God vs no God argument.

Not true. Evolution is based on what can be observed in nature. Biblical creationism requires ignoring those observations.

 

[The IbanezerScrooge]

Biblical creationism is based on God while evolution can be based on nothing more than nature doing it's thing, so it's very much a God vs no God argument.

Mother Nature seems to be an atheist.

 

[Speedwell]

Biblical creationism is based on God

So is Christianity as a whole. Creationists don't own Christianity and you would do well to keep that in mind.

while evolution can be based on nothing more than nature doing it's thing, so it's very much a God vs no God argument.

Just like any other scientific theory, it is based on observation of the material world. The existence of Go doesn't come into it, one way or the other. If that bothers you so much, why don't I hear you complaining about the atheistic gravitational theory? Or atheistic quantum mechanics? Or atheistic thermodynamics? Or the atheistic germ theory? All based on "nothing more than nature doing its thing" just like evolution.

 

[pitabread]

God said that he created 4 types of flesh.
1 Corinthians 15:39
Not all flesh is the same: People have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another.

Then it also says he created kinds. So a big cat kind, a dog kind, a horse kind. These were also split into categories. Wild, domesticated and crawling on the ground.
The Biblical equivalent to your scientific clarification of animals.

"Kind" has no biological meaning and creationists can't agree on what it's supposed to mean either. As far as I'm concerned, that's a non-starter.

I also find it curious that every single time a creationist brings up "kinds", they immediately defer to the familiar; e.g. animals they probably learned about in primary school.

If I were to give you a list of completely unfamiliar animals I guarantee you would no way to tell me which belong in the same "kind" or not. And this is because there is no biological criteria for determining which animals are the same kind or not.

The only look like they have comen ancestry to you and people who believe as you do, they don't look that way to me. To me they share common design features. Why would anyone want to redesign each one separately? If you have a working model you reuse it and reshape it. Why would you redesign an eye if you have it perfected? You might tweak the shape but it is still the same basic working structure.

Again, you're deferring to constraints as required by biological evolution (due to the way genetic inheritance works) but not required for independent creation.

So why would a creator follow those constraints? You still haven't explained why that is the case. All you are doing is answering questions with questions.

Patterns/similarities are the same thing.

They aren't. Patterns involve both similarities and differences, as well as specific constraints (e.g. mechanisms) by which those patterns are formed.

It has nothing to do with DNA or biological characteristics.
The spiritual is as real as the physical. Who said it can be scientifically demonstrated? Not by me. Science only works on the tangible. Which is why science is completely missing a key element.

This is also a non-starter.

The point is that humans are not demonstrably unique as living organisms, despite the claim we are wholly novel and somehow "special" creations.

A creator could have made us wholly unique, but didn't. Why not?

 

[coffee4u]

"Kind" has no biological meaning and creationists can't agree on what it's supposed to mean either. As far as I'm concerned, that's a non-starter.

I also find it curious that every single time a creationist brings up "kinds", they immediately defer to the familiar; e.g. animals they probably learned about in primary school.

If I were to give you a list of completely unfamiliar animals I guarantee you would no way to tell me which belong in the same "kind" or not. And this is because there is no biological criteria for determining which animals are the same kind or not.



Again, you're deferring to constraints as required by biological evolution (due to the way genetic inheritance works) but not required for independent creation.

So why would a creator follow those constraints? You still haven't explained why that is the case. All you are doing is answering questions with questions.



They aren't. Patterns involve both similarities and differences, as well as specific constraints (e.g. mechanisms) by which those patterns are formed.



This is also a non-starter.

The point is that humans are not demonstrably unique as living organisms, despite the claim we are wholly novel and somehow "special" creations.

A creator could have made us wholly unique, but didn't. Why not?

Your belief that special creation must somehow have each animal in no way similar is not Biblical, that is completely your own view. I am sure if God had wanted each creature to be wholly unique he could have done, but why would he?

We are unique because we are made in the image of God by having a spirit as well as the verse that says out flesh is different. It doesn't say if this is a phycial difference or to just the spirit and soul.