Avoiding Questions from Evolutionists

PROPHECYKID · Mar 31, 2011

CryptoLutheran said:
Yup, this universe was and is designed by God. Over the course of its 14 billion year history and the evolution of natural life on this planet.

-CryptoLutehran

What evidence do you have for this supposed age of earth? Rock dating? Fossil findings or just what they tell you?

Assyrian · Mar 31, 2011

PROPHECYKID said:
I don't agree with your analysis at all. However, the point is this. Science cannot explain the origin of man in a way that is actually possible. You only have 2 choices: the universe came into being by chance or by design.

Why are they the only two choices? I agree the universe was either created or it wasn't. But there is no reason a creator could not use the very natural processes cosmologists are studying, there is no reason God could not have created those very natural processes to start with. Nor is there any reason God could not have spoken the universe into existence 13.7 billion years ago and used all the natural processes scientists study in star formation and evolution. Even if scientists end up unable to explain the origin of the universe or what caused the Big Bang, it doesn't mean we throw out everything we do know about science that has been repeatedly tested and confirmed. Pointing out questions about the Big Bang does not mean the only possible option is young earth creationism.

After looking at the "coincidences" seen at the level of the universe, our galaxy, our solar system, our planet, right down to the atomic level it is undeniable that there indeed is a designer and this couldn't all fall into place so nicely by chance.

I agree with you there. The universe is God's handiwork, evolution shows his amazing wisdom.

It takes allot of faith to believe this is all by chance. It is more likely to win the lotto 100000 times in a row that for this entire universe to come into existence and our earth to support life by chance.

If you don't know how the universe formed, how can you tell what the odds were? However evolution is a lot more efficient that creationists realise. Be careful with their number games if as you say you do not understand what is going on.

The fossil record disproves the entire theory of Darwinian evolution.

No it doesn't.

The fossil record shows that animals were bigger and more diverse before which evolution holds that through mutation and natural selection, creatures started from very simple systems and became more and more complex.

If you ignore the extinction events which wiped out much of the diversity again and again in earth's history only for levels of diversity to rise again. Size is irrelevant. It is handy being big when times are good, but when food is scarce the big ones die out. There is no rule in evolution that says organisms have to become more complex. They may or they may not. It depend on whether complexity or simplicity gives a better adaptation to a particular environment. If you start out with very simple, then some may take the route of higher complexity. But that does not mean evolution is going from simple to complex, we only get that trend at the start because there wasn't complex to begin with.

Very renown scientist also claim that this world could have never come into being by chance (quotations on demand). Right now I am working on a presentation on this whole issue to present at church.

The reason why I rather provide a video rather than just speak about stuff myself is because I am not a scientist and I didn't study science. Therefore, the scientist would explain it better.

Why not bounce the presentation off us when you have it ready?

chris4243 · Mar 31, 2011

PROPHECYKID said:
What evidence do you have for this supposed age of earth? Rock dating? Fossil findings or just what they tell you?

It's written in the only Book that was written by God and not by man; the Earth itself.

Papias · Mar 31, 2011

Prophecykid wrote:

Science cannot explain the origin of man in a way that is actually possible. You only have 2 choices: the universe came into being by chance or by design.

Couldn't God have used evolution as his way of creating, just as he used an earthquake to mark Christ's death?

I know there are a lot of creationists out there, with websites and preachers decrying evolution as the spawn of the pit of hell.

However, there are also millions of Christians who see evolution as perfectly compatible with Christianity. Indeed, the majority of Evolution supporters in the united states are Christians. Similarly, the work of discovering evolution has mostly been done by scientists (of many fields) who are Christian.

I know what it is like to be convinced of something, and I'm sure you've heard many other Christians say that evolution is evil for a long time. However, please take the time to look into both sides with an open mind.

One place to start with examining the evidence for evolution is at www.talkorigins.org. A good summary is at 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: the Scientific Case for Common Descent . There are plenty of others - including any high-school or college level biology class.

In the past few posts you've made a bunch of claims. For any of them, they are a whole discussion on their own. It helps no one to start by shotgunning that way - any useful discussion will be on a topic. So if you are serious about any of them, please (AFTER reading up on them at talk origins, above, and looking for threads here), start a separate thread on them. For instance, some background information about dating methods is at
http://www.christianforums.com/t7426528/#post53775303, see especially posts #4 and #10. From that thread we read:

"why do the various dating methods (including C14, K-Ar, varves, dendrochronology, ice cores, obsidian, protein racecimization, speleotherms, superposition, geologic event dating, geomagnetic polarity, Pb/U, association, Rb/St, and others), agree with each other when more than one can be used on the same sample?"

If methods are wrong, they'll give wrong answers. It seems odd to suggest that they'll happen to all give the same "wrong" answer.

For your threads you may start, there are many topics. For each of them, look into the background first. You may find these points:

Important things to realize (and check these out, don't just take my word for it) are:

The evidence for evolution includes all kinds of stuff, not just fossils. DNA tests alone would be enough to prove evolution beyond a shadow of a doubt, even if there were no fossils. Others are phylogeny, biogeography, ontogeny, pathology, agriculture, and many others.
There are tons of excellent series of clearly transitional fossils. The horse, whale, mammal, fish to amphibian, amphibian to reptile and many others series are so clear that creationists generally just avoid them, and don't deny that they are clear.
Nearly all scientists support evolution, and have for decades. It's simply not a controversy. While there is disagreement about minor points (such as whether ambulocetus was 70% vs. 80% aquatic), the basics are agreed upon. Compare any creationist "list" with Project Steve, times 100.
Creationists don't agree on their basics. You can see this from OEC websites. Those creationists say the earth is billions (>2,000,000,000) of years old, while most creationists say it is about 6,000 years old.
Geologists worldwide overwhelmingly reject the idea of a young earth and a global flood, based on evidence. They have agreed on this for over 150 years.
Creationists rely almost solely on a handful of deceptive tactics. These include moving the goalposts, being evasive/misleading (AiG does that alot), quote mining (you've already mentioned having "quotes from scientists" check on those - you may have been lied to through quotemining - don't trust people who have lied to you), ignoring/hiding evidence (very common), and less often, outright fraud.
The majority of Christians worldwide are in churchs that accept evolution. Evolution is a firmly proven as the existence of the civil war, and the harder fundamentalists fight against it, the more damage they will do to Christianity, by making people think the Christianity is deception.

Take your time. There is no time limit to decide on evolution, and it will take time to test all of the statements above. Please remember while you learn about all these that evolution is a Christian position, fully compatible with Christianity.

Papias

P.S. - Minor note:
YEC actually grew out of the 19th century Millerite movement which fell apart after the Great Disappointment of 1844 when Jesus did not return as expected. One of the movements that emerged from the wreckage was Seven Day Adventism. It was Adventist George McCready Price's work on Flood Geology in the beginning of the 20th century the was the inspiration for Whitcomb and Morris's 1961 book The Genesis Flood. Until then American creationism was old earth creationism, whose quarrel was with evolution, not the age of the earth. The Adventist young earth view was very much a fringe view held by them and a few Lutheran groups. It was with Whitcomb and Morris's book that modern young earth creationism took off. Are you sure you want to be in this offshoot from the Millerites?

SkyWriting · Apr 16, 2011

shernren said:
Saying "we all have the same evidence, it's just a matter of different interpretations, so we're right and you're not but hey let's kumbaya".

Funny how creationists only say that after they have been trounced on evidence, never before.

I've always held that Scientists don't even claim to know how evolution could possibly explain origins. And because the scientific method doesn't work on history....

SkyWriting · Apr 16, 2011

Lol

I love you picked up on that:

I wrote: Maybe learn about what you are going to talk about before talking next time.
Sky Writing replied: I'm comfortable with my current process. But thanks!

Perhaps you KNOW what people are going to object to before you speak. I don't have that gift. But if that's the best blow you can muster, you go girl.

SkyWriting · Apr 16, 2011

chris4243 said:
It's written in the only Book that was written by God and not by man; the Earth itself.

I think God used man to write a Book that explains very important aspects about Creation. Believing in the 6 day creation story will get one closer to the truth of the situation than making up a constantly changing one based on very limited observation of mud left after the fact. Science is like a fish out of water when it comes to history and doesn't even claim to be able to prove past events.

I. The scientific method has four steps

1. Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena.
2. Formulation of an hypothesis to explain the phenomena. In physics, the hypothesis often takes the form of a causal mechanism or a mathematical relation.
3. Use of the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena, or to predict quantitatively the results of new observations.
4. Performance of experimental tests of the predictions by several independent experimenters and properly performed experiments.

mark kennedy · Apr 16, 2011

Papias said:
One place to start with examining the evidence for evolution is at www.talkorigins.org. A good summary is at 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: the Scientific Case for Common Descent . There are plenty of others - including any high-school or college level biology class.

The arguments evolutionists like to use from that particular series is outdated and deeply flawed. Having ripped the arguments for common descent to shreds many times before I can tell you that starting there is a mistake.

Don't get me wrong, it could lead to real world scientific evidence but those arguments from the evolutionists are like fish in a bucket. The best advice you could give a novice is to learn genetics and basic biology, then worry about arguments before and after naturalistic assumptions.

Still waiting on your formal debate invitation. I'd just love it if you tried to argue from a scientific basis, I'd eat you alive. Loudmouth tried to defend an argument from there once and it fell apart like a house of cards.

Have a nice day
Mark

mark kennedy · Apr 16, 2011

This is how science is done in the modern world, demonstrations and direct observations.

SkyWriting said:
I think God used man to write a Book that explains very important aspects about Creation. Believing in the 6 day creation story will get one closer to the truth of the situation than making up a constantly changing one based on very limited observation of mud left after the fact. Science is like a fish out of water when it comes to history and doesn't even claim to be able to prove past events.

I. The scientific method has four steps

1. Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena.
2. Formulation of an hypothesis to explain the phenomena. In physics, the hypothesis often takes the form of a causal mechanism or a mathematical relation.
3. Use of the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena, or to predict quantitatively the results of new observations.
4. Performance of experimental tests of the predictions by several independent experimenters and properly performed experiments.

Not according to Isaac Newton. Newton offers a methodology for handling unknown phenomena in nature and reaching towards explanations for them.:

Rule 1: We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.

Rule 2: Therefore to the same natural effects we must, as far as possible, assign the same causes.

Rule 3: The qualities of bodies, which admit neither intensification nor remission of degrees, and which are found to belong to all bodies within the reach of our experiments, are to be esteemed the universal qualities of all bodies whatsoever.

Rule 4: In experimental philosophy we are to look upon propositions inferred by general induction from phenomena as accurately or very nearly true, not withstanding any contrary hypothesis that may be imagined, till such time as other phenomena occur, by which they may either be made more accurate, or liable to exceptions.

Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy

Now compare that to Aristotle's 4 causes:

A thing's material cause is the material of which it consists. (For a table, that might be wood; for a statue, that might be bronze or marble.)
A thing's formal cause is its form, i.e. the arrangement of that matter.
A thing's efficient or moving cause is "the primary source of the change or rest." An efficient cause of x can be present even if x is never actually produced and so should not be confused with a sufficient cause.[3] (Aristotle argues that, for a table, this would be the art of table-making, which is the principle guiding its creation.)
A thing's final cause is its aim or purpose. That for which the sake of which a thing is what it is. (For a seed, it might be an adult plant. For a sailboat, it might be sailing. For a ball at the top of a ramp, it might be coming to rest at the bottom.)

Aristotle's 4 causes

That is sufficient to establish the epistemology behind modern scientific philosophy approach to determining the cause and effect relationships of phenomenon. What this will not do is to exclude God as a primary first cause since both Newton and Aristotle knew this to be God. It is Darwinism that introduced the a priori assumption of universal common decent which led to naturalistic assumptions that exclude God before the evidence is ever considered.

Have a nice day
Mark

Mallon · Apr 16, 2011

SkyWriting said:
I think God used man to write a Book that explains very important aspects about Creation. Believing in the 6 day creation story will get one closer to the truth of the situation than making up a constantly changing one based on very limited observation of mud left after the fact. Science is like a fish out of water when it comes to history and doesn't even claim to be able to prove past events.

I. The scientific method has four steps

1. Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena.
2. Formulation of an hypothesis to explain the phenomena. In physics, the hypothesis often takes the form of a causal mechanism or a mathematical relation.
3. Use of the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena, or to predict quantitatively the results of new observations.
4. Performance of experimental tests of the predictions by several independent experimenters and properly performed experiments.

How does that method NOT apply to the inference of evolutionary history? For example, we can use cladistic and dating methods to predict what we find in the fossil record (Titaalik is an excellent recent example of this).

shernren · Apr 18, 2011

mark kennedy said:
This is how science is done in the modern world, demonstrations and direct observations.

Seriously? When was the last time you demonstrated refraction, or directly observed the rays of sunlight being separated? (Every time you post this picture as an example of "science", a prism somewhere on Earth screams and cracks into pieces.)

Jesus had some nasty names for people who don't practice what they preach but I'm not Jesus so I guess I'll refrain.

Papias · Apr 22, 2011

mark wrote:

The arguments evolutionists like to use from that particular series is outdated and deeply flawed.

mark seems happy to pile his scorn, regardless of the authority of the site. The Talk Origins site (www.talkorigins.org) that he finds so threatening is endorsed by the Smithsonian, the National Institutes of Science, Science magazine, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, many Universities, and many more scientific organizations. That's why it's such a great resource for Christians wondering about evolution. If mark is going to claim TO is outdated, he can start listing pages on TO, and explaining how they are outdated. Otherwise, we'll know he's just trash talking as he usually does.

Still waiting on your formal debate invitation.

As you know, it's there now.

I'd just love it if you tried to argue from a scientific basis, I'd eat you alive.

Oh, by selectively hiding evidence, like you did in post #31, here:
http://www.christianforums.com/t7552551-4/? Why is that not a surprise?

Papias

P.S. Perhaps to start showing your understanding of science, you could list the things wrong with your picture in shernren's post, above. Just at first glance, I can see over 20 scientific errors in it.

mark kennedy · Apr 23, 2011

shernren said:
Seriously? When was the last time you demonstrated refraction, or directly observed the rays of sunlight being separated? (Every time you post this picture as an example of "science", a prism somewhere on Earth screams and cracks into pieces.)

Jesus had some nasty names for people who don't practice what they preach but I'm not Jesus so I guess I'll refrain.

What on earth are you talking about? I like this demonstration at the Royal Society in London because I believe the inductive method was finally established there as 'science' as we have come to understand it in the modern age.

Creationists are not inferior to you intellectually, there is no call for the condescending satire you are obsessed with. The epistemology of science, Aristotelian physics and Biblical theism all dovetail together nicely if you let them. That is whether you are a Young Earth Creationists are a Darwinian atheistic materialist, there is no difference in the principle or practices.

Science is about tools, mental and physical. What you build with them is entirely up to you, whether is a telescope or a teleological argument. Your being pedantic and fallacious again, must you persist in these pointless ad hominem attacks? I thought by now you would realize you are only succeeding in demonstrating the weakness of your naturalistic assumptions. Unfortunately you keep going back to it. I don't mind really, it just makes dealing with your posts all too easy.

Have a nice day
Mark

mark kennedy · Apr 23, 2011

Papias said:
mark wrote:
mark seems happy to pile his scorn, regardless of the authority of the site. The Talk Origins site (www.talkorigins.org) that he finds so threatening is endorsed by the Smithsonian, the National Institutes of Science, Science magazine, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, many Universities, and many more scientific organizations. That's why it's such a great resource for Christians wondering about evolution. If mark is going to claim TO is outdated, he can start listing pages on TO, and explaining how they are outdated. Otherwise, we'll know he's just trash talking as he usually does.

I have done exactly that since I have been posting to these forums. Your petty rudeness betrays a lack of substance but I'll deal with that in the formal debate. By the way, I don't appreciate being talked to in the third person. You can call me an idolater, a liar a fool or worse but to me the height of rudeness is to talk to me in the third person.

It's just too bad you had to do that while I was working on the OP for our formal debate. It's going to change the tone of the debate considerably.

Oh, by selectively hiding evidence, like you did in post #31, here:
http://www.christianforums.com/t7552551-4/? Why is that not a surprise?

Papias

P.S. Perhaps to start showing your understanding of science, you could list the things wrong with your picture in shernren's post, above. Just at first glance, I can see over 20 scientific errors in it.

I'm not following your links down rabbit holes and I will respond to shernren's posts as I see fit. Your trolling tactics are poison, it's high time you answered for it.

See you in the formal debate.

Have a nice day
Mark

Edited to add: Oh BTW, the quote you decided to grace your signature with:

There was never any real Biblical basis for Heliocentrism. - mark kennedy

...holds true for Geocentrism. As a matter of fact astronomy is not a Biblical topic. The history and origin (Genesis) of man is and we are going to finally settle this as a doctrinal issue. I can hardly wait.

shernren · Apr 23, 2011

mark kennedy said:
What on earth are you talking about? I like this demonstration at the Royal Society in London because I believe the inductive method was finally established there as 'science' as we have come to understand it in the modern age.

The irony being that, as far as I'm aware, Newton didn't actually demonstrate this at the Royal Society in London; he merely read them the account of his experiment in a Letter.

mark kennedy said:
Creationists are not inferior to you intellectually, there is no call for the condescending satire you are obsessed with.

I only pointed out that you have never once practiced this science you preach. How is that point wrong?

mark kennedy · Apr 24, 2011

shernren said:
The irony being that, as far as I'm aware, Newton didn't actually demonstrate this at the Royal Society in London; he merely read them the account of his experiment in a Letter.

Right, and the Chimpanzee Genome Consortium never really sequenced the Chimpanzee Genome, they just published it in an article.

I only pointed out that you have never once practiced this science you preach. How is that point wrong?

Never claimed to be a scientist, I'm a science history buff, so what? The only qualification for expressing an opinion on these boards is to be a member and a professing Christian.

I was responding to your empty rhetoric that I am somehow shattering scientific prisms by posting my picture of experimentum crucis. This is an event in the history of science that I believe redefined science as inductive.

I really don't think you are making a point, I think you are making sport of an epistemology you never bothered to try to understand.

Papias · Apr 25, 2011

mark wrote

I'm not following your links down rabbit holes

Oh, so simply clicking on a link (to one of your own posts) is too hard for you? Even when it only links to the thread you posted to yourself on the same day that you refused to click on the link? Do you see the choice you are giving every reader? You are asking every reader to believe that you either:

1. Find clicking on a link too hard.
2. Don't want to admit what's at that link. Or
3. have some other reason that you don't want to respond by looking at a link.

For me, I wouldn't want to give someone that set of choices, because it would reflect poorly on me.

In case you finally do want to check that link, here is my post from before:

Papias wrote:

Oh, by selectively hiding evidence, like you did in post #31, here:
http://www.christianforums.com/t7552551-4/? Why is that not a surprise?

mark wrote:

By the way, I don't appreciate being talked to in the third person. You can call me an idolater, a liar a fool or worse but to me the height of rudeness is to talk to me in the third person.

OK, so let me get this straight.

You fill your posts with invectives and venom, to the point of alienating person after person (shernren, crawfish, me, gehendricks, and on and on...), you trash talk respected institutions and reliable sources of information using words like "Having ripped the arguments for common descent to shreds many times before.........those arguments from the evolutionists are like fish in a bucket. ....... I'd eat you alive.", then you go on to attack myself and others with phrases like "Your petty rudeness betrays a lack of substance ..... Your trolling tactics are poison, it's high time you answered for it. ....trolling tactics (several times).......you never bothered to try to understand.....your empty rhetoric", and after treating people like that, you complain about a writing style?

Do you seriously expect that disrespecting person after person (even other creationists) like you are on a 4th grade playground makes it likely that these same people will listen when you ask that we don't write in the 3rd person?

Wow, mark. Maybe you should check local community colleges to see if they have a course on "human decency 101".

Papias

mark kennedy · Apr 25, 2011

Papias said:
mark wrote

Oh, so simply clicking on a link (to one of your own posts) is too hard for you?

No just too pointless, if you want to raise a point from something I said before quote it.

I'm not interesting in responding to random rambling posts thanks.

OK, so let me get this straight.

That would be a first.

You fill your posts with invectives and venom, to the point of alienating person after person (shernren, crawfish, me, gehendricks, and on and on...), you trash talk respected institutions and reliable sources of information using words like "Having ripped the arguments for common descent to shreds many times before.........those arguments from the evolutionists are like fish in a bucket. ....... I'd eat you alive.", then you go on to attack myself and others with phrases like "Your petty rudeness betrays a lack of substance ..... Your trolling tactics are poison, it's high time you answered for it. ....trolling tactics (several times).......you never bothered to try to understand.....your empty rhetoric", and after treating people like that, you complain about a writing style?

That is all TEs do on here, they attack creationists on a constant and personal basis. I'm not telling you what kind of an approach to use but I do expect you to answer for it.

Do you seriously expect that disrespecting person after person (even other creationists) like you are on a 4th grade playground makes it likely that these same people will listen when you ask that we don't write in the 3rd person?

I don't respect your trolling tactics or the fallacious nature of the vast majority of posts TEs submit on here. If you don't like how I respond to you posts then change your tactics.

Wow, mark. Maybe you should check local community colleges to see if they have a course on "human decency 101".

Papias

Maybe you should try something a little more substantive then a continuous flow of flaming ad hominems. That's really all you have ever contributed to these boards and you are one of the worst.

See you in the formal debate, I'm really going to enjoy this.

Have a nice day
Mark

shernren · Apr 27, 2011

mark kennedy said:
I was responding to your empty rhetoric that I am somehow shattering scientific prisms by posting my picture of experimentum crucis.

I really don't think you are making a point, I think you are making sport of an epistemology you never bothered to try to understand.

I don't think I'm really making a point either, just making sport of a poster who has proved so abrasive that even fellow creationists chide him.

By the way, do you realize that not only is your picture optically inaccurate, it isn't even a picture of the experimentum crucis? People had been diverging and splitting light with prisms ever since there was glass (or, more accurately, broken glass). Newton did perform an experimentum crucis to demonstrate the nature of color (not light; he was almost completely wrong on that subject, which cost optics a few decades of progress), but this wasn't it. (And he certainly didn't do those demonstrations before the Royal Society; he merely read them his embellished accounts.) Try again.

You admit that you're no scientist; are you willing to admit that you don't even know the history of science as well as you should?

As for an epistemology I don't understand, would you be referring to critical realism, Vienna circle-Copenhagen interpretation positivism, instrumentalism, social constructivism, or Poythress' symphonic harmonizations? Which of those do you understand?

(For bonus marks, is there a personal insult in there, or have I committed the unforgivable sin of making a post within which every statement can be backed up with lots of publicly-available data?)

Avoiding Questions from Evolutionists

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Basically pulling an Obama (Thanks Calminian!)

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Natura non facit saltum

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you are not reading this.

Listening to TW4

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