If evolution is not valid science, somebody should tell the scientists.

BrotherDerek · Apr 2, 2006

random_guy said:
Notice the keyword accreddited. All accreddited biology programs teach evolution. Not only that, Boyce College doesn't even have a biology program. That's like pointing out that xxx college doesn't teach that quantum mechanics is correct when xxx college doesn't even have a physics class.

I am aware that Boyce does not have a biology department and that was not my point in mentioning it. My point was that most schools not all (boyce being an example of one that doesn't) do not allow ideas contrary to the "Evolutionary Theory". I guess I am fascinated about theistic evolution. Perhaps some of you could help me with some of my questions. I have noticed some messages seem to be of a negative nature. I am not trying to argue but would like to discuss things.

let me know what you think about the following.

Do you belive God works with evolution or started it and let it go?

How do you view the biblical accounts of Adam and Eve (did it happen).

Anyone interested please respond.

gluadys · Apr 3, 2006

BrotherDerek said:
I guess I am fascinated about theistic evolution. Perhaps some of you could help me with some of my questions. I have noticed some messages seem to be of a negative nature. I am not trying to argue but would like to discuss things.

let me know what you think about the following.

Do you belive God works with evolution or started it and let it go?

Could be either. Some TEs lean to one explanation, some to the other, and many, like myself, haven't made up our mind.

How do you view the biblical accounts of Adam and Eve (did it happen).

Again, could be either. Personally, I don't take Adam & Eve to be historical, but many TEs do.

So, on these two questions at least, TEs do not have a common stance. A person considering a TE position is not boxed into an explanation they find personally unacceptable.

shernren · Apr 3, 2006

Do you belive God works with evolution or started it and let it go?

Well, how do you prove that God "let go" of anything? Can you draw up a box around evolution, shut God out of the box, and then observe "Hmm, evolution still runs, but I've kicked God out of the area, therefore evolution doesn't need God!"? The whole problem a lot of people don't get is that science has never assumed that God stops working or that God is not around when it's making its measurements. Science exists because God has decided that some parts of the universe should run in orderly fashion and He delights in having them work exactly the same way every time. God never gets tired of the sunrise or the sunset or sending rain upon the righteous and the wicked, all regular, scientifically explainable phenomena - yet just because they are scientifically explainable (because there is a fixed mathematical relationship between, say, the amount of moisture in the air and the probability given time that it will fall as rain) doesn't prove that God didn't cause them (that He didn't create that mathematical relationship in the first place, and that He couldn't click His (metaphorical) fingers and kill that relationship the second He wanted).

So no, I don't believe God had to "let go" of evolution for evolution to have achieved what it has.

nolidad · Apr 3, 2006

Shernren writes:

Aha, we are starting to see proof that resistance comes from "pre-existing genes". But that doesn't amount to proof that it is "designed". A lot of things come from "pre-existing genes" which Christian creationists wouldn't think of ascribing to the Intelligent Designer (God in politically correct garb), like disease and carnivorism.

Well you would be incorrect here. Disease, death and carnivorism are the results of the curse because of the fall of Adam. This is the original design for all living creatures:

29And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
30And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

So carnivorism was not in place until sometime after the fall . As for disease (and death) these also are the results of the fall!

19For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.

20For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,
21Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
22For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. 23And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body

So the word shows that creation was made subject to vanity and that vanity or futility was the result of the fall and the curse placed on creation by God because oft he fall!

Content paragraph 5: Antibiotic resistance in bacteria can also be achieved when mutations in a ribosome or protein change the site where an antibiotic binds.

Oops, but as he said this is an "ALSO" result.

And a majorly goalpost-moving conclusion:

These deleterious effects are what would be expected from a creationist model for mutations. The mutation may confer a benefit in a particular environment, but the overall fitness of the population of one kind of bacterium is decreased as a result of a reduced function of one of the components in its biological pathway. The accumulation of mutations doesn't lead to a new kind of bacteriumit leads to extinction.

Only a move to you but a natural consequnce of mutation expected in a creationist model. The mutastion in some bacteria that causes resisitance overall reduces the viability of the bacteria--exazcctly what a creationist model predicts. Once again this resistance mutation--while allowing it to live in a "hostile" enviornment overall reduces viability-- so the "beneficial" aspect of this mutation is negated by the factr that it ultimately harms the bacteria popuylation.

1. Have they proved that antibiotic resistance is designed? Nope. There is no way to prove design affirmatively other than to get a valid statement of design from the Designer.

Well then you can prove that God createrd nothing for you have no statemtn from the designer of any design seeing as you reject genesis 1 as a historically and scientifically accurate document. Fo rall you know life could have started on Vulacan and weas seed deposited on earth and the restr is all made up!!

3. Have they proved that the proportion of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in a population increase when antibiotics are introduced? Yes, and that's a point for evolution.

But what you failed to qoute is that those antibiotic resistant bacteria--when removed from the "hostile" enviornment have a reduce viability compared to the nonresistant strain of that bacteria. So it neither proves nor disproves evolution--what it does prove is what bible beleivers have been saying--mutations that produce change outside of the junk DNA mutations ultimately are nearly alwyas harmful to the species and eventually reduces the viability of the species as this mutation does even if it confers a selected advantage in one area.

willtor writes:

I don't personally know any evolutionary scientists, but I know a whole lot of scientists (in general) who are TE's. A few of us on these boards fit this category.

Well you are an evolutionary scientist then. You just beleive God started the single cell organism that begat evolution while your nontheistic compatriots believe it had to have a naturalistic explanation of some sort!! You just throw God in the picture that is the only difference.

gluadys declares:

Both. They are the same God.

You may have many identical features but the God of Bible believing Christians recognize that HE spoke all things into existence in 6 days ex-deo! The fact that we cannot understand all the hows is really irrelevant.

random guy opines:

Again, if there was a conspiracy, nearly every single scientific organization would have to be in on it. Why does every single accredditted biology program teach evolution? This would require that the accredditation boards to be controlled by evolutionists. Why does almost all government funding in biological research go to schools that teach evolution? Again, evolutionists would need to control all funding choices. Why does nearly every single prestigious scientific organization, inluding the National Academy of Scientists (10% Nobel prize winners), support evolution? Why do so many scientists from other fields keep quiet about this conspiracy since it would take away from their funding.

Well nearly every single science org is in on it~ accrfeditation boards are controlled by evolutionists,
evolutionists do control all funding choices, and the only scientists who get no funding are the ones who dis beleive i nthe theory (though they do get funding for the science work they do do as I showed many pages ago) so I guess this fits the definition of conspiracy you said. But it is a conspiracy because they beleive evolution to be true.

Otherwise, the reason why evolution is so well supported by all the organizations is because of the evidence.

Did that make Nazism or Facism, or Communisam true because they were so well beleived by the political institutions where these goverbments reigned? Or do nearly all scientists beleive in evolution because that is the only prevailing teacing allowed in the government schools and they are not expsed to any other alternatives? We know groups like the ACLU fight with science groups to keep creation science out fo the gevernment schools by calling it religion masquerading as science. It is just amazing that when people are exposed to both teachings they tend to turn to creatio science more than any of the variations of evolution.

Notice the keyword accreddited. All accreddited biology programs teach evolution.

This would be incorrect as well!

ICR has an accredited graduate and post graduate biology program. It is accredited by by TRACS which is approved and accredited for degree programs by the US Dept of Education.

gluadys · Apr 3, 2006

nolidad said:
Well you are an evolutionary scientist then. You just beleive God started the single cell organism that begat evolution while your nontheistic compatriots believe it had to have a naturalistic explanation of some sort!!

"Naturalistic" does not mean "God didn't do it." Don't you believe God created nature to act naturalistically?

shernren · Apr 3, 2006

Well you would be incorrect here. Disease, death and carnivorism are the results of the curse because of the fall of Adam. This is the original design for all living creatures:

29And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
30And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

So carnivorism was not in place until sometime after the fall . As for disease (and death) these also are the results of the fall!

19For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.

20For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,
21Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
22For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. 23And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body

So the word shows that creation was made subject to vanity and that vanity or futility was the result of the fall and the curse placed on creation by God because oft he fall!

So why is antibiotic resistance, an important component of disease in humanity, considered "designed"?

Anyway, the Bible doesn't bear out your conclusions:

Firstly, in Genesis 3 where the Curses of the Fall are pronounced (upon the serpent, the man, and the woman) there is only one mention of the ground being cursed. Towards what end? Did God say that "from here on animals shall grow pointy teeth and start eating each other"? No, God simply said that man would start toiling for his food. No mention of death, disease, or carnivorism being instituted here.

As for the Romans quote, we have two statements about creation:

1. that creation was subjected to futility.

This futility is the futility of being subject to the stewardship of a now-depraved humanity. This is borne out by the fact that elsewhere the word "futility" (Eph 4:17, 2 Pe 2:18) is used to describe the fallenness of the human mind.

2. that creation was bound by corruption.

This is also moral corruption. Everywhere else this word is used in the NT (1 Cor 15:42, 50; Gal 6:8; Col 2:22; 2 Pe 1:4, 2:12, 2:19) it is used either for moral or spiritual corruption.

It is quite clear that Paul does not have in mind the creationists' usual idea that the Fall somehow turned on the "death" switch in the world ... but rather, Paul was aware that in his role as steward of the world and God's image to nature, man in his depravity was causing creation to groan and await redemption from the terrible acts of man against nature.

Had Paul really meant "death" and "decay" he would have had many other words at his disposal, but he chose to use words which are exclusively associated in the NT with moral (not physical) futility and moral (not physical) corruption. It is a clear and simple reading of Scripture which disarms your argument.

Only a move to you but a natural consequnce of mutation expected in a creationist model. The mutastion in some bacteria that causes resisitance overall reduces the viability of the bacteria--exazcctly what a creationist model predicts. Once again this resistance mutation--while allowing it to live in a "hostile" enviornment overall reduces viability-- so the "beneficial" aspect of this mutation is negated by the factr that it ultimately harms the bacteria popuylation.

Can you define a universal populational viability function by which you can objectively show that the skill of surviving antibiotic attack is somehow "not adaptive enough to compensate for" reduced protein metabolism? I'm sure that all the bacteria killed before the mutation of antibiotic-resistance genes would beg to differ.

Well then you can prove that God createrd nothing for you have no statemtn from the designer of any design seeing as you reject genesis 1 as a historically and scientifically accurate document. Fo rall you know life could have started on Vulacan and weas seed deposited on earth and the restr is all made up!!

Actually, that is the precise proof that evolution does not require abiogenesis. But don't attack what I haven't said. All I'm saying is that it is impossible to prove substantiatively that antibiotic resistance could only possibly have a supernatural origin.

But what you failed to qoute is that those antibiotic resistant bacteria--when removed from the "hostile" enviornment have a reduce viability compared to the nonresistant strain of that bacteria. So it neither proves nor disproves evolution--what it does prove is what bible beleivers have been saying--mutations that produce change outside of the junk DNA mutations ultimately are nearly alwyas harmful to the species and eventually reduces the viability of the species as this mutation does even if it confers a selected advantage in one area.

Universal fitness function. I'll be waiting.

Until then I have every liberty to reverse your argument completely and say:

What you have failed to consider is that non-resistant bacteria, when placed into a "hostile" environment have extremely (to the point of death) reduced viability compared to resistant strains. Therefore within a few generations the population of bacteria will consist almost entirely of resistant bacteria - which is precisely what evolution predicts.

Well you are an evolutionary scientist then. You just beleive God started the single cell organism that begat evolution while your nontheistic compatriots believe it had to have a naturalistic explanation of some sort!! You just throw God in the picture that is the only difference.

You may have many identical features but the God of Bible believing Christians recognize that HE spoke all things into existence in 6 days ex-deo! The fact that we cannot understand all the hows is really irrelevant.

For heretics who don't believe in the Bible we know it surprisingly well, don't you think?

Willtor · Apr 3, 2006

nolidad said:
. . .

Well you are an evolutionary scientist then. You just beleive God started the single cell organism that begat evolution while your nontheistic compatriots believe it had to have a naturalistic explanation of some sort!! You just throw God in the picture that is the only difference.

. . .

I suppose this is true in the same sense that a Christian "throws God into the picture" with respect to Christ. We say Christ is both Son of Man and Son of God, and many of my secular humanist friends think he is just the Son of Man. Yeah, I suppose there is a sense in which we just "throw God into the picture." But that's not really how I look at it.

BrotherDerek said:
. . .

Do you belive God works with evolution or started it and let it go?

How do you view the biblical accounts of Adam and Eve (did it happen).

. . .

I don't think any part of nature is autonomous. A passage which states that God makes the rain to fall on both the righteous and the unrighteous, although its allegorical meaning is far more important, actually means that God is moving nature in such a way as to make it rain. I do have to temper this with the view that nature moves itself. I reject the dualism that nature must either be autonomous or a marionette. On this topic, I think there are many Christian evolutionists who would not agree with me, and many more who have not considered it sufficiently to come to a conclusion.

Adam and Eve? I don't think they were historical people. But this is more of a gut feeling than a rigorous conclusion. Certainly, I think Genesis is a mythical saga, but that doesn't preclude people from being historical as well. In short, I can't really give you a well-reasoned answer. As before, however, you will find other Christian evolutionists who think differently.

random_guy · Apr 3, 2006

nolidad said:
Well nearly every single science org is in on it~ accrfeditation boards are controlled by evolutionists,
evolutionists do control all funding choices, and the only scientists who get no funding are the ones who dis beleive i nthe theory (though they do get funding for the science work they do do as I showed many pages ago) so I guess this fits the definition of conspiracy you said. But it is a conspiracy because they beleive evolution to be true.

Again, that's one heck of a conspiracy. Evolutionists not only control biology, but nearly ever other branch of science. Why is that so? And why is it that Christians like me, who are aspiring to be scientists not know about this conspiracy? How come evolutionists control geology (old Earth), physics (old Earth/Universe), chemistry (old Earth/parts of biology), math (probability), etc...?

Did that make Nazism or Facism, or Communisam true because they were so well beleived by the political institutions where these goverbments reigned? Or do nearly all scientists beleive in evolution because that is the only prevailing teacing allowed in the government schools and they are not expsed to any other alternatives? We know groups like the ACLU fight with science groups to keep creation science out fo the gevernment schools by calling it religion masquerading as science. It is just amazing that when people are exposed to both teachings they tend to turn to creatio science more than any of the variations of evolution.

Godwin's Law for the win!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You know who else got haircuts? The Nazis. People getting haircuts support Nazis.

Seriously, though, scientific organizations are not political organizations. Evidence will trump politics when it comes to science. Why do you think scientists eventually accepted the Big Bang when they disliked the religious ideas behind the theory?

Please show me a how to measure the supernatural, and the ACLU will stop blocking creation science. Until it does so, creation science is not science, but religious in nature. Perhaps you should reread the judgement at the ID trial. ID, an "alternative to evolution" was a religious theory, and that in order for it to be considered scientific, the definition of science had to be changed, which would include astrology.

This would be incorrect as well!

ICR has an accredited graduate and post graduate biology program. It is accredited by by TRACS which is approved and accredited for degree programs by the US Dept of Education.

I stand corrected. I always assumed that there was a board of scientists that decided which schools would be accredited for science degrees kind of like the ABA, but I was wrong. I'll stop using the no accredited biology program/evolution thing.

shernren · Apr 3, 2006

Again, that's one heck of a conspiracy. Evolutionists not only control biology, but nearly ever other branch of science. Why is that so? And why is it that Christians like me, who are aspiring to be scientists not know about this conspiracy? How come evolutionists control geology (old Earth), physics (old Earth/Universe), chemistry (old Earth/parts of biology), math (probability), etc...?

*whispers* The Illuminati is funding them ....

nolidad · Apr 4, 2006

gluadys pens:

Science doesn't function on the credentials of the scientist, but on the evidence provided. Deal with the evidence.

Well his ability as a scientist was being called into questio so I had to remind shernren He is an accomplished PHD microbiologist and his article did deal with evidence.

granted these pages mostly talk about the alleged hoax surrounding archy, but there is referneces to an ornitholigist. I will try to find more later.

Some call it a dead end, while others readily admit that "truer" birds (or ones wothout apparent reptile "like" features) were already around when archy flew. So if archy was a transitional what is it a transition of ? can't be true birds-many were around when archy was on the scene? Dead end?

More than we have of most fossil species.

Truly amazing isn't it? From 8 fossil imprints of which I know of no organic material survivng we have created thius amazing story surrounding archyoptryx. It does have unique features (uncommon in the avian world but not unheard of either) and itr is concluded that because of reptile "like" features it must be transitional. and all from 8 secimens of fossils- two of which are just sandstone imprints and the rest just fossil with no organic matrial to examine microscopically.

Whatever special characteristics these birds have, they share the characteristics of modern birds. Unlike Archeopteryx, all of them have avian characteristics--both those Archeopteryx has and those that Archeopteryx does not have.

so we have a unique bird in the avian family. I wonder what would have been said of penguins oif no feather remains were found?? I wonder if they would class it as a seal cousin with a bill??

Not only do we know how reptilian they are, we have pinned down the specific family of dinosaurs they came from: therapods.

With no dna sampling! amazing!! morphology has a lot of merit but cannot be conclusive and morphology is the only thing they class it on. Despite the 95% genetic identicalness of things birds have their own unique DNA from therapoda and reptiles and we can never disprove peoples "opinion" of archy cause we have no DNA to show one way or the other. All we have is a true flighted bird with different but not unique features found in the avian world (with the exception of a jaw and full tail bone)

Unless you can demonstrate a mechanism which stops the accumulation of micro-evolutionary changes at a certain point, macro-evolution is inevitable.

Or unless you can demonstrate that what is termed micro evolutoin produces the changes that evolutoinary theory says happens- it really doesn't make it inevitable. What we have observed and tested and proved is that "micro evolution" does produce change in a species but it is variation within the species and genus and has never been observed to produce new genera. Thej field mouse went through some "micorevolutionary" changes but it still remains a field mouse, just a new sub species fo trhe original species. Remember the termsw, "suggest" appears" could be" "seems to suggest" "concludes us to believe" are not scientific facts but opinion based on personal bias. When we get the smoking gun" then you would have an argument. Scientists keep looking for it but will not be able to find it cause it really isnt there.

And remember moving the line back in time does not solve the problem of the "evolution of the bird. Somewhere at some point you had to have a creature that at one stage had a exverted sternum and then at some point it had to change to inverted as birds have. At some point you had to have a creature that had scales that atrophied into feathers and survive while the change was occuring. That is hard to fathoim considering that scales and feathers are both thermal conductors fopr the animal in question. If one is going out and one is evolving in how can the creature maintain thermal control?? Another unknown transisition??

Not necessarily. A lot of new species form, not from the whole population of the ancestal species, but from an isolated sub-population which has, perhaps, moved into a different ecological environment. If this sub-population, in adapting to its new environment, becomes a new species, the original population may continue in the old environment alongside it.

And the evidence to "prove" this concept is?? Was Peter Jennings ther to report on it? Nice concept but impossible to test to validate so it becomes just the idea of an "expert" without any way of proving it true. Micro changes yes--but the micor leading to the macro?? Nope and you know that.

First, in science, evidence is used to support a thesis. Science goes with the preponderance of evidence, even if it is less than absolute proof.

Okay so give me the preponderance of evidence for these qoutes of yours:

b) reproduction rates that outstrip available resources resulting in a competition for resources and/or changing environmental systems which require different adaptations e.g. to new food sources

But I thought first of all you said enviornmental conditons do not cause mutrations--now you say they do. But show the enviornmental conditons that forced therapods over the unknown millenia to undergo the changes to birds.

c) differential reproductive rates which favour the better exploitation of the current environment and/or better adaptation to a changed environment.

after you have shown the rapid alteration of the enviornment now show the altered species being favoured. We know that most evolutoinists do not hold to an "isolationist: theory so then would you agree that a mass extinction of similar species would have occured because they did not change to meet the altered enviornment? and the proof of this is? So do you also say that there was a constant altering of enviornmental conditons that we do not see today ? As the evidence for all macro evolution is historical we must assume (for we have no real proof) thast the enviornmetn has reached a "reasonable" stasis?

Pretty much every paleontologist now agrees that punctuated equilibrium explains some characteristics of the fossil record--but not all.

Of course, most creationists have invented their own strawman version of what punctuated equilibrium is--supposing it to be an alternative to neo-darwinian evolution.

And what preponderance of enviornmental evidence do you propose to support that punctuated equilibria is the normative for macro evolution for "some" cases. Remember punctuated equilibria still calls for many millenia of enviormental upheaval. Pretty hard for species to survive when in millenia long threats occur. All observed evidence show the higher taxa extinct and not alter and flourish.

Of course, human minds designed the experiments and carried them out. The important thing is to look at the results of the experiments.

Well then are you saying that God ordered and watched over and interceded with every step of evolution??

I don't have a problem with the possibility that decay rates can be changed. What I want to know are the circumstances under which they can be changed. It is not enough to show, for example, that pressure can change a decay rate. The crucial question is "How much pressure does it take?" And the next question is "How much does the decay rate change under such-and-such amount of pressure?"

Then download the info--they showed the changes and the conditions which produce the changes.

There are plenty of sites showing both. Take two seconds to google each.

Well the ascent from ape to man is laughable and you should agree. partial skulls , fossils gatherd hundreds of yards apart form each other (Java Man) do not an ascent make.

Fossilization is an extremely rare occurrence and even rarer on land than in marine environments. To have 2,000 remnants of the late stages of human evolution is amazing good fortune.

But with pigeons and buffaloes we have recorded history. With the supposed transitions from ape to man we have just bits and pieces ( If I remember correctly the only full skeletal remains are from homo sapien neanderthalis), and from bits and pieces (in some cases a whole transitonal line is declared from less than a quater of a skeleton), we have painted this enormous picture of suppossed evolution that we do not see taking place today! We see mutation, we see speciation (which is a rare occurence in nature relatively speaking in terms of repro rates) but we do not see the higher taxa changed. We have all sorts of enviornmental conditions occuring putting all sorts of pressure ojn all sorts of species-- what we do see is extinction and diminished population, not mutation causing new species to flouish in the hostile enviornments

Did you know for example that the skull is a key piece of evidence for whether or not a primate walked upright?

But not conclusive in and of itself.

Evolution is change, not ascent.

Well it is called ascent by evolutionists so I shall call it that as well. Unless you wish to say we are just a different kind of ape.

You misinterpret me. I actually did mention that intense environmental pressure has been shown to speed up the mutation rate. In this sense it can be said that the environment "causes" mutations to happen. What it does not cause is the appearance of a specific mutation. I am sure random_guy agrees with this.

Other than bacteria wherte has this been shown?

I haven't referenced mutation rates in bacteria, but I am sure PubMed may have some info on them. There is considerable documentation of mutation rates in humans, especially those that have deleterious effects. Choose your favorite genetically-produced disease or deformity, and you will quickly find out how often the mutation shows up in the human population.

Yeah but show that it creates a new species that is the basic argument. We need to see a mutation causing a homo spaien to become a homo ??????

But you can investigate the evidence to find out what the history was. The phylogeny is based on concrete evidence, not theory.

No the phylogeny is based on morphology and the appearance of similarities and differences in fossil evidence. We have no DNA evidence (with the excpetion of that recent find of t rex) to show any genetic change we have just opinion based on pre conceived bias. I admit my bias will always tell me creation whi8le yours will say evolution-- I am honest enough to admit that. I look at teh grand canyon and see evidence fo Noahs flood and the great runoff to the oceans God ordered and said in the Psalms. You see millions of years of slow erosion. and on and on.

Who ever said they were?

Well fossils are the only evidence to even propose that any evolution could have occured.

Being in a different genus or species doesn't mean being unrelated. That is analogous to saying you are related to your first cousins, but not to your third cousins. We are related to every creature--even trout--more or less distantly. Just as you are related (through Adam) to every one of the 6 billion humans on this planet(and all their ancestors and all the descendants they will have) more or less distantly.

So your second cousin is a fish?

It is not analogous to saying that you are related to yoru cousin. You rcousin is homo sapien sapien but your collie is not and thus unrelated. Our only relation is due to that we were all created by Gods and that not even so ! all other life was created ex-deo, but man was formed by God and breathed into by God. we are the only existing creaturet hat is in the image of God. We did not get there through mutastions over millions of years.

shernren writes:

You are stating this as a principle and I'll expect you to post evo websites that state that this happens in all cases and forms of evolution. I'll be waiting.

I cannot prove "all" cases . With punctuated equilibria and isolationist theories they have the out they need. But in situ evolutionary changes endow advantages over the parent species and in situ the advantage gives the new species survivabiltity that the nonevolved species does no thave-- that is the basic definition of extinction- the inability to survive .

For example, if speciation allows the new species to exploit a niche previously unexploited by the parent species, then there will be little to no competition between the parent species (in the old niche) and the new species (in the new niche).

Nice theory--but impossible to prover that a specific mutation to a specific species occured to allow it to exploit a specific niche in a specific locale umpteen million years ago!! Yeah that would stand up in a copurt of law!

That's something like saying a motorcycle is just a car with two wheels, two seats, handlebars, a smaller engine, and a far higher accident fatality rate.

No it would be like saying that a chevy cobalt and a rolls royce are both cars. Tehy both have the same basic design but different features.

By 450,000,000%?

No but that they shouldn't be used as chronometers at all.

So find me a Cambrian rabbit.

as soon as you find the missing links between reptile and bird.

Speciation is evolution. Case closed.

Well if you want to saythat after God created all the foundational kinds and then caused them to variate after the flood-- I can agree with you but to say it is wehat has taken place over 650,000,000 years? Never happened.

Mallon · Apr 4, 2006

Too much bunk to reply to in its entirety, but I'll take a crack at the Archaeopteryx comments...

nolidad said:
but there is referneces to an ornitholigist. I will try to find more later.

It's very likely Alan Feduccia, an out-spoken ornithologist with little respect in the palaeontological community. While he does subscribe to evolution, he does not believe that birds are descended from theropods (instead, he feels they came from something like Longisquama).

Some call it a dead end, while others readily admit that "truer" birds (or ones wothout apparent reptile "like" features) were already around when archy flew.

You seem to be negating the reptilian features of Archaeopteryx in this quote. So for the sake of completeness, I will list them here:
1. Pubic peduncle present
2. Long, bony tail
3. No pygostyle
4. Lack of saddle-shaped articular processes
5. No bony sternum
6. 3 well-developed fingers
7. 3 well-developed metacarpal bones
8. Unfused metacarpals
9. Unfused metatarsals
10. No hypotarsus
11. Abdominal ribs present

So if archy was a transitional what is it a transition of ?

We do not know. Archie is transitional in the sense that it retains both bird and reptilian characteristics -- exactly what evolution predicts. As more fossils are found, the more gaps in our knowledge will be filled.

From 8 fossil imprints of which I know of no organic material survivng we have created thius amazing story surrounding archyoptryx.

Hint: if you want your misgivings about Archaeopteryx to be taken seriously, at least learn to spell the name right so we can live under the illusion that you know what you're talking about.

I wonder what would have been said of penguins oif no feather remains were found?? I wonder if they would class it as a seal cousin with a bill??

No, because it's skeletal morphology is still very much like that of a bird.
Interesting you should bring up penguins, btw. The feathers on the leading edge of their wings sport very thickened rachii and resemble scales in many ways - evidence that feathers can develop from scale-like structures.

All we have is a true flighted bird with different but not unique features found in the avian world (with the exception of a jaw and full tail bone)

Those are some pretty major exceptions.

as soon as you find the missing links between reptile and bird.

Check out Sinornithosaurus.

shernren · Apr 4, 2006

I cannot prove "all" cases . With punctuated equilibria and isolationist theories they have the out they need. But in situ evolutionary changes endow advantages over the parent species and in situ the advantage gives the new species survivabiltity that the nonevolved species does no thave-- that is the basic definition of extinction- the inability to survive .

Actually, why is that a problem? Does it make a difference if old species go extinct? But a counter-example: amphibians evolved from lobe-finned fish. When amphibians evolved, they effectively became the first land animals, and they opened up a whole new niche for life. Now tell me, would the amphibian colonization of land possibly have caused any major trouble for their lobe-finned fish ancestors in the water?

Nice theory--but impossible to prover that a specific mutation to a specific species occured to allow it to exploit a specific niche in a specific locale umpteen million years ago!! Yeah that would stand up in a copurt of law!

It's happened right under our eyes before ... nylon bug.

No it would be like saying that a chevy cobalt and a rolls royce are both cars. Tehy both have the same basic design but different features.

Mallon has posted how different archy is from a true bird. Here is something so transitional that some people call it a reptile while others call it a bird - my point exactly.

No but that they shouldn't be used as chronometers at all.

http://www.answersincreation.org/rate_index.htm

Where's that RATE report that's downloadable? I'd like to do some original criticism instead of relying on the morass of ready-made criticism online

as soon as you find the missing links between reptile and bird.

You are completely misunderstanding the issue. Do you understand why a Cambrian rabbit would be devastating to evolution?

Well if you want to saythat after God created all the foundational kinds and then caused them to variate after the flood-- I can agree with you but to say it is wehat has taken place over 650,000,000 years? Never happened.

Actually, to say that all biodiversity today evolved from single pairs of individuals at the genera level over 4,000 years is evolution. And it is macroevolution. If macroevolution can't happen, then the Flood story can't happen, since you need macroevolution to explain how vast today's biodiversity is given the fact that it nearly went extinct during the Flood.

nolidad · Apr 4, 2006

Again, that's one heck of a conspiracy. Evolutionists not only control biology, but nearly ever other branch of science. Why is that so? And why is it that Christians like me, who are aspiring to be scientists not know about this conspiracy? How come evolutionists control geology (old Earth), physics (old Earth/Universe), chemistry (old Earth/parts of biology), math (probability), etc...?

They control them because the sper majority beleives in evolution and it is now against the law in America to teach creation science in government funded schools. I wouldn't call it a conspiracy like a group trying to kill the president or such , but it is a aconspiracy and there is a herad conspirator.

mallon writes:

We do not know. Archie is transitional in the sense that it retains both bird and reptilian characteristics -- exactly what evolution predicts. As more fossils are found, the more gaps in our knowledge will be filled.

What an answer!! We do not know what it is a transiton of but we know it is a transition!! See and all along I thought there was some evidence of it being a transition of something specific to something specific, but evolutionists don't know!

What we can prove from the fossil evidence is that archy was a bird that had some unique features that "appear" to be very reptile "like"

Hint: if you want your misgivings about Archaeopteryx to be taken seriously, at least learn to spell the name right so we can live under the illusion that you know what you're talking about.

So what if I am a three year old who can't spell?

I could hold multiple PHDs in paleo-zoology and as long as I am a YEC most TE's would not take me seriously. But I will try to spell better. My fingers develop dyslexia when they hit a keyboard.

No, because it's skeletal morphology is still very much like that of a bird.
Interesting you should bring up penguins, btw. The feathers on the leading edge of their wings sport very thickened rachii and resemble scales in many ways - evidence that feathers can develop from scale-like structures.

No all it does prove is that that there are true feathers that have a physical likeness to scales--but scales are scales and feathers are feathers and they arte different.
I may resemble Arnold Schwarzenegger in many ways (I don't really only in my mind ) but that does not make me Arnold- it woiuld only mean I have features that resemble arnold. Same with feathers. They may bear some physical resemblence to scales in some features but a closer look would show that though they may have some physical similarities-they are vastly different.

Please show me a how to measure the supernatural, and the ACLU will stop blocking creation science. Until it does so, creation science is not science, but religious in nature. Perhaps you should reread the judgement at the ID trial. ID, an "alternative to evolution" was a religious theory, and that in order for it to be considered scientific, the definition of science had to be changed, which would include astrology.

So because we cannot quantify God in scientific terms we must keep him out of scinece classrooms?? Sorry. Just because the Anti Christian Liberites Union hates the thought of God being sivereign over everything and wishes to keep it out of the public arena- doesn't change that fact in the least.
The definition of science has changed. It use ot be the search for knowledge of the natural realm wherever it led- to now it is the search for knowledge of the natural realm bv naturalisitc means.

Because Jesus' physical resurrection is a religious concept should we keep silent to the mases of their neddt o believe this in order to be saved and so relegate them to hell for eternity for we do not wish to upset the ACLU and risk a lawsuit??

And for the record--Sagan before he died was qouted a ssaying : (I paraphrase) I don't care oif they find Noahs ark and parade it down main street- I will never beleive in a global flood! Neither wiull the ACLU stop seeking to silence biblical Christianity even if Jesus were to come back down again and perform all the miracles again in their presence!!

shernren writes:

Firstly, in Genesis 3 where the Curses of the Fall are pronounced (upon the serpent, the man, and the woman) there is only one mention of the ground being cursed. Towards what end? Did God say that "from here on animals shall grow pointy teeth and start eating each other"? No, God simply said that man would start toiling for his food. No mention of death, disease, or carnivorism being instituted here.

Not specifically in Genesis three, but seeing as God is the author of the whole bible He does mention it.

Romans 5:

12Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

Now we know that PAul beleived thastr Adam and Eve were the first two humans so when he uses the word "world" it would not be in the sense of humanity, but the planet was in mind and death on the planet. We know from Genesis 1 that God commanded ALL animals to eat nothing but plants or vegetation:

30And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

Now according to you the writers here were real idiots cause they would have seen the animals eating each other so this would be a flight of fancy in the highest order!! But NO!! God commanded it and to make sure it was not misunderstood the verse ends with and it was so!! So sometime after creation, and the fall (for death did not enter the world until sin entered) animals were all vegetarian.

This futility is the futility of being subject to the stewardship of a now-depraved humanity. This is borne out by the fact that elsewhere the word "futility" (Eph 4:17, 2 Pe 2:18) is used to describe the fallenness of the human mind.

In those contexts yes- in this context no. Futility is a state and the context will describe what is futile. Here creation is being subjected to futility. And we must remember that the flood changed the topography of the planet-- it still was lush tropical planet but sin was growing and so wasn't the corruption or futility of the planet due to the growth of sin. Their is a symbiosis of mans sin and the greater degradation of the planet-- as sin increases so doesn't the consequences on the planet inall its flora and fauna.

It is quite clear that Paul does not have in mind the creationists' usual idea that the Fall somehow turned on the "death" switch in the world ... but rather, Paul was aware that in his role as steward of the world and God's image to nature, man in his depravity was causing creation to groan and await redemption from the terrible acts of man against natur

I agree with you!! But becuase you hold to evolution you just draw the line further down than bible beleivvers do. We recognize that mans fall had consequences far beyiond futility as you think. It destroyed the paradise and immortality that was ordained but limiterd by God!! It is ineteresting that no whewre in the bible do we have a mention of animals having to die, but we do have a reference that death

Had Paul really meant "death" and "decay" he would have had many other words at his disposal, but he chose to use words which are exclusively associated in the NT with moral (not physical) futility and moral (not physical) corruption. It is a clear and simple reading of Scripture which disarms your argument.

Well a simple readingof scripture confirms my point. When Paul spoke of death in Romans 5 he used the word thanatos which means physical death! When people are spoken of as being dead physically-- the word is always thanatos!!! Once again the context here is physical so the use of the word is the physical and world here is not meaning the population of man- Paul beleived in only 2 people here and would not have used world (kosmos) but had other words more apt than kosmos-- so your argument is exactly the opposite.

Actually, that is the precise proof that evolution does not require abiogenesis. But don't attack what I haven't said. All I'm saying is that it is impossible to prove substantiatively that antibiotic resistance could only possibly have a supernatural origin.

So do you reject the physical resurrection of Jesus on the same basis that itr only could have a supernatural origin and thus cannot be proven substantiatively?? What is your faith based on??

What you have failed to consider is that non-resistant bacteria, when placed into a "hostile" environment have extremely (to the point of death) reduced viability compared to resistant strains. Therefore within a few generations the population of bacteria will consist almost entirely of resistant bacteria - which is precisely what evolution predicts.

Is this the prediciton of evolution or men who designated it to the theory of evolution?? I didn't know evolution could make any predicitons-- I though the men who made up the theory make the predicitons, but that is also a prediciton of creationism as well.

What you have failed to consider is that non-resistant bacteria, when placed into a "hostile" environment have extremely (to the point of death) reduced viability compared to resistant strains. Therefore within a few generations the population of bacteria will consist almost entirely of resistant bacteria

but only in th ehostile enviornment. When in the non hostile enviornment( like where the antibiotics are not present in the lethal quantities or harmful quantities) then the resistant strain has reduced viabilitty as was shown and thus they becoime less viable.

Mallon · Apr 4, 2006

nolidad said:
They control them because the sper majority beleives in evolution and it is now against the law in America to teach creation science in government funded schools.

Darn right. In fact, just about every court hearing in which creationism was tried found that teaching creationism in the classroom was unconstitutional. So evidently there's a government cover-up going on, too, right nolidad?

What an answer!! We do not know what it is a transiton of but we know it is a transition!!

And that's not a problem. The fossil record is incomplete, and so I wouldn't be surprised if we never knew from which species Archie was derived and which (if any) it evolved into. The point remains, however, that Archaeopteryx is exactly the type of fossil we would expect to find given the evolutionary transition from reptiles to birds. It may very well be an evolutionary holdover from a dino-bird transitional species.
And please don't act as though this is some kind of revelation that I have just revealed to the world. My statements are not at all new; they've been recognized by palaeontologists since the get-go.

See and all along I thought there was some evidence of it being a transition of something specific to something specific, but evolutionists don't know!

No one has ever claimed from which species Archie is derived. Though as I've stated in other threads, we do know that it likely stemmed off from a basal deinonychosaurian ancestor.

What we can prove from the fossil evidence is that archy was a bird that had some unique features that "appear" to be very reptile "like"

How do you know that it wasn't a reptile that had some unique features that "appear" to be very bird "like"?

No all it does prove is that that there are true feathers that have a physical likeness to scales--but scales are scales and feathers are feathers and they arte different.

Great! Since you're an expert on scales and feathers, then, perhaps you can tell us what those things are sprouting off the tail of Psittacosaurus. Or those weird integumentary structures found on the body of Sinosauropteryx.

I may resemble Arnold Schwarzenegger in many ways (I don't really only in my mind ) but that does not make me Arnold

No. But if you look anything like his children do, it makes you a descendant of him.

shernren · Apr 4, 2006

Not specifically in Genesis three, but seeing as God is the author of the whole bible He does mention it.

Shucks, I thought you creationists were proud of taking the Bible "at face value"? I'll show you what I mean ...

Romans 5:

12Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

Now we know that PAul beleived thastr Adam and Eve were the first two humans so when he uses the word "world" it would not be in the sense of humanity, but the planet was in mind and death on the planet. We know from Genesis 1 that God commanded ALL animals to eat nothing but plants or vegetation:

30And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

Now, here are two alternative interpretations of Romans 5:12:

1.
Paul believes that the Fall brought about all human death, and says so in Romans 5:12.
The general context of Romans 5 is how sin affects humanity.
Paul says that death passed upon "all men".
God "promised" Adam that he would die if he ate of the forbidden fruit.
God told Adam after he had that he would return to the dust.

or,

2.
Paul believes that the Fall brought about all biological death, and says so in Romans 5:12.
Even though the general context of Romans 5 is not how sin affects all biological life.
Even though Paul says that death only passed into the world, not into all life.
Even though God never told the animals or Adam that anything would happen to the animals if Adam ate the forbidden fruit.
Even though God never said any punishment to the animals after Adam fell, while making a lot of other punishments that make complete sense without the imposition of animal death or the assumption of pre-Fall animal immortality.

You tell me which is the "straightforward" interpretation of Scripture. It is irony of the highest degree that you are taking a counter-intuitive interpretation of Scripture to fit your preconceived notions that in a perfect world animals will not die (when God, the ultimate arbiter of perfection, never said that explicitly in the Bible). Pot, meet kettle.

In those contexts yes- in this context no. Futility is a state and the context will describe what is futile. Here creation is being subjected to futility. And we must remember that the flood changed the topography of the planet-- it still was lush tropical planet but sin was growing and so wasn't the corruption or futility of the planet due to the growth of sin. Their is a symbiosis of mans sin and the greater degradation of the planet-- as sin increases so doesn't the consequences on the planet inall its flora and fauna.

Where does the Bible say that before the Flood the planet was a lush tropical planet? Again you are taking your own unwarranted conclusions concerning perfection and projecting them from outside Scripture onto Scripture. Pot, meet kettle.

Anyway, what is the context of Romans 8:21-22?

Romans 8: 18I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. 22We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? 25But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

The general context of the chapter is the comparison of the anticipated freedom brought by the Holy Spirit and the bound state of our present human fallenness (Romans 7; note that Romans 7 speaks exclusively of humanity). In the preceding verses of Romans 8 Paul has been describing a general overview of what life in the Spirit as a Christian means and how the Spirit is our assurance of salvation. Then in v18 Paul describes how our sufferings will pale in the light of future glory. Not just our sufferings, but creation's as well (v19). Why is creation suffering? Creation's sufferings are birth pangs of frustration (futility) at how God's children have still been concealed and not yet brought to glory. Creation is still being forced to bondage under the futile minds of fallen man, whereas its original purpose was to serve the glorious, perfect image of God (vv20, 21). And it is not just creation which is being punished by man's sin nature: our own beings similarly feel cramped and cut by the domination of our sin nature, eagerly awaiting the day when the Holy Spirit's redemption will be complete and we will not be subject any more (vv. 22-24).

Animal death doesn't make sense within the context. Bondage to man's fallen greed does. Surprising what a bit of careful exegesis does to creationist proof-texts.

Well a simple readingof scripture confirms my point. When Paul spoke of death in Romans 5 he used the word thanatos which means physical death! When people are spoken of as being dead physically-- the word is always thanatos!!! Once again the context here is physical so the use of the word is the physical and world here is not meaning the population of man- Paul beleived in only 2 people here and would not have used world (kosmos) but had other words more apt than kosmos-- so your argument is exactly the opposite.

Paul spoke of death when referring to humans
and spoke of (moral) futility and (moral / spiritual) decay when referring to the creation.

Isn't that clear?

So do you reject the physical resurrection of Jesus on the same basis that itr only could have a supernatural origin and thus cannot be proven substantiatively?? What is your faith based on??

I have never claimed this. If you cannot prove that I have said it, retract this.

The thesis idea of the essay you presented was that antibiotic resistance can only be explained in terms of supernatural origins instead of successive mutational accumulation. The text of the essay failed to prove so. Therefore the essay is fundamentally flawed. Nowhere have I said anything about the resurrection of Jesus.

This is a Christian-only forum. Respect that.

Is this the prediciton of evolution or men who designated it to the theory of evolution?? I didn't know evolution could make any predicitons-- I though the men who made up the theory make the predicitons, but that is also a prediciton of creationism as well.

Evolution is a human construct that explains natural observations. The predictions by evolutionists that proceed from the fact of evolution are naturally predictions of evolution. Your statement makes little sense.

but only in th ehostile enviornment. When in the non hostile enviornment( like where the antibiotics are not present in the lethal quantities or harmful quantities) then the resistant strain has reduced viabilitty as was shown and thus they becoime less viable.

And what proof do you have that it is better for bacteria to survive in a non-hostile environment than it is for bacteria to survive in a hostile environment? Let me state this as baldly as possible.

You: "Mutated bacteria in non-hostile environments have reduced metabolism. Therefore the mutation is bad."
Me: "Nonmutated bacteria in hostile environments die. Therefore the mutation is good."

What independent criteria can you show me to prove that you are right and I am wrong? Do you have a universal fitness function or is this yet another argument from personal preference?

gluadys · Apr 5, 2006

nolidad said:
So if archy was a transitional what is it a transition of ? can't be true birds-many were around when archy was on the scene? Dead end?

Side branch, dead end. Very likely. But like the true bird branch it stemmed from a dinosaurian ancestor and broke from the true bird line after the latter diverged from its dinosaurian ancestor. IOW, archy did not diverge directly from dinosaurs, but from the same early dino/bird transitional ancestor from which true birds evolved.

so we have a unique bird in the avian family. I wonder what would have been said of penguins oif no feather remains were found?? I wonder if they would class it as a seal cousin with a bill??

Every species is unique in some way. That is how the species is identified. The penguin would be identified as a bird. It does not have mammalian characteristics.

With no dna sampling! amazing!! morphology has a lot of merit but cannot be conclusive and morphology is the only thing they class it on.

Are you suggesting that morphological change is not a proxy for genetic change? Can you describe a mechanism for morphological change that approximates it more closely than genetic change does?

Despite the 95% genetic identicalness of things birds have their own unique DNA from therapoda and reptiles and we can never disprove peoples "opinion" of archy cause we have no DNA to show one way or the other. All we have is a true flighted bird with different but not unique features found in the avian world (with the exception of a jaw and full tail bone)

Sorry, I don't follow this. I have no idea what you are trying to say here.

Or unless you can demonstrate that what is termed micro evolutoin produces the changes that evolutoinary theory says happens- it really doesn't make it inevitable.

Start a rock rolling down a steep hill. Unless it is blocked by something, it will inevitably roll to the bottom. Evolution is like that. You want to show that it is not, you need to show what blocks it.

What we have observed and tested and proved is that "micro evolution" does produce change in a species but it is variation within the species and genus and has never been observed to produce new genera.

Speciation never produces a new genus. What we call genera are classifications made after the fact which attempt to group species that are closely related. And then we make after the fact classifications of genera into related families. And so on through the higher taxa. All the higher taxa are human-defined on the basis of shared derived synapomorphies. Only species have a natural as well as a human definition in the reproductive barrier between species.

Thej field mouse went through some "micorevolutionary" changes but it still remains a field mouse, just a new sub species fo trhe original species.

If it were just a sub-species it could still interbreed with the other field mice, just as different breeds of dogs can. That it doesn't, even when given opportunity to do so, shows that it is a true new species.

Remember the termsw, "suggest" appears" could be" "seems to suggest" "concludes us to believe" are not scientific facts but opinion based on personal bias.

No, they are opinions based on evidence. Since science generally deals in probabilities, not absolutes, the typical science paper is filled with the language of possibilities and probabilities. Doesn't mean that they doubt their evidence or their conclusions.

Somewhere at some point you had to have a creature that at one stage had a exverted sternum and then at some point it had to change to inverted as birds have.

Yes, and maybe one day we will find a fossil with one or more of those features. I think one of the most amazing reports I read recently was of a fossil whose nostrils were found among its teeth.

Kenichthys has a back nostril that is located right on the lip, separating the two-toothed upper jawbones, the maxillan and the premaxillan. (It is as if we were to have a nostril in a gap between our front teeth and our canine teeth.) In other words, it constitutes a perfect halfway point in the nostrils migration from the face to the palate, and moreover this halfway point is the precisely the one that some scientists have regarded as an anatomical impossibility. Unfortunately the cord of nerves and blood vessels has not been preserved in Kenichthys, but since it normally runs from the maxillan to the premaxillan, it must either have been cut off or relegated to another position. What was considered impossible was apparently possible after all.

http://arstechnica.com/articles/columns/science/science-20041107.ars/2

And the evidence to "prove" this concept is?? Was Peter Jennings ther to report on it? Nice concept but impossible to test.

Not impossible at all. It's been observed in nature and replicated in the laboratory. If you checked out some sites on observed speciation, you likely ran across this experiment.

1. G Kilias, SN Alahiotis, and M Pelecanos. A multifactorial genetic investigation of speciation theory using drosophila melanogaster Evolution 34:730-737, 1980.

New species of Drosophila were generated over five years by placing Drosophila melanogaster populations in environments of differing temperature with differing food sources.

Okay so give me the preponderance of evidence for these qoutes of yours:

b) reproduction rates that outstrip available resources resulting in a competition for resources and/or changing environmental systems which require different adaptations e.g. to new food sources.

But I thought first of all you said enviornmental conditons do not cause mutrations--now you say they do. But show the enviornmental conditons that forced therapods over the unknown millenia to undergo the changes to birds.

For the first part (reproduction rates that outstrip available resources) read Malthus. And consider why
we worry today about the global population explosion.

And no, I am not saying that environmental conditions cause mutations. (Sometimes they do: radiation causes mutations.)

Just because a new environment requires adaptation does not mean the mutations necessary to adaptation will occur. Species are just as likely--no, more likely--to go extinct than to adapt. However, if adaptive mutations occur, they will assist the species to survive in the new environment.

That this does happen is shown again by observation, as in the Drosophila experiment above.

btw, I don't know why a creationist would dispute that species adapt to new environments. Its very much part of creationist scenarios of how bio-diversity develops.

c) differential reproductive rates which favour the better exploitation of the current environment and/or better adaptation to a changed environment.

Best source I know of for lots of examples of this (and not just in finches) is The Beak of the Finch by Jonathan Weiner.

after you have shown the rapid alteration of the enviornment

I didn't say the environmental change was rapid. Some are, some aren't. You don't necessarily need a big environmental change. A species can encounter a new environment by migration.

So do you also say that there was a constant altering of enviornmental conditons that we do not see today ?

We are seeing it today. We are making it happen today through destruction of species habitat. We are losing more species per week than we used to lose per 3 centuries. And the rapid rate of global warming is making it even worse.

Remember punctuated equilibria still calls for many millenia of enviormental upheaval.

No, it doesn't. It only calls for a small sub-population to be isolated from the main body of the species. Since new genes can be fixed more quickly in a small population than in a large one, the isolated population evolves more rapidly than its parent and diverges from it in a relatively short geological time-frame.

There are many ways the isolation of such a sub-population can occur without invoking environmental upheaval. Of course, environmental upheaval creates many opportunities in which a punctuated equilibrium scenario can occur, but it is not a necessary pre-condition.

Well then are you saying that God ordered and watched over and interceded with every step of evolution??

I would say it is a definite possibility. I can't logically rule it out.

Then download the info--they showed the changes and the conditions which produce the changes.

Better if someone who has a better grasp on physics does it. I'll wait for shernren's comments.

Well the ascent from ape to man is laughable and you should agree. partial skulls , fossils gatherd hundreds of yards apart form each other (Java Man) do not an ascent make.

I don't find it laughable. As far as I can see, paleontologists and biologists have made a sound case. As for parts of a fossil being found in a scattered condition, why would that be startling? I expect the report showed why it was concluded they came from the same individual.

But with pigeons and buffaloes we have recorded history. With the supposed transitions from ape to man we have just bits and pieces

Indeed without the historical record we could not know how abundant those species once were. So why do we have all those bits and pieces of very ancient human skeletons but none to show of the pigeons and buffalo of such a recent past? You would think for every partial skull of a hominid fossil, one would find a thousand passenger pigeon skeletons from just a century ago. Why don't we?

We see mutation, we see speciation (which is a rare occurence in nature relatively speaking in terms of repro rates) but we do not see the higher taxa changed.

By definition, since we have seen mutation and speciation, we have seen evolution. And we have seen the higher taxa changed as well. Birds are now grouped inside the clade of dinosaurs. The cetaceans are now placed within the arteriodactyla next to the hippos. In fact the containing group is now called the cetarteriodactya.

We have all sorts of enviornmental conditions occuring putting all sorts of pressure ojn all sorts of species-- what we do see is extinction and diminished population, not mutation causing new species to flouish in the hostile enviornments

Yes, we are living out what Paul describes in Romans. We were supposed to exercise a loving dominion over our fellow creatures and to care for the garden earth God gave us. Instead we have turned it into a dying ground for them, and potentially for us as well. For this alone, even apart from what we do to each other, for this destruction of God's good creation, we deserve God's wrath-filled judgment.

But not conclusive in and of itself.

That is why I called it a "key piece of evidence", not "conclusive proof".

Unless you wish to say we are just a different kind of ape.

In fact, (except for the demeaning adjective "just") that is exactly what we are. A different and very special kind of ape.

Other than bacteria wherte has this been shown?

I think it has been studied only in bacteria. However, given the rapid radiations of species we see in the fossil record, I wouldn't be surprised if it occurs in more complex species too.

Yeah but show that it creates a new species that is the basic argument. We need to see a mutation causing a homo spaien to become a homo ??????

Most cases of speciation require many more than one mutation.

Here is a recent study on the development of the human nervous system which concludes that it took thousands of changes in many genes since our divergence from chimpanzees to develop this system alone.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/..._uids=15620360&query_hl=7&itool=pubmed_docsum

No the phylogeny is based on morphology and the appearance of similarities and differences in fossil evidence.

Morphology is concrete evidence. And phylogeny is not just a matter of similarities and differences. It is a pattern of similarities and differences. The pattern is more important than the similarities and differences themselves. Common descent is the only mechanism we know of that produces the pattern of nested hierarchy which scientists were familiar with even before Darwin was born.

That genetic analysis leads to not just to a nested hierarchy, but to basically the same nested hierarchy is powerful evidence that morphology is a proxy for genetic changes.

Well fossils are the only evidence to even propose that any evolution could have occured.

That wasn't even true in the 19th century. Most of Darwin's evidence was not based on fossils. In his recent book, The Ancestor's Tale, Richard Dawkins asserts that the non-fossil evidence for evolution is so solid that fossils are not even needed anymore for confirmation. He also says the fossils alone would be sufficient to establish evolution. As it happens we have both.

So your second cousin is a fish?

I said more or less distantly. I think "more distantly" applies to the trout.

we are the only existing creaturet hat is in the image of God. We did not get there through mutastions over millions of years.

I agree. We are the only existing creature in the image of God. And we did not acquire the image of God through mutations. We did acquire all our other characteristics through mutations and natural selection.

nolidad · Apr 5, 2006

shernren opines:

Shucks, I thought you creationists were proud of taking the Bible "at face value"? I'll show you what I mean ...

Well we bible beleiving Christians do , and we recognize we have to look at the whole counsel fo God and not just one passage.

Now why do we beleive that death passed onto animals at the fall?? Once again look at Genesis 1:

29And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. 30And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

So when God created all the animals - they did not die as a result of predation for food. For all animals (including T-Rex and Lions and sharks etc) were all vegetarian. Now when exactly we don't know but sometime after the fall when all fo creation was placed in bondage animals began to hunt each other.

Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

Now I alrady posted ther definitionof world (Kosmos) but let us repost it again.

1) an apt and harmonious arrangement or constitution, order, government
2) ornament, decoration, adornment, i.e. the arrangement of the stars,
'the heavenly hosts', as the ornament of the heavens. 1 Pet. 3:3
3) the world, the universe
4) the circle of the earth, the earth 5) the inhabitants of the earth, men, the human family
[/quote]

Now we know Paul would not have been referring ot society for society consisted of only 2 people Adam and Eve. Also a better word to designate it referring to man would have been oikumene.

But nearly all literalist and conservative linguists look at this and agree that Paul was referring to the universe as the harmonious arrangemet of things because the entire universe was declared very good by God after it was finished in six days. So the death thast was decreed fell to all inhabitants and was passed on to all men because of the sin of Adam.

Paul believes that the Fall brought about all biological death, and says so in Romans 5:12.
Even though the general context of Romans 5 is not how sin affects all biological life.
Even though Paul says that death only passed into the world, not into all life.
Even though God never told the animals or Adam that anything would happen to the animals if Adam ate the forbidden fruit.
Even though God never said any punishment to the animals after Adam fell, while making a lot of other punishments that make complete sense without the imposition of animal death or the assumption of pre-Fall animal immortality.

Look at you r
reasoning here and see how it is flawed:

Romans 5 again:

Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

Whereas by one man (Adam) sinentered into the world( kosmos- or the orderly arrangemetn of things) and death enterd into the orderly arrangemetn of things (the kosmos) by this mans sin! And because of this one mans sin causing death to enter the universe- this is how death passed on to all men- for all men sin and receive death as a result of that sin!

We have no death of animals as a need for food for God made them all vegies in Genesis 1- we have no direct statement anywhere in genesis 1-3 saying animals die for any reason, but here we have a clear statement that says death entered into the world as a result of sin and that death which now entered the world also was passed onto all men!

Where does the Bible say that before the Flood the planet was a lush tropical planet? Again you are taking your own unwarranted conclusions concerning perfection and projecting them from outside Scripture onto Scripture. Pot, meet kettle.

Well lush tropical are adjectives not found in the genesis passage, but we do know that God said everything (meaning even the foliage ) was very good and lush tropical are adjectrives that would somewhat adequately supply a meaning to very good! You only complain because they describe God making a planet that was very good and not yet cursed with weeds and deserts and volcanoes and mega meteor strikes and hundreds of billions of dead things and mass extinctions because of Adams sin.

The general context of the chapter is the comparison of the anticipated freedom brought by the Holy Spirit and the bound state of our present human fallenness (Romans 7; note that Romans 7 speaks exclusively of humanity). In the preceding verses of Romans 8 Paul has been describing a general overview of what life in the Spirit as a Christian means and how the Spirit is our assurance of salvation. Then in v18 Paul describes how our sufferings will pale in the light of future glory. Not just our sufferings, but creation's as well (v19). Why is creation suffering? Creation's sufferings are birth pangs of frustration (futility) at how God's children have still been concealed and not yet brought to glory. Creation is still being forced to bondage under the futile minds of fallen man, whereas its original purpose was to serve the glorious, perfect image of God (vv20, 21). And it is not just creation which is being punished by man's sin nature: our own beings similarly feel cramped and cut by the domination of our sin nature, eagerly awaiting the day when the Holy Spirit's redemption will be complete and we will not be subject any more (vv. 22-24).

Animal death doesn't make sense within the context. Bondage to man's fallen greed does. Surprising what a bit of careful exegesis does to creationist proof-texts.

Well you should say eisegesis on your part for it is not exegesis. Romans 8:

19For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.

20For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, 21Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

Now creature and creation here are the same greek word (ktisis) so it is the same word.

Creation was made subject to vanity by god in verse 22 and in verse 23 creation will be delivered from its bondage to corruption and brought in to the liberty of us.

Now corruption is: phthora which is:

corruption, destruction, perishing
that which is subject ot corruption, perishing
in the christian sense, eternal misery in hell
in the NT, in an ethical sense, moral decay.

And because only mankind is subjected to morals and hell and not the creation we know that do not apply here so 1 and a are the operative definitions for this passage. In context Paul is talking about trhe human condition in Romans 8 I agree, BUT verses 19-22 are a parqanthetical which Paul is saying-- "Hey even the universe is groaning awaiting freddom from death and decay as well" ( I paraphrase) Why can we be sure Paul is talking about the rest of the universe?

verse 23:And not only [they], but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, [to wit], the redemption of our body.

They are in contrast to us!! The they is the creation and the us is the sons of God! So see a little careful exegesis and comparing scripture with Scripture shows that death entered into the world by one mans sin and passed on to all the universe by God himself and awaits freedom from the curse.

Animal death doesn't make sense within the context. Bondage to man's fallen greed does. Surprising what a bit of careful exegesis does to creationist proof-texts.

I hop eyou see now how it makes perfect sense and is a result of fallen mans greed!! Once again exegesis always beats out eisegesis as you performed

Paul spoke of death when referring to humans
and spoke of (moral) futility and (moral / spiritual) decay when referring to the creation.

Well are you a panentiest or animist? Since when do we see the bible giving anything other than man a moral or spiritual cod ewhich they can veer from and be held accountable?? Animals are amoral as well as plants. If anything it should be the other way around as well as adding death to man as well.

I have never claimed this. If you cannot prove that I have said it, retract this.

Inever clasimed you did reject the physical resurrection. All I was doing was asking a question based on teh fact that science cannot prove the supernatural or quantify it so it should be brought up in the public arena (like schools and government). Well the resurrection is a supernatural intervention and cannotbe quantified in any empirical measure so I was just asking of you used the same logic for this piece of biblical fact as well??

Seeing as you reject the first 3 chapters of Genesis as literal as well as the flood and the dispersion at Babel possibly I also was wondering if you rejected as factual the biblical narratives concernignJesus' physical resurrection. I am just trying to see which pieces of Bible you consider literal or not and the resurrection is a big part!

This is a Christian-only forum. Respect that.

I do respect it but more and more people claiming to be Christian reject the physical resurrection (which defiunitely makes them nonchristian) as well as the literal rendering of Genesis 1and 2)

The thesis idea of the essay you presented was that antibiotic resistance can only be explained in terms of supernatural origins instead of successive mutational accumulation. The text of the essay failed to prove so. Therefore the essay is fundamentally flawed. Nowhere have I said anything about the resurrection of Jesus.

only in your minds for to admit it would be to undermine a pin of evolution. He calls it a designed feature and shows so -- which is supernatural in origin from a Christian perspective.

You: "Mutated bacteria in non-hostile environments have reduced metabolism. Therefore the mutation is bad."
Me: "Nonmutated bacteria in hostile environments die. Therefore the mutation is good."

What independent criteria can you show me to prove that you are right and I am wrong? Do you have a universal fitness function or is this yet another argument from personal preference?

Well when you edit your woute to leavce out the rest of the bad-- which was that the antibiotic resistant bacteria have a disadvantage that reduces it s viability inthe nonantibiotic enviornment making it a bad mutation to the species overall. Yes resisitng antiobiotiucs is good for the bacteria in an antibiotivc enviornment but overall to the whole species-- it si bad and he showed why. Just like sickle cell- it is good in that it helps prevent malaria -- but it is bad inthat it reduces viability overall. So it helps inone area but overall its effect is a negative. These aren't my words but the facts gleaned from medicine. So sorry if you dont like those words.

nolidad · Apr 5, 2006

Just an aside here.

If I fall behind in responding to yoru posts I do apologize. I am not trying to fluff off your replies, but there are four of you dealing with me and the answers are not always able ot be just short replies as we have all seen.

Secondly, being a husband,m father of six, grandfather of three, church leader, worker, and memberof my churches praise band ( play 2 saxes) , my time sometimes does get limited adding the fact I have a heart condition which hospitalizes me from time to time. But patience and I will try to answer all yrou posts.

Thirdly, writing does not get to show what emotions are being felt by someone. I have a tendency towards being a tad overly sarcastic in my writings. If I do get a little caustic I apologize in advance and ask that you not take it personally for it is not designed as a personal attack on anyone! If I offend please let me know and I will apologize if in any way it warrants one.

Thanks

nolidad aka Ron.

nolidad · Apr 5, 2006

Before going further we need to reestablish some proven truths on this thread so we can look at things better.

1. Fossils

Fossils conclusively prove only one thing. That a certain creature existed at one time in the past and may or may not exist anymore now.

We cannot extract DNA form fossils (or we should now say hardly ever with the recent discovery of a fossil with organic material still) to break the creatures genome down and see exactly where it fits.

We see some creatures with unique features like archeaoptryx. But we dont see how it got those features. All we can determine is that it existed that way its whole span of time on earth, We see no localized transitons in situ either up or down. When "transitionals" are found nearly always they are found at sites hundreds and thousands of miles away form the fossil in question instead of further up or down in the geologic columnon the site where the question fossil is found. This is imprtant to remember! For then secondary and tertiary theorems have to be presented why the "transitonal" is so far geographically removed from the previous or next "step" in its evolution.

Punctuated Equilibria as a mechanism for evolution is without any empirical evidence. It supposses enviornmental and otrher factors that cannot be proven with any degree of certainty. It could only be proven by the fossil record and the fossil record doesn't support it

Also enviornmental conditons given to time frame are mere speculation as well. We can make some reasonable assumptions but we cannot with certainty speak to meterologic and flora and fauna conditons on the earth at any given time int he prehistoric past. We do not have enough evidence to warrant the leasps we see in natural musuems and web sites describing how dinos lived and flourished. Things like velociraptor hunting in packs like in Jurassic park and other web sites are jsut imagination. fossils do not tell us how an animal
had societal structure, it just speaks to its existence . To take present situations and interpose them in the past without further past evidence is disengenious. That would be like me saying that Adam knew how to use and built TV's and Vcrs even though we have not recovered any such artifacts because we see man doing it today!

2. No one is arguing speciation. And for debate sake to move this on-- I will concede that any structural change in a species is mutation. But only in the sense that we define mutration as any change in a species and not the definition that calls mutation replication error in the DNA.

I accept speciation we can see it trest it and continously observe it. It does not happen with great great rapidity, but it does happen. But speciation does not show macro evolution! What this means is by this example.

Darwins finches-- he sqwe variation of finches but any mutation always produced another type of finch-- we have never observed mutation and variation take a finch and make it a nonfinch (say a pigeon or parakeet)( if my exapme is erroneous in concept you all understand the base opricnicple i am saying so pelae no long discourses on why a finch could not become a parakeet or whatever). To say that speciation takes a fish and turns it in to a reptile and tyuens it into a bird is not demonstrable, is only supported by opinion of the fossil record and has never been observed int eh real world-- it is just a leapo from what is observed to something that hasn't been.

We have never seen the barrier that was incorrectly entitled in the 1800's 'the fixity of the species" ever broached! We have seen all sorts of speciation within dogs and cats-- but they always remained dogsd and cats- just variant species or sub species or even sub sub species.

Fruit fly despite the intense experimentation of it always remained a fruit fly-- different species of it yes! But it was a fruit fly still!

Niche evolution is a theory without a demonstrable base! Once gasin we see variants thrive in a a niche but ithey always remained the same genera, IOW we have never seen a fish become a non fish because it filled an unprevious used niche. We still despite all the hundreds of billions of dollars in research spent sen gills turn to lungs in the fossil record-- nor have we seen fins turn to feet despite some interesting looking fossils. the conclusions are only based on an evolutionary bias, not be real fact.

If radical altering of enviornments does help speed up mutations and thus advances evolution why do evolutionists worry about species going extinct or being threatened?

Evolutionary theory says this is normative and should even be encouraged as it would propel evolution faster!! They point to the pepper moth in England as a positve proof of industrial evolution! So what if te baqld eagle dies or the snail darter or some owl in the woods of washington--death and extincvtion is the norm in a an evolutionary world? Why all of a sudden are we interfering with what I assume TE's would say is Gods ideal for the world and seeking to preserve all sorts of life forms when the fossil recoprd speaks of esxtinction on mass scales? This also causes me to wonder but that is a rabbit trail ad a different debate foir a different thread.

I put a simple challenge to lady Kate, gluadys, shernren, mrwilliams11. mallon, and Kerr-metric if you are still on line, demonstrate from evidence and observation whether naturally or by forced experimentation when a specific genera and all its species and sub species became another genera. By this I mean show me when a finch became something other than another kind of finch, or a fish become something other than a fish and you win!!

nolidad · Apr 5, 2006

Great! Since you're an expert on scales and feathers, then, perhaps you can tell us what those things are sprouting off the tail of Psittacosaurus.

Well being the non expert expert that I am I went and googled this little guy! The best info I could ger was what I thought-- they "appear" to be porcupine like barbs or quills. But definitely not feather barbs that would suggest some sort of tail plumage.

Or those weird integumentary structures found on the body of Sinosauropteryx.

Well once again using my grand expertise-- I went online especially to evolutionists and there is so much disagreement as to what these truly are that conclusions are in fact personal opinion and not results of being able to take the imprints and fossils and find out the chemical compositions.

The opinions range from-protofeathers. to feather like to hair like, to scute like protofeathers to hollow barbs to unsure. So it is a dino with some intersting qualities that no one quite knows what the "hairlike feature really is!!

But have some fun with these rebuttal web sites!

This one is by evolutionists:
http://icb.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/40/4/676http://www.evolutiondeceit.com/chapter7.php

http://www.clarifyingchristianity.com/archaeopteryx.shtml
http://www.rae.org/birds.html
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/re1/chapter4.asp you should like this one its AIG!!!!
http://www.creationists.org/chapter4.html
http://www.angelfire.com/mi/dinosaurs/dinobird.html

excerpt from an article:

A newer fossil find dating back only a few years is the Sinosauropteryx prima fossil from Liaoning China. Sinosauropteryx was a turkey-size dinosaur dated to the late Jurassic or early Cretaceous (Padian and Chiappe 45). This specimen is supposed to be a theropod with “protofeathers” surrounding its skeleton. It is undeniable, to anyone who has seen the fossils, that there is something surrounding the skeleton of this creature. But are they protofeathers? Some scientists believe so, but “four leading paleontologists, including Yale University’s John Ostrom, later found that the ‘feathers’ were just a parallel array of fibres, probably collagen” (Sarfati 60). It is interesting to note that John Ostrom is a strong believer in the dinosaur-to-bird theory, yet he believes Sinosauropteryx’s protofeathers are merely the remains of decaying tissue. John A. Ruben is a professor of zoology at Oregon State University. He says that “‘[a]ll of these things are in all likelihood something like collagen connective fibers’” (Appenzeller 2053). So the idea of protofeathers is still just an idea. Storrs L. Olson is the curator of birds at the National Museum of Natural History. About protofeathers he has recently said: “…protofeathers exist only as a theoretical construct…” (Open Letter to Dr. Peter Raven of National Geographic Society). Since Olson believes they are only a “theoretical construct,” it is apparent that he has never seen any real protofeathers. Since Sinosauropteryx prima is one of the main fossils touted by evolutionary theorists to have protofeathers, it seemed pertinent to address this specific case of alleged protofeathers. It must be noted that many evolutionists still believe Sinosauropteryx’s fibers are protofeathers, even though strong evidence opposes their view. Sinosauropteryx was just a theropod and did not possess any birdlike characteristics.

http://www.creationtruthministries.org/pages/802131/index.htm
http://www.evolutiondeceit.com/chapter7.php

If evolution is not valid science, somebody should tell the scientists.

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