What is the end goal for creationists these days?

[mark kennedy]

So?

Juve said that they should teach creationism. I provided a list of creation myths, asking which one should be taught. Juve said "the first one".

To our knowledge, the Sumerian myth is the oldest known creation myth.
Complain to juve if you must.



Was that supposed to be a reference to the scientific model known as biological evolution?

No it was a reference to a Darwinian contrivance call Homo habilis

 

[tas8831]

Rape is a driving force behind evolution.

I would ask or evidence for this, but then I saw who wrote it.

In fact Christians are against sex outside of marriage. The Duggar family for example does not even kiss before marriage.

Right - but they do allow and apparently encourage incestuous molestation. Good Christian folk.

 

[bhsmte]

Rape is a driving force behind evolution. It is not really a part of creationism. In fact Christians are against sex outside of marriage. The Duggar family for example does not even kiss before marriage.

I know with cats if they are in heat the male cats get very interested in them. If they are spayed and do not go into heat then the male cats pretty much leave them alone. At least that is what I have observed.

The Bible talks about "natural brute beasts" (2Peter2:12) and how as Spirit Filled - Born Again believers we are to rise above that. We are called to a higher standard.

LOL

You never cease to amaze.

 

[Larniavc]

Something like that, it was always referred to as she. Remisent of the fresh water, sea water marshes. The elemental were earth, air, fire water. The Summerian myth was a water elemental. I noticed Zeus' wife was Herra, I think that means earth.

Enki is male. Who are you referring to?

 

[DogmaHunter]

No it was a reference to a Darwinian contrivance call Homo habilis

Haaa, you mean this guy:

Doesn't look that imaginary to me.

 

[mark kennedy]

Enki is male. Who are you referring to?

Enema elis

 

[pitabread]

Haaa, you mean this guy:

View attachment 211070

Doesn't look that imaginary to me.

Mark believes that hominid ancestors are part of the great Darwinian Evolution Conspiracy(TM).

No it doesn't make sense. Yes, it is kinda hilarious.

 

[mark kennedy]

Haaa, you mean this guy:

View attachment 211070

Doesn't look that imaginary to me.

What's the cranial capacity? Bet it's in the chimpanzee range and about two and a half times smaller the modern humans. The evidence for bipedal gait and tools is contrived at best and it's little more then a substitute for the Piltdown fraud.

What's more I'll be it is estimated to be about 2 myo. Which means the hominid line saw the cranial capacity nearly triple and the brain matter double in density. This requires at least 60 new brain related genes and a multitude of major genomic overhaul of highly conserved genes.

 

[DogmaHunter]

What's the cranial capacity? Bet it's in the chimpanzee range and about two and a half times smaller the modern humans.

Well it IS millions of years old. Obviously it's not a homo sapiens and it will be closer to its primate common ancestors with chimps.

It's kind of what we expect as well... So not really sure what your problem is.

The evidence for bipedal gait and tools is contrived at best and it's little more then a substitute for the Piltdown fraud.

Sure. If you wish to compare a single fraudulent "fossil" that most scientists didn't even take seriously, with hundreds of thousands of legit pieces of evidence.

If you think that's the same, then sure, then it's "little more then a substitute for the Piltdown fraud". Uhu.

I'll also point out that the only reason you know it was a fraud, is because scientists exposed it as such.

What's more I'll be it is estimated to be about 2 myo. Which means the hominid line saw the cranial capacity nearly triple and the brain matter double in density. This requires at least 60 new brain related genes and a multitude of major genomic overhaul of highly conserved genes.

If you say so.
Excuse me while I don't take the objections of a random creationist internet forum bloke, over thousands of published papers by actual experts who dedicate their lives to such studies.

 

[Ophiolite]

nothing in Christian theism has changed.

That's not something I would boast about.

 

[Motherofkittens]

Ah, the Sumerian one then.

There were probably older creation myths, they are just sadly lost.

I had to laugh. I have asked before why Christianity, or at least Judaism wasn't the first religion. Creationists think it was. "Yahweh, created Adam and Eve, so it was the first!"

Which creation story from the bible would it even be? There are a multitude. They are also older than the two in genesis.

Such as Psalm 74: “For God... Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength: thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters. Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness. Thou didst cleave the fountain and the flood: thou driedst up mighty rivers. The day is thine, the night also is thine: thou hast prepared the light and the sun. Thou hast set all the borders of the earth: thou hast made summer and winter” (74:12)

 

[Motherofkittens]

Rape is a driving force behind evolution. It is not really a part of creationism. In fact Christians are against sex outside of marriage. The Duggar family for example does not even kiss before marriage.

I know with cats if they are in heat the male cats get very interested in them. If they are spayed and do not go into heat then the male cats pretty much leave them alone. At least that is what I have observed.

The Bible talks about "natural brute beasts" (2Peter2:12) and how as Spirit Filled - Born Again believers we are to rise above that. We are called to a higher standard.

Even if that is true, though I disagree, (there isn't even rape among all living organisms, including some mammals) so what?! We have brains and some of us have empathy. We can use them and make ethics and laws.

I hope you aren't trying to conflate rape with consensual sex outside of marriage. Excuse me while I go puke.

I wouldn't bring up the duggures by the way. Josh, the son, molested a handful of underage girls, including two (or three) of his sisters.

 

[mark kennedy]

That's not something I would boast about.

You mean faith that God is the author and finisher, Im not ashamed of my convictions, nor do I bury them behind pedantic one liners

 

[mark kennedy]

Well it IS millions of years old. Obviously it's not a homo sapiens and it will be closer to its primate common ancestors with chimps.

It's kind of what we expect as well... So not really sure what your problem is.

The look like chimpanzee because they are. You don't know what the problem probably because you have no idea what protein coding or regulatory genes, or the profoundly deleterious effects of mutations on them.

Sure. If you wish to compare a single fraudulent "fossil" that most scientists didn't even take seriously, with hundreds of thousands of legit pieces of evidence.

If you think that's the same, then sure, then it's "little more then a substitute for the Piltdown fraud". Uhu.

I'll also point out that the only reason you know it was a fraud, is because scientists exposed it as such.



If you say so.
Excuse me while I don't take the objections of a random creationist internet forum bloke, over thousands of published papers by actual experts who dedicate their lives to such studies.

The same people who built there careers on Piltdown promoted Piltdown as it's replacement. I've studied this for over ten years, Im well read on the genomic scientific literature as am familiar with dozens of nature articles on fossils, which are not easy to track down. Bet you haven't read anything and you must be superior because your darwinian.

 

[Motherofkittens]

That's not something I would boast about.

It isn't even true. Christianity has evolved. I guess the argument would be rather it was micro or macroevolution.

 

[Ophiolite]

You mean faith that God is the author and finisher, Im not ashamed of my convictions, nor do I bury them behind pedantic one liners

Clearly my convictions were not buried, as you readily detected them. I'm convinced a readiness to change when new information becomes available is a good thing. You appear to think otherwise. I was being completely honest and open when I said I would not boast about that.

Edit: I think you would be well advised to check meaning of pedantic. (For example, this edit is arguably pedantic. My one liner wasn't.)

 

[DogmaHunter]

The look like chimpanzee because they are.

Nope.

Homo habilis:

Chimpanzee:

CLEARLY, these aren't the same species.

You don't know what the problem probably because you have no idea what protein coding or regulatory genes, or the profoundly deleterious effects of mutations on them.

I'm pretty sure that actual geneticists and evolutionary biologists, know a thing or two about protein coding or regulatory genes. You know... those experts who don't consider these things to be a problem.

The same people who built there careers on Piltdown promoted Piltdown as it's replacement.

Nope, they aren't the same people at all.

Charles Dawson, the supposed "discoverer", wasn't even properly qualified. He was an amateur who just made a lot of noise.

The vast majority never took these things seriously and actually already ignored it even before it was full blown exposed as a fraud. They ignored it because they knew there was something fishy about it, since it didn't fit into everything they knew about evolution and especially not in combination with all the other finds in africa.

Consider what this means..................................
They "assumed" that mainstream evolutionary history was accurate. If that was the case, then this piltdown business couldn't be accurate.

Lo and behold, as it turns out, the piltdown business indeed wasn't accurate.

It's kind of hilarious how creationists like to hold this fraud up as some kind of argument against evolution.... while in reality, it symbolizes an amazing win for evolution.

I've studied this for over ten years, Im well read on the genomic scientific literature as am familiar with dozens of nature articles on fossils, which are not easy to track down.

That's rather strange, because 5 minutes on wikipedia would have given you the above information concerning this piltdown business.

Also strange that in 10 years of study, you still haven't figured out that homo habilis skulls aren't the same as chimpanzee skulls.

Makes me wonder what exactly you have been "studying".

 

[bhsmte]

It isn't even true. Christianity has evolved. I guess the argument would be rather it was micro or macroevolution.

Indeed, most denominations of christianity have evolved, in regards to their beliefs. To many, the overwhelming amounts of evidence we have discovered, has given them no choice to adapt. Of course, you do have the fringe groups, that just put the defense mechanisms in over drive and deny anything that goes against their beliefs.

At the end of the day, religions have had to adapt to the discoveries of science, but science just keeps going about their business, independent of religious beliefs.

 

[juvenissun]

The oldest known written creation myth is the Sumerian one. More then likely Hindi creation myths are much older, but we don't have any manuscripts to date.

So in your opinion, we should teach the Sumerian creation myth?

Of course not. The first one and the most important one in Christian Science education.

 

[mark kennedy]

Nope.

Homo habilis:

View attachment 211093

Chimpanzee:

View attachment 211094

CLEARLY, these aren't the same species.

I'm talking genus

I'm pretty sure that actual geneticists and evolutionary biologists, know a thing or two about protein coding or regulatory genes. You know... those experts who don't consider these things to be a problem.

I don't have a problem either, the requisite changes happening 2myo, with no precursors for a million years previous doesn't happen in nature.

Nope, they aren't the same people at all.

Yes they are, whether Keith and just about everyone from graduate students to Cambridge professor changed horses categorically and unconditionally.

Charles Dawson, the supposed "discoverer", wasn't even properly qualified. He was an amateur who just made a lot of noise.

What has always annoyed me is the unprovoked indignation. Dart had just taken the job as curator of the museum when he got a box of fossils found in a mine. What was really cool is that a skull had been filled with like creating an endocast of the brain. Rummaging through the box he found the face that fit, in his words, perfectly. For almost 50 years it was considered to be a chimpanzee child which is exactly what it is. With the demise of the Piltdown fraud the Homo habilis stone age ape man myth was born. While it's a wonderful fossil it's still just a chimpanzee ancestor.

The vast majority never took these things seriously and actually already ignored it even before it was full blown exposed as a fraud. They ignored it because they knew there was something fishy about it, since it didn't fit into everything they knew about evolution and especially not in combination with all the other finds in africa.

Which would be it's charm as a transitional. The skull was taken from a mass grave site from the black plague and the jaw bone was from an orangutan. All anyone would have had to do was actually examine it but that wouldn't happen for decades. Arthur Keith built his career on Piltdown and the resultant theories.

Consider what this means..................................
They "assumed" that mainstream evolutionary history was accurate. If that was the case, then this piltdown business couldn't be accurate.

Lo and behold, as it turns out, the piltdown business indeed wasn't accurate.

It's kind of hilarious how creationists like to hold this fraud up as some kind of argument against evolution.... while in reality, it symbolizes an amazing win for evolution.

For one thing this isn't about evolution, this is about Darwinism. Secondly, evolution is a phenomenon in nature not a unified theory of natural history, that's the common equivocation with Darwinism that is at the heart of the controversy. I have not the slightest interest in challenging evolution or science, I simply examine what I can find from the scientific literature and refuse to accept the naturalistic assumptions of Darwinism is somehow immutable.

That's rather strange, because 5 minutes on wikipedia would have given you the above information concerning this piltdown business.

Also strange that in 10 years of study, you still haven't figured out that homo habilis skulls aren't the same as chimpanzee skulls.

Makes me wonder what exactly you have been "studying".

Oh no problem, here is a sample of what I've studied for over a decade now:

Summary:

• HAR1F: Vital regulatory gene involved in brain development, 300 million years it has only 2 subsitutions, then 2 million years ago it allows 18, no explanation how.
• SRGAP2: One single amino-acid change between human and mouse and no changes among nonhuman primates. accumulated as many as seven amino-acid replacements compared to one synonymous change. 6 known alleles, all resulting in sever neural disorder.
• 60 de novo (brand new) brain related genes with no known molecular mechanism to produce them.

The Taung Child, that replaced the Piltdown hoax, is a chimpanzee, so is Lucy.

Discussion:

What follows are from over ten years of study of the comparative studies related to human brain evolution. Comparative Genomics should have ended, or at least challenged, Darwinian evolution by now but it is exalted above all skepticism. The a priori assumption of universal common descent is immutable in modern philosophies of natural history. The reason they are not questioned isn't the weight of the evidence, indicating chimpanzee-human common ancestry, but the animosity toward anything remotely theistic being suggested as a cause:

Idols of the Theater are those which are due to sophistry and false learning. These idols are built up in the field of theology, philosophy, and science, and because they are defended by learned groups are accepted without question by the masses. When false philosophies have been cultivated and have attained a wide sphere of dominion in the world of the intellect they are no longer questioned. False superstructures are raised on false foundations, and in the end systems barren of merit parade their grandeur on the stage of the world. (Novum Organum)​

This grand theatrical production has been performing for over a century now, it's history littered with fabrication. Perhaps the longest running demonstration was easily the Piltdown fraud. The Piltdown Hoax was the flagship transitional of Darwinism for nearly half a century and it was a hoax. A skull taken from a mass grave site used during the Black Plague matched up with an orangutan jawbone. Even Louis Leakey, the famous paleontologist, had said that jaw didn’t belong with that skull so people knew, long before it was exposed, that Piltdown was contrived.

Leakey mentions the Piltdown skull in his book 'Adam's Ancestors':

'If the lower jaw really belongs to the same individual as the skull, then the Piltdown man is unique in all humanity. . . It is tempting to argue that the skull, on the one hand, and the jaw, on the other, do not belong to the same creature. Indeed a number of anatomists maintain that the skull and jaw cannot belong to the same individual and they see in the jaw and canine tooth evidence of a contemporary anthropoid ape.'​

He referred to the whole affair as an enigma: In By the Evidence he says 'I admit . . . that I was foolish enough never to dream, even for a moment, that the true explanation lay in a deliberate forgery.' (Leakey and Piltdown)

The problem was that there was nothing to replace it as a transitional from ape to man. Concurrent with the prominence of the Piltdown fossil Raymond Dart had reported on the skull of an ape that had filled with lime creating an endocast or a model of what the brain would have looked like. Everyone considered it a chimpanzee child since it’s cranial capacity was just over 400cc but with the demise of Piltdown, a new icon was needed in the Darwinian theater of the mind. Raymond Dart suggests to Louis Leakey that a small brained human ancestor might have been responsible for some of the supposed tools the Leaky family was finding in Africa. The myth of the stone age ape man was born.

The Scottish anthropologist Sir Arthur Keith had built his long and distinguished career on the Piltdown fossil. When it was exposed it sent Darwinians scrambling, Arthur Keith had always rejected the Taung Child (Raymond Dart’s discovery) a chimpanzee child. Rightfully so since it’s small even for a modern chimpanzee. Keith would eventually apologized to Dart and Leakey would take his suggested name for the stone age ape man, Homo habilis, but there was a very real problem. The skull was too small to be considered a human ancestor, this impasse became known as the Cerebral Rubicon and Leakey’s solution was to simply ignore the cranial capacity.

"Sir Arthur Keith, one of the leading proponents of Piltdown Man, was particularly instrumental in shaping Louis's thinking. "Sir Arthur Keith was very much Louis's father in science" noted Frida. Brilliant, yet modest and unassuming, Keith was regarded at the time of Piltdown's discovery as England's most eminent anatomist and an authority on human ancestry...a one man court of appeal for physical anthropologists from around the world....and his opinion that assured Piltdown a place on every drawing of humankinds family tree." (Ancestral Passions, Virginia Morell)​

Ever notice that there are no Chimpanzee ancestors in the fossil record? That’s because every time a gracial (smooth) skull, that is dug up in Asian or Africa they are automatically one of our ancestors.

Australopithecus afarensis: AL 288-1
Australopithecus africanus: Taung 1
Lucy a Chimpanzee
Taung Skull not Human-like 26 August 2014

These two are the only Hominid fossils I've seen that are really being passed of as transitional. They both have chimpanzee size brains, with all the features one would expect of a knuckle dragging, tree dwelling ape. What is far more important then finding something indicating a transitional fossil, which they have failed to do, is to understand what the basis of the three-fold of the human brain from that of apes:

The evolutionary time separating human and macaque (20–25 million years) is grossly comparable to that separating rat and mouse (16–23 million years)…214 such genes in all of the four taxa chosen…

Increases in brain size and complexity are evident in the evolution of many primate lineages…However, this increase is far more dramatic in the lineage leading to humans than in other primate lineages…

accelerated protein evolution in a large cohort of nervous system genes, which is particularly pronounced for genes involved in nervous system development, represents a salient genetic correlate to the profound changes in brain size and complexity during primate evolution, (Molecular Evolution of the Human Nervous System. Bruce T. Lahn et al. Cell 2004)​

That was probably the broadest comparison of brain related genes between apes and humans shortly after the unveiling of the findings of the Human Genome Project in 2001. Since then they have discovered at least two dramatic giant leaps that would have had to occur in order of the human brain to have emerged from ape like ancestors SRGAP2, HAR1F. In addition genes involved with the development of language (FOXP2), changes in the musculature of the jaw (MYH16) , and limb and digit specializations (HACNS1).

The ancestral SRGAP2 protein sequence is highly constrained based on our analysis of 10 mammalian lineages. We find only a single amino-acid change between human and mouse and no changes among nonhuman primates within the first nine exons of the SRGAP2 orthologs. This is in stark contrast to the duplicate copies, which diverged from ancestral SRGAP2A less than 4 mya, but have accumulated as many as seven amino-acid replacements compared to one synonymous change. (Human-specific evolution of novel SRGAP2 genes by incomplete segmental duplication Cell May 2012)
What is the problem with 7 amino acid replacements in a highly conserved brain related gene? The only observed effects of changes in this gene in humans is disease and disorder:

• 15,767 individuals reported by Cooper et al. (2011)] for potential copy-number variation. We identified six large (>1 Mbp) copy-number variants (CNVs), including three deletions of the ancestral 1q32.1 region…
• A ten year old child with a history of seizures, attention deficit disorder, and learning disabilities. An MRI of this patient also indicates several brain malformations, including hypoplasia of the posterior body of the corpus callosum…
• Translocation breaking within intron 6 of SRGAP2A was reported in a five-year-old girl diagnosed with West syndrome and exhibiting epileptic seizures, intellectual disability, cortical atrophy, and a thin corpus callosum. (Human-specific evolution of novel SRGAP2 genes by incomplete segmental duplication Cell May 2012)

The search for variation with regard to this vital gene yielded no beneficial effect upon which selection could have acted. The only conceivable way the changes happen is relaxed functional constraint which, unless it emerged from the initial mutation perfectly functional it surly would have killed the host. Mutations are found in children with 'developmental delay and brain malformations, including West Syndrome, agenesis of the corpus callosum, and epileptic encephalopathies'.(cited above)

Of course Creationists have their opinions about this gene:

SRGAP2A, SRGAP2B, SRGAP2C, and SRGAP2D, which are located in three completely separate regions on chromosome number 1.1 They appear to play an important role in brain development.2 Perhaps the most striking discovery is that three of the four genes (SRGAP2B, SRGAP2C, and SRGAP2D) are completely unique to humans and found in no other mammal species, not even apes…Unique in their protein coding arrangement and structure. The genes do not look duplicated at all… (Newly Discovered Human Brain Genes Are Bad News for Evolution by Jeffrey P. Tomkins, Ph.D)​

In one of the areas of the human genome that would have had to change the most, Human Accelerated Region (HAR), we find a gene that has changed the least over just under 400 million years HAR1F. Just after the Cambrian is would have had to emerge de novo, fully formed, fully functional and permanently fixed along broad taxonomic categories. In all the time since it would allow only two substitutions, then, while the DNA around it is being completely overhauled it allows 18 substitutions in a regulatory gene only 118 nucleotides long. The vital function of this gene cannot be overstated:

The most dramatic of these ‘human accelerated regions’, HAR1, is part of a novel RNA gene (HAR1F) that is expressed specifically in Cajal– Retzius neurons in the developing human neocortex from 7 to 19 gestational weeks, a crucial period for cortical neuron specification and migration. HAR1F is co-expressed with reelin, a product of Cajal–Retzius neurons that is of fundamental importance in specifying the six-layer structure of the human cortex. (An RNA gene expressed during cortical development evolved rapidly in humans, Nature 16 August 2006)​

This all has to occur after the chimpanzee human split, while our ancestors were contemporaries in equatorial Africa, with none of the selective pressures effecting our ancestral cousins. This is in addition to no less then 60 de novo (brand new) brain related genes with no known molecular mechanism to produce them. Selection can explain the survival of the fittest but the arrival of the fittest requires a cause:

The de novo origin of a new protein-coding gene from non-coding DNA is considered to be a very rare occurrence in genomes. Here we identify 60 new protein-coding genes that originated de novo on the human lineage since divergence from the chimpanzee. The functionality of these genes is supported by both transcriptional and proteomic evidence. RNA– seq data indicate that these genes have their highest expression levels in the cerebral cortex and testes, which might suggest that these genes contribute to phenotypic traits that are unique to humans, such as improved cognitive ability. Our results are inconsistent with the traditional view that the de novo origin of new genes is very rare, thus there should be greater appreciation of the importance of the de novo origination of genes…(De Novo Origin of Human Protein-Coding Genes PLoS 2011)​

Whatever you think happened one thing is for sure, random mutations are the worst explanation possible. They cannot produce de novo genes and invariably disrupt functional genes. You can forget about gradual accumulation of, 'slow and gradual accumulation of numerous, slight, yet profitable, variations' (Darwin). That would require virtually no cost and extreme benefit with the molecular cause fabricated from vain imagination and suspended by pure faith.

Darwinian isn't a term Creationists made up, the Modern Synthesis is often called neodarwinism, because it's inextricably linked to the philosophy of Charles Darwin originating in his book On the Origin of Species. He said and I quote:

Lamarck was the first man whose conclusions on the subject excited much attention. This justly-celebrated naturalist first published his views in 1801; he much enlarged them in 1809 in his "Philosophie Zoologique,' and subsequently, in 1815, in the Introduction to his "Hist. Nat. des Animaux sans Vertébres.' In these works he upholds the doctrine that species, including man, are descended from other species. He first did the eminent service of arousing attention to the probability of all change in the organic, as well as in the inorganic world, being the result of law, and not of miraculous interposition. (On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin)​

Now, if you believe that, 'all change in the organic, as well as in the inorganic world, being the result of law, and not of miraculous interposition', then you are Darwinian in your worldview. These two worldviews would appear to be mutually exclusive. To date I have nothing but problems with every aspect of universal common descent and at the heart of this philosophy I see the core problem being naturalistic assumptions.

On the other hand, if you feel Darwinians have made their case and find their arguments convincing I say go in peace I have no problem with you. If on the other hand you are interested in valid skepticism regarding the evolution of the human brain from that of apes there is ample evidence to indicate that Darwinism isn't a conclusion but an, a priori (without prior), assumption that allows for exclusively naturalistic causes.

Grace and peace,
Mark