Why are there no cows in the Devonian?

[Black Akuma]

Already explained repeatedly. Different physiology. Different mobility. Different behavior/intelligence. In general, we don't expect mammals to react the same way as dinosaurs. They are fundamentally different types of animals.

Dinosaurs and mammals aren't nearly as different as you're implying. For starters, they're both warm-blooded, which allows dinosaurs to be quite active. Many of them were quite small agile creatures, and many mammals are rather slow.

 

[juvenissun]

If you cannot falsify something with observation, then:

Creationism can not be falsified does not mean creationism is not scientific. Everything of creationism is scientific, except the falsification part, which is religious.

I know what I am talking about. You give me a fossil sequence, and I will try to explain it scientifically.

 

[juvenissun]

What fossil evidence, if found, would falsify creationism?

I have not seen any.

 

[Black Akuma]

Creationism can not be falsified does not mean creationism is not scientific.

That's exactly what it means.

 

[46AND2]

I have not seen any.

Then hypothesize, juve...That was kind of the point of his question.

 

[PsychoSarah]

God can exist without evolution being wrong. I don't view the validity of the bible as the validity of god. I view it as primarily allegorical, not literal. And even if it was, it was written by humans, not god. Just imagine an ancient human, who thinks disease is caused by breathing in the night air or by demons, even attempting to understand a process as complicated as evolution, which wouldn't be well suited for what the bible is ultimately intended for anyway: to enforce and teach basic ideas of what is right and what is wrong. People say that the bible is the word of god, and people who wrote it said it was so, but I don't trust that judgment to humans, because there is no evidence to suggest that the bible has any relationship with god or any other such being. It's prophecies are as impressive as a person writing a novel stating that the main character is destined to die later in the book, and that self same author writing it down, just as they predicted. Any predictions made for the actual future are so generalized that of course they would happen, a lot. There will be war: there are wars all the time, they never specified dates or events within those wars that prove such a statement to be a legitimate prophecy. In fact, according to revelations, 1/4th of the human population dying was one of the signs of the apocalypse, yet in the mid to late 1300s, 2/3rds to 1/2 of the population of the world died. The apocalypse did not happen. So, as an atheist, I do not reject the possibility of a god, but I don't view the bible as gods word any more than I would "Green Eggs and Ham" by Dr. Seuss.

 

[PsychoSarah]

Dinosaurs and mammals aren't nearly as different as you're implying. For starters, they're both warm-blooded, which allows dinosaurs to be quite active. Many of them were quite small agile creatures, and many mammals are rather slow.

Scientists are actually still debating the warm blooded dinosaur deal, especially over when that trait appears.

 

[Queller]

Based on what? Are you kidding me? I actually have to explain the mobility differences between mammals and reptiles to you?

Yes, what is the mobility difference between say an elephant and a stegosaurus? How about between an ostrich and a velociraptor? Between an archelon and a sea turtle? Between a geococcyx and a compsognathus?

I already explained two alternate hypotheses that Evolutionists were prepared to pursue. 1) Birds could have evolved from a proto-mammal instead of dinosaurs. 2) Mammals could have evolved from amphibians instead of reptiles.

And the evidence doesn't support either hypothesis so why would they be pursued any further?

And any of these animals could have been said to evolve earlier if that is what the fossil record had begun to reveal in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Evolution would have accommodated nearly anything and constructed the modern theory around that data. It doesn't predict when reptiles or mammals are going to evolve, and phylogeny does not identify actual ancestors. Just accommodates with storytelling.

You keep ignoring that there are quite a number of things the theory of evolution CANNOT accommodate. A cow in the Devonian period for one. Completely different DNA in the nested hierarchies that we see is another.

 

[juvenissun]

Then hypothesize, juve...That was kind of the point of his question.

No, that is scientific. Religious idea does not need any hypothesis. It is not possible to assume a falsification and still be creationism. It is against the definition.

Use the idea of falsification to refute creationism is plain stupid.

 

[Queller]

And the population levels of those creatures that we see today could have been much lower at the time of the flood.

More hand-waving sans evidence.

 

[Atheos canadensis]

Yea, guess what happens to the carcasses? They are scavenged by animals, bacteria, and decomposed by the elements.

"Three days after it started, the macabre procession of caribou carcasses swirling past the outcropping began to diminish."

Only catastrophic burials can rationally explain the massive fossil graveyards we find all over the Earth. The global flood model is an excellent explanation for this, whether you like it or not.

This is the kind of argument one makes when they have no real familiarity with the fossil record. Good thin I'm here to set you straight. First, catastrophic burials include things like flooded rivers. No need to invoke a global Flood. Indeed, doing so is problematic for the reasons we have mentioned. Second, there is a limit to how much scavengers can eat. 10 000 adult caribou are a lot of meat. Although in this case humans spent a lot of time and money removing them from the river, there is no reason that the scavenged remains would not eventually be buried by the high sediment load of a flooding river.

Now, you are trying to claim that it had to have been the Flood because in any other circumstance the animals would have been scavenged and never preserved in the fossil record. Here's where actual familiarity with the fossil record comes in. There are many massive bonebeds full of bones that are covered in toothmarks from scavengers as well as shed theropod teeth and bones that show evidence of having been trampled. Wait, did you hear that? That was the sound of your argument flying out the window. Clearly the assertion that rapid burial by a global catastrophe is required for fossils to be preserved is false. The fact that evidence of prolonged exposure, scavenging and trampling is common in the fossil record proves it to be nonsense. Off you go.

 

[Sayre]

God can exist without evolution being wrong. I don't view the validity of the bible as the validity of god. I view it as primarily allegorical, not literal. And even if it was, it was written by humans, not god. Just imagine an ancient human, who thinks disease is caused by breathing in the night air or by demons, even attempting to understand a process as complicated as evolution, which wouldn't be well suited for what the bible is ultimately intended for anyway: to enforce and teach basic ideas of what is right and what is wrong. People say that the bible is the word of god, and people who wrote it said it was so, but I don't trust that judgment to humans, because there is no evidence to suggest that the bible has any relationship with god or any other such being. It's prophecies are as impressive as a person writing a novel stating that the main character is destined to die later in the book, and that self same author writing it down, just as they predicted. Any predictions made for the actual future are so generalized that of course they would happen, a lot. There will be war: there are wars all the time, they never specified dates or events within those wars that prove such a statement to be a legitimate prophecy. In fact, according to revelations, 1/4th of the human population dying was one of the signs of the apocalypse, yet in the mid to late 1300s, 2/3rds to 1/2 of the population of the world died. The apocalypse did not happen. So, as an atheist, I do not reject the possibility of a god, but I don't view the bible as gods word any more than I would "Green Eggs and Ham" by Dr. Seuss.

If you view the bible like this, why did you state a few days ago that the story of the flood contributed to your atheism???????

 

[PsychoSarah]

No, that is scientific. Religious idea does not need any hypothesis. It is not possible to assume a falsification and still be creationism. It is against the definition.

Use the idea of falsification to refute creationism is plain stupid.

A person making a hypothesis doesn't assume they are incorrect, they just are forming a way to think about that idea so that they can test it. But, the person making that hypothesis, designing the experiment, and analyzing the data cannot allow their preconceived beliefs to bias their experimental design or their interpretation of the results. Then again, evolution and creationism are currently theories, which, while great for explaining stuff, are difficult to design experiments around. Especially creationism.

 

[Ellwood3]

According to the Bible, everything was created during creation week, from bacteria to humans, some 6,000 years ago. Some here want to squeeze the entire fossil record into this timeline (of 6,000 years). My question is simple then, why don't we find fossil cows in Devonian strata?

Because they had not evolved yet.

To elaborate further, why is are there different communities of organisms in every strata and none of them correspond to what was created on creation week, except the most recent ones? Why are there dozens of layers below the more recent ones with many groups that are missing?

Because Genesis was never meant as a paleontology textbook.


The problem is in misinterpreting the text by imposing a Western worldview on an Eastern writing.

One breakthrough book on the subject in The Lost World of Genesis One by John Walton.

It is a slightly scholarly book, though not difficult to read. Walton is both a believer and a scholar.

For reviews, see CBD at: Christianbook.com: The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate: John H. Walton: 9780830837045

and Amazon here: The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate: John H. Walton: 9780830837045: Amazon.com: Books


John Walton's other books are here (there is quite a list): Keywords: john walton - Category: All Products - Christianbook.com Search


Don't allow unbelievers to argue against faith based on Genesis. They don't know what they are dealing with, no matter how important their words seem to be.

Love God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength.

Deuteronomy 6:
Deuteronomy 6:5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

Luke 10:27 :
Luke 10:27 He answered, "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"


We need not love God less because He created things in an intelligent way we can explore.

 

[46AND2]

No, that is scientific. Religious idea does not need any hypothesis. It is not possible to assume a falsification and still be creationism. It is against the definition.

Use the idea of falsification to refute creationism is plain stupid.

Wow. Just...wow.

Then why did you claim creationism was scientific? If it is not falsifiable, it is not scientific.

In order for something to be scientific, it has to be ALL the things that constitute science. You can't say it is scientific, except for the falsification part. That exception excludes it from being science. Period.

 

[PsychoSarah]

If you view the bible like this, why did you state a few days ago that the story of the flood contributed to your atheism???????

It did; I wasn't treated well by fundamentalists when I presented my views, and more moderate Christians never defended me. Ultimately, I began to feel that people who believed that they would be rewarded for being decent people on earth, something everyone should just be anyway, they could never be truly selfless people, because every supposedly selfless act had an actual reward in the form of an afterlife. Why should people need a reason to be good, why should people need a reward? That we were at the center if the universe, a universe created just for us, where the sun orbited us, by a perfect being who made us in their image, is the most self centered, egotistical, narcissistic thing i had ever read in my entire life. Genesis is the embodiment of humanity's pride, that we have to be important just because of the fact that we are humans and nothing else.

So I realized, that the path to being a good person, isn't in believing it was all for us, but accepting that there is a pretty good chance that after we die, it is over, so we have to make the most of the one life we know we have, rather than relying upon an afterlife, which inevitably lowers the value of our time on earth.

We are tiny, insignificant beings, on an insignificant planet, orbiting a rather average star, in a universe so vast it is impossible to comprehend its size. And it is beautiful.

 

[Atheos canadensis]

Already explained repeatedly. Different physiology. Different mobility. Different behavior/intelligence. In general, we don't expect mammals to react the same way as dinosaurs. They are fundamentally different types of animals.

Ah, so sloths, slow lorises, koalas etc. etc. are all faster than all dinosaurs? I think not. And those rodents. They outpaced speedsters like Dromiceiomimus, did they? It's almost as if your explanation makes no sense.

And still you have no explanation for how not one single angiosperm, the most diverse and common type of plant, appears at the bottom of the rock record with the earliest plants. Not exactly a minor flaw with your deeply flawed model. Don't worry, I'll be happy to keep reminding you of this until you produce an explanation.

 

[Queller]

Already explained repeatedly. Different physiology. Different mobility. Different behavior/intelligence. In general, we don't expect mammals to react the same way as dinosaurs. They are fundamentally different types of animals.

Please explain how an anklyosaurus, a large, heavy, land-dwelling, herbivorous dinosaur is fundamentally different mobility wise and behavior wise than say, a rhinoceros, a large, heavy, land-dwelling, herbivorous mammal.

 

[Loudmouth]

Creationism can not be falsified does not mean creationism is not scientific.

Yeah, it does. In science, we require a null hypothesis. We think it's kind of important.

Everything of creationism is scientific, except the falsification part, which is religious.

It's the dogmatic religious part that makes it non-scientific.

 

[PsychoSarah]

Ah, so sloths, slow lorises, koalas etc. etc. are all faster than all dinosaurs? I think not. And those rodents. They outpaced speedsters like Dromiceiomimus, did they? It's almost as if your explanation makes no sense.

And still you have no explanation for how not one single angiosperm, the most diverse and common type of plant, appears at the bottom of the rock record with the earliest plants. Not exactly a minor flaw with your deeply flawed model. Don't worry, I'll be happy to keep reminding you of this until you produce an explanation.

What I wonder is why god had to wipe out all those innocent animals and plants when it was the evil was the fault of humans alone. If god has the power to raise a flood like that, then surely god has the power to just make all humans drop dead besides Noah and his family. Or even better, god should have the power to turn evil people good; god wouldn't have to kill anyone. To say god is incapable of doing this means that clearly, god is not all powerful. God does seem to have a flair for the dramatic though.