QuantumFlux said:
Hi, I'm new to the forums but bare with me if i seem to have repeated something that has already been said.
You are. As others have noted, you are repeating common PRATTS most of us have seen many times. However, perhaps you would like some information about them.
I think many christians take the wrong angle in defending Creationism over Evolution. They tend to scrap for evidence to support creationism rather than pointing out the obvious flaws in Evolution.
It is often asserted that evolution has obvious flaws. Yet these flaws are not obvious to scientists, including those scientists in the field who are Christian. In fact, the so-called flaws more often reveal flaws in a person's understanding of evolution and/or in their unawareness of the volume of evidence which supports evolution.
Evolution is not being taller as many would claim how our species has grown. To a degree it is, such as being labeled micro-evolution, but it more pertains to a monkey becoming a man, or a reptile becoming a mammal or a bird. The evolutionary theory also involves the origin of the species, though some would claim that it doesnt, it obviously has to, the whole point is that everything evolved from something, single cells or other wise.
Every living thing evolved from something as every living thing had parents and grandparents and great-great-grandparents in a lineage that stretches back billions of years. Obviously, at some point there was a first living species which did not owe its origin to a biological lineage. But the theory of evolution does not touch on non-biological origin. Non-biological origin is called abiogenesis (i.e. life from non-life). It is a related but separate scienctific investigation.
Macro evolution (or the evolution that would turn say a reptile into a mammal) is a major part of the evolutionary theory. The following is why i dont understand why people consider it fact:
1. NO, none, zero, nadda macro evolutionary fossils have ever been found for any species or cross species despite millions of dollars of archeological digs.
This is where you display lack of information about the volume of fossil evidence which supports evolution. There are actually a great many fossils which meet the scientific criteria of intermediate or transitional fossils. In fact, strictly speaking, every fossil is an intermediate or transitional fossil, since it is always somewhere between its ancestors and its descendants. The only case in which this would not apply is if the fossil were the last of its species. However, we have no way of knowing this about any particular fossil.
Because fossilization is rare, and because many species (and even genera and whole families) have no fossil record, there are many occasions when a fossil we would like to have is simply non-existant. Also there are many fossils which are not accessible to us or have not been discovered yet.
However, there is enough solid evidence for evolution, that we can know it happens and has been happening for a long time, even if we had not a single fossil. Fossils are welcome and interesting additional evidence for evolution, but not necessary evidence.
2. Evolution has never been seen. Some may say it would be impossible to see since it takes thousands and/or millions of years for something to evolve, however in the past 6000 years of history, nothing is written about anything cross species.
Well, yes it has been seen. Of course, only in short-lived species and only in the last century when scientists began looking for it. Evolution takes generations, not necessarily years.
As for cross-species, what do you mean by that? I think this is an indication of lack of information about what evolution is. It is not about crossing species. It is about splitting a single species into two or more species. Or about one species changing over time until it is a different species.
I often find that neophytes disputing evolution are looking for saltations that go far beyond species differences. They seem to want an example of a change from one family to another or even one order to another within a human life-time. Evolution does not work that way. Species will produce new species, never something so totally different as to be in a different family or order. (Note that I am using the terms "species", "family" and "order" in the Linnaean sense.)
3. The cambrian period is not a period that evolutionists like to talk about.
Do you know this because you asked them? I think you are repeating something you have not checked out. The Cambrian period is very interesting to any paleontologist. Niles Eldredge, a prominent evolutionary scientist, did most of his research on trilobites, one of the common arthropods of the Cambrian.
It has what many referr to as the "Cambrian Explosion". It is dubbed that because pre-cambrian period you find little more than worms and sluggs, very undeveloped life forms, then in a compact period of time, BAM you see fully formed crabs and insects and other fully developed life forms. One could say that we merely havent found the fossils yet, however, if you do your research you find even the top evolutionists saying that its highly improbable that they wouldnt have found some in all the digs they have done.
Are you saying that worms and slugs and amoebas and bacteria are not fully-formed viable life forms? They seem to do very well, in our day as in ancient times. But it is true that most of them did not have shells which would fossilize.
btw, are you aware of how many familiar plants and animals did NOT exist in the Cambrian? No land dwellers of any kind, either plant or animal. Probably no multi-cellular algae such as kelps. No vertebrates, including fish, which did not appear until the next period (Ordovician) and did not become common until the Devonian.
Even the very many shelled creatures found in the Cambrian, are quite unlike the shellfish of today.
4. The origin of the species sounds something like this: "in an unknown substance, in an unknown atmosphere, under unknown conditions, an unknown living substance was created" Im sorry, how is that scientific again?
That is not the origin of species. That is the origin of life. Of course, the first living population was a species, but when we speak of the origin of species, we are usually referring to speciation i.e. the splitting of one existing species into two species. So the first origin of species would be when the first population of living things divided into two separate populations with genetic differences great enough to mark them as separate species.
As for the origin of life, not everything is so unknown as you think. We do know some of the conditions required for a natural abiogenesis e.g. that the atmosphere contained relatively little oxygen, that amino acids were present (possibly from comets or meteors, possibly formed through natural terrestrial chemical processes). You might also check out thermoproteins (aka protocells), hypercycles and RNA world.
On that same subject, lets say of the off chance that these specific chemicals happened to bond at the specific temperature and happened to create the components for a cell and lets say on the astronomical chance that they did get together, do you know what they would form? A dead cell, it wouldnt be alive. It would be the equivalent of taking an arm and legs and torso and a head and sowing them together, yes you have a body, but it sure isnt alive nor do you have any means to make it so.
Totally wrong information. In the first place you are assuming that the first living things would be cells. In fact, the first living things would have to be much simpler than cells.
So the evolutionary theory is left without a leg to stand on. Not only is it lacking critical evidence to support it, it actually has some very damaging evidence against it.
As I said, most so-called flaws in the theory of evolution generally turn out to be flaws in a person's information or understanding. This seems to be true in this case, as you apparently have little information about fossils and none on abiogenesis research. You also show lapses in understanding such as confusing evolution with abiogenesis and thinking that evolution has something to do with "cross species".
It only makes sense that he created the rest of the universe under the same principle, in order for us to use it and live in it, it had to be created mature.
This has been discussed in other threads. The chief difficulty with this assumption is that it robs the world of reality. Creation becomes a holodeck program. I can discuss this in more detail if you like.
If you study the specifics of the world wide flood you find a very rational explaination of how that many fossils could be made in the different layers.
But you don't find one that matches the actual distribution of fossils through the geological layers. Nor do you find an explanation for the actual strata.
if i missed something about evolution let me know.
You have missed almost everything about evolution.
Perhaps you would like to describe how you think evolution actually happens. That would be a good place to root out misconceptions.