Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
"I want to know if you can articulate it, or if you just blindly accept it."
Good enough. I've given a few reasons, but I do grow tired of this charade. I'm not going to convince you or anyone else--you've decided that us idiot creationists are just too dumb to believe in science.
Good enough. I've given a few reasons, but I do grow tired of this charade. I'm not going to convince you or anyone else--you've decided that us idiot creationists are just too dumb to believe in science.
That's not what we've decided. We've learned that creationists are too dumb to even attempt to understand science.
I think a common DNA structure among species is an excellent signature that they all were created by the same creator.
I don't. I think a creator would have a little more ingenuity than only being able to provide a single information carrier for the way something is to be assembled.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheoGeek
I think there is a ton of irreducible complexity to point to a creation.
Name one example in which empirical proof could substantiate this claim.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheoGeek
I think the fact that life exists at all is proof. We've never observed abiogenesis--despite many attempts to produce it.
So what? Until a little over a hundred years ago no one had been able to produce a flying machine despite many attempts to produce it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheoGeek
I don't claim that all 8.8 million species existed at creation. I believe that today's dogs came from wolves--which perhaps came from another canine. I have no issue with the idea of them evolving into different breeds.
Well, once you figure out your taxonomies a little better, you'd pretty much understand that this statement implies that you believe in evolution although your clear misunderstanding of the word "canine" associated with "breeds" highlights the fundamental flaw in your logic.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheoGeek
I believe there is no problem with a boat as large as the ark holding the species that were alive at the time of Noah.
Yeah... That makes a lot of sense since a boat that heavy made of wood would not be able to support itself and would crack right up the seams. Not to mention, I'm rather curious where Noah got all the wood. I suppose next you'll tell me that Babylon was a beautiful coniferous forest until Noah had to get the lumber to build his boat?
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheoGeek
The geneologies in the Bible are only one reason to suggest a young earth. There are other reasons to point to a young earth. Things like the fact that the moon is traveling away from the earth an inch or two every year...and if it was as old as everyone says it is, it couldn't be the distance it is. The dust on the moon is not as deep as it should be. The ocean isn't as salty as it should be...etc...etc.
So, basically you start with the premise that the Bible is truth and then look for evidence to support such a position thereafter. "I need to date the Earth? Oh. Simple. Let me just count the generations of inbreeding and go from there."
Shouldn't it be the other way around? "I want to know how old the Earth is. Let's look at how to best go about dating it. Let's see... We have ice core samples, radioactive dating, sea corals, tree rings, and the entire science of geology. Or... We have a genealogical example taken out of a book written by illiterate goatherders."
Opting for the latter option is like saying you prefer a sundial to an atomic clock in order to tell time. The only difference being that a sundial has a slight hint of accuracy.
As for the moon, it is approximately 3.85X10^10 from the Earth. It is moving at an approximate distance of 3.85 cm/year away from the Earth. It doesn't take a mathematician to figure out how long a time period that is.
Not to mention that there are other gravitational forces aside from the Earth which pull on the moon - hence the move away from Earth.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheoGeek
I just don't believe that there is enough reason to point to an old earth.
Nor will you likely ever. Despite the fact that for 150 years, we've built upon some of the greatest scientific advances in human history, and utilized the fundamentals of everything you deny (physics, geology, biology, chemistry, and so on and so forth) you will remain firmly planted in your ignorance.
You will probably go so far as to accept the idea that oil companies drill for oil in places based upon much of the same science used to date fossils, i.e., utilizing proper dating methods they can get a good idea of where to drill for oil. But the second that concept interferes with your brainwashing, you'll be quick to deny that dating methods are accurate and you might even do so as you fill up your gas tank.
You will probably go so far as to accept the fact that should you go to a Fukushima nuclear reactor, you would wear radioactive protective gear to protect against the radioactive decay that you can't see. You'd be an idiot not to. But, you'll probably deny the entire process of radiation if it comes down to measuring the radioactive decay (the same process by which you'd be protecting yourself from at Fukushima) if it threatened your belief of a young Earth.
I've debated and argued people such as yourself time and again. You'll act as though the geology scientists use to drill for oil is different than the geology used to get a better conception of the Earth's formation over the last few billion years. You'll act as though the physics used to derive radioactive decay and the research associated with it is somehow different than the physics used to date rocks. It isn't. You'll stand firm and deny every iota of science that interferes with your personal belief and yet the foundations of all of them provide us with the technology you'll use on a daily basis as you go about denying its accuracy. It is the absolute epitome of hypocritical thinking and stupidity.
On my end, I will prod you for empirical data - a single scientific paper produced and empirically reviewed by the scientific community that may even remotely suggest a young earth. You'll never provide it. You'll just lay claim that scientists are biased towards a secular worldview. All the while, you'll never put two and two together that virtually anyone could compile a string of articles and data meant to support any particular outlandish viewpoint, make it look semi-professional, and call it "scientific."
The sooner you admit that your entire position stands not on scientific evidence but rather on complete and utter blind faith presupposed by an initial belief in the Bible that everything it says is true the quicker we can move on. The more you insist that you hold a scientific position, the more ridiculous, ignorant and stupid you will look.
With that, I say proceed as usual and allow the blatant lies to begin... I'm fully expecting a plethora of ignorant statements that have been debunked time and again...
Shalom...yes, change in allele (gene) frequency in a community of organisms over a period of time does indeed occur. Nevertheless, whether this allele frequency change be allopatric, sympatric, parapatric or peripatric, does not change the immutable fact that a fish for example, is still a fish.
Change in allele frequency is nothing more than a great hybridizing potential among many kinds of living organisms, and evidence of these genetic changes only confirms the truth of G-d's Word, The Bible.
You posted a remark on origins of life. "TheoGeek;21919562]Are we talking evolution, or the origins of life? You bash on creationists, but you have zero answers when it comes to how life came about." That is a direct reference to abiogenesis, unless you can explain what else it relates to.
(1) Darwin did indeed say that a lack of transitional fossils would cause his theory problems. Despite the continual denial of anti - evolutionists, enough transitionals have been found to satisfy Darwin and anyone with a regard for evidence.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheoGeek
Much of the same evidence could point to a common designer. I understand you have a particular bent at trying to find something that doesn't involve a creator...but I just don't buy it. There just isn't enough evidence to cover up the issues with it.
I'm sorry..we still haven't found a missing link. The fossils that point to human evolution are woefully inadequate and usually consist of 2-3 teeth, or a bone fragment or two found miles apart from each other.
Oh you silly thing you! That's because there is no specific "Oh! There it is!! Right over there!" "Missing Link" per se. Please explain just what that would be, in technical detail. In the meantime, know this: within the biological sciences community (of which I am a career professional, not a wanna-be scientifically-illiterate type like you, trying to cling to very outdated ideas in order to reserve your imagined but serious flawed intellectual dignitiy...)
(take a breath rifleman...)
...that concept has been long abandoned. You insist on seeing some species with Characteristic Type A, then finding the Missing Link version with Charcteristic Type B, which somehow leads inexorably to one with Characteristic Type. "C".
Well, sadly for that idea, we, you and I, the ape down at the zoo, and literally every single living organism, are, in fact, all genetic transitionals. That means all our genotypes (do you know what that means, TG?) are always slightly different (mutated, we say...) from their predecessors, quite simply due to the various factors that affect the transition or alteration of individual DNA alleles.
But then, when enough of these accumulate to produce a unique ability, or possibly reproductive independence, you have what we scientists define as a species. But even en-route to and before that, there are genetically distinct "races, "tribes" and "sub-species".
The historically pith-hatted British Explorer mentality is written all over the now antiquated concept of "A Missing Link". As well, the term was generally only applied to humans versus apes, since Christendom sincerely desires to choke off Evolution once and for all, even at the cost of their own intellectual honesty, but they have lost that battle forever now. As in: shall we discuss the genetic/ phenotypic transitionals between the Monarch Butterfly and the lesser Swallowtail? Of phylogenetic clades? Or the differences between a Mule deer and another deer species, the Whitetail? Or between a "griz" and a polar bear? Noting, of course, that we do also find genetic hybrids between these two all the time, proving that genetics do play the endgame role in speciation.
(Historical NOte: this thinking you continue to display so proudly was, of course, popular in about the mid- to late-1800s! Almost pre-science as we know it, but also right about when Christianity was thinking it had it all sewn up. HaHa, huh?)
("Pip pip, Eowlde Chep! Let's you and I go off on a boat and explore and discover! Why not do a search in darkest Africa for The Missing Link? That should be good for a few tens of thousands of pounds of funding, whot say?".
But now, in the 2011s, we have (oh durn it, huh?) detailed DNA genetic mapping (down to the individual allele pairs, just so you know, there's no wishy-washy scientific guesswork here any more... that was abandoned in about, oh I'd say... the late 1800s. Boy, you do have some catching up to do, huh?)
Such modern-day DNA mapping clearly shows familial relationships, changes between offspring and their parent's lineage, and, with multiple sample trackings over time, it also CLEARLY, INARGUABLY and UNAMBIGUOUSLY demonstrates those straightforward connection lines. For literally tens of thousands of years. Ain't scientific advancement glorious, TG?
But still, you do have to make at least a little continuous education work. Just connect the obvious dots. Stay within the lines while coloring. Etc. etc. Any interested and otherwise unbiased person can quickly see how it works, and can't deny the absolute elegance of being able to see all the changes right when they happen, as well as how they did happen over longer times. Some do continue to deny it all of course: rampant Christian fundamentalist Denialism, absent any good logical or credible argument, and to the accompaniment of shrill rantings that "It's all unprovable! They haven't provided The Missing Link!"
So sorry, TG. You lose here and we all know it. You do too.
But here: in case you can bring yourself to read and learn; this explanation on abiogenesis, evolution and your desperate requirement for a Missing Link is well covered here. Couldn't have said it better myself!
Much of the same evidence could point to a common designer. I understand you have a particular bent at trying to find something that doesn't involve a creator...but I just don't buy it. There just isn't enough evidence to cover up the issues with it.
I'm sorry..we still haven't found a missing link. The fossils that point to human evolution are woefully inadequate and usually consist of 2-3 teeth, or a bone fragment or two found miles apart from each other.
You should be sorry. Why? The argument against 'missing links' (aka, transitional fossils) is a red herring. ALL species are transitional.
Thx mensaguy. It is v. hard to get across such increasingly scientificlly compex ideas on a popular public debate forum. That's made even more difficult by 1) the general lack of scientific education amongst the average reader (the American education system is woefully inadequate in the sciences...), coupled of course, and esp. here, with 2) a faifly frantic denialist mentality amongst the dedicated & often literal Christians, who cannot, it seems, face up to any truths about their true origins.
I re-read my prior post's link this morning and will cut & pastethis last paragraph from it, the paragraph that nicely summarizes the now-obsolete idea of "transtionals" or "Missing Links":
__________________________________________________ _________________
But a second point is that we actually DO have many many of the intermediate fossils that show many clear examples of evolution through time. The evolution of primates, of bats, carnivores, rodents, lagomorphs (rabbits and hares), whales and dolphins, perissodactyls (horses, rhinos, tapirs), elephants, serenians (dugongs and manatees), artiodactyls (pigs, hippos, deeer, giraffes, etc.)
All of these are beautifully documented in the fossil record. So evolution is fully established by these examples, even if other branches of life are not as well documented (because they had soft bodies, or lived in environments, that did not fossilize well).
In many cases these progressions are as clear as species A B C D E F H I J K M N ...
If we fail to find a link "G" between F and H ... does that mean that the entire sequence means nothing ...that we should conclude that all these species are unrelated? That species N did not evolve from anything? That this is an argument that ALL OF EVOLUTION IS FALSE? Of course not.
So no... so-called "missing links" are not an argument against Evolution that stands the test of logic or science.
__________________________________________________ ____________________
Now, a full-on denialist Christian would clammer "H but YES!!! You have to have all the intermediates (and specifically the ones that I've creatively imagined or designed...) in order to make such a claim"
Well, sorry: given that you yourself are in fact an intermediate transitional between your parents and your kids, do we need to have you laid out on a slab in our lab to PROVE that your kids are related to their grandparents?
Nope: simple statistics and DNA mapping, coupled with the gross improbability that your allele sequences, at >99.98+% "identicality" between gramps and his grandchild, are NOT related, and.... voila:turns out that you are related, and your genotype arose right between gramps and your kids.
QED: end of story. And thus: we KNOW they are related.
After all, given the literally hundreds of millions of allele pairs within a single human genome, once we compare even parts of those retrieved from two specimens, and we find near-identical matchs where, in un-related species or even families, that those areas Do Not Match at all, then we start to build a pretty complete and compelling history and data base. Then we couple it with geo-stratigraphy, artifact dating to within, say, ± 5,000 years, plus some, again let's say, tools and locations and bone morphology.
So then, you are comfortable in making an ABSOLUTE STATEMENT that these artifacts are not, in any way, genetically related?
Hmmmm... so what then is the truth? Oh yeah: I forgot: God Insta-Poofed them into existence one afternoon. Yup: that's plausible!
Of course, predictably, a fundamentalist Christian will on it's face outright deny any such micro- transitional states. Given the nano-micro-levels of change within the complete DNA map within an organism during a single reproduction event, or even ten of them, changes that we can and do now track, and given that these changes, if not lethal, are faithfully reproduced on down the ancestral line, we all do indeed possess "transition" genetics with EACH AND EVERY generation.
There simply is no big, macro-über change-over of physical form one afternoon, producing what eons of slow, relentless trial and error reproductive adaptations can (and have....) achieve.
Those hugely unique Missing Link species that those British naturalists were unscientifically looking for were, of course, simply part of some ongoing lineage and thus were, in and of themselves, already an "intermediate" or once discovered, now a not-missing-link!.
An exactly-as-imagined and beautifully preserved artifact, laid out with a toe-tag, is increasingly less likely and not easily discovered at this point in our anthropological history, given the ravages of time, looting, corrosion, etc.
Plus, logically, why would you not accept that any species you DO have in hand, retrieved from the darkest jungles, is, in and of itself, a "transitional" between literally anyprior and subsequent genotypes during reproduction or natural mutation?
In essence, TG, you are categorically denying that DNA mutates, and therefore can lead to either a lethal end-product (...and the genotype is thus lost), a zero-sum game (nothing essentially happens for now, but the change may well be carried as recessive or non-functionnig for now)or that it might just possibly confer some sort of improvement value over it's prior genotype.
And it is thus [potentially] valuable and is carried on into all future offspring. Thereby, complexity is increased, and over Billions of years, it gets quite complex (Just look at you and I or instance!).
But still.... be our guest: deny all this.
The shrill distant (but thankfully now fading...) Drumbeat of Denial from anti-Evolution Christians will continue to thinly waft over the African landscape to claim, absolutely, there's no relationship proven here, that we still need yet another "Missing Link!"
NOTE: "Semantics" in and of itself is hardly a good argument against, or for, anything. And yet, it's all the game many here seem to own.
Last edited by rifleman; 12-02-2011 at 10:48 AM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The Truth
All the news that's fit to print!
Belief by AweStruck-ed-Ness!
