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Thanks. Btw, not too many obvious blunders in my posts here, so far?
I was thinking last night when writing a letter to Mrs Arq and listening to Sibelius 4 ("How did you spend Sunday afternoon?") about the problem of Living Fossils. They are the nearest thing to an embarrassment for Evolution. We don't have dinosaurs around but we have a lot of sea creatures from much older times. Sharks, King crabs, Nautilus and Coelacanth, too. Damn' we even have that little Cambrian shrimp recently discovered.
Doesn't that suggest that they are still alive because they are not millions of years old? Only thousands?
Ok, let's suppose that's true. Let's see how the world looks if that's true. And they were created all in one go and the flood wiped them out apart from the ones on the Ark. And the argument is that the fish were left where they were as the Flood wouldn't bother them and having Aquaria on the ark would be the last straw.
The strata from Carboniferous (with Polystrates) to Jurassic (because it has the tracks of dinosaur -herds in) and Cretaceous (because it has an extinction of dinosaurs) are all seen as laid down by the flood. And the demonstration of precipitation of levels can be marshalled to fit that because of course the strata are going to be sedimentary and the folding weathering and upthrusting can all be put down to the breakup of Pangaea (1). So what do we have?
We have a huge number of fish all dead through flood activity - regularly produced as evidence for a Flood, so not having them on the Ark means that God pretty much only bothered with the saving of land animals, and the sea -critters could take their chances. So wouldn't we expect to find land animals up to and including mammoths in the Devonian levels? We should, as claims are made that there are animal bones in there. Such claims turn out to be no more than a washed -in land fossil fragment in a layer of fish phosphates and sharks' teeth and some claims of all kinds of critters fossilized together that turn out (via some confused clam of various bones found in a cave) to relate to the living fossil Nautilus. The 'better swimmers' argument is laughable. The brachiosaurs should be down with the lobe -fins. They are not. And the Permian Amphibians should be found in with the big mammals. They are not. The stratification relates to the evolutionary advancement of the species in all respects (living fossils aside - fossil Coelacanths are found in several strata - levels).
We have Nautilus, King crab and that Pre-cambrian shrimp. But where are the Belemnites, trilobites and sea -scorpions? Where, for that matter are the fossil lobsters? It would be cool to discover a living -fossil trilobite but the ancient world was swarming with them. We should have them in abundance. We don't.
Where are the Oxen, lions, giraffe and Indracotheria in with the Struthiomimids, Hadrosaurs and T Rex? Because you can't tell me a Dromosaur can't swim as well as a giraffe.
Where are they all today? We have birds and a few living fossils - all either sea creatures, insects or the single amphibian giant Salamander, so similar to Diplocaulus. But if Genesis and the flood and the dinosaur -herds in flood levels is correct, we should have pretty much all the species alive today, not just a few that found that conditions suited them well enough up to the present day. We ought to be awash with dinosaurs. Why did they all suddenly vanish apart from the odd Behemoth chewing lotus flowers in the river for the Bible authors to write about and the last lonely Stegosaur roaming the jungle of 13th c Cambodia? The skies ought to be pteeming with pterosaurs as the Creationists know well as they acclaimed with relieved cries a supposed film of a Pterodactyl in the skies of New Guinea.
Evolution, not a flood best explains the way the world is - including Living fossils, and the data, and the morphology, and the DNA evidence. The Creationists explanation does not work and it is hard to escape the idea that the propounders of it know that it doesn't and is only intended to fool those who do not look very far.
My proposal to Expat and the other creationists is that ..as an evolution teacher said, "You don't have to believe this stuff, but you do have to learn it". I can't demand that anyone believe evolution, but it is surely reasonable to expect that what they argue is correct. Get the arguments, data and facts right. Doing the old business of misrepresenting what evolution is (2), says and claims in order to make a case disrespects both sides in the argument.
(1) Eusebius' ingenious scenario of the mountains all rising before then in order to to turn the Flood waters into the present oceans doesn't seem to have caught on, yet.
(2) and I have got to reference the not infrequent "Evolution does not say that dogs gave birth to cats or cows to whales."
"Yes it does because this creationist site says so."
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 08-31-2015 at 05:57 AM..
Slightly off topic: Are the young earth/creation beliefs from a specific religion or are Creationists spread out among several religions? Serious question.
Slightly off topic: Are the young earth/creation beliefs from a specific religion or are Creationists spread out among several religions? Serious question.
Seriously taken. Creationism was pretty much universal up until Darwin. No wonder he is such an Icon of hate. There was no other explanation than a huge invisible human (or in some cases a fish or kangaroo) made everything, because nobody could think of any other answer. Just as there was no answer to disease than demons or magical spells or lightning other than angry gods throwing darts.
As is so often claimed, the scientists before Darwin were all creationists because there was no other explanation on the table. The Founding fathers...well a lot of 18th c bods...were deists because they were educated and wise enough to see that the Bible was bunk and religion garbage...but there was no explanation of creation other than a deistgod who made everything and then made like he didn't exist.
There were some ideas about the evolution of critters and plants before Darwin and he wasn't at all without precursors, but he was the first one to discover the mechanism and demonstrate it, also making the predictions about transitional fossils being found. Though he could never have imagined DNA confirming the evidence or the link from dinosaurs to birds.
That of course did not mean that he 'was always getting things wrong' but supportive evidence he had no idea of added to the knowledge he had.
Of course Bible literalism - pretty much universal at the time - reacted badly and simply denied the whole evolution thing. In the US this came to focus in the Scopes 'Monkey trial' where the teaching of evolution in school was illegal. Evolution lost the case, but won the argument. So, from then on, Bible -literalist Creationism fought evolution theory tooth and nail and the fact is that science has been winning the data argument and creationism has been winning the financial resources argument since then.
Over the past twenty years I have seen USA Creationism pushed back from a position of a serious threat with a large number of books arguing creationism and rubbishing evolution to an effort to smuggle Creationism into the science class stopped dead in a law court (the Dover trial) and claim after claim refuted until AIG has to list arguments they think Creationism should not use.
Everywhere science was taught, Evolution -theory was, too. But everywhere Christianity was taught, Creationism would get in there too, from Catholic South America to Christian minority Japan. And just a decade ago, Militant Islam woke up and clambered onto the creationist bandwagon.
I think that Creationism, like religion itself, will lose in the end, because people do want to believe that they have good reasons for what they believe and the internet, while it does disseminate a lot of codswallop, means that Creationists cannot control information by throwing money at it.
In the meantime, science has woken up and realized the danger and we are here to help. Because unlike Creationist religion, science does not have unlimited fund -raising abilities.
Try reading up on evolutionary change through natural selection. That gives the answers.
Natural selection does not give the answer .
If there were so there would be many more creatures that would tolerate being frozen and come back to life.
There re many insects that die to preserve their species even explode . This is not a evolved process .
Beside the fact,with on all species the graduation should exist and the DNA should be more compatible and it is not.
Mutations do not reproduce them self. (except for man's interference)
If evolution was a valid point why is man deteriorating with time and not getting stronger healthier and smarter?
In fact the opposite is true
If evolution was a valid point why is man deteriorating with time and not getting stronger healthier and smarter?
In fact the opposite is true
I think modern medicine has overthrown natural selection. The weak survive to reproduce. In addition, natural selection also rewards promiscuity and carelessness, both of which produce more offspring.
Natural selection does not give the answer .
If there were so there would be many more creatures that would tolerate being frozen and come back to life.
There re many insects that die to preserve their species even explode . This is not a evolved process .
Beside the fact,with on all species the graduation should exist and the DNA should be more compatible and it is not.
Mutations do not reproduce them self. (except for man's interference)
If evolution was a valid point why is man deteriorating with time and not getting stronger healthier and smarter?
In fact the opposite is true
Sorry but your question shows more your poor understanding of the theory of evolution than it does any weakness in the theory.
I will only address your last point. What makes you think there is any evidence of that statement. First of all there theory of evolultion does not make any claim that a species will improve over time nor that there is a need for species to be always improving towards a goal. As there are 7 billion people on this planet and the population is growing rapidly why would you think there is a need for some individuals to be stronger, healthier and smarter and therefor leave more offspring? In fact in societies, as the society becomes more prosperous the tendency is to have less not more offspring. What evidence do you have for humans to be deteroriating with time? It may be true that the average person is not as strong as 4 generations ago but that has to do with what we do for work, a lot less miners and more accountants. Compare the feats of today's atheletes with those of the past (leaving out the steroids). Today's hockey players and football players are larger, stronger and faster than the ones 4 decades ago and that is testable. Smarter or better educated? If we are getting less healthy why is life expectiacny still rising in most nations? Environemental factors come in with health too, it is unlikely that we will evolve to be more able to live in polluted areas simply as there is no population drive to do so.
Natural selection does not give the answer .
If there were so there would be many more creatures that would tolerate being frozen and come back to life.
There re many insects that die to preserve their species even explode . This is not a evolved process.
Beside the fact,with on all species the graduation should exist and the DNA should be more compatible and it is not.
Mutations do not reproduce them self. (except for man's interference)
If evolution was a valid point why is man deteriorating with time and not getting stronger healthier and smarter?
In fact the opposite is true
In fact the opposite of your opposite is true. Maybe your perception is skewed by spending too much time with creationists.
In fact, many, many species can survive in the same way in agreeable conditions. In less agreeable ones - like extreme cold - it lakes a bit more adaptation and not all can manage it. Many species evolve camouflage to fit in with their surroundings, but few are able to change their colour from time to time to fit their surroundings. a lot of insects can fly because the carapace and body structure is ready made for simple adaptation. But it is really only one species of reptile and one species of mammal that managed it.
I am sure that we -or rather you - can look up the Wetha to see how it can survive frozen solid. I would have to be sure you really were interested in an explanation though, rather than preferring to believe that there could be no explanation.
Ps. (Wiki) "All insects are ectothermic, which can make them vulnerable to freezing. In most animals, intra- and extracellular freezing causes severe tissue damage, resulting in death. Insects that have evolved freeze-tolerance strategies manage to avoid tissue damage by controlling where, when, and to what extent ice forms "
Surprisingly 85% of southern Hemisphere insects are freeze -tolerant and near 30% on northern hemisphere ones.
There may be more flying mammals than I thought, too!
Nope - just the one: bats just like one Dino -reptile relaive: Pterosaurs (sorry, two, the bird -dinosaurs, of course). And they developed the same solution - an extended finger rather as the unrelated dinosaur -bird line (pterosaurs did not lead to birds - the running land - dinos did) extended the arm and claw to form a wing. Three separate examples of parallel evolution. Just like Ichthyosaurs and dolphins - reptiles and mammals that evolved to become like fish.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 08-31-2015 at 08:05 AM..
In fact the opposite of your opposite is true. Maybe your perception is skewed by spending too much time with creationists.
In fact, many, many species can survive in the same way in agreeable conditions. In less agreeable ones - like extreme cold - it lakes a bit more adaptation and not all can manage it. Many species evolve camouflage to fit in with their surroundings, but few are able to change their colour from time to time to fit their surroundings. a lot of insects can fly because the carapace and body structure is ready made for simple adaptation. But it is really only one species of reptile and one species of mammal that managed it.
I am sure that we -or rather you - can look up the Wetha to see how it can survive frozen solid. I would have to be sure you really were interested in an explanation though, rather than preferring to believe that there could be no explanation.
Ps. (Wiki) "All insects are ectothermic, which can make them vulnerable to freezing. In most animals, intra- and extracellular freezing causes severe tissue damage, resulting in death. Insects that have evolved freeze-tolerance strategies manage to avoid tissue damage by controlling where, when, and to what extent ice forms "
Surprisingly 85% of southern Hemisphere insects are freeze -tolerant and near 30% on northern hemisphere ones.
There may be more flying mammals than I thought, too!
Nope - just the one: bats just like one Dino -reptile relaive: Pterosaurs (sorry, two, the bird -dinosaurs, of course). And they developed the same solution - an extended finger rather as the unrelated dinosaur -bird line (pterosaurs did not lead to birds - the running land - dinos did) extended the arm and claw to form a wing. Three separate examples of parallel evolution. Just like Ichthyosaurs and dolphins - reptiles and mammals that evolved to become like fish.
If I can add to this, for evolution to work there also must be some genetic potenial as well. Plus for something like the ability to not freeze blood cells there is a cost to producing that product. For species of insects that seldom face the situation of freezing to dead, the extra input required to make that product would put that individual at a competitive disadvantage as the ones without that ability would be better able to reproduce due to more energy for it available. If freezing was always nearly wiping out the population that those few individuals that do have that ability to survive will be the ones leaving the most offspring and therefore the population will now be better able to survive freezing.
Too many creationists have the notion that evolution works to make an animal perfect. There is no goal in evolution, animals are not evolving to be better. Evolution works that the individual that is best adapted to its current environment is more likely to leave more offspring than the individuals that are not as well adapted. As environment changes, so does which individual is best adapted. Species that live in a wide range of environments or have an environment that is cyclical is more often going to have a wider range of individuals than species that live in a limit stable environment.
I would have thought that if a God designed all animals than all insects would be able to withstand freezing temperatures and species that have limited ranges should have a greater ability to tolerate a greater range. But the meat of intelligence design or creationism seems to be based on evolution is wrong therefore my God made it.
If evolution was a valid point why is man deteriorating with time and not getting stronger healthier and smarter?
In fact the opposite is true
Why would you say Man is deteriorating? Our average lifespan is longer than ever. Our species dominates the Earth like no other species has. Humans are clearly smarter than our ancestors, judging by the increasing sophistication of technology versus primitive stone tools.
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but the ancient world was swarming with them. We should have them in abundance. We don't.
There was no other explanation than a huge invisible human (or in some cases a fish or kangaroo) made everything, because nobody could think of any other answer. Just as there was no answer to disease than demons or magical spells or lightning other than angry gods throwing darts.