Is Bible history fact or fiction?

[Boerseun]

Unlike the others, gravity is proved every time Shaquille O'Neal jumps. It is a Law. Theories abound as to its cause, but it takes some good drugs to deny it exists.

 

I've seen nothing to "prove" evolution. We have fossil evidence that creatures that once existed no longer exist and theories to "prove" where they came from and why they are extinct, but there are way too many gaps and far too many kooks involved in fabrication of evidence to say that evolution has been "proved."

Experiments done with fruitflies in glass jars over a few weeks will demostrate most of what you doubt regarding evolution.

 

Domesticated animals like sheep and cattle demonstrates evolution through artificial selection, with humans being the agent of change. Human beings, in this example, could be substituted by environmental pressure of any kind that might influence evolution. If its to your benefit as a species to have a thick coat of wool, humans will rather slaughter sheep with shorther, less dense wool and select the thicker-coated sheep for breeding. Couple of generations later, and the thick-wool gene is passed on to a pretty large percentage of the sheep population, and might even be a dominant trait in a fairly short period. The bigger the pressure for change, the quicker the beneficial trait will spread through the population.

 

I have to stress that this is by no means intentional, there is no "intelligence" directing this, its purely mathematical and statistical in nature.

But I digress.

 

Coming back to the issue of the Flood, tectonics offers a satisfactory explanation of why we find fish fossils in the Andes. In my opinion, the tradition of the Flood was probably orally handed down from generation to generation, initially being a description of a memorable local flood, as does happen. If your world only stretches to the horizon, a localized flood will seem (to you, at least) to cover the entire Earth. There's not enough H2O on this planet to cover every continent with water. Even if all the icecaps and glaciers were to melt, the impact will be devestating to coastal communities, to be sure, but a couple of miles inland, and you'd be dry as a bone.

[Biochemist]

Many of the points on that site link over the ICR, a group actively engaged in what an only be described as pseudoscience.

I don't like these guys either, but I do not think it is legitimate to critiques sources in place of critiquing facts or interpretations..

...All in all, the "flood model" calls into question some very well verified science, and offers no new explanatory power. Many of the "theories" designed to support it (hydroplate theory,water canopy theory, etc) are downright silly.

I mentioned before that I am neither a Young Earth Creationist, nor a flood geologist. But I think the Hydroplate Theory should not be discarded out of hand until the predictions it has posited are refuted.

The fact that people still fight over punctuated equilibrium I think is my point. Scientists battle it out over theories constantly. I've been to evolutionary biology colloquia at Cornell, and it seems to me that biologists battle over theories just as vehemently as any other scientists.

They do, but there is an endemic anti-theist, or more accurately, a pro Naturalism bias. This bias will tend against any evidence of design (for example) no mattrer how pervasive. PE is interesting, in that it frames a problem, and offers no solution. But any solution that suggests any model otuside of mutation-based speciation gets shouted down, presumably becasue of the "risk" of theism. Precluding theories because one does not like the implications is not science.

The fact is, young earth creationists are making an extraordinary claim (essentially that many different areas of geology, evolutionary biology, climate science are outright wrong. All of this wrongness amounts to a near conspiracy to make the Earth appear older than it actually is.)

Maybe. And I am not a geologist. But I am humorously surprised at the breadth of acceptance of mutation-based speciation among biochemists in spite of the avalanche of evidence that suggests (every year increasingly so) that this model is not reasonable. I currently accept that the earth is about 4.5 billion years old. I, frankly, wonder how much I would believe that if I were a geologist.

On a more personal note, I am a religious man, and I think creationism does much more harm than good.

I understand the point. I usually cringe when folks discuss Creationism. The problem, I believe is that the vast majority of Creationsts are not scientists. Even the vast majority of "scientific" creationisists are not scientists. But, to be fair, thae vast majority of evolutionists are not scientists either. I don't critique evolution becasue my mom thinks it is true, and her analysis is weak. The issue is the creedence of the best analysis, not the median opinion holder. The best analysis for creationism is interesting. I don't agree with it, but it is not silly. I don't think that folks that hold to mutation-based speciation are silly or stupid either. I just do not agree with them.

[eMTee]

Have you ever read any books on evolution from a science perspective? Perhaps the reason you've seen nothing to prove evolution is that you haven't looked. A brief google search turned up this site:http://talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-mustread.html which has several good faqs about evolution and the evidence to support it.

you All seem to say you have all the "Science" to suport evolution...but you have yet to find geological evidence to go along with it. Has anyone found fossil records suporting this theory? as of yet, no one has argued against that.

[Skippy]

Experiments done with fruitflies in glass jars over a few weeks will demostrate most of what you doubt regarding evolution.

Do you mean that the flies will change into bees? Dragonflies? Perhaps mosquitoes? :wave:

[Skippy]

Domesticated animals like sheep and cattle demonstrates evolution through artificial selection, with humans being the agent of change. Human beings, in this example, could be substituted by environmental pressure of any kind that might influence evolution. If its to your benefit as a species to have a thick coat of wool, humans will rather slaughter sheep with shorther, less dense wool and select the thicker-coated sheep for breeding. Couple of generations later, and the thick-wool gene is passed on to a pretty large percentage of the sheep population, and might even be a dominant trait in a fairly short period. The bigger the pressure for change, the quicker the beneficial trait will spread through the population.

What you describe here is "selective breeding." My son is in FFA, show pig/cattle breeders do this all of the time. What evolution says though is that my son's pig could mate with another pig and a goat or lamb or cow might be the resulting progeny. Talk about preposterous :wave: .

 

I agree with you and Darwin in "selective speciation." A moth that is white will fare better in a forest with trees that have white bark than it will in The Black Forest. A bird that can use a stick to get ants for food will fare better than a bird that has a short, powerful beak for cracking seeds if ants are available and seeds are not. BUT that, my friend is not evolution... that is "Survival of the Fittest," a.k.a. - "Selective Speciation."

[eMTee]

The claims of spotting Noah's Ark on Mt. Ararat were a hoax,

A hoax? that is still up, is there proof that it is a hoax?

[Skippy]

Have you ever read any books on evolution from a science perspective? Perhaps the reason you've seen nothing to prove evolution is that you haven't looked. A brief google search turned up this site:http://talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-mustread.html which has several good faqs about evolution and the evidence to support it.

-Will

I believe the texts I read at Rice University in Zoology, Botany, "Evolution Of Behavior," Human Anatomy, Human Physiology and Human Sexuality :wave: classes should suffice. I approached those texts with the same skepticism I'm told on one of these forums that quote all scientists should approach any subject with unquote. Just because the theory of evolution was spoken of in those books (and by my profs.) as fact, that didn't make it so. Thse texts spoke of Java Man, Piltdown Man and others as proof of the "Missing Link." Piltdown Man's "fossils" turned out to be from a contemporary orangutan. The man who found Java Man admitted later that he had hidden other skeletal fragments and that the bones probably belonged to a common gibbon. NEITHER of these was spoken of as a hoax in those texts, and when confronted with these facts, evolutionists continue to use those and other hoaxes as proof for their religion.

 

Have YOU ever read Phillip Johnson's books, Darwin on Trial, Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds, or Reason in the Balance? The second title should be enough to intrigue those on this forum (as well as on the "Is there a God? What do YOU think???" thread where one possible answer is, "I am a Freethinker, and therefore have no BELIEF in anything, only acceptance of things") to get you to read it. Mr. Johsnon has been very effective in debates with celebrated evolutionists on campuses across the country.

[eMTee]

What about "Nebraska Man" who was found out to have been formed from a pig tooth, and they even made his wife as well.

 

do you call this science?..or do you call these people that make these things scientists?

[Skippy]

What about "Nebraska Man" who was found out to have been formed from a pig tooth, and they even made his wife as well.

Good point. Most of the "missing link fossil evidence" is just one or two obscure bones. A tooth here, a mandible there, an occipital there... One purported evolutionary step was drawn based on one bone, a heel bone. From it a whole body was designed. :wave:

 

These and other examples of the hoxes "scientists" have been pulling on us are here: http://streetsofgold.org/streets/pages/articles/apologetics/witness/evolution/evohoaxes.shtml

[eMTee]

I also heard that the famous bird-lizard fossil (a bird with a lizard tail i think)-sorry that I don't know the name of it-, was a hoax

National Geographic baught the fossil from a Chinese guy that claimed it was real for I don't know how many millions of dollars..later they found that it was two diffrent fossils cut to fit and glued togeather and made to look like one piece. it was a good money maker.

[Erasmus00]

A hoax? that is still up, is there proof that it is a hoax?

 

Yes, a boat load. Jammal himself admitted it. Google George Jammal.

-Will

[eMTee]

Tell me...why do they persist in coming out with more info about the Noah's Ark sitting..having more suport in finding it? Have they gone mad?

[Erasmus00]

Thse texts spoke of Java Man, Piltdown Man and others as proof of the "Missing Link." Piltdown Man's "fossils" turned out to be from a contemporary orangutan. The man who found Java Man admitted later that he had hidden other skeletal fragments and that the bones probably belonged to a common gibbon. NEITHER of these was spoken of as a hoax in those texts, and when confronted with these facts, evolutionists continue to use those and other hoaxes as proof for their religion.

 

How old were those books? I've yet to hear an evolutionary biologist use Java Man, Piltdown Man, or Nebraska Man as evidence. And, I should point out that creationist are just as quick to jump on evidence that turns out to be a hoax (the man tracks in Texas, for instance). There is plenty of other evidence of speciation. The Talk Origins site I referenced earlier has tons of pages discussing intermediary fossils, etc, etc. I suggest checking it out.

 

Have YOU ever read Phillip Johnson's books, Darwin on Trial, Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds, or Reason in the Balance? .

 

Yes, I have read Darwin on Trial. I have not read the other two.

-Will

[Boerseun]

I also heard that the famous bird-lizard fossil (a bird with a lizard tail i think)-sorry that I don't know the name of it-, was a hoax

National Geographic baught the fossil from a Chinese guy that claimed it was real for I don't know how many millions of dollars..later they found that it was two diffrent fossils cut to fit and glued togeather and made to look like one piece. it was a good money maker.

...you are referring to Archaeopteryx, which isn't a hoax.

 

Oh, sure - individual cases might be hoaxes, but the bird-lizard archaeopteryx, a bird with tail bones, tiny little dinosaur teeth and feathers to boot, is no hoax.

 

Neither is the duck-billed platypus, whose stuffed form was regarded for most of the 18th century in Britain to be the hoax of the century.

 

Or, for that matter, the coelecanth.

 

I admit - there are HUGE gaps in the fossil record, and due to the nature of this specific discipline, there will be for still some time to come. Due to the difficulties involved in fossilizing any one given individual animal, finding a particular fossil you're looking for is very rare. Finding a fossil per se is not so rare, and any found fossil is plugged into the fossil record to see where it fits. And every now and then one is found that brings some of the boudaries closer together. Give it time. But, from an objective point of view, this is still the best explanation we have.

 

Go to a scrapyard, and look for a toaster. You won't find it. But you will, rather quickly, find an electric cord (or a piece thereof), a power plug (or a piece thereof), a little piece of this and a little piece of that, which, if you put them together, might look like a metal box with strange slits in it. What is it? If you put all the scrap together, connect the dots, so to speak, you might just infer that this device was meant to burn a slice of bread to a crisp. Sounds unbelievable. Who in his right mind would want to burn a piece of perfectly good bread? But the evidence is undeniable, although some skeptics and "Bread Creation Scientists" will call you a loon for it.

[Boerseun]

What you describe here is "selective breeding." My son is in FFA, show pig/cattle breeders do this all of the time. What evolution says though is that my son's pig could mate with another pig and a goat or lamb or cow might be the resulting progeny. Talk about preposterous :wave: .

 

I agree with you and Darwin in "selective speciation." A moth that is white will fare better in a forest with trees that have white bark than it will in The Black Forest. A bird that can use a stick to get ants for food will fare better than a bird that has a short, powerful beak for cracking seeds if ants are available and seeds are not. BUT that, my friend is not evolution... that is "Survival of the Fittest," a.k.a. - "Selective Speciation."

Skippy - I fail to see the problem here.

 

You agree to evolution, and "Survival of the Fittest" actually wraps it up nicely. What exactly is the difference, here?

 

Two animals are defined to be of different species if they can't interbreed.

 

Humans and chimpanzees can't interbreed, but share close to 98% of their genes. If they didn't branch off from the same ancestral species, how did they get to share their genes?

They are two distinct species. If you deny this, then you have thrown the whole science of genetics out the back door. Which is fine. Seeing as this is a science forum, this can be tolerated, as long as you come with an alternative to explain the evidence. And this, my friend, will be a daunting task - for the weight of evidence supporting Darwin, evolution, genetics, inheritance, etc. is slightly more than the two or three pounds (depending on your version) of the Good Book.

[Skippy]

You agree to evolution, and "Survival of the Fittest" actually wraps it up nicely. What exactly is the difference, here?

Don't misunderstand what I said... I do not agree to evolution which says all living creatures evolved from a single celled organism which somehow came into existence from chemicals in some primordial ooze. It can't be supported by anything but science fiction. What I agreed to was that using interbreeding within a Genus, some new species can be made (look at A.K.C. species histories). That type of speciation is dog mating dog and begetting a dog. What evolution suggests is dog mating dog begetting goat or lamb or some totally different species - it can't happen.

 

 

Humans and chimpanzees can't interbreed, but share close to 98% of their genes. If they didn't branch off from the same ancestral species, how did they get to share their genes? They are two distinct species. If you deny this, then you have thrown the whole science of genetics out the back door. Which is fine. Seeing as this is a science forum, this can be tolerated, as long as you come with an alternative to explain the evidence. And this, my friend, will be a daunting task - for the weight of evidence supporting Darwin, evolution, genetics, inheritance, etc. is slightly more than the two or three pounds (depending on your version) of the Good Book.

They don't SHARE genes!! According to The Human Genome Project Information Site "The human genome is not so very different from that of chimpanzees or mice, and it even shares many common elements with the genome of the lowly fruit fly." In fact, "The genome of a mouse is 99 percent similar to a human being's." According to Scientific American, "about 40 percent of all yeast genes have a human counterpart or have a gene which is similar in function in humans." If I researched enough, I'd probably find that humans share 70% of the same genetic sequence as a fungus or lichen or some such plant. So What? That proves nothing but that all DNA is composed of Adenine, Cytosene, Guanine and Thymine.

[Biochemist]

...you are referring to Archaeopteryx, which isn't a hoax.

 

Oh, sure - individual cases might be hoaxes, but the bird-lizard archaeopteryx, a bird with tail bones, tiny little dinosaur teeth and feathers to boot, is no hoax.

I thought the consensus now was that this little dude was a real bird, not a half/half example. It is not a hoax, per se, but it is not the bird/reptile link as initially hypothesized.

Or, for that matter, the coelecanth.

Similar issue. This was not a hoax either, but it is certainly not the lung fish that was initially hypothesized. The "lungs" in the fossil record turned out to be fat bladders, when they actually ran across a living specimen. The live specimen trashed the interpretation of the fossil record.

there are HUGE gaps in the fossil record, and due to the nature of this specific discipline, there will be for still some time to come. Due to the difficulties involved in fossilizing any one given individual animal, finding a particular fossil you're looking for is very rare.

My impression is that many archeologists (perhaps a majority?) do not think there are huge gaps in the fossil record. The fundamental point of Gould and Eldredge in 1972 when they first proffered the Punctuated Equilibrium thesis is that the fossil record is largely complete. There are certainly holes, but the overall pattern is pretty well circumscribed. That thesis has held up well for the ensuing 30+ years through the addition of countless fossils, suggesting they were reasonably accurate.