Questions for Evolutionists

[Hawkens]

That is not what evolution means. You appear to be talking more about abiogenesis, a completely different matter.

I'm talking about macroevolution.....pay attention.

The Oxford English Dictionary (the standard reference for word usage in the English language) includes 12 different definitions for "evolution", including:

Unfolding, opening out, emergence.

Growth according to inherent tendencies.

Rise or origination of anything by natural development.

"The process of developing, or working out in detail, what is implicitly or potentially contained in an idea or principle."

Biological development (i.e. ontogeny),

(specifically, the "Theory of Evolution" by Bonnet, 1762, now referred to as "preformation").

Formation of the heavenly bodies

Origin of species

 

I say again, quote me a single example in peer reviewed litereature from the last forty years in which scientists argue in a substantive way over the age of the Earth.

 

Radioisotopes

and the Age of the Earth

 

Vardiman, Snelling, Chaffin, Baumgardner, Austin, DeYoung, Humphreys. 2000 Institute for Creation Research and Creation Research Society. 676 pages ISBN: 0-932766-19-6.

 

This is a status report on the RATE (Radioisotopes and the age of the earth) project. The book discusses isochrons and other experimental results within a creationist young earth time frame. Models for accelerated decay during creation week, the Fall, or during the Genesis Flood are prime hypotheses for explaining radioisotope data. The geophysical and geological histories of rocks and magma sources of igneous rocks must also be considered.

There ya go.

[bumab]

There ya go.

 

And which journal is that from?

[Hawkens]

And which journal is that from?

It's a book.

 

Here's a whole site with a bunch of books and articles.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/young.asp

[C1ay]

You have any scientific evdience to support this?

Don't need any, I have faith.

[Skippy]

It is not nonsensical. Evolution - the change in the frequencies of alleles within a population over time - has been demonstrated almost ad infinitum. You are a biologist by training. How can you deny this simple fact?

Sorry, I guess it is my fear of incrementalism. I have stated that there is support for micro, but it is a leap of faith to claim that macro-evolution is a fact. I always assume that is what one is talking about macro if not otherwise stated, that keeps me from acknowledging something which cannot be proved.

 

So I guess gravity doesn't really exist then.

But that is a side issue. The mechanism is important. The mechanism is what the deabtes (those of any value) are about. But whether or not we have the mechansim defined in detail the fact of evolution, as noted above, remains.

No. Every time an apple falls from a tree, Dick Van Dyke trips on the ottoman or they run the Wide World of Sports promo (ski jumper ouch) we see proof that gravity exists. Standing on the edge of your roof and stepping forward is a "mechanism" which proves that a force we call gravity exists. We can discuss whether the moon is held in its orbit around the earth by gravity since the mechanism to prove that hypothesis is not available, but whehter there is a force holding us to the ground is testable, and indeed measurable.

[Little Bang]

It is astonishing that a normal human being can ever make the statement that because science can't disprove God created the universe therefore it must be true. There is absolutely not a single piece of of scientific evidence for creationism, and yet the evidence for evolution is overwhelming. I will be the first to admit that the possibility of some entity creating the universe does exist, and if there is any proof it will be found in the quantum universe, not in a book that was thrown together by scraps of parchment and legend.

[MortenS]

And everytime we make a stratigraphic dig through the earth and we discover a change in form over the different sedimentary layers, we observe facts (change in forms over time = evolution) that needs an explanation (= theory of evolution).

 

Even creationism is an explanation for evolution, not a scientific one, but nevertheless an explanation. A young earth creationist view requires more genetic mutations than biologists ever have dreamed about to create the genetic variation we see today in various species (that creationists tend to lump conveniently together as a "kind"), and they only divide layers of earth into three layers (it beats me how they manage that).

 

If I come with an example of a tephritid fly that have split into two species, I get the reply from creationists: but it is still a tephritid fly! (or even worse, it is still a fly, and not a beetle). If I point to the genetic and morphological similarities between butterflies (in particular moths) and caddisflies, they are still of the insect kind. This kind concept really annoys me, as there is no objective criteria at all to establish what a "kind" is. It is as elusive as the word group we use in zoology, but that term is meant to be usable at several levels of organization.

 

It would be nice if creationists agreed to use species instead of kind, and explain how species can change into other species, regardless of what kind they belonged to. Because with the concept of kind many creationists use, they are indeed saying that many evolutionary changes took place in the last 10000 years or so, even if they do not admit it.

They are also agreeing to microevolution, and they agree that microevolution can explain variations within kinds, but not the move from one kind to another kind. If a biblical kind consists of several biological species, it is no problem for creationists to accept that microevolution produced these species from the original kind.

 

Correct me if I am wrong on some of this, but this is the impression I am left with after a decade of following the creationism/evolution debate. With creationism and creationists in this message I am referring to Young Earth Creationists (=YEC).

[Hawkens]

It is astonishing that a normal human being can ever make the statement that because science can't disprove God created the universe therefore it must be true.

Who stated that or are you assuming?

There is absolutely not a single piece of of scientific evidence for creationism, and yet the evidence for evolution is overwhelming.

If it is so overwelming, then why have you not provided any?

I will be the first to admit that the possibility of some entity creating the universe does exist, and if there is any proof it will be found in the quantum universe, not in a book that was thrown together by scraps of parchment and legend.

I'm not posting what I already have again because you didn't read the whole thread.

[Hawkens]

Even creationism is an explanation for evolution, not a scientific one, but nevertheless an explanation.

Please enlighten me on how yours is scientific and the other is not. Are they both not only theories? The only difference being that you don't believe one over the other? Last I knew, neither was proven at all. Only an educated guess.

 

Maybe this needs a new topic? :circle:

[MortenS]

When you start out with the conclusion you want to reach, and bend "tests" you device to conform to the conclusion you want to reach, it is not scientific. ICR and other creationist institutions set out to prove that the world conforms to the their literal interpretation of the bible, they do not go out and study the world, and then find out it fits with the bible....it is actually a big difference to interpret the world to fit the bible rather than interpret the bible to fit the world.

[Erasmus00]

Please enlighten me on how yours is scientific and the other is not. Are they both not only theories? The only difference being that you don't believe one over the other? Last I knew, neither was proven at all. Only an educated guess.

 

Maybe this needs a new topic? :circle:

 

One easy crtieria is that one makes predictions (evolution) one makes none (creationism). And I also find it interesting that FishTeacher took the time to answer all of your questions, and you still say there is no proof at all for evolution.

-Will

[Hawkens]

When you start out with the conclusion you want to reach, and bend "tests" you device to conform to the conclusion you want to reach, it is not scientific.

Give examples.

 

If your going to make such claims then it would help to give examples. How about finding somebody that isn't doing biased research. Is there anyone out there doing it in the real name of science and not for money or a cause? Maybe it's athiests trying to bend discoveries into the view of the Evolutionists. I mean if they found a clue to a "young earth" then it would shatter their career just as bad as a Creationist's career if they found a clue to an "old earth".

 

Your statement is unfair and biased.

 

Just like this article....

"Big Dud Theory"

Glimpse at Early Universe Reveals Surprisingly Mature Galaxies

Observations challenge standing view of how and when galaxies formed

 

A rare glimpse back in time into the universe's early evolution has revealed something startling: mature, fully formed galaxies where scientists expected to discover little more than infants.

This is the full aritcle for further details.

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=14524

Some new ingredient is required to make more stars form earlier in the big galaxies. But what that ingredient is, we don't yet know."

I'm willing to take a guess on this one.

[Hawkens]

And I also find it interesting that FishTeacher took the time to answer all of your questions, and you still say there is no proof at all for evolution.

Did he?

And C1ay did me the favor of answering FishTeacher for me....

If you find any such people be sure to take their answers with a grain of salt. Evolution is a theory, not a fact.

I may not agree with C1ay one's beliefs but at least he's honest.

 

Well.....at least FT tried and I plan to review his answers too and research them when I have time. I am very grateful he answered them.

[Skippy]

And everytime we make a stratigraphic dig through the earth and we discover a change in form over the different sedimentary layers, we observe facts (change in forms over time = evolution) that needs an explanation (= theory of evolution).

Once again you make an assumption. You assume that because there are no neanderthals (or other hominids) living today that they were a precursor to homo sapiens. There is no evidence that a neanderthal mating pair begat a homo sapiens, but I will grant you that there are fossils of neanderthals and much has been learned from extrapolation about how they lived.

[MortenS]

I am not talking about hominids at all. Fossils of Homo sapiens or H . neanderthalensis are not necessary at all to establish the facts I am pointing at. I'd rather look at animals and plants that fossilize more readily than human beings: e.g. marine animals that live in environments where frequent slides will cover the bottom-dwelling fauna.

[Skippy]

When you start out with the conclusion you want to reach, and bend "tests" you device to conform to the conclusion you want to reach, it is not scientific. ICR and other creationist institutions set out to prove that the world conforms to the their literal interpretation of the bible, they do not go out and study the world, and then find out it fits with the bible....it is actually a big difference to interpret the world to fit the bible rather than interpret the bible to fit the world.

The same can be said for 99.9% of what passes for macro-evolutionary's "tests" which are then referred to as factual. Evolution's advocates (acolytes) have closed their minds when it comes to anything which points a questioning finger at what they hold so dear. Usually they try to throw out the evidnce and say it was bad data. Sometimes, you have had evolutionists so desperate to show proof for the integrity of their faith that they have falsely called pig's teeth and orangutan skull fragments human precursors and evidence of the missing link. Talk about delusion.

 

Check out the "Evolution: Religion or Science?" thread and see what I mean...look at previous posts here. Saying that evolution is "fact" when there are so many reasonable questions about it is evidence for many that evolution has becaome a religion. Maybe it is more correctly one of the dogmas of the religion known as "Naturalism."

[Fishteacher73]

Forams are one of the pieces that is used to point to rth KT boundry indicating the shift from cretaceous to tertiary. There are undisturbed sediments that show a very clear picture of macroevolution (also some good examples of sudden extinction events). Pre KT boundry have at least 5 genera of Forams. Directly after only one exists. The diversity and complexity of forams increases continually in the fossil record followiing. This includes new genera.

An excellent picture of macroevolution.