No proof for evolution?
August 26, 2008
Often on the blogs we see a religious person claiming there is no proof for evolution. While such a statements is in effect a clear indication that said person has not been doing their homework it is still fairly easy to give them a very simple example. I have a sort of standard copy/paste reply to such statements of ignorance. It is one argument that made a big impact on my road from fundie to sceptic. It goes like this:
Imagine you write a book. It is a book about sound and how it behaves. You publish the book and have copyright on it. A couple of months later, you pick up another book about sound. You are furious when you notice that someone else has copied your work, and you promptly take them to court.
Now, how will you prove that the other person copied your book, since all the facts about sound, and how it behaves, are stated in the same way in both books? The other person could of course get the facts right too! In fact, the 2 books appear about 95 percent the same (factually)! You cannot tell the judge: “Well, your honour, I wrote the speed of sound is 330 m/s, and the other person wrote the same!”. The judge will laugh at you, since you claim that because the other person got his facts right, that he must have got it from you.
But, if there are errors in your book, errors about known facts, and they appear in the other book too, then you have a strong case for copyright infringement. If you made a mistake in your book, and wrote that the speed of sound is 632 m/s, and the other person repeats the EXACT SAME mistake, then you can prove that he copied from your book. Your case would be even better if you could come up with 37+ errors that you made that were repeated in the impostor’s book!
Humans must eat Vitamin C. They cannot fabricate their own Vitamin C. Why is that? It is because our gene for Vitamin C (GULO) fabrication is broken. It was a mutation that destroyed the function of the Vitamin C gene, therefore we have to eat stuff with Vitamin C in it, or else we would die (Skeerbuik/Scurvy). You know who sits with the same problem? Chimps! They also have the broken Vitamin C gene, and it is broken in the SAME sort of way that ours is. Why is that?
We know our DNA and Chimp DNA are VERY close to each other, about 95% and possibly even more. But apart from the entire DNA that works, that are the same, in both our species, we ALSO share ERRORS, like the Vitamin C gene (and many others, called pseudo-genes), with Chimps. To me, this is good proof that we and Chips evolved from the same type of ape thing. We share common ancestry (Thus, we did not evolve FROM Chimps; we simply share a common ancestor). We BOTH inherited the DNA that works, AND the various ERRORS from the common ancestor.
Relate this back to my copyright story at the start of this post and you will understand. But take it further. The 2 books are WORD FOR WORD, FACT AND ERROR, the same and even ordered the same, except for about 5% max, that differs. It is copies (imperfect) from the same source, the common ancestor.
Furthermore, this kicks Intelligent Design Creationism in the nuts. Did the designer make the same mistake in humans and in chimps? Well, not so perfect then, is he? Jokes aside, the above example is just one of many things that are explained by evolution in a clear and simple way. People who claim there is no evidence for evolution obviously have not made any effort to research and challenge their own views a bit. It is always better to form your world-view based on evidence than your “evidence” based on your world-view.
The Word of the Blog 
Excellent post!
I think this is a very decent explanation for the layman concerning evolution and how it works.
Haai Renier
Dig jou blog!
Ek hoop jy hou van ‘n bietjie opwinding…
“n Mercedes Bens het nie ‘n meganisme om olie te maak nie, hy moet inkry, en raai wat daar is ander make wat die selfde eienskappe het nl ‘n Isuzu ook hy moet olie inkry anders gaan hy dood ( seize), maar dis nie te se dat die merc van die Isuzu afstam nie, nee hulle oer oupa is die model T, en raai wat hy was vervaardig, en so het baie motors oor die jare ge evolve as jy wil, vinniger, beter ens. word ook vervaardig, maar hulle weet dit nie…shhh!
Sekerlik moet daar ‘n beter verduideliking van evolusie wees, die feit dat ons sal vergaan sonder Vit C is nie genoeg nie, wat van Proteiene, koolhidrate, water, yster, kalsium ens
Sekerlik is daar baie ander spesies wat dieselfde nodig het, en hulle is nie net ape nie.
Help my reg asb vriend
Weetie, Glo net: “Sekerlik moet daar ‘n beter verduideliking van evolusie wees, die feit dat ons sal vergaan sonder Vit C is nie genoeg nie, wat van Proteiene, koolhidrate, water, yster, kalsium ens”
Ja, ons het meer as net VitC nodig, soos ander lewende organismes ook maar. Ek moet bieg, ek verstaan glad jou vraag nie. Is evolusie volgens jou nie ‘n verduideliking nie of misgis ek myself.
I believe evolution did exist(exists) but it is also based on theory, good theory, but still theory, You see I’m a creationist, and I believe that all organisms didn’t just came into being by means of a big bang, that just doesn’t make sence to me, unless you can provide more facts or better theories to sustain your claims.
Are there any facts to prove evolution?
Weetie wrote: “I believe evolution did exist(exists) but it is also based on theory, good theory, but still theory.”
Evolution happens. Things change over time. The mechanism is random mutations and natural selection as far as we know. A scientific theory is not the same as the average use of the word “theory”. I must point out that “belief” is not required for evolution. Rather, you can accept or reject it based on data.
Weetie wrote: “You see I’m a creationist, and I believe that all organisms didn’t just came into being by means of a big bang, that just doesn’t make sense to me, unless you can provide more facts or better theories to sustain your claims.”
So, are you an old earth creationist or a young earth creationist? You say that you cannot understand how organisms came from the Big Bang?
Let’s see. Galaxies are moving away from each other. So ten minutes ago they would have been closer. A thousand years ago they would have been even closer and aprox 14.7 billion years ago all matter (energy) would have been at a single point. We can even see the background radiation caused by the big bang.
After a couple of millions of years the energy condensed into particles, like atoms (hydrogen and a bit of helium). Gravity pulls matter together causing the hydrogen to clump together. Enough gravity and the hydrogen fuses to make helium. This is what stars do, they are huge fusion reactors. It gets a bit complex from here but the heavy elements are fused only during a super-nova, a star that explodes. The energy requirements to make something like uranium is enormous. A new star can form again if there is enough hydrogen (like our sun). Our sun is probably the 3rd sun of the solar system. It’s called a third generation star. The previous two went bang. The debris from those explosions (more heavy elements) once again got clumped together by gravity to form planets and moons. Some debris remains, like comets and meteors. Our current solar system and sun is about 4.5 billion years old. It is pretty cool when one looks at a piece of silver or gold and realize that it was made in a super nova.
On Earth, aprox 4 billion years ago life started on earth. How it started we are still not sure yet. We do however know that the building blocks for our type of carbon based life can form in nature. See the Miller-Urey experiment. Amino acids formed. How the first replicators formed we don’t know yet. However, once you have a replicator you have mutation and selection, the same forces that drive evolution today. Life adapted to the earth, even as conditions on earth changed over billions of years. Often people think this earth is perfect for our type of life so it was made for us. They fail to see that life adapted to earth, not the other way around.
I suggest reading http://www.talkorigins.org to understand why creationist claims are false and is many cases very dishonest. I am not saying you are dishonest though. I used to be a creationist myself for many years.
Now I understand that accepting life from an energy expansion 14.7 billion years ago does seem like a far stretch. We do have evidence for our theories though and can map the process out step by step. Some parts we are not sure of yet and other parts we are downright uncertain about, like why quantum gravity and relativity is incompatible. But we do see a bigger picture. Yes, some pieces of the puzzle are missing but we are seeing something big and wonderful. We do however not see the “hand of god” anywhere, just nature and it’s forces.
Deists cram a god in before the big bang to explain why the big bang occurred. Old Earth creationists likes to cram god into the beginning of life, the first replicators. But we have no reason to do so, just yet. Religion has a special need to see some sort of action from their preferred deity. Often this deity is offered up as explanation for certain gaps in our scientific knowledge. But as those gaps gets filled with knowledge, so does the deity migrate to other gaps. This tactic is called the “godofthegaps”. Answering any question with “goddidit” has not lead us to any knowledge, ever. Investigating, measuring, experimenting, observing and verifying. These are the things that has given us knowledge, the basis of scientific investigation.
Weetie, if you have issues with any of my statements above then a good place might be to look at the issues in more depth. One should follow the evidence where it leads if one wishes to be honest. Thanks for chatting.
Weetie wrote: “Are there any facts to prove evolution?”
There are many. My post above is a good enough fact. About every fossil we dig up fits into our evolution framework. DNA analysis between organisms like the VitC sample above. Whales being born with legs outside of their bodies etc etc.
Is there any proof for creation? the reason I ask this is that it is important to understand that even if evolution is disproved then a supernatural explanation like god is not by default correct. It required evidence. In short, even if evolution *is* false (for the sake of the argument) it still does not mean that god made everything/anything.
Renier
I wonder why others can’t explain it in such an extensive and clear way you did, no I’m not offended in any way, I find what you say refreshing and liberating, on some aspects I probably will disagree, but I’m sure you will agree that’s what make an conversation interesting and worth while.
I’m an old earth creationist, the reason for that is that although organisms are taylored to be adaptable to survive on earth and not the other way around, the system is again too perfect and balanced to have came into being by an explosion as you have explained, having said that, that what you have pointed out makes sence to me and is scientifically logical, however, I still maintain the belief that intelligent design was incorporated as DNA and RNA structures are too intricate and balanced – that’s my view..
Weetie
Weetie wrote: “I wonder why others can’t explain it in such an extensive and clear way you did, no I’m not offended in any way, I find what you say refreshing and liberating”
Thanks. The thing is, I was a Christian for most of my life. A couple of years ago I started researching in earnest to try and get to the bottom of the whole god debate. It changed my views completely. To me, the things we discovered through science are much more wonderful than what any religion imagined. If there is a god, in my opinion, it would be something like a deist god. Not good nor evil but bigger than the standard versions of gods that humans came up with over the ages. But slotting in a god to explain anything in effect explains nothing. When we try to explain existence with a god, because it is so very complex, we are swapping one complexity for an even worse one. A god that made all of this would be more complex than all of this. A god answer is therefore a more complex question to a less complex question and as such is no answer at all, as my one friend always puts it.
Weetie wrote :”on some aspects I probably will disagree”
As is your right and it is a good thing if you doubt. It is for this reason that I dislike religious faith these days, because it is the opposite of doubt. Doubt is an honest position. It should be encouraged, not demonized. We should be allowed to doubt anything.
Weetie wrote: “but I’m sure you will agree that’s what make an conversation interesting and worth while.”
It is a very interesting conversation, perhaps the most interesting conversations of all since we are talking about the basics of existence here.
Weetie wrote: ” I’m an old earth creationist, the reason for that is that although organisms are tailored to be adaptable to survive on earth and not the other way around, the system is again too perfect and balanced to have came into being by an explosion as you have explained”
We encounter this view often and I have a lot of sympathy with it. No person can qualify in all the various fields that researches life, such as biology, genetics, evo development, chemistry, organic chemistry, geology etc. It is a lot of information. But I must point out that saying “It is too complex therefore…” is a logical fallacy. It is called Argument from Ignorance. In its simple form it boils down to “I cannot understand how therefore I reject it”. We can see that this is no reason to reject the findings but a cure might be to gain an understanding of the key issues that you have issues with. A lot of things start to make sense once one understands the details a bit better.
Weetie wrote : ” I still maintain the belief that intelligent design was incorporated as DNA and RNA structures are too intricate and balanced – that’s my view..”
Belief should not be required in discussing scientific issues. I agree that the workings of DNA and RNA are extremely complex, so much so that often we would not be able to predict the effects should we tamper with some parts, like the HOX genes for instance. Yet people are slowly but surely unravelling the mysteries behind it. Just think how much our knowledge of genetics has increased over the past 30 years. Yet, to answer our curiosity by imagining design behind it has nothing to do with science. The reason is that you will have to say who the designer is (and prove it), what the designer did (and prove it), when the designer did whatever you think he did (and prove it). The fact is, we see no evidence of any design or intent the more we look. Holding on the an Intelligent Designer places you in another difficult position. Errors or non optimum design. Why call a designer that designed whales born with legs outside of their body intelligent in the first place? Evolution explains these weird things very well without having to lean on some supernatural entity. The Deist people postulates a god that was smart enough to plan evolution to the most minute detail. Such a concept is superior (in a “spiritual” sense) to the concept of intelligent design in that the intelligent designer starts to look like a tinkering fool that could not get it right in the first place.
We can however do one more thing to investigate intelligent design and where the concept came from as well as who was behind the concept. Weetie, go and search for the “wedge document”. That is the reason people punted intelligent design, there was no scientific reason to do so whatsoever. I would also suggest you read op on the Dover Kitzmiller trial where intelligent design was shown to be a very dishonest concept, a political tool to try and undermine the teaching of evolution.
Intelligent design is also not scientific by any standards. For something to be of scientific interest we must be able to test, observe and falsify it. For evolution people can play with the HOX genes, check how close organisms are to each other in a genetic way, look at fossils to understand how population isolation (birth of species for instance) occurred and double check everything. But intelligent design is useless as a concept (it is not a scientific theory). Somebody did something at some time, that is about all intelligent design is. How can we test it? The concept of irreducible complexity as been shown to be non-reliably as evolution also explains such phenomena. How can we falsify intelligent design? How can we falsify it if someone claims an intelligent designer (aka the god of your choice) tinkered with DNA? You cannot and neither can you say what he tinkered with or when. There is no sign of any tinkering. Evolution can be falsified. Modern animals like dogs in the Cambrian rock layers would falsify it. No genetic relation between organisms would falsify it. No inheritance of error DNA would falsify it.
And I wonder. Why the need to believe in an intelligent designer? Is things not wonderful enough as they are? Is nature and all the forces in nature not big enough so that we have to stick a god on top of it? If a god made the flower or if it evolved, does it take away the beauty of it if we cannot give god credit for it? We do not see the hand of any god in nature, not in DNA, not in life, not in star formation and not in rocky planets with water (like Earth). All nature and the processes that goes with it. We do not have all the answers yet, but there is no reason to think we need a god to answer any of them, we will keep looking, trying to understand all there is to understand. For so long we glorified our ignorance, the things we do not understand and we proudly called it God. As our ignorance diminished by our effort to test, observe, verify and understand, so the role of God diminished.
You are an Old Earth creationist. In being that you have to interpret your holy book to make it fit reality. Day for you has become era, or ages so that you could explain the fossils and the fact that our Earth is a lot older than 6000 years (genealogy records in the Bible). Please don’t take offense, but understand that you have had to rape what was written in Genesis so that you could continue to believe it. The fact is that you had to do this because your book was wrong in the first place. It is understandable though. Genesis was written by people that lived as nomadic desert tribes. What did they know about fossils and dating methods, about fusion and the spectrum of radiation? They adapted their creation story when the Babylonians conquered them. There are two contradicting creation stories in Genesis probably because they came from different sources. The Noah story was taken from a much older civilisation, the Sumerians. Go and read the story of Gilgamesh, it is a very nice read. Even the Old Testament god Jah/Jahwe was probably taken from the Sumerians, as well as the story of the perfect garden. And why should it not, because Abraham was living in a heavy Sumerian influenced city at that time (Ur).
Sorry about the long post, I just really love this topic.
My friend, you buried me here, obviously I do not have proof of intellegent design other than using my own fallible logic, which I know will not suffice, but you see, “death has a cause” and as you are looking for scientific explanation to explain the unexplained, I’m searching for God, it will probably be a wasted life, but hell! it’s fun!
“You are an Old Earth creationist. In being that you have to interpret your holy book to make it fit reality.”
Been there done that.. As I have said on your other post, the bible is not a science handbook, it’s spiritual for me, and it still intrigues me, day after day, best novel I have ever read.
Unfortunately religeon has been perversed and used as a political tool to manipulate the masses, it’s suppose to be personal and without prejudice, but fear can make us do strange things….
Weetie wrote :”but you see, “death has a cause” and as you are looking for scientific explanation to explain the unexplained, I’m searching for God, it will probably be a wasted life, but hell! it’s fun!”
I don’t understand the “death has a cause” bit. Do you mean that you see a cause and intent behind death?
Weetie wrote: “it’s spiritual for me, and it still intrigues me, day after day, best novel I have ever read.”
If you like it, then good for you. I love reading the old Viking sagas and the Elder Edda for instance. There is a certain “darkness” (not evil) that underlies the old Germanic mythology that gives me the shivers. Neil Gaiman captured this “darkness” very well in his novel, American Gods.
Weetie wrote: “Unfortunately religeon has been perversed and used as a political tool to manipulate the masses, it’s suppose to be personal and without prejudice, but fear can make us do strange things…”
Agreed. I must admit, I am pleasantly surprised by your attitude. I have a general aggression towards religion that seeks power to influence the lives of other people. Your take on religion and the way you practice it is very refreshing. There is a bloke called Pin Van Meur (handle PvM) on Pandasthumb.org that you remind me of. The difference is that he actively fights Intelligent Design because of the intellectual dishonesty behind it. I am not saying you are dishonest though, you stated clearly that Intelligent Design is not science, unlike the many Christians that tries to teach it to children as solid science and alternative to evolution. Ken Miller is another example of a Christian that actively resists Intelligent Design and its various proponents. But I get the impression that your use of the words “Intelligent Design” is not so much the same view the Discovery Institute has on it?
“Agreed. I must admit, I am pleasantly surprised by your attitude. I have a general aggression towards religion that seeks power to influence the lives of other people. Your take on religion and the way you practice it is very refreshing. There is a bloke called Pin Van Meur (handle PvM) on Pandasthumb.org that you remind me of. The difference is that he actively fights Intelligent Design because of the intellectual dishonesty behind it. I am not saying you are dishonest though, you stated clearly that Intelligent Design is not science, unlike the many Christians that tries to teach it to children as solid science and alternative to evolution. Ken Miller is another example of a Christian that actively resists Intelligent Design and its various proponents. But I get the impression that your use of the words “Intelligent Design” is not so much the same view the Discovery Institute has on it?”
I have read “the origen of man” by Charles Darwin, and I found it fascinating!!! And I agree with him, on all he said, Yes, I’m a christian, maybe more a cultural christian if you like, as I don’t believe everything in the bible, what I mean by intellegent design is one of trial and error, the same as motorcar companies improve on technology to make better cars, the same way earth has evolved into what we can see, over so many years, time is but only a factor, and I emphisize “believe” because I have no proof, I don’t mind being corrected, it will only make me smarter..
Also I don’t teach or impose on my children regarding religeon, I believe it to be a matter of choice rather than tradition, they are free to believe what they whant, or simply not to believe, The fact that we cannot prove our God or avatars or anything related to religeon, should prevent anyone from imposing beliefs and relics on others, because it only creates division.
Weetie wrote: “I have read “the origen of man” by Charles Darwin, and I found it fascinating!!! And I agree with him, on all he said”
I must admit, I have not read any of Charles Darwin’s books. Richard Dawkins wrote a book called The Ancestor’s Tale and it was brilliant. It takes evolution back in time, step by step, from modern humans right down the bacteria (archae) and it is a really interesting read. There is a lot of good hard science in there too. The part where sea squirts and fish are linked was one of those “wow” moments for me.
Weetie wrote: “Yes, I’m a christian, maybe more a cultural christian if you like, as I don’t believe everything in the bible”
I understand this. Daniel Denette wrote a book called Breaking the Spell and it deals with religion from a scientific perspective. Why is it there, how did it come to be and why do humans believe. Also a very good read. I have a suspicion that you will enjoy this book.
Weetie wrote: “what I mean by intellegent design is one of trial and error, the same as motorcar companies improve on technology to make better cars, the same way earth has evolved into what we can see, over so many years, time is but only a factor, and I emphisize “believe” because I have no proof, I don’t mind being corrected, it will only make me smarter..”
Allow me to state a couple of things and please do not be offended. From what I gather your moderate Christian worldview is closer to Theistic Evolution (like Ken Miller’s) than Intelligent Design. Now a case may be made that Theistic Evolution is a type of intelligent design, but it is not Intelligent Design as it “preached” by the Discovery Institute. Why not distance yourself from the scam that is Intelligent Design (just religious propaganda) and rather research the concept of Theistic Evolution? In all honesty, you are way too honest to even connect your name to the Christian Right propaganda and lies that we have come to know as Intelligent Design, or in other words, Creationism in a cheap tuxedo. Just a thought since I would never presume to tell you what to do or think.
Weetie wrote: “what I mean by intellegent design is one of trial and error”
See dude, this is in fact not “Intelligent Design” but 100% pure evolution. DNA gets copied from one generation to another, but with “errors”. Sometimes these “errors” give the organism an advantage in its environment, like a slightly longer beak. When the environment changes then some offspring are better suited to deal with the changes. The is natural selection. Pretty much trial and error of sorts. Scientists have found that even a minute change, like a 1mm longer beak can mean the difference between life and death in times of drought.
Weetie wrote :”Also I don’t teach or impose on my children regarding religeon, I believe it to be a matter of choice rather than tradition, they are free to believe what they whant, or simply not to believe, The fact that we cannot prove our God or avatars or anything related to religeon, should prevent anyone from imposing beliefs and relics on others, because it only creates division.”
If only more people understood this and attempted to be fair in life. It is good to have met you after that nasty Shofar thread on the Prometheus blog where the fanatics displayed their ignorance with pride like a peacock would display its tail. It is good when believers and non-believers can agree on things and even work together for a better society.
Are there proof for evolution? No, there is not. I just want to make the following points:
(1) There are fossils of 88% of the animal today (if one include the animals that fossilises not so easy, it is 79.1%) but of all the thousands of fossils, there are no transitional fossils. If there was evolution, one would expect to find thousands of transitional fossils. The very small number of fossils that they claim to be transitional forms, is not a fact and even some evolusionists agree with that. See the following quote:
“I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them. You suggest that an artist should be used to visualise such transformations, but where would he get the information from? I could not, honestly, provide it, and if I were to leave it to artistic license, would that not mislead the reader? I wrote the text of my book four years ago. If I were to write it now, I think the book would be rather different. Gradualism is a concept I believe in, not just because of Darwin’s authority, but because my understanding of genetics seems to demand it. Yet Gould and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no transitional fossils. As a palaeontologist myself, I am much occupied with the philosophical problems of identifying ancestral forms in the fossil record. You say that I should at least “show a photo of the fossil from which each type of organism was derived.” I will lay it on the line – there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument.”
[Personal letter from dr. Colin Patterson, 10 April 1979, Senior Paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History, Londen, to Luther D. Sunderland; in Darwin’s Enigma, by Luther D. Sunderland, Master Books, San Diego, VSA, p89, 1984]
This is fairly long ago (1979), but I do not know of new ones discovered since then.
(2) And where are all the intermediate animals? There is nothing between a horse and a cow for example. All people talk (and write if taught), bury their dead, control fire, use self-made tools and weapons, and build houses to live in. There is not one ape or chimp that can do any of the above. Some birds can talk and they build nests, but according to evolution they are very far from people in the line.
(3) If there was random evolution, why don’t we see animals that are unsymmetrical? Nothing is 100% symmetrical, but every living organism has more or less the same configuration: a head with 2 eyes, a nose in between and a mouth below the nose, equal number of legs and/or arms, etc. We do not see anything with 5 eyes, randomly placed on the body.
(4) Male Jews are being circumsised since about 1950 BC but they are still being born with their foreskin.
(5) You are talking about the DNA of people and chimps that is close to each other. One cannot conclude too much in that. It was found that the DNA of bats and horses is closer to each other than the DNA of cows and horses.
(6) Weetie says that Pin Van Meur actively fights Intelligent Design because of the intellectual dishonesty behind it. I don’t know about dishonesty there, but just remember about the dishonesty in evolutionary circles: Neandertal, Piltdown man, Ernst Haeckel’s embrios, Nebraska man, etc. I can also send you a number of examples where there was discrimination to creationists/ID’s.
(7) Yes, everything chances. Creationists do not have a problem with mutations and natural selection. However, mutuations are very scarce and further was no mutation observed where genetic information increased. Renier, you said “For something to be of scientific interest we must be able to test, observe and falsify it”. We have never seen a mutation where information increased. That is an assumption – not fact.
(8) I know you have heard this argument a lot, but a motor car, that is much less complicated than the simplest living cell, was designed and built. A motor car can never evolve by itself. Even if someone build all the parts, the parts cannot by themselves, form a car. Someone have to build it. The counter argument from evolusionists is that it is different with living and growing things. However, I think evolusionists take life for granted. They use life as an assumption to say that things developed. But where did life come from? If you open a can of sardines, you will never find a life one, even when all the building blocks are there. No-one can create life. We cannot even raise people form the dead.
(9) On the age of the earth: Most dating methods point to a young earth. However, evolusionists need long times for evolution to happen, that is why they ignore these methods. Things like coal and diamonds do not need millions of years to form – this was scientifically proven – “tested and observed”.
There is no such thing as ateism. Everyone believes in something. I, a young earth, creationist, believe that God made everything without using evolution. Renier, you try to tell yourself that evolution is science, but it is not. You are replacing a believe in God with a believe in evolution – it is not science.
Sorry for this long response. I also just love this topic 🙂
Renier, just another comment on your original message. I found some highly technical articles about the vitamin C issue. See the following:
-“Why the shared mutations in the Hominidae exon X GULO pseudogene are not evidence for common descent” – http://creationontheweb.com/images/pdfs/tj/j21_3/j21_3_118-127.pdf
– “Potentially decisive evidence against pseudogene ‘shared mistakes’” – http://creationontheweb.com/images/pdfs/tj/j18_3/j18_3_63-69.pdf
– from http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/6207/
Evolutionary postulate:
“Continual mutation also means that if you don’t use it, you lose it. For instance, many primates cannot make vitamin C, because of a gene mutation. This mutation makes no difference to animals that get plenty of vitamin C in their diet. However, when the environment changes, such loss of function can make a big difference, as one primate discovered on long sea voyages.”
Creation comment:
“This may well be true. The Creation/Fall model predicts some deterioration in design. But this doesn’t help evolution, because guinea pigs likewise are unable to produce vitamin C, but share some of the apparent degrading errors seen in the human DNA. Here is a case where the shared mistakes are not due to common ancestry. For a detailed treatment that shows that this evolutionary story fails the test see: Why the shared mutations in the Hominidae exon X GULO pseudogene are not evidence for common descent.”
Welcome Daniel. Busy typing up a reply and will post it soon.
Renier, I have read about the Dover Kitzmiller trial on http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/05/science/sciencespecial2/05design.html?_r=1. From what I can see is that there is nothing wrong with the concept of ID. They questioned the school board’s motives. Their motives were to teach religion at school and they hid behind ID.
If you say that ID is a disonest concept, then it means they (ID) lie to prove their point. That is not true.
Or am I missing something?
I’m having hassles with my post. Perhaps too many links and references. Will see what I can do about it.
Sounds as if your post is going to keep me busy for a while :- )
Sorry for the delay on getting your post with the multiple links up, Daniel.
At least that’s one post with multiple links sorted out, now for my own one and Renier’s one. hehehe
Welcome Daniel. Very good Gishgallop you did there. Fortunately it is in writing, so let’s have a look at your claims:
I had too many links in my post, so will split it up.
Daniel wrote: “Are there proof for evolution? No, there is not. I just want to make the following points:”
So you missed the VitC (GULO) gene example above? Did you even read it or is yours just another religious knee-jerk reaction to the word “evolution”? How do you explain the GULO gene scenario? Did *your* god make the same mistake in both humans and chimps?
Daniel wrote: “(1) There are fossils of 88% of the animal today (if one include the animals that fossilises not so easy, it is 79.1%) but of all the thousands of fossils, there are no transitional fossils. If there was evolution, one would expect to find thousands of transitional fossils. The very small number of fossils that they claim to be transitional forms, is not a fact and even some evolusionists agree with that. See the following quote:
“I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them. You suggest that an artist should be used to visualise such transformations, but where would he get the information from? I could not, honestly, provide it, and if I were to leave it to artistic license, would that not mislead the reader? I wrote the text of my book four years ago. If I were to write it now, I think the book would be rather different. Gradualism is a concept I believe in, not just because of Darwin’s authority, but because my understanding of genetics seems to demand it. Yet Gould and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no transitional fossils. As a palaeontologist myself, I am much occupied with the philosophical problems of identifying ancestral forms in the fossil record. You say that I should at least “show a photo of the fossil from which
each type of organism was derived.” I will lay it on the line – there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument.”
[Personal letter from dr. Colin Patterson, 10 April 1979, Senior Paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History, Londen, to Luther D. Sunderland; in Darwin’s Enigma, by Luther D. Sunderland, Master Books, San Diego, VSA, p89, 1984]
Nice try misquoting Patterson. Is this deliberate dishonesty Daniel or did other people fool you? I am shocked! Patterson also said p131-133: “In several animal and plant groups, enough fossils are known to bridge the wide gaps between existing types. In mammals, for example, the gap between horses, asses and zebras (genus Equus) and their closest living relatives, the rhinoceroses and tapirs, is filled by an extensive series of fossils extending back sixty-million years to a small animal, Hyracotherium, which can only be distinguished from the rhinoceros-tapir group by one or two horse-like details of the skull. There are many other examples of fossil ‘missing links’, such as Archaeopteryx, the Jurassic bird which links birds with dinosaurs (Fig. 45), and Ichthyostega, the late Devonian amphibian which links land vertebrates and the extinct choanate (having internal nostrils) fishes. . .”
Patterson on this misquote issue wrote to Theunissen: “I think the continuation of the passage shows clearly that your interpretation (at the end of your letter) is correct, and the creationists’ is false.”
Anyway, the link is “http://www.toarchive.org/faqs/patterson.html” and clearly shows the dishonest agenda of the creationists that misquoted Patterson. Even Patterson says: “I hope that by now I have learned to be more circumspect in dealing with creationists, cryptic or overt.”
Daniel wrote: “This is fairly long ago (1979), but I do not know of new ones discovered since then.”
Then you did not look very hard at all. Just this morning I read the following on New Scientist:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16322-darwins-dangerous-idea-top-10-evolution-articles.html
and more specific: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19726451.700-evolution-what-missing-link.html
Please note, these are scientific sources, not religious ones. I quote from the article: “Recently palaeontologists have begun to strike back, pointing out the wealth of evidence for evolution in the fossil record and publicising their discoveries when they represent important transitional forms, something that perhaps was lacking in the past.”
So your claim that there are no transitional fossils is clearly false/dishonest. My personal favourite is the Tiktaalik fossil, showing us how fish first managed to venture out on dry land. I quote: “The latest fishibian is Tiktaalik from Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic (New Scientist, 9 September 2006, p 35). It had fish-like scales, jaws and palate, but – like amphibians – it had a mobile neck and head, an ear capable of hearing in air, and bones in the fins that were intermediate between those of fish and Acanthostega. The fossil record of the fish-to-amphibian transition is now among the best documented of all.”
Another amazing thing to look at is the first sign of fish and we find the answer in sea squirt larva. I quote: “Though adult sea squirts are similar to pterobranchs, the larvae look much like primitive fish, with a muscular tail supported by a “backbone” of cartilage, the notochord – the defining feature of the chordates.”
And here are some more articles to cure your misunderstanding/denial of transitional fossils.
“http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2008/11/odontochelys-a.html
“http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2008/11/dmanisi-postcranial.html
“http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2008/10/tiktaalik-fossi.html tiktaalik”
And a very thorough debunking of the “no transitional fossils” lie that creationists spread,
see “http://www.toarchive.org/faqs/faq-transitional/part1a.html”
Daniel wrote: “(2) And where are all the intermediate animals? There is nothing between a horse and a cow for example. All people talk (and write if taught), bury their dead, control fire, use self-made tools and weapons, and build houses to live in. There is not one ape or chimp that can do any of the above. Some birds can talk and they build nests, but according to evolution they are very far from people in the line.”
Of course birds are relatively far from humans. They are not mammals and are descendants from dinosaurs. We know this through DNA comparison and about 6 different types of dinosaur fossils that had feathers. Feathers are just modified scales. It seems feathers were only later used for flight and might have been to keep the animals warm (Dinos were not cold-blooded like reptiles). That might explain why feathered dinos survived the ace age after the dino extinction. As for the Chimps and humans… well, did you expect chimps to actually *be* humans by now? Evolution does not work that way, humanity is not the “goal”. No, chimps do not build houses. But their DNA is about 95% the same as ours (errors included). They menstruate, lactate, have social structures, are sometimes gay, can express emotion and can learn a couple of things. Our brains are bigger so it should be no surprise to you that we can achieve much more mentally than what they do. And in fact, just look at them. They do look a lot more like us than what any other animal does. It gets a bit freaky when they jerk off on the sight of female humans. And Daniel, I suggest you research feral children. We are not much different after all.
As for intermediate animals: What are you looking for? To me, one of the most interesting examples are the monotremes. Having both reptilian and mammal features. Gives milk like mammals but lays eggs like reptiles. Freaky critters.
Daniel wrote: “(3) If there was random evolution, why don’t we see animals that are unsymmetrical? Nothing is 100% symmetrical, but every living organism has more or less the same configuration: a head with 2 eyes, a nose in between and a mouth below the nose, equal number of legs and/or arms, etc. We do not see anything with 5 eyes, randomly placed on the body.”
Yes Daniel. Random mutation *and* natural selection. Evolution does not mean we expect to see random “unsymmetrical” animals. These things are controlled by the HOX genes as far as I know. Segmentation (HOX) was an early step in evolution and things descended from the symmetrical organisms. As for 5 eyes… what makes you think we expect to see five eyes placed randomly? Spiders and insects have more eyes. We have two because we are descendant from 2 eyed organisms, same as the flak worms, fish, reptiles, birds, apes, etc. But then, insect eyes are totally different from our eyes. It means eyes evolved separately for insects than for our lineage. In short, your “unsymmetrical” and random eyes argument is not an argument against evolution. There is nothing in MET (Modern Evolution Theory) that requires “unsymmetrical” animals or “random” eyes, nothing at all.
Daniel wrote: “(4) Male Jews are being circumsised since about 1950 BC but they are still being born with their foreskin.”
LOL. This is very funny. Do creationists actually think evolution means that by cutting off a foreskin it will cause the next generations to be born without said tips? There is your problem right there Daniel. You don’t know what evolution is if you believe such utter bullshit. Let’s explain. Random mutation and Natural selection. What has the cutting off of the foreskin to do with random mutation? Nothing, there is no DNA change so obviously it cannot be inherited. For the next generation to inherit a mutation, said DNA mutation needs to be in the sex cells, the sperms or the egg cell. If you already knew this then how on earth do you justify this ludicrous and dishonest lie about evolution and foreskins?
Daniel wrote: “(5) You are talking about the DNA of people and chimps that is close to each other. One cannot conclude too much in that. It was found that the DNA of bats and horses is closer to each other than the DNA of cows and horses.”
Even error DNA is shared between humans and chimps. Sorry if you don’t like it but we can in fact say that humans and chimp DNA share both working DNA and broken DNA that got inherited from a common ancestor. As for the bats and horse claim, source (peer-reviewed and published) please, or are you just making things up? You must supply proof with claims of fact, that’s the rules.
Daniel wrote:(6) Weetie says that Pin Van Meur actively fights Intelligent Design because of the intellectual dishonesty behind it. I don’t know about dishonesty there, but just remember about the dishonesty in evolutionary circles: Neandertal, Piltdown man, Ernst Haeckel’s embrios, Nebraska man, etc. I can also send you a number of examples where there was discrimination to creationists/ID’s.”
Daniel, you need to read more carefully. I made the PvM claim, not Weetie. I’ll give you Haeckel’s embryos as false (to a certain extent) but I should point out that scientists, not creationists, pointed out the fabrication. There is nothing wrong in correcting errors, something religion seems to be allergic to. But please, tell me, what is dishonest about Neanderthal?
As for Piltodown and Nabraska, what about it? We have moved on since then and do not lay claim to truth for either claims. No scientist I know of takes those examples serious. So what is your problem with it? Evolution is not just supported by a few fossil data you know. Science is not perfect and makes mistakes. The scientific method is such that it can identify mistakes/hoaxes and correct itself. Religion on the other hand is nothing but blind belief and dogma. I need to once again point out another important thing that creationists cannot wrap their heads around. Even if evolution is disproved then creationists still need to provide proof for their pet theory (creationism/ID), it does not get a by default correct status, it still requires proof. So far, no proof from the creationist camp. Just looking at the theory of evolution and nitpicking on small imperfections and minor gaps does not make creationism true. Where is the proof for creationism? Peer-reviewed please.
Daniel wrote: ” I don’t know about dishonesty there”
Go and read the Wedge Document and then hang your head in shame for the dishonesty that you so proudly preach. The ID idea was “created” to be a politcal PR tool. It is not science like they want to convince us. There is no scientific theory of ID. Oh, and look at the Patterson quote again to smell the creationist dishonesty.
Daniel wrote: “(7) Yes, everything chances. Creationists do not have a problem with mutations and natural selection. However, mutuations are very scarce and further was no mutation observed where genetic information increased. Renier, you said “For something to be of scientific interest we must be able to test, observe and falsify it”. We have never seen a mutation where information increased. That is an assumption – not fact.”
Hmm. “However, mutuations are very scarce” ? Lol. You are a young earth creationist, right? So how do you explain the genetic diversity of humans if all the mutations had to happen in the last 4000 years, since Noah? See the Noah article on “http://www.geocities.com/lflank/” and then please explain to us how all the mutations happened in such a short time.
As for information increase, please specify what you understand as information. Also, have a look at an example at “http://toarchive.org/faqs/information/apolipoprotein.html”
Daniel wrote: “(8) I know you have heard this argument a lot, but a motor car, that is much less complicated than the simplest living cell, was designed and built. A motor car can never evolve by itself. Even if someone build all the parts, the parts cannot by themselves, form a car. Someone have to build it. The counter argument from evolusionists is that it is different with living and growing things. However, I think evolusionists take life for granted. They use life as an assumption to say that things developed. But where did life come from? If you open a can of sardines, you will never find a life one, even when all the building blocks are there. No-one can create life. We cannot even raise people form the dead.”
Motor cars do not self replicate with mutations. Bad analogy, nothing to do with the mechanisms of evolution whatsoever. As for where life came from, we are still not sure. See, science admits when it is not sure, unlike your religion that claims god waved his magic wand and made humans out of dirt. Yet, science does have a couple of clues on how life might have started. Please read up at “http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2008/11/exploring-the-o.html” – It is a very interesting read and well worth the time. Some more at “http://scienceblogs.com/digitalbio/2008/11/its_an_rna_world_after_all.php” and more on the Miller-Urey experiment at “http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2008/10/old-scientists.html”.
More on what we know about how life started (abiogenesis), see: “http://www.toarchive.org/faqs/abioprob/” – Is there any data for your creation myth? Any scientific theory? Can we test it? Can we falsify it? No? Shame…
Daniel wrote: “(9) On the age of the earth: Most dating methods point to a young earth. However, evolusionists need long times for evolution to happen, that is why they ignore these methods. Things like coal and diamonds do not need millions of years to form – this was scientifically proven – “tested and observed”.”
Most dating methods points to a young earth? *Snort*, that’s a new one. Citations please, peer-reviewed of course just to make sure we are not bullshitted by fancy language and shoddy research. But hang on now. If you believe in an aprox 6000 year old earth, how do you fit dino fossils into your theory?
Daniel wrote: “There is no such thing as ateism. Everyone believes in something. I, a young earth, creationist, believe that God made everything without using evolution. Renier, you try to tell yourself that evolution is science, but it is not. You are replacing a believe in God with a believe in evolution – it is not science.”
No, atheism is non-belief, plain and simple. You can call it belief all you like but it is like calling not collecting stamps a hobby. And no, I do not have to believe in evolution, I can look at proof (peer-reviewed) and draw my own conclusion. The vast majority of biologists accept evolution. Are you claiming you are smarter than them as far as biology goes? And just for the record, I used to be a young earth creationist just like you. Your fellow Christians would never lie to you about evolution, would they? Well, you are wrong, just like I was.
Daniel wrote: “Sorry for this long response. I also just love this topic :-)”
Long responses are great. Thanks for the effort. I make some allegations that you are dishonest. I’ll withdraw such allegations if you are gullible/ignorant and simple lied to by other people like I was. If however you did do your own unbiased research/investigation on the issue and still wrote this post after the fact, then my accusation for dishonesty stands as it is clearly illustrated above.
I also have to wonder what it would take for you to reject ID/Creationism as truth….
Daniel wrote: “Creation comment:
“This may well be true. The Creation/Fall model predicts some deterioration in design. But this doesn’t help evolution, because guinea pigs likewise are unable to produce vitamin C, but share some of the apparent degrading errors seen in the human DNA. Here is a case where the shared mistakes are not due to common ancestry. For a detailed treatment that shows that this evolutionary story fails the test see: Why the shared mutations in the Hominidae exon X GULO pseudogene are not evidence for common descent.””
See, we can actually look at the way the gene is broken. As example. Human broken GULO gene
Human: xx-yyyy-xxxx-yyy-x-x-y
Chimp: xx-yyy–xx-x-yyy-x-x-y
Gpig: yx—-xyy-xx-yyx-xxyy-x
Just an illustration that we can see humans and chimps inherited the gene due to the way it is broken in both species, and looking at the guinea pig example we can see the way it is broken is not related to human and chimp DNA. But I would have thought the creationists would have told you that. Pity. Why did they not mention this little fact? I have a link to a huge AtBC thread where this was discussed in detail if you want it. It must take a lot of faith to “believe” that this gene got broken in the same way in both species and forget to take the other more than 38 error genes we know about into account, even the viral DNA we share with them is the same. Yes, Viral DNA. It sometimes happen that the sperm that fertilizes the egg is already infected with a virus, passing on the viral DNA to the offspring. We share such DNA with chimps too, not just the GULO gene. Sheesh!
And Daniel, why are you quoting from things that have not been scrutinized by peer-review and are in fact rejected by the scientific community? It’s not science dude, it’s just more lies.
And one more note. ID “top” biologist Michael Behe accepts common descent due to the sheer amount of evidence. He is the bloke that came up with the irreducible complexity nonsense that they spin. Think about it. Even he accepts common descent.
Daniel, welcome to our small-small part of the blogosphere!
I’ve read your post and I must admit that I find it rather shocking that you claim to have knowledge of the current theory of evolution. From a quick read and even on a more thorough one, I cannot but help to notice a couple of glaring mistakes and blatant inaccuracies concerning evolution.
I think the most pertinent starting block for this discussion would firstly be to ask you to explain the theory of evolution as YOU understand it to us. From here we can perhaps ascertain whether the base idea we base our discussions around is similar or not.
I would however like to address some of the points you have raised.
1) Concerning fossils and fossil records. Please take note that we are very fortunate to even have a fossil record, for not all dead organisms leave fossils, indeed the exact opposite is true. Organisms tend to decompose quite naturally, quite thoroughly.
Thus I cannot but help to think claiming inaccuracies in the fossil record speak book volumes for my first assertion that you do not completely understand evolution, the mechanics behind the process, nor all the other requirements for some of the claims you make.
2) It appears from this paragraph that you infer that communication and/or the ability to use tools functionally is a necessity for intermediate animals to have existed? I also think you are confusing your analogies, just because you can not relate a horse and a cow with an intermediate step, does not mean that there MUST have been one. As an example, perhaps we one day find something like a corse (horse and cow intermediate) would you then claim that we cannot relate a horse to a corse and a corse with a cow without their intermediate steps? You are heading for a rather silly reductio ad absurdum here.
3) This is pure fallacy and mere conjecture on your part. You cunningly ignore humans (just as one example) being born with gross deformities. Cyclops babies (1), elephant men (2), werewolf people (3), blue people (4) and the bark disease (5) come up in my mind. This is a rather pertinent point, because generally it’s the religious looking for gaps like these to support their theories, well, I think you didn’t look hard enough. Or you assumed a gap where there was none.
4) Thus you would suggest that because women in certain cultures shave their legs they should be born without hair there? That because a lot of older males try really hard to retain lost hair (baldness) we should see less bald men? I think you need to seriously brush up on your knowledge of evolution because if you make baseless assumptions like this you obviously do not know the basics.
5) Peer-reviewed papers reaching the same conclusion you draw here, please.
6) The problem you cunningly avoid here is that for any idea like Design/creationism to work, you firstly assume there is a god, then assign everything you cannot explain to him/it. First provide proof of a deity and THEN we can talk about assigning theories and speculative claptrap such as design to it.
7) I do not quite follow what you are trying to say here. Please explain it again or provide links to peer-reviewed papers expounding your claim.
8 ) You are mixing two different fields here; the one is evolution (how complex life could come from simple life) and the other is abiogenesis (how non-replicating chemistry became self-replicating chemistry).
9) Please provide peer-reviewed papers expounding your claims.
10) Concerning your point that atheism is a belief or that we believe in evolution: Firstly, to claim that atheism is a belief is like claiming bald is a hair colour (Paraphrase of a Don Hirschberg quote). It simply is not true and cannot be compared to belief, it is a LACK of belief.
Secondly, we do not believe in evolution, it’s merely the name we have given for a theory explaining how simple life could become complex life. There is no “belief” involved or blind faith. We can test evolution in action (see the bacteria evolving-colony (6) trials). We can make accurate predictions based on enough accurate data and ANYONE testing the same prediction with the same data comes to the same conclusion (within allowed error margins of course).
I think you are grasping at straws, you wish to degrade strictly observed data to mere conjecture, because that is all that baseless godwhoring boils down to in the end.
Now, lastly, you cunningly try to disprove our best scientific theory explaining how simple life can become complex life, I will however NOT let you get off that easily. What alternative do you suggest? Can you suggest any alternative except Design/Creationism? How do you support your alternative claim? Please, regard the following as advice and not admonishment as some of my previous statements, but just because you disprove a theory it does not PROVE your alternative theory, it merely disproves the theory you intended to disprove.
Now, I am not a person known for brevity concerning these matters, thus your lengthy posts are welcome, just as I hope you aren’t daunted by lengthy responses.
Links from my post:
1 – http://en.diagnosispro.com/differential_diagnosis-for/cyclops-deformity/41736-154.html
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg15320682.900-science–unravelling-the-real-story-behind-the-cyclops.html – You need an account to read the full article.
2 – http://rarediseases.about.com/cs/proteussyndrome/a/031301.htm
3 – http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=2258069&page=1
4 – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methemoglobinemia
5 – http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/conditions/10/02/treeman.wart.skin.disorder/index.html
6 – http://www.sci.sdsu.edu/~smaloy/MicrobialGenetics/topics/mutations/fluctuation.html
http://www.accessexcellence.org/RC/AB/BC/Bacterial_Mutations.php
It is going to take me some time to respond.
Renier, I just want to know: what made you decide to become and ateist? You said that you also were a young earth creationist.
Daniel wrote: “It is going to take me some time to respond.”
It’s okay. I am on leave from tomorrow to about the 7th of Jan. To our readers and lurkers, have a great new year and may it be the best ever.
Daniel wrote: Renier, I just want to know: what made you decide to become and ateist? You said that you also were a young earth creationist.”
It’s actually a long story. I went from Young Earth Creationist to Old Earth to theistic evolutionist. It took a couple of years. I read a lot. I think the way the YEC’s lied about their stuff was the first nail in the coffin. Daniel, on matters of science, read science, not apologetics. Keep yourself honest at all times. I still recall the first thing I researched though. I was told they found Noah’s ark in Turkey and retold the story to many people. Then I went and double-checked the “facts”. Lies, lies and more lies.
As to how I got to be an atheist, it is also a long story. I got tired of having a “one-way” relationship with Jesus. So I told God that I doubt and are making a clean slate, starting from scratch before I decide what to do. I was still a firm believer of God at that stage just really frustrated with the “relationship” part with Jesus and the Holy Ghost. So I started researching, allowing myself to doubt without fearing hell. I researched where the Old Testament came from, who wrote it and how the religion was a spin off from an older polytheistic Sumerian religion. I researched who wrote the books in the New Testament and when it was written together with Roman writings of the same age. After a while I concluded religion is just a meme, an idea that lives in humans. It evolves, it mutates and gets selected for. From Sumerian to Judaism to Christianity. A religion that puts you in fear of doubt by threatening hell is more successful than a religion that does not cause you fear. The religion mutated to exploit human fear and thus survived the competition of rival memes/religions. But it is a parasitic meme, it exploits humanity. I also realised that my “relationship” with Jesus was no different than what a child has with an imaginary friend. I never one day chose to be an atheist. I became an atheist after I could no longer believe any supernatural claims without evidence.
Response to #31:
About the lies: I am still going to respond to #20 about Colin Patterson.
I think it was probably Ron Wyatt that claimed that he found Noah’s ark. However, to give you an idea what CMI (Creation Ministries International) thinks of Ron, the following is what Johan Kruger wrote to me: “Nie net met ‘n knippie sout nie, maar CMI distansieer hulself SO VER AS MOONTLIK van enigiets wat uit Wyatt se pen kom en as jy die volle prentjie het sal jy verstaan waarom ‘n mens die ou se idees nie eers met ‘n lang paal sal wil aanraak, ook nie tyd mors om sy goed te debateer nie.”
Further do I trust CMI’s integrity. That is why they have articles like “Arguments we think creationists should NOT use” on http://www.creationontheweb.com.
Also see the article “Unleashing the Storm”
And “Blowing the whistle on corruption”
Renier wrote “I researched who wrote the books in the New Testament and when it was written together with Roman writings of the same age.”
I am just always wondering how do they know all these things. All of a sudden everyone is questioning the Bible, even our own people (Christians). This is probably strenghning your case as an ateist :- ). As for the new testament, I have read a document about the new testament. If you believe any ancient manuscript, then you have to believe the new testament. I can send you a copy if you want (email me at daniellouw@yahoo.com).
Enjoy your holiday.
Daniel wrote: “About the lies: I am still going to respond to #20 about Colin Patterson.”
Please take the time to read the linked article I gave you first. Note that Patterson himself complained about the way he was quoted.
Daniel Wrote: “I think it was probably Ron Wyatt that claimed that he found Noah’s ark. However, to give you an idea what CMI (Creation Ministries International) thinks of Ron, the following is what Johan Kruger wrote to me: “Nie net met ‘n knippie sout nie, maar CMI distansieer hulself SO VER AS MOONTLIK van enigiets wat uit Wyatt se pen kom en as jy die volle prentjie het sal jy verstaan waarom ‘n mens die ou se idees nie eers met ‘n lang paal sal wil aanraak, ook nie tyd mors om sy goed te debateer nie.”
Yes, it was Wyatt, and I know that CMI distanced themselves from his fraudulent claims.
Daniel wrote: “Further do I trust CMI’s integrity. That is why they have articles like “Arguments we think creationists should NOT use” on http://www.creationontheweb.com.”
And yet we still often encounter those arguments. They are a religious group fighting evolution because it does not gel with their holy book Daniel. There is no science there, just apologetics. Even if they now backtrack from a lot of obvious lies that has been spread in the past it does not mean that their current stuff is correct as far as science is concerned, they still need to give proof for creationism and should stop whining and bitching about evolution.
Daniel wrote: Also see the article “Unleashing the Storm”
And “Blowing the whistle on corruption”
I cannot get to it via the firewall. Perhaps Cachtice can read it and fill us in on it.
Daniel wrote: “I am just always wondering how do they know all these things.”
Go and read to find out.
Daniel wrote: “All of a sudden everyone is questioning the Bible, even our own people (Christians).”
It is not all of a sudden. Our old Dominee once told me (about 20 years ago) for instance that the creation stories in Genesis came from the Babylonians. It was picked up by the Isrealites during their captivity there. Perhaps it is just that religious leaders has always shielded the flock from such interesting tidbits but now with the internet the knowledge is becoming more common?
Daniel wrote: “This is probably strenghning your case as an ateist :- ). As for the new testament, I have read a document about the new testament. If you believe any ancient manuscript, then you have to believe the new testament. I can send you a copy if you want (email me at daniellouw@yahoo.com).”
No offense Daniel, but so far the truth has strengthened my case as an atheist. People cannot provide evidence for anything supernatural like gods or fairies but still choose to believe in it. Before you send me the document on the New Testament, let me be clear. I think Jesus probably did exist. Why else would the writer have fabricated the Bethlehem story from the misread prophesy? Probably because people knew Jesus was from Nazareth. But it still does not make him god. If you have proof for any supernatural thing the books claimed he did, then we can talk, because that is the only thing that is going to change my view. Proof, evidence… But keep in mind that just like you do not think Homer’s Iliad (older than New Testament) to be true because it is absurd and without evidence, well, I hold your Bible in the same way as I hold the Iliad. Be reasonable and provide evidence, the same evidence that would have made you believe in the Iliad as truth revealed from the gods.
Renier wrote: “Please take the time to read the linked article I gave you first.”
– I have read it. I will comment.
Renier wrote: “There is no science there, just apologetics”
– There is a lot of science on creationontheweb. CMI does not just say “Because the Bible says so”. Why do you say that there is no science? The articles I have send you is proof and I will send you more.
Renier wrote: “I cannot get to it via the firewall. Perhaps Cachtice can read it and fill us in on it.”
– Go to creationontheweb.com and type in the titles in the search block. You will easily find it.
Renier wrote: “It is not all of a sudden. Our old Dominee once told me (about 20 years ago) for instance that the creation stories in Genesis came from the Babylonians. It was picked up by the Isrealites during their captivity there. Perhaps it is just that religious leaders has always shielded the flock from such interesting tidbits but now with the internet the knowledge is becoming more common?”
– I do not believe this at all. Why will we now today know better than the people that lived closer to the events? This is an attempt to reconsile the Bible with evolution, which is according to me not real science. There are a number of things that does not make sense if you believe that Genesis was written in Babylon. For example, where did the genealogies in the Bible come from? Was it fabricated? And where did they get the accurate measurements for the ark? Of all the flood stories in the world, the Bible version is the most complete (see “Was the Flood global?” on creationontheweb). But this is another debate.
Renier wrote: “…because that is the only thing that is going to change my view. Proof, evidence…”
– Proof and evidence is not always a gaurantee of the truth. Remember that there are many criminals not in jail because there was not enough proof of their crime. There is not and there will probably never be scientific proof that there is a god, but that does not mean that there is not a god. I think we can come close to proof. Have you ever seen the DVD “The Privileged Planet”? It is not a Christian DVD, it is a secular DVD. They do not try to find proof for a god. We are living on an exeptional planet!! Difficult to believe that all this happened by random chance…
Renier wrote: “But keep in mind that just like you do not think Homer’s Iliad (older than New Testament) to be true because it is absurd and without evidence, well, I hold your Bible in the same way as I hold the Iliad.”
– I will send you a short summary of the document. I realise now that I already have a summary.
This creation vs evolution debate is huge. We are struggling just to get to the first questions :- )
This is a summary of “Geloof en Getuienis” (“Belief and Testimony”) by Phillip Scheepers that I have written to someone that once asked me “But why Christianity”. I lot of these will not be applicable to an ateist, but I include it all.
The New Testament is true:
– Many different writers wrote the Bible, where as for example only 1 person wrote the Koran.
– All Bible writers tell the same story.
– There are more prove and cross references about the New Testament than of any other scripture in the world.
* The “Anals of Rome” was written by Tacticus and was written in 113 AC. There are only 2 manuscripts dated from 850 AC.
* Josephus wrote the “Jewish War” and there are only 9 manuscripts dated from the 11th and 12th century.
* The antique document we have the most Greek manuscripts of are the Illiad from Homerus. There are 650 manuscripts of which most of them are dated 1000 years after the Illiad has been written.
* For the New Testament there are approximately 5000 Greek manuscripts dated 140 A.C. (about 100 years after the death and resurrection of Christ). However, there are about 26000 other manuscripts of the New Testament dated less than 1000 years after it happened.
– Conclusion: If the Bible is not true then no other scripture in the world is true.
Jesus is not only a legend:
– Legends take centuries to develop.
– Legends (i.e. King Arthur) were written long after it supposedly happened. Nobody could question written legends because there were no living witnesses left.
– When the Bible was written, there were a lot of witnesses to correct any faults.
– The evangelicals are geological correct.
Jesus was not only a prophet:
– Jesus came to earth on a supernatural way.
– Jesus Himself said that He was God.
– Jesus except prayer to Him. He let people worship him.
– A respected prophet would be able to do miracles (for example Elijah and Elisha) but he would not have said that he was the son of God and would not forgive sins.
– “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things that Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on a level with the man who says that he is a poached egg – or else would be the devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” – From “Mere Christianity”, CS Lewis
– Jesus had no sins: In the Bible sins of even great people are mentioned. No sins are mentioned of Jesus.
Jesus really died:
– People that were flagellated sometimes died due to the loss of blood.
– They didn’t break His legs because He was already dead. The reason for His early death (before the other 2 people on the cross) is probably because He was flagellated before He was crucified.
– When He was stabbed with a spear there was both blood and water coming out, indicating that He was dead.
– The people that killed Jesus were trained to kill (they would know if He actually was dead).
– The bandages that He was covered with in the grave were soaked in herbs to preserve His body. If he still were not dead, the bandages that He was covered with would have killed Him in the grave.
Jesus really stood up again:
– Many people that had nothing to gain by seeing Him, saw him.
– The disciples did not steal Jesus’ body: The disciples had to be very disappointed that Jesus was dead. With this disappointment in their hearts, they had to take up their weapons to steal Jesus’ body and with this lie they had to, very enthusiastically, tell the world about Jesus that stood up from the dead. This does not sound very likely.
– The church was borne in the most difficult place of all places – the same city where all these things have happened. If there were only the slightest of doubt about the fact that Jesus stood up, the church would not have been borned in Jerusalem.
The modern year count starts with the birth of Jesus Christ!!
How is Christianity unique?
– In all religions there are separation between God and mankind.
– All other religions try to bridge the gap between mankind and God with good works: Islam has the 5 pillars, the Jews have to obey the Talmud, Buddhists have the 8 paths and Hindus have to bring the correct sacrifices.
– With Christianity it is the opposite: Man is not capable to satisfy God. God reaches to mankind through His grace.
O yes. I have written a summary of the DVD “The Privileged Planet”, but it is unfortunately only in Afrikaans. Email me and I will send it to you. The DVD however is much more impressive than my summary :- )
Uhm, Daniel, are you going to address the points we took up with you or ignore them? I mean, what’s the use galloping on if you fail to complete previous points of discussion?
Renier, in #34 I say “This creation vs evolution debate is huge. We are struggling just to get to the first questions :- )”
Yes, I am planning to address the above. Just give me some time.
Quotes (response to #20):
I must admit that Carl Wieland acted strangely, if this is true. But as you know, evolutionists and creationists do not always get along very well. :- )
However, it does not matter if Patterson meant something else. To me it again shows how incomplete the fossil record is for evolutionists. It is too incomplete to say exactly where in the line for example the Archaeopteryx is. For creationists, the fossil record is 88% complete (as I said before).
NB: Why is the fossil record so complete on the one hand, but so incomplete on the other hand? Isn’t this proof against evolution?
Further, the document you sent me (toarchive.org/faqs/patterson.html), contains the following paragraph:
“…It may have been a species on a side-branch. However, that in no way disqualifies it as a transitional form, or as evidence for evolution. Evolution predicts that such fossils will exist, and if there was no link between reptiles and birds then Archaeopteryx would not exist, whether it is directly ancestral or not…”
Note the words “Evolution predicts that such fossils will exist”. The assumption is thus that evolution exists and therefore there will be such fossils even it was not find yet. You will argue that there are a lot of transitional fossils and that you have sent me a few. I will discuss this in the following posts.
See also “That quote!—about the missing transitional fossils” (creationontheweb)
“During a public lecture presented at New York City’s American Museum of Natural History on 5 November 1981, he (Patterson) dropped a bombshell among his peers that evening, who became very angry and emotional. Here are some extracts from what he said:
‘ … I’m speaking on two subjects, evolutionism and creationism, and I believe it’s true to say that I know nothing whatever about either … One of the reasons I started taking this anti-evolutionary view, well, let’s call it non-evolutionary, was last year I had a sudden realisation.
‘… One morning I woke up … and it struck me that I had been working on this stuff [evolution] for twenty years, and there was not one thing I knew about it.’ He added:
‘That was quite a shock that one could be misled for so long … I’ve tried putting a simple question to various people and groups of people: “Can you tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing that you think is true?” I tried that question on the geology staff in the Field Museum of Natural History, and the only answer I got was silence. I tried it on the members of the Evolutionary Morphology Seminar in the University of Chicago … and all I got there was silence for a long time, and then eventually one person said: “Yes, I do know one thing. It ought not to be taught in high school.”.”
I could not really find some comments on this quote on talkorigins. This is also said before the communication with Lionel Theunissen, thus it is a bit confusing.
Note what Patterson said in his response to Theunissen’s question:
“I seem fated continually to make a fool of myself with creationists. … I hope that by now I have learned to be more circumspect in dealing with creationists, cryptic or overt. But I still maintain that scepticism is the scientist’s duty, however much the stance may expose us to ridicule.”
What does he mean by that? He seems to be saying that it’s OK to doubt as long as we don’t let the creationists know. :- )
What about what Gould said in 1977 in “Evolution’s erratic pace’ in Natural History”:
“The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference; however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils. Yet Darwin was so wedded to gradualism that he wagered his entire theory on a denial of this literal record:
“The geological record is extremely imperfect and this fact will to a large extent explain why we do not find interminable varieties, connecting together all the extinct and existing forms of life by the finest graduated steps. He who rejects these views on the nature of the geological record, will rightly reject my whole theory.”
Darwin’s argument still persists as the favored escape of most paleontologists from the embarrassment of a record that seems to show so little of evolution. In exposing its cultural and methodological roots, I wish in no way to impugn the potential validity of gradualism (for all general views have similar roots). I wish only to point out that it was never “seen” in the rocks.
Paleontologists have paid an exorbitant price for Darwin’s argument. We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life’s history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we never see the very process we profess to study.” – [Natural History 86(5), p.14, May 1977]
I have also tried to find something about this quote on talkorigins, but could not find anything.
I can also send you a lot of other quotes, but in any case. Forget about the quotes for now. Let’s get to the science.
Transitional fossils/creatures:
For every example of a transitional form that you give me, I can give you an article from creationontheweb that gives scientific reasons why it is not a transitional form.
If there was really evolution, I would expect to see examples of the following:
– Creatures that is something between a human and an ape (as I said in #13). Renier, you haven’t really commented on this in #23. There is currently nothing and no proof that something existed that made fire and weapons, but could not talk (for example).
– Fossils/animals with one wing or small wings. The only 2 animals with wings that cannot fly is the ostrich and that bird from Australia (I think), but they are birds on their own. You cannot classify them as links. The Archaeopteryx is also just a flying creature that looks like a T. Rex (the mouth in any case). That is not proof that it evolved from a T.Rex.
– A lot of fossils AND animals showing for example how a cow evolved to become a horse. Today we only have a cow and a horse.
– There is an article on monotremes (#23) on creationontheweb. I understand why you want to see it as a transitional animal. But just because it gives milk like mammals and lay eggs like reptiles, does not make it a transitional animal between reptiles and mammals. To say that it is a transitional animal, you need lots of other animals/fossils showing how it evoled and from what. The monotreme is a very interesting animal, but it is an animal on its own. Because you believe in evolution, the most logic conclusion to make is that is a transitional animal. I believe the monotreme is proof of the creativity of God. There is however no scientific proof that it is a transitional animal. It is a conclusion from a presupposed assumption that evolution is true.
Horse evolution:
Evolutionists say that there is a clear fossil record showing horse evolution. However, even this one can be critisised. See the article “What’s happened to the horse?” Below is a quote from the article:
“So what’s the difficulty for the horse with the theory of evolution?
(1) If it were true, you would expect to find the earliest horse fossils in the lowest rock strata. But you don’t. In fact, bones of the supposed ‘earliest’ horses have been found at or near the surface. Sometimes they are found right next to modern horse fossils! O. C. Marsh commented on living horses with multiple toes, and said there were cases in the American Southwest where ‘both fore and hind feet may each have two extra digits fairly developed, and all of nearly equal size, thus corresponding to the feet of the extinct Protohippus’.1 In National Geographic (January 1981, p. 74), there is a picture of the foot of a so-called early horse, Pliohippus, and one of the modern Equus that were found at the same volcanic site in Nebraska. The writer says: ‘Dozens of hoofed species lived on the American plains.’ Doesn’t this suggest two different species, rather than the evolutionary progression of one?
(2) There is no one site in the world where the evolutionary succession of the horse can be seen. Rather, the fossil fragments have been gathered from several continents on the assumption of evolutionary progress, and then used to support the assumption. This is circular reasoning, and does not qualify as objective science.
(3) The theory of horse evolution has very serious genetic problems to overcome. How do we explain the variations in the numbers of ribs and lumbar vertebrae within the imagined evolutionary progression? For example, the number of ribs in the supposedly ‘intermediate’ stages of the horse varies from 15 to 19 and then finally settles at 18. The number of lumbar vertebrae also allegedly swings from six to eight and then returns to six again.
(4) Finally, when evolutionists assume that the horse has grown progressively in size over millions of years, what they forget is that modern horses vary enormously in size. The largest horse today is the Clydesdale; the smallest is the Fallabella, which stands at 43 centimetres (17 inches) tall. Both are members of the same species, and neither has evolved from the other.”
Comparing similar animals:
Comment on #23, 24:
Renier said: “Of course birds are relatively far from humans. They are not mammals and are descendants from dinosaurs. We know this through DNA comparison…”
And: “As for the bats and horse claim, source (peer-reviewed and published) please, or are you just making things up?”
I don’t make it up. It is actually evolutionists that said that. See “Saddle up the horse, it’s off to the bat cave” and I quote: “Evolutionists are now saying that bats and horses are more closely related than cows and horses.” (reference “http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9402-bats-and-horses-get-strangely-chummy.html”)
You are making a lot of “peer-review”. I am sure all the articles in creationontheweb were peer-reviewed – of course not by evolutionists, but then the articles by evolutionists were not reviewed by creationists.
Also the reason there are so little recognised creationist scientists, is because of discrimination against them by their evolutionary colleagues. I can send you a number of examples. Also see the movie “Expelled” by Ben Steinn.
Renier said: “Feathers are just modified scales.”
Is this also through DNA comparison? Or was it tested and observed? Did anybody change a scale into a feather in a laboratory or did anyone observe it in nature? I don’t think so.
The only thing that DNA comparison tells is that the DNA of animals that look more or less the same, is closer than the DNA of animals that look totally different (except horses and bats :-)). That is still no proof that an animal evolved to other animals with a DNA more or less the same as its own.
See also the article “Are look-alikes related?” on creationontheweb:
“However, if we look at the horse limb, we see that it is quite different to the human form. Frogs and people have remarkably similar limb structures, but horses, which are supposedly very much more closely related to humans, have a limb with little resemblance to the human limb. Just on the basis of limb structures, it might be reasonable to suppose that frogs and people are more closely related than people and horses.”
See article: “Refuting Evolution 2” on creationontheweb:
“Since DNA codes for structures and biochemical molecules, we should expect the most similar creatures to have the most similar DNA. Apes and humans are both mammals, with similar shapes, so both have similar DNA. We should expect humans to have more DNA similarities with another mammal like a pig than with a reptile like a rattlesnake. And this is so. Humans are very different from yeast but they have some biochemistry in common, so we should expect human DNA to differ more from yeast DNA than from ape DNA.
So the general pattern of similarities need not be explained by common-ancestry (evolution). Furthermore, there are some puzzling anomalies for an evolutionary explanation—similarities between organisms that evolutionists don’t believe are closely related. For example, hemoglobin, the complex molecule that carries oxygen in blood and results in its red color, is found in vertebrates. But it is also found in some earthworms, starfish, crustaceans, mollusks, and even in some bacteria. An antigen receptor protein has the same unusual single chain structure in camels and nurse sharks, but this cannot be explained by a common ancestor of sharks and camels.6 And there are many other examples of similarities that cannot be due to evolution.”
See article “What about similarities and other such arguments for evolution?” on creationontheweb:
“What if human and chimp DNA were 96% homologous? What would that mean? Would it mean that humans could have “evolved” from a common ancestor with chimps? Not at all. DNA carries its information in the sequence of four chemical compounds known as nucleotides, abbreviated C, G, A, T. Groups of three at a time of these chemical “letters” are “read” by complex translation machinery in the cell to determine the sequence of amino acids, of which there are 20 different types, to be incorporated into proteins. The human DNA has 3 billion nucleotides. The amount of information in these 3 billion base pairs in the DNA of every human cell has been compared to that in 1,000 books of 500 pages each.6 So, if humans were “only” 4% different, this still amounts to 120 million base pairs, equivalent to about 40 large books of information. This is an impossible barrier for mutations (random changes) to cross, even given the several million years widely claimed as the time available for this to happen.
Does a high degree of similarity mean that two DNA sequences have the same meaning or function? No, not necessarily. Compare the following sentences:
(1) There are many scientists today who question the evolutionary paradigm and its atheistic philosophical implications.
(2) There are NOT many scientists today who question the evolutionary paradigm and its atheistic philosophical implications.
These sentences have 97% homology and yet have almost opposite meanings! There is a strong analogy here to the way in which large DNA sequences can be turned on or off by relatively small control sequences. Indeed, large differences between humans and chimps are being discovered
in the gene control sequences.7 There are also almost no similarities in the ‘hot spots’ where chromosomes rearrange pieces of DNA during sexual reproduction. The Y-chromosomes are also extremely different, with the human one being much larger. There is no way that mutations could bridge the gap between chimps and humans. Chimps are just animals.
See article “Is the evolutionary tree turning into a creationist orchard?” on creationontheweb:
“‘ … the major prediction of evolutionary theory is that there is one single nested pattern of resemblance linking all organisms’.1 As a result, there has been an attempt to group all life into one phylogenetic or family tree. But the large gaps between many supposed relatives have been a constant headache.”
“The recent elucidation of the complete genome sequences of 20 microorganisms has given fresh hope that this new data will help to reduce the gaps and strengthen the rRNA tree of life. But the data is instead proving to be a Trojan horse, as sequence comparison between homologous genes is yielding unexpected relatives and evolutionary lines, and different trees from the one originally predicted.2”
Proof for creationism:
Renier said: “Where is the proof for creationism?”
To ask for proof for creationism implies that you ask proof of God. As I said in #34, it will be difficult to prove a god, but there are many indictations that it could not have happened randomly by itself. Creationists do not go out to prove that there is a God, we make that assumption. We only question the so-called proof of evolution, taking away God from creation. We use information like irreducable complexity and information such as in the DVD “The Privileged Planet” and the article “Review of Climbing Mount Improbable” on creationontheweb.
For example, we will never be able to proof that the earth is exactly 6000 years old, but we can question the assumptions of theories that say the earth is millions of years old and show that with other assumptions, we will be able to get to an age of 6000 years (4004 BC).
Increase of genetic information:
What I mean with increase in genetic information is for example a land animal growing wings. Wings are not in a land animals’s genetic information (you will never see a lion being with a wing). However, there are a number of examples where organisms lost genetic information: Fish becoming blind, beetles losing their wings, bacteria (H. Pylori) that loses the ability to absorb certain things and in the process survives antibiotics, etc.
Another example: all dogs came from wolves. Thus, if you start with 2 wolves you can breed any dog you like, if you have enough time. This is because wolves’ genetic information is very rich with information (God made them that way). However, you cannot take 2 poodles and breed them back to wolves, because they have lost the genetic information to be wolves. This is the problem with inbreeding. For this reason I would rather believe in devolution rather than evolution.
In #25, Renier said: “As for information increase, please specify what you understand as information. Also, have a look at an example at http://toarchive.org/faqs/information/apolipoprotein.html””
This is another example where genetic information reduced. See article “A-I Milano mutation—evidence for evolution?” on creationontheweb:
“What has happened? One amino acid has been replaced with a cysteine residue in a protein that normally assembles high density lipoproteins (HDLs), which are involved in removing ‘bad’ cholesterol from arteries. The mutant form of the protein is less effective at what it is supposed to do, but it does act as an antioxidant, which seems to prevent atherosclerosis (hardening of arteries). In fact, because of the added -SH on the cysteine, 70% of the proteins manufactured bind together in pairs (called dimers), restricting their usefulness. The 30% remaining do the job as an antioxidant. Because the protein is cleverly designed to target ‘hot spots’ in arteries and this targeting is preserved in the mutant form, the antioxidant activity is delivered to the same sites as the cholesterol-transporting HDLs. In other words, specificity of the antioxidant activity (for lipids) does not lie with the mutation itself, but with the protein structure, which already existed, in which the mutation occurred. The specificity already existed in the wild-type A-I protein before the mutation occurred.” etc
Cyclops babies, elephant men, werewolf people, blue people and people with bark disease are all normal people with a disease. Previously Darwin, Haeckel and Wallace used these people and present them as missing links. – See article: “Darwin’s apemen and the exploitation of deformed humans” on creationontheweb.
In #25 Renier said: “However, mutuations are very scarce” LOL
You are correct, I did make a mistake. Mutations are not so scarce. However beneficial mutatians are very scarce. Beneficial mutations are not mutations where genetic information increased, but is mutations where a loss in genetic information actually was a benefit. For example beatles that loses their wings on a windy island will prevent them form being blown to sea.
Where did life come from?
God gave us life. We can clone people, do artificial insimination, do invitro vertilisation, help people with stem cells, increase the age of people, etc. but I can guarantee you that we will never be able to give life. Only God does that.
I know the Miller-Urey experiment. I have tried to read the links that you sent me, but couldn’t. However the articles on creationontheweb tell what it is all about. They actually use this as an example where evolutionists were dishonest, not telling people under what circumstances the experiments were done.
See article “Leading US magazine exposes evolution’s tall tales!” on creationontheweb:
“…the famous Miller/Urey experiment of 1953 supposedly produced the building blocks of life in a test tube.
The truth: Miller/Urey had to have a hydrogen-rich atmosphere for their experiment. Yet for almost 30 years, scientists involved in this field of research have concluded that the early atmosphere of Earth was quite different from this. So while their experiment does not work at all, some texts (e.g. Molecular Biology of the Cell by Alberts) continue to inform students that the first step to creating life was overcome by Miller and Urey. See also Q&A: Origin of Life.”
See article “What biology textbooks never told you about evolution” on creationontheweb:
“Crucial to the success of the experiment was Miller’s water trap in which the amino acids generated could dissolve and thus be protected from subsequent destructive contact with the spark. But on the hypothesized primordial Earth with no oxygen (and therefore no ozone), the products would have been exposed to destructive ultraviolet rays. This is so even if they reached the oceans, because UV radiation can penetrate tens of metres of water.”
The age of the earth:
The following dating teqniques indicates a much younger earth and with the right assumptions, could calculate the age of the earth to be 6000 years old (4004 BC):
(1) According to the helium content in the atmosphere, earth should only be 1.8 million years old.
(2) According to the salt in the sea, earth should be less the 62 million years old.
(3) According to the rate the earth’s magnetic field is decreasing, earth should be less than 10000 years old. If the magnetic field was significantly higher, earth would have melted millions of years ago.
(4) Drawings of dinosours on rock were found proving that dinosours lived together with people. According to creationists, dinosours were created together with all the other people and were also on Noah’s ark. They got extinct only recently.
(5) The low lead/uranium ratio in coal indicates that coal is only thousands of years old, not millions (I already told you about the fact (tested and proven) that coal can form in less than one year).
(6) There is relative little erosion on the continents. There would be been much more if the earth was millions of years old.
(7) The Niagara canyon is approximately 4400 years old if one takes into concideration the current length of 11 km and the current erosion rate.
(8) There are too little people on earth if it is millions of years old. See article “Where are all the people?” on creationontheweb.
(9) According to carbon-14 dating, all diamonds are less then 58000 years old.
On diamonds that does not take millions of years, see lifegem.com:
“What is a LifeGem®?The LifeGem® is a certified, high-quality diamond created from the
carbon of your loved one as a memorial to their unique life, or as a symbol of your personal and precious bond with another.”
Hi Daniel.
As Renier informed you, he is on holiday till roughly the 7th of January. I will however try and answer/comment on your claims.
I am still waiting for you to give me YOUR definition of evolution however.
I have briefly browsed your posts and I must say I find this part rather disconcerting: “I know the Miller-Urey experiment. I have tried to read the links that you sent me, but couldn’t. However the articles on creationontheweb tell what it is all about. They actually use this as an example where evolutionists were dishonest, not telling people under what circumstances the experiments were done.”
Why couldn’t you read the links given to you?
Also, it appears you do not understand how the peer-review process works. I would like you to explain to me what you understand as the peer-review process, so that we can try and sort the issue out.
Lastly, on Lifegem: Please note that they create synthetic diamonds NOT real diamonds.
Company and history – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LifeGem
Synthetic Diamonds – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_diamond
I am not sure what I said that you want to make sure that I understand what evolution is. Maybe it is the example of the Jews that are circumsised but still have their foreskin. The reason I mentioned it is because of the following:
Some use wisdom teeth for example as an example of evolution. They say that some people are born without it because we do not use it anymore. This is however nonsense. As you correctly said, the DNA has to chance.
OK, how I understand evolution is the following. It happens through mutations and natural selection: Mutations are copy errors in DNA (with emphasis on “error”). If there is a copy error, the new animal has other properties, for example a beatle that loses its wings. Now there are beetles with wings and beetles without wings. If this new mutation is a benefit to the animal (say for example it is on a windy island) then the beetles without wings become more and the beetles with wings become less. This is natural selection: through natural selection, a new breed is bred. Breeding for example a new breed of dog, is also an example of selection, but not natural. This is done by the control of humans.
The problem with evolution is mutations where genetic information increased. There are numerous examples of mutations where genetic information decreased but an increase was never seen. It is the same with breeding horses or dogs: one can breed a fast horse, but these horses tend to become sick easily and are generally frail (“pieperig”). Thus, there is also a decrease in genetic information.
Also see “Refuting Evolution 2” on creationontheweb under the heading “Argument: Some mutations are beneficial”
There were also tests done in laboratories where mice and fruit flies were radiated to impose mutations on them. They mutated, yes, but there were no mutations where genetic information increased.
The well-known French biologist, Pierre Grassé, at the University of Sorbonne, acknowledged that mutation in bacteria only move up and down around an average without any nett effect. He said: “… mutations do not produce any kind of evolution.”
Also see the following quote:
“All point mutations that have been studied on the molecular lever turn out to reduce the genetic information and not to increase it. Not even one mutation has been observed that adds a little information to the genome.” – Spetner, Lee, Dr. 1997. Not by Chance, The Judaica Press, Inc., New York. p 138. (And he is not a Christian)
Also see a very interesting video clip where Dawkins was asked if he knew of a mutation where genetic information increased (http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/5136, “4. Changes in living things – Mutations”, 25:55).
I don’t know what Dawkins answered in the end, but one could get the video and see.
On the peer-review issue, see “Creationism, Science and Peer Review” on creationontheweb.
Catchtice said: “Why couldn’t you read the links given to you?”
I again tried and got it this time. I really don’t know why I missed it. I also see that they recognise the fact that the experiments were done in an unrealistic environment. However, it seems that some people preaching evolution, does not tell this to their listeners.
And producing some amino acids is still very far from explaining life. As I said before, we cannot even raise people from the dead.
Diamonds:
According to the articles Cachtice send me, the LifeGem diamonds are manufactured under 5000 kPa and temperatures between 1600 – 2000 °C and using alloys as a flux. Although I do not think that one would get these conditions in nature, I would not expect that diamonds will form in only 6 months in nature either. Under less severe temperatures and pressures, 1000 years could be more than enough. The fact is that this is scientifically neither false nor true. It will need to be tested first. It will be difficult to test it over 1000 years, but much more difficult to test it over millions of years…
Just on the Vitamin C story again (original post):
I quote from the article “Refutation of New Scientist’s Evolution: 24 myths and misconceptions”:
Evolutionary statement:
“Continual mutation also means that if you don’t use it, you lose it. For instance, many primates cannot make vitamin C, because of a gene mutation. This mutation makes no difference to animals that get plenty of vitamin C in their diet. However, when the environment changes, such loss of function can make a big difference, as one primate discovered on long sea voyages.
Creationist response:
“This may well be true. The Creation/Fall model predicts some deterioration in design. But this doesn’t help evolution, because guinea pigs likewise are unable to produce vitamin C, but share some of the apparent degrading errors seen in the human DNA. Here is a case where the shared mistakes are not due to common ancestry.”
Thus, one also gets the same errors in humans and guinea pigs, yet evolutionists do not claim that humans evolved from guinea pigs.
Hi Daniel, I am busy with my response but you must be patient with me. This year has started off with a huge bang, so I am a bit swamped!
Ha ha ha ha!!! Are the puns intentional?
They are indeed!
Glad you enjoyed them (and notice them for that matter!) 😉
Okay. I am back. Daniel, I’ll start typing over the weekend and address the various, uhm, concepts that you posted here.
#53
In response to your comment #34 (roughly):
Firstly, creationweb.com is not a scientific website. They may discuss scientific principles on it, but so do they on wikipedia. Creationweb has no history of peer-review, published material appearing in scientific journals (to my knowledge). Another reason for not viewing it as a specifically scientific website.
Secondly, creationweb.com is however a religious website. Thus most of it’s opinions are bound to try and prove creationism or some other form of religious motive beyond doubt, even if it means facts must be distorted or misrepresented.
What Renier meant by not being able to access the site is that his internet connection has a safety mechanism that excludes certain websites to be accessed. Unfortunately he has no control over which websites are being excluded and allowed.
I’m not going to stick with this point for long, since I agree that it’s not really part of the evolution debate, but we really DO know better today than we did even 10 years ago. Look at new medicinal treatments coming out all the time! As far as I know it’s not that Genesis was written in Babylon, but rather that the tale in Genesis was based ON tales FROM Babylon. How exactly do you know that the measurements for the ark was accurate?
If one claims there IS a god, one needs to present evidence for the claim. However, merely suggesting that there is a possibility that there might be a god does not prove his existence either, nor does suggesting he does not exist prove his non-existence. Yet, everytime we attempt a search, or for that matter replace a supernatural explanation with a natural explanation, we remove one more hiding block for a god to hide beneath. Doesn’t the fact that no natural explanation has ever been replaced by a supernatural explanation suggest that the probability of a god suddenly popping up is far less likely than the opposite?
All something like the dvd you mention “proves” is that we live in a remarkably beautiful world and that we have the faculties with which to appreciate, as well as study it. Trying to make random chance into some sort of enemy of reality only suggests you aren’t quite sure how random chance, as suggested or used in theories like evolution, really works.
#54
In response to your comment #39 (roughly):
I think it matters greatly what Patterson meant. It’s like claiming to pray for world peace but meaning you only want yourself to be happy, the one meaning leans towards being selfish and the other meaning leans towards genuine altruism.
Okay, now.. as for predictions. Evolution predicts certain observations if we do observe fossils and/or a fossil record. Evolution does not however contend with whether there MUST be a fossil (record) or not, it merely states that if we were to find or observe one we should note certain conditions as well as certain predictions. Luckily for us, there are some fossils found in tact from various periods of our planet’s history.
I again state that we are LUCKILY to have any fossils, since it’s not a natural condition for a decaying body (or a skeleton for that matter) to be well preserved. Evolution never stated there MUST be fossils, it merely predicted that if there WERE fossils, we will see certain features, specifically of simpler life evolving to more complex life.
You make the assumption, it appears, that as with a religious argument the first premise is generally the conclusion of the argument as well. An example would be starting an argument with the first premise, “God exists, therefore..” and ending it with the conclusion, “Thus, God exists.”
However, this is not true in the case of evolution. Firstly, the theory was expounded by answering a question, namely, whether complex life could emerge from simple life. In answering this question, evolution naturally comes to a point (as does most scientific theories) of being able to make certain predictions. In no instance was it ever said that “Evolution exists, therefore..” it’s always been a point of “Evolution predicts the following observation, we have tested for it (in most cases independantly) and found similar results.” Do you notice the difference in approaches?
“What does he mean by that? He seems to be saying that it’s OK to doubt as long as we don’t let the creationists know.” – Uhm, I think you completely and utterly miss the point of his statement. He said it’s a scientist’s duty to take a sceptical position, even if in taking such a position he/she opens themselves up to being ridiculed by misquotations and misrepresentation, mainly forthcoming from the creationists and their ilk. Observations would suggest that they are most likely to quote and misrepresent healthy scepticism as supportive of their views by mere fact of having had doubt, not by lack of evidence or by over-powering evidence.
Now, as for the Gould quote. He notes that evolution, if given a completely intact fossil record could favour gradualism as the best possible form of evolution. However, Gould was not a gradualist but rather supported the theory of punctuated equilibrium. (You can view more on this theory here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium ) His reason behind supporting PE, was because of the gaps in the fossil record which he thought could not be explained in any other way.
Please note that Gould accepted evolution as a theory, but didn’t agree with the idea that it happened gradually.
I don’t see how the quote actually proves or disproves evolution itself, unless one tries to completely misreprsent what Gould is actually talking about.
I also checked talkorigins for posts concerning PE, but found none, you can however find various articles and posts about it on pandasthumb.org
#55
Please be patient, more to come – very busy at work. 🙂
#56
In response to your comment #40 (roughly):
I think it would be more apt to claim that you can give ideas over why something is not a transitional fossil, but since we still haven’t come across any published, peer-reviewed scientific papers purporing the creationweb claims, I just somehow doubt their validity?
I think I have answered issues concerning the fossil record in my previous responses. Also, it’s irrelevant what YOU expect to see, this is exactly WHY we use the scientific method and other properly controlled methodologies to lower error margins in testing and end-results.
Okay, so for the first section you make a lot of claims, with no real evidence except finger wagging back it up? Also you said “I believe the monotreme is proof of the creativity of God.” – your belief is unfortunately not evidence for your claim. What scientific proof do you have for this?
Concerning Horse Evolution: I am happy to note how stringently the scientific principle of falsifiability is adhered. You creationists are very much aware that disproving one claim made by the theory of evolution will put it on shaky ground, however why do you not allow your alternative theory to stand up against similar stringent scientific controls? I don’t know if you realize that a lot of modern biology is hinged around evolution-based theories. What alternative do you propose? Where is the SCIENTIFIC proof that this theory answers the questions you have posed to the current prevalent theory?
If I understand correctly from what is being inferred, one of the claims is that because certain horses are larger than other horses evolution is incorrect? How does creationism answer this?
Also, the word “dozens” implies more than two as far as I know. So no, I think the claim is that there were way more species of horse on the American plains than now, and inferred in the same sentence that most of them died out, with the most successful ones (in an evolutionary sense) still alive today.
How does creationism deal with the destruction of the different species of horse? Biologists, who mostly support evolution, will claim that the species died out because their competitors were more adapt at survival than they were. Most of these would then decompose to such a degree that nothing remains of them. This happens, even to day.
Yet again, we are FORTUNATE that there is a fossil record, since it’s not a natural state for the dead to be kept in stasis or be well preserved, but rather that they decompose quite naturally, quite thoroughly.
How does creationism deal with this?
I get a bit snotty in this post, but it is in good spirit.
Daniel wrote: “There is a lot of science on creationontheweb. CMI does not just say “Because the Bible says so”. Why do you say that there is no science? The articles I have send you is proof and I will send you more.”
It is not science unless it has been peer-reviewed. Now you and CMI might whine and moan and complain about the peer-review process (for obvious reasons) but you must understand that peer-review is part of the modern scientific process. Ergo, no peer-review, no claim to science. It’s simple really. And you should think about it. Peer-review is a good thing. It is a process where people with knowledge (expertise) can reject fraudulent or faulty papers. But we know that creationists are allergic to peer-review, so you are excused. It is hard to smuggle some bullshit in, calling it science and then have it rejected by people who know their subjects. Rejection hurts I suppose, so creationists try and avoid it.
Daniel wrote: “I do not believe this at all. Why will we now today know better than the people that lived closer to the events? ”
Well, the people who lived closer to those events were gullible and took just-so stories and folklore as truth. Talking donkeys, talking snakes and angels in the sky. And is it not amusing: If a person today was to tell you that a donkey talked to him, you would laugh or think the person is a bit unstable. Yet, when your Bible claims the same it is all divine revelation. Same goes for snakes. And Daniel, we do know better than the ancient people. They use to think the earth was the centre of the universe. They did not know what atoms was, how electrons behave. They did not know the stars are massive fusion bodies nor what the half-life for uranium is. They did not know about quantum entanglement, electricity or the radiation spectrum. The did not know that many diseases are caused by bacteria or viruses. They used to cast demons out when people were just plain ill. In short, they were ignorant. But hey, if you want to think they were clued up, then go ahead. I for one know they were wrong about many things, and their supernatural explanations for things they could not understand is just as wrong today as it was then.
Daniel wrote: “This is an attempt to reconsile the Bible with evolution, which is according to me not real science.”
Of course it is not science. The Bible is not science. The Bible is not an authority on natural things not the supernatural. It is myth, like all the other myths.
Daniel wrote: “There are a number of things that does not make sense if you believe that Genesis was written in Babylon. For example, where did the genealogies in the Bible come from? Was it fabricated? ”
You tell me. Even later genealogies as found in the New Testament does not match up with each other. And please, to “believe” a person actually lived 996 years just so that you can believe you Bible… You have to believe a lot of weird nonsense if you want to believe the Bible is literally true.
Daniel wrote: “And where did they get the accurate measurements for the ark? ”
What? Accurate? Have you seen the ark? Has anyone found the ark? Does people in this modern day and age still believe god crammed a crapload of animals into a boat because he was pissed off and intent on drowning people, even innocent children? Provide proof for the ark first, else it is no different than Balder’s magic boat, in other words, just another myth believed by superstitious people.
Daniel wrote: “Of all the flood stories in the world, the Bible version is the most complete ”
But not the oldest. Gilgamesh predates the Bible, and the flood is found in there as well. Suppose it was nasty Satan that beat God to the story even before God pulled it off….
Daniel wrote: “Proof and evidence is not always a gaurantee of the truth.”
No, but it is a good start, much better than myths, weird beliefs and people telling their personal stories and fantasies that can somehow never be verified. Verification has always been a difficult one for God, his own kryptonite.
Daniel wrote: “There is not and there will probably never be scientific proof that there is a god, but that does not mean that there is not a god.”
True. But Daniel, let me ask you this. If all the stars re-arranged themselves and spelt out “The Christian God is the real one”, would you claim it is proof for your god? Of course you would, even I would be impressed by it. So it is *your* double standard to claim there can be no proof for god simply because there is none. And that my friend puts your god into the same ark, I mean, boat as fairies.
Daniel wrote: ” I think we can come close to proof. Have you ever seen the DVD “The Privileged Planet”? It is not a Christian DVD, it is a secular DVD.”
Who told you it was not a Christian DVD? I mean JesusFC Daniel, check things out a bit, people are lying to you, yet again. On Wiki: “The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery is a book by Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards which claims there is scientific evidence that shows the Earth and life isn’t a result of natural processes, but are the products of intelligent design, a view firmly rejected within the scientific community, and by a federal court ruling in the United States.[1][2][3][4][5] Both Gonzalez and Richards are associated with the Discovery Institute, the hub of the intelligent design movement; Gonzalez serves as a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture.”
See? The Disco Institute is behind it, and they are a Christian Right organisation, a pure propaganda machine with a religious agenda. It’s not science dude! Let them produce their peer-reviewed journal entries that forms the basis of this DVD, and then we can talk about science. Also, the movie is propaganda for intelligent design. Now, you want to claim the movie is science, then please provide the science of intelligent design. How can we test it? When did god, uh, I mean the designer, do anything. Can we verify it? To be sincere we must be able to falsify it. How can we falsify intelligent design? You don’t know what science is Daniel, that’s why the disco institute charlatans are confusing the crap out of you.
Daniel wrote: “They do not try to find proof for a god. We are living on an exeptional planet!! Difficult to believe that all this happened by random chance…”
Just to help you cure your misunderstanding a bit. Random Chance? Evolution is not Random Chance. The mutations are random, not the selection process. And Daniel, to claim our planet is special and made to fit us is like the water in a pothole marvelling how well the pothole is shaped to hold the water. It is bassackwards. Life adapted to this planet, not the planet to life. I mean frack! The Permian extinction wiped more than 90% of life on earth. Good planet. Nice planet. Oh, earth quakes, tsunami, hurricanes? *sniff*, such a “Privileged Planet”.
Daniel wrote: “This creation vs evolution debate is huge. We are struggling just to get to the first questions :- )”
Agreed. Let’s deal with the issues on the table first before we take on the next bunch. Thanks for participating.
Daniel wrote: “This is a summary of “Geloof en Getuienis”
I can see major issues offhand, but let’s deal with the evolution issue first, I am pressed for time at this stage.
Daniel wrote: “I must admit that Carl Wieland acted strangely, if this is true. But as you know, evolutionists and creationists do not always get along very well. :- )”
Where people’s personal beliefs are questioned, there is always conflict.
Daniel wrote: “However, it does not matter if Patterson meant something else.”
It does. But Daniel, think about it. Even if the creationists did not do the dishonest thing and quote mined Patterson, one man’s views would not change all the data we have for evolution and the same conclusions would still be reached. This quote mining industry the creationists have going is not going to change the facts that are on the table. Pity they don’t see it. Even if Patterson said he rejected evolution, it would still not make evolution untrue. You can gripe about the data we have for evolution but we cannot gripe about the creationist’s data. Why? Because they have none. Double standards. And somehow you people fail to realise another thing. Even if you proved the Earth is 6000 years old, then you still need to prove it was *your* god that made it, and not Zeus. Creationism is not by default correct, even if evolution is disproved. Do you understand this?
Daniel wrote: “To me it again shows how incomplete the fossil record is for evolutionists. It is too incomplete to say exactly where in the line for example the Archaeopteryx is.”
We are not saying birds came from Archaeopteryx . But you have to admit that Archaeopteryx represents an organism that links birds to dinos. In short, Archaeopteryx is probably a close cousin of the actual link between birds and dinos. How do the creationists explain Archaeopteryx? God did it, don’t ask why. Ho hum, so damn boring and no information at all, just a copout for people who fear their god fairy is loosing against reality.
Daniel wrote: “For creationists, the fossil record is 88% complete (as I said before).”
Pray tell. I would also like to know how the 88% was calculated. While your at it explain why god made life diverse just to wipe more than 95% of all species that ever lived.
Daniel wrote: “Why is the fossil record so complete on the one hand, but so incomplete on the other hand? Isn’t this proof against evolution?”
There is no fossil that contradicts evolution, such as a rabbit in the Cambrian layers. Furthermore, even if we had no fossil at all, then evolution could still be concluded based on DNA data, as the VitC sample above (just one of many) illustrates. But Daniel, how does Noah’s flood explain the fossil record? T.Rex in the garden with Adam and Eve? Was T-Rex on the ark? lol
Daniel wrote: “Note the words “Evolution predicts that such fossils will exist”. The assumption is thus that evolution exists and therefore there will be such fossils even it was not find yet.”
Dude, you need to read up a bit more on how science works. Theories are tested based on predictions they make, that’s what experimentation is all about after all. For instance, Relativity predicted light would be bent by gravity (Newton’s laws did not). So, we have a prediction. Test. Yup, light bends so the theory remains unfalsified. If light did not bend, out goes the theory or it is modified again to fit the observations. But let’s see. What predictions does Intelligent Design make and how can we test it? What does ID say about the fossil record?
Daniel wrote: “See also “That quote!—about the missing transitional fossils” (creationontheweb)
“During a public lecture presented at New York City’s American Museum of Natural History on 5 November 1981, he (Patterson) dropped a bombshell among his peers that evening, who became very angry and emotional. Here are some extracts from what he said”
The same source that was dishonest about the Patterson quote, and here you are oohing and aahing about the dishonest nutcases again. Shame on you! Check your sources dude!
Daniel wrote: “I could not really find some comments on this quote on talkorigins. This is also said before the communication with Lionel Theunissen, thus it is a bit confusing.”
Indeed. Check your sources dude. I smell religion, I mean, a rat. :-p
Daniel wrote: “He seems to be saying that it’s OK to doubt as long as we don’t let the creationists know. :- )”
No. Doubt is good, but the creationists have a dishonest knack of placing things in such a way that it suits them and in this process distorts what was said and meant. Do a Google on creationist quote mining examples. My first encounter (still Christian at that stage) was in a debate between Gish and Saladin. Shocking dishonesty. People who claim to be honest should oppose it and speak out against such perverted tactics. But Christians would never deliberately lie to you Daniel, would they?
Daniel wrote: “What about what Gould said in 1977 in “Evolution’s erratic pace’ in Natural History”:”
My fellow blogger already told you about Gould’s views against gradualism. But Daniel, you quote Gould. Gould was a hardcore evolution supporter and scientist. You want to quote things from Gould that you think strengthens your position but in effect you reject Gould’s views in total because it is not in line with your Genesis
Daniel quoted Gould: “The geological record is extremely imperfect and this fact will to a large extent explain why we do not find interminable varieties, connecting together all the extinct and existing forms of life by the finest graduated steps. ”
I agree with Gould. It is stupid to ask for intermediate forms between every bloody species that ever lived. Nobody expects this except the creationists. But hey, we got DNA to compare too!
Daniel wrote: “If there was really evolution, I would expect to see examples of the following:
– Creatures that is something between a human and an ape (as I said in #13). Renier, you haven’t really commented on this in #23. There is currently nothing and no proof that something existed that made fire and weapons, but could not talk (for example).”
Uhm, Daniel, please read up on Human evolution. There are various species between us and ancestral apes. Try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution for a start.
Daniel wrote: “- Fossils/animals with one wing or small wings. The only 2 animals with wings that cannot fly is the ostrich and that bird from Australia (I think), but they are birds on their own. You cannot classify them as links. The Archaeopteryx is also just a flying creature that looks like a T. Rex (the mouth in any case). That is not proof that it evolved from a T.Rex.”
Archaeopteryx had feathers, just like other dinos that could not fly. Do your research dude! And I don’t think anybody claims Archaeopteryx evolved from a T.Rex Daniel. But, (get the cousin thing already!) they are closer to T-Rex than crocodiles, mammels, rodents, fish etc. And uhm, you know there is DNA evidence too, right? The fact that the mouth of Archaeopteryx looks like a T.Rex mouth is not the reason they are linked as being close to each other on the Tree of Life.
Daniel wrote: “A lot of fossils AND animals showing for example how a cow evolved to become a horse. Today we only have a cow and a horse.”
A horse evolved from a cow? Say what? Hmm. Split hoof, single hoof… horns (very common)… nope, I would say horses are not that closely related to cows. Zebra would be closer to a horse, and a donkey. Donkeys and horses recently diversified as 2 separate species because their DNA is still compatible enough to produce offspring, although the offspring is almost always infertile (mules) and therefore we classify them as 2 species. Geez, don’t the creationist quote miners teach you these things at least?
Daniel wrote: ‘There is an article on monotremes (#23) on creationontheweb.”
There you go again. If a point makes sense, discuss it here. But please don’t fool yourself. creationontheweb is not a science site. In fact, science is severely lacking but the religion is abundant. To be expected though, religion seems to have major issues with science. I suppose if they convinced you they are all about science then they are a well oiled propaganda machine. Still does not make it science though.
Daniel wrote: ‘ I understand why you want to see it as a transitional animal. But just because it gives milk like mammals and lay eggs like reptiles, does not make it a transitional animal between reptiles and mammals. ”
Okay Mr “I know more than Biologists”. Let’s see. What would you see as an animal that represents a transitional phase between mammals and reptiles? Give reasons and let’s discuss it instead of you just moaning about our examples. Give us your expectations, let’s hear them.
Daniel wrote: ‘say that it is a transitional animal, you need lots of other animals/fossils showing how it evoled and from what.”
Dude. Go read up on how fossils form. Then understand why they are very rare and then come and ask for fossils for every godamn creature that ever lived. Sheesh.
Daniel wrote: “Because you believe in evolution, the most logic conclusion to make is that is a transitional animal. ”
Milk like a mammel(but no nipples yet) and eggs like a reptile. I suppose you wanted to see a lizard running around with a horses head and the ass of a human? Wtf? What would you expect to see Daniel?
Daniel wrote: “I believe the monotreme is proof of the creativity of God.”
Since you refuse to see the possibility of it as a transitional form (or closely related to the actual transitional species) that did not go extinct, please supply proof for your god and then for your god’s creativity. Sheesh man, with no data to support your views you can just “believe”. Yet, when our data has gaps in (like fossils) you reject it *because* you believe otherwise. You believe because you have no data, else we could test your beliefs. So you reject our data because *you* have no data. Fancy that.
Daniel wrote, regarding horse evolution: “If it were true, you would expect to find the earliest horse fossils in the lowest rock strata. But you don’t. In fact, bones of the supposed ‘earliest’ horses have been found at or near the surface.”
Let’s take this step by step, okay? What is the source for this statement? Where can we verify that the oldest fossils were supposedly found in the earlier rock strata?
Also regarding horses, Daniel quoted: “There is no one site in the world where the evolutionary succession of the horse can be seen.”
Source please? Besides, do creationists think evolutionists think that fossils must all be found at a single spot? Why on earth? Are the poor critters not allowed to move and migrate because creationists think they should have stayed put? Damn, come back here swallows! If you die in Europe and not here then creationists will never believe you were related.
Daniel wrote: “I don’t make it up. It is actually evolutionists that said that. See “Saddle up the horse, it’s off to the bat cave” and I quote: “Evolutionists are now saying that bats and horses are more closely related than cows and horses.” (reference “http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9402-bats-and-horses-get-strangely-chummy.html”)”
Thanks for the source. The peer-review reference was Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0603797103. Very interesting. I have no reason to doubt the DNA analysis. It is however not a blow to evolution, just more data. Data is good. It means we can correct our errors like the view that bats and primates were closer than bats and horses. Correction is good. And this is the big difference between religion and science. Science can adapt as new data comes in, religion just spawns creationism :-p And is it not funny that you use DNA comparison data to argue with us, while the moment we provide you with DNA comparison data you reject it out of hand? Double standards again? Thinking about the bat and horse example. It would be a blow to evolution if bats hat genetic code closer to birds than to other mammels.
Daniel wrote: ” I am sure all the articles in creationontheweb were peer-reviewed – of course not by evolutionists, but then the articles by evolutionists were not reviewed by creationists.”
hahaha. Nice copout dude. If it’s not peer-reviewed and published in reputable journals, then it is not peer-reviewed. Daniel, truth to tell, the creationists that makes up all the apologetic stuff know that their “science” cannot withstand the scrutiny of peer-review. That is why it never gets submitted. One paper that got published a while ago and they (creationists) had to bypass the peer-review to get it published, causing people to be fired or reprimanded for unethical behaviour. The creationists only cried the usual persecution wildcard. Boohooohoo. Sniffle sob boohoo, evil evolutionists don’t want to accept our papers… boohoohoo. Ag shame.
Daniel wrote: ‘Also the reason there are so little recognised creationist scientists, is because of discrimination against them by their evolutionary colleagues. I can send you a number of examples. Also see the movie “Expelled” by Ben Steinn.”
Shame, godless evolutionists persecuting the fluffy bunny creationists… not true dude, not true. If it’s now science it’s not science, and no amount of moaning is going to make it science. Religion is not science, it is mythology, unless you blokes can provide scientific proof. And Daniel, if you were really taken in by Expelled then I am sorry to say your bullshit detectors needs urgent replacement. They are just stroking your persecution complex and you enjoy it. No offense meant, but really.
Daniel wrote: “Is this also through DNA comparison? Or was it tested and observed? Did anybody change a scale into a feather in a laboratory or did anyone observe it in nature? I don’t think so.”
Uhm, Quick wiki would have helped you Daniel: Feathers are among the most complex integumentary appendages found in vertebrates and are formed in tiny follicles in the epidermis, or outer skin layer, that produce keratin proteins. The β-keratins in feathers, beaks and claws — and the claws, scales and shells of reptiles — are composed of protein strands hydrogen-bonded into β-pleated sheets, which are then further twisted and crosslinked by disulfide bridges into structures even tougher than the α-keratins of mammalian hair, horns and hoof.[3][4] The exact signals that induce the growth of feathers on the skin are not known but it has been found that the transcription factor cDermo-1 induces the growth of feathers on skin and scales on the leg.[5]”
Daniel, we can compare proteins in feathers with the proteins in scales. Also, note, dinos had scales. However, Fossils of about 6 different types of dinos also produced feathers, long before feathers were used for flight. If there was an ice age it makes sense that dinos (warm-blooded) would have survived if they had something to keep them warm, probably the way feathers evolved in the first place, to keep them warm in colder climates, not for flight. Or of course you can just claim (creationist) that god made feathers like he wanted to so fuck the data. What a boring worldview.
Daniel wrote: “The only thing that DNA comparison tells is that the DNA of animals that look more or less the same, is closer than the DNA of animals that look totally different (except horses and bats 🙂 ). ”
And then you mention an exception that we are discussing. C’mon dude! Can you not see we try to follow the evidence where it leads, even if it was not what we expected? Contrast this with creationism that simply denies evolution because it has a religious agenda and belief that Genesis must be true. Creationism: Genesis must be true, so biology (evolution) and physics (cosmology) must be wrong. See the problem with this line of “reasoning”? No amount of evidence will convince you that you are wrong if you cannot consider your position as possibly wrong.
Daniel wrote: “That is still no proof that an animal evolved to other animals with a DNA more or less the same as its own.”
If a language evolves from another, such as Spanish from Latin, do you deny the relationship? Yet you deny this in DNA. Why? If we can compare Dutch and German to show how they both evolved from a root Germanic language, do you deny such statements? Yet you do this with DNA. Why? You should be a bit more honest with yourself Daniel, even if you don’t like the outcome. What is true stands whether we like it or not. Belief has never lead to any neither truth nor knowledge, only observation and experimentation has. Stop listening to the charlatans with their dishonest agendas, quote mining and constant whining. Start looking at the world around you. It is more awesome than what any religion ever imagined. It is better to call reality God than it is to call your denial of reality God. The difference between ‘n Deist and a Theist.
Daniel quoted: “So the general pattern of similarities need not be explained by common-ancestry (evolution). ”
But, once again, we have more than just “things look the same”. DNA, fossils etc.
Then Daniel quoted some more obscure creationist claims. Daniel, about the antigen receptor protein. Let me ask you this. Is it not possible that different creatures can have the same protein? Is it not possible that a mutation that happens in a shark can also happen in a camel? How on earth is this a death blow to evolution? If a camel suddenly grew a shark fin (with scales), then I will drop evolution like a hot potato
Daniel wrote: “What if human and chimp DNA were 96% homologous? What would that mean? Would it mean that humans could have “evolved” from a common ancestor with chimps?”
Agreed. But for fuck sakes, errors are also the same. I agree, even if the DNA were 99.9999% the same I would also say it is not proof that they are related from a common ancestor. But even errors Daniel, even errors are the same. Not just one or two or 10 errors Daniel. Even non-coding DNA is the same Daniel. We use the same techniques to determine parentage in humans. You are closer to your mother than you are to your cousin, we can see this in the DNA. Creationists often ask for “missing links”, so much so that when provided with transitional examples they still deny it. Let’s swing it back at you Daniel. Where is the transitional human between you and your father? If you cannot supply it then I reject your parentage and thus common descent. God made you like you are and the DNA similarities between you and your mother is just coincidence.
Daniel wrote: “To ask for proof for creationism implies that you ask proof of God.”
Hard to prove something that does not exist, exists eh? You bewail our proof we provide for evolution, such as the GULO example above, yet you cannot equal this one little example we give with proof for your god. Does that not strike you as perhaps a tad unfair Daniel?
Daniel wrote: “but there are many indictations that it could not have happened randomly by itself”
Once again, and for the last time. Mutations are random, not selection. Is short Daniel, evolution is not random. There is an “agent” that picks between the options, that selects between the available options (mutations). Selection determines if a mutation will survive or not. We have a natural explanation for why life is as diverse and different as we observe. I wrote a computer program a while ago where I tested the random mutation and natural selection concepts. It works. In fact, something happened that I did not expect. I got two isolated populations (no breeding between them). The first steps to speciasation. Go and read up on ring species, such as the salamander species in California to see how one specie is becoming more than one species, in our own time.
Daniel wrote: “Creationists do not go out to prove that there is a God, we make that assumption. ”
You know what they say about assumptions Daniel? It’s the mother of all fuckups. Therefore, you can never conclude there is a god, because you have to assume a god to believe what you do. Atheism is not an assumption, it is a conclusion. The conclusion is that because of the total lack of evidence for a god, there probably (90% sure?) is not a god. Same goes for Zeus. No proof for Zeus, ergo, no Zeus, until someone provides some proof for Zeus. But gods are diverse creatures, created by humans of many different cultures. Where science does not disprove a god (such as a deist entity) it does however disprove your holy book’s Genesis creation myth, just like science disproves the Hindu creation myths, the Bushman creation myths and the Viking creation myths etc. To disprove the Norse creation myth you would supply scientific facts that contradicts the myth. Yet, for some obscure reason you are not willing to apply the same principle when dealing with the biblical creation myth.
Daniel wrote: “We only question the so-called proof of evolution, taking away God from creation.”
You are very honest here, thanks for it. I’ll take it a step further. Evolution means we don’t need a god to explain how humans (pinnacle of god’s creation) came to be. It steals god’s glory. But think about it Daniel. How honest is it to oppose something simply because you do not like conclusion? Is this not denial of reality?
Daniel wrote: “We use information like irreducable complexity ”
Behe’s “irreducible complexity” has been rebutted a hundred times over. Even the bacteria flagellum was shown how it could have evolved. We don’t have all the data we want for evolution yet Daniel, but what we have right now is enough to conclude that evolution is as solid a scientific theory as is relativity. “Irreducible complexity” is nothing more than the age old argument from ignorance. It goes like this: “I cannot understand how it happened, therefore it did not happen”. Yet, Behe accepts common ancestry. If you want to take irreducible complexity as “science”, why reject common ancestry while Behe accepts it? In short, Behe accepts evolution but claims god tinkered with the bacteria’s butt. Wow, great theory Behe, you go man. I mean, how nuts do you have to be to think god let evolution happen but had to modify the bacteria’s butt because he was not able to let evolution modify the butt for him. Intelligent Design is Stupid Design, if you ask me. God the great tinkerer has to modify and fix things the whole time because he could not get it right the first time.
Daniel wrote: “For example, we will never be able to proof that the earth is exactly 6000 years old, but we can question the assumptions of theories that say the earth is millions of years old and show that with other assumptions, we will be able to get to an age of 6000 years (4004 BC).”
If we were to disprove the Noah flood story as found in the Bible, would you reconsider your YEC position? Not saying don’t be a Christian dude, just asking if are you honest enough to change your view if it is wrong?
Sorry bout the long post.
About proof for God:
It seems ateist’s biggest argument against God is that there is no proof for God. In http://prometheusongebonde.wordpress.com/2008/12/14/thats-why-we-atheists-pass-jesus-by/ I had a small debate about proof of God. It seems that we got agreement (Objective, Con-Tester and I) that ateists cannot explain where the universe came from. Christians claim that God made it all, but we cannot explain where God came from. And I agree with that. I don’t think we will find 100% scientific proof for God other that to realise that everything could not come to exist without Him.
I just think about what Jesus said in Joh 20:29: “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
But that will probably not mean anything to you, because you don’t believe in the Bible :- )
I was just wondering: what proof will make you believe in God?
Also, if you do not believe in God, then it will influence the way you are looking at the creation-evolution debate. Just as it influence my view, of course. We cannot prove creation, but we can question the so called scientific facts for evolution (as I said before).
I don’t know if you know about Lee Strobel. He was an ateist that became a Christian again after he saw the change in his wife’s life after she became a Christian. See http://leestrobel.com/newsletters/Jan09/atheistasklee.htm
About the Patterson quote:
I just want to defend the creationists: If Patterson said that the apple was blue, but later said that he made a mistake and that he meant that the apple was red, then it would have been valid to accuse the creationists from abusing a situation. However, Patterson said that there were not enough fossils to prove missing links, he acknowledged that he said it and the thing that he said he actually meant, confirmed the first statement even more.
About the information on CreationOnTheWeb:
That is true that CreationOnTheWeb is not a scientific site. It is a religious, apologetics site. I will not argue about that. However, one cannot say because it is a religious, apologetics site, no information on there cannot be trusted. This is not a fair comment.
Catchtice said: “Creationweb has no history of peer-review, published material appearing in scientific journals (to my knowledge).”
On the peer review issue again: I again say what I said in #41 about discrimination. We cannot even try to publish an article in scientific journals. If someone from CMI will try to publish an article saying that the scientific evidence does not support evolution or that it supports a young earth, the article will not be published. Just go and read “Discrimination against creation scientists (and ID advocates)” to mention only one article.
See “Scientists alive today who accept the biblical account of creation” on creationontheweb.
Answering Catchtice:
In #54 Catchtice said: “I again state that we are LUCKY to have any fossils, since it’s not a natural condition for a decaying body (or a skeleton for that matter) to be well preserved.”
I totally agree. But don’t you think a global flood (Noah) then makes sense? YEC believes exactly that: that we have fossils due to Noah’s flood.
Catchtice said: “Evolution never stated there MUST be fossils, it merely predicted that if there WERE fossils, we will see certain features, specifically of simpler life evolving to more complex life.”
I do not understand this one 100%. I thought that evolution states that there ARE fossils. If evolution states that “if there were fossils”, then you also acknowledge that there are no transitional fossils.
Catchtice said: “You make the assumption, it appears, that as with a religious argument the first premise is generally the conclusion of the argument as well. An example would be starting an argument with the first premise, “God exists, therefore..” and ending it with the conclusion, “Thus, God exists.” However, this is not true in the case of evolution. Firstly, the theory was expounded by answering a question, namely, whether complex life could emerge from simple life. In answering this question, evolution naturally comes to a point (as does most scientific theories) of being able to make certain predictions. In no instance was it ever said that “Evolution exists, therefore..” it’s always been a point of “Evolution predicts the following observation, we have tested for it (in most cases independantly) and found similar results.” Do you notice the difference in approaches?”
One also calls it circular reasoning. There are probably Christians that make that mistake, but you are right, it is a mistake.
It is interesting, because creationists accuse evolutionists of circular reasoning as well. For example, I heard an example where a creationist asked a museum guide how do they know the age of a fossil. The answer was: from the geological column. Later he asked the museum guide how did they know the age of the geological column. The answer was: from the age of the fossils.
There are a number of other examples on creationontheweb where evolutionists are guilty of circular reasoning. See for example “End-Mesozoic extinction of dinosaurs partly based on circular reasoning” on creationontheweb:
A recent article reveals how evolutionists arrive at their nice clean scenario using circular reasoning.2 In China and Peru, tracks were found that were assumed to be made by dinosaurs. The date assigned to the strata was, of course, Mesozoic, namely Cretaceous. The tracks in Peru looked like they belonged to tiny hadrosaurs. However, a reanalysis of the tracks has strongly suggested that the tracks were made by mammals, but not the tiny mammals assumed to have lived in the Cretaceous. This was based on comparing similar mammal tracks from the United States and Europe that are ‘well dated’ as early Tertiary, namely Eocene. Guess the new age assigned to the Chinese and Peruvian track strata? It is early Tertiary, since the tracks are considered the most reliable age indicator in the strata. Of course, we now are told that the previous age assignments were poorly constrained. The use of tracks to correlate strata across the world is not foolproof. The article claims that some mammal tracks, some dinosaur tracks, and certain bird tracks are similar, which is due to the obscure mechanism of convergence, whereby similar environments produce similar biological structures. Convergence or parallel evolution has never made any sense to me. It seems impossible that all the multitudinous variables that make up any one environment could be repeated elsewhere over millions of years. The authors of the article do state that the Chinese and Peruvian tracks are not identical to those in the USA and Europe—the morphology is similar but the track maker different. If this is the case, one wonders why dinosaurs could not have made the tracks in Peru and China, similar to mammal tracks? Furthermore, if the Chinese and Peruvian tracks were really made by mammals, why couldn’t the mammals have lived in the Cretaceous in China and Peru, and in the Eocene in far away USA and Europe? In other words, why couldn’t the ‘mammal tracks’ be diachronous, a common excuse given for a particular strata that could be given two different dates (probably because of different index fossils)? It is clear that the track dating in China and Peru is an example of circular reasoning.
Another example comes from “The God Delusion”, from Richard Dawkins (OK, maybe it is not an example of circular reasoning, but it is still a strange argument). On page 140-141, the following is written: “The anthoropic principle states that, since we are alive, eucoryotic and conscious, our planet has to be one of the intensely rare planets that has bridged all three gaps.”
This is just like seeing someone that stands at one side of a valley, flapping his arms starting to attempt to fly over to the other side. The observer goes away for a moment and when he comes back, the person is on the other side. He then makes the conclusion that people can fly only using their arms. However, the truth is that he walked over the bridge not far from there.
“How does creationism deal with the destruction of the different species of horse? Biologists, who mostly support evolution, will claim that the species died out because their competitors were more adapt at survival than they were.”
I am not sure what you want to know here. Creationists also believe in natural selection. And we believe animals die out. Since we started counting, there are a number of animals that got extinct due to different reasons (see “List_of_extinct_animals_of_Africa” on Wikipedia). Ironically, we know of no new animal that came to exist due to evolution. Well, no new animals where genetic information increased. I don’t talk about new dog breeds (see #43 – “Increase of genetic information”)
#62
Answering #57 from Renier:
Renier said: “I get a bit snotty in this post, but it is in good spirit.”
He he he. Yeah right. I wouldn’t want to see you when it is not in good spirit. :- )
Renier said: “Well, the people who lived closer to those events were gullible and took just-so stories and folklore as truth. Talking donkeys, talking snakes and angels in the sky.”
If you believe in God, that is not unrealistic. Christians that do not believe in a talking donkey, but believe in a Jesus who rose from the dead, now that doesn’t make sense.
Renier said: “And Daniel, we do know better than the ancient people. They use to think the earth was the centre of the universe. They did not know what atoms was, how electrons behave.”
Yes, that is true. But we do not know better about the history. If your grandfather tells you about what happened in the 2nd world war, who is going to know better? You or him? Him, of course.
Renier said: “And please, to “believe” a person actually lived 996 years…”
This is one of the strong arguments why Genesis was not written in the time of Babylon: Why would someone think up a genealogy and write about people that lived that long? And why did their maximum age coincidentally dropped after Noah’s flood?
Renier said: “Gilgamesh predates the Bible, and the flood is found in there as well.”
Read the article “Noah’s Flood and the Gilgamesh Epic” on creationontheweb and decide for yourself who borrowed from whom. I think according to this article it is clear that Gilgamesh borrowed from the Bible. Now I wonder who make such claims that Gilgamesh is older, therefore the Bible borrowed from Gilgamesh. Isn’t it maybe the same people that claim that Genesis was borrowed from the people from Babylon? My point again: we are living 2009 AC. The people living BC was in a much better position to determine which one is the correct version.
Renier said: “Both Gonzalez and Richards are associated with the Discovery Institute, the hub of the intelligent design movement; Gonzalez serves as a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture.”
I am impressed! You know your stuff. However, what about the other people like Robert Jastrow? In the “Bonus Features” of the DVD, “Questions and Answers”, number 5, Robert Jastrow says the following: “If you reverse our motion of the galaxies and go backward in time, they come closer and closer together and you reach a point where they are finally nearly infinite in density and temperature and further than that you cannot go…so there is a beginning…I am an agnostic… if there was a beginning, a moment of creation, then there was a creator and a creator is not compatible with agnostisism… I found that this is the most extraordinary thing. I felt a strong compulsion to share it with others, so that is why I wrote that book [God and the Astronomers]”
And another thing: what about the information in the DVD? That still stays valid, doesn’t it?
Renier said: “The Permian extinction wiped more than 90% of life on earth.”
Maybe this is a bit off the point, but why do they believe the Permian extinction, but not Noah’s flood, which was written down as history by many traditions? Although they have different versions, one can see that they are referring to the same event. Is it not to try to explain how the dinosours got extinct and to explain fossils, coal and oil? However, believe Noah, would just be too religious. And another problem to believe Noah is that the dinosours did not get extinct millions of years ago…
Renier said: “This quote mining industry the creationists have going is not going to change the facts that are on the table. Pity they don’t see it. Even if Patterson said he rejected evolution, it would still not make evolution untrue.”
What facts? Evolution is not a fact.
Renier said: “We are not saying birds came from Archaeopteryx. But you have to admit that Archaeopteryx represents an organism that links birds to dinos. In short, Archaeopteryx is probably a close cousin of the actual link between birds and dinos.”
If you believe in evolution, this is a very logical conclusion. But this does not prove evolution. And you also acknowlegde it by using the word “probably”.
Renier said: “Pray tell. I would also like to know how the 88% was calculated. While your at it explain why god made life diverse just to wipe more than 95% of all species that ever lived.”
I don’t know how they got the 88%. But tell me where you get the 95%. Why did God wipe out everything? Because of us again. Adam and Eve sinned and they were banned from the garden. And then the people sinned again and only Noah and his family were saved.
Renier wrote: “But Daniel, how does Noah’s flood explain the fossil record?”
For fossils to form, you need animals to be instantly buried. That is exactly what happened during the flood. Catchtice is 100% correct when he says: “I again state that we are LUCKY to have any fossils, since it’s not a natural condition for a decaying body (or a skeleton for that matter) to be well preserved.” That is why Noah’s flood is such a good explanation for all the fossils, coal, oil, etc we find today.
”T.Rex in the garden with Adam and Eve? Was T-Rex on the ark?”
Yes, T-Rex was on the ark, with all the other animals. See “How did the animals fit on Noah’s ark?” on creationontheweb. I quote: “the Bible does not say that the animals had to be fully grown. The largest animals were probably represented by ‘teenage’ or even younger specimens. The median size of all animals on the ark would actually have been that of a small rat, according to Woodmorappe‘s up-to-date tabulations, while only about 11% would have been much larger than a sheep.” Thus this issue was well thought through.
Renier wrote: “Okay Mr “I know more than Biologists”. Let’s see. What would you see as an animal that represents a transitional phase between mammals and reptiles?”
I maybe would have believed in transitional forms if there were many animals showing how a reptile became a mammal, for example. All you have is an animal that lays eggs and a theory from which reptile it evolved (it evolutionists have a theory…)
Renier wrote: “Go read up on how fossils form. Then understand why they are very rare and then come and ask for fossils for every godamn creature that ever lived.”
First: if fossils are rare, then you agree that transitional fossils are limited.
Second: Again, there are fossils of 88% of all animals we have today – this does not look very rare to me. However, transitional fossils proving evolution are rare, very rare.
Renier wrote: “I suppose you wanted to see a lizard running around with a horses head and the ass of a human? Wtf? What would you expect to see Daniel?”
I want to see exactly that. Is that too much to ask? I.e. if birds evolved from dinosours, I want to see a fossil of T-Rex where one of the arms or both are small wings. Without such a fossil, it is impossible to prove anything. If a human evolved from a chimp, I want to see living creatures (or second prize, fossils) that can make fire, but cannot talk, etc (see point (2) of post #13)
Renier wrote: “Data is good. It means we can correct our errors like the view that bats and primates were closer than bats and horses. Correction is good.”
I agree, creationists probably also had to correct themselves in the past. Nothing wrong with that. However, does it make any sence that a horse and a bat is closer that a horse and a cow? A bat is way different to mention some:
– Light bone structure to fly
– Wings
– Radar system
And then, where are the transitional forms between the horse and bat?
Renier wrote: “And is it not funny that you use DNA comparison data to argue with us, while the moment we provide you with DNA comparison data you reject it out of hand?”
I was only proving that DNA comparison is not valid.
Renier wrote: “If a language evolves from another, such as Spanish from Latin, do you deny the relationship? Yet you deny this in DNA.”
Evolution (where genetic information increased) was never observed but we have observed languages changing a lot of times. For example, one get such different types of English that sometimes two English people cannot understand each other. Afrikaans is another example: we know exaclty where Afrikaans comes from: from Holland, and English and German also played a role.
And of course my favourite: there are transitional languages :- ). I think American English could serve as a transitional language between Brittain English and Texan English. And then there are people talking different grades of Texan English. Thus, in languages, there are a lot of transitional languages and we know exactly from which other language it developed.
An interesting thing about languages is that it becomes simpler. It seems that languages follow the same pattern than living beings – losing information.
Renier wrote: “But even errors Daniel, even errors are the same…
Renier, it seems that you have a biology background. I did not even have biology at school. In #14 I referred you to ”Why the shared mutations in the Hominidae exon X GULO pseudogene are not evidence for common descent” – http://creationontheweb.com/images/pdfs/tj/j21_3/j21_3_118-127.pdf, and “Potentially decisive evidence against pseudogene ‘shared mistakes’” – http://creationontheweb.com/images/pdfs/tj/j18_3/j18_3_63-69.pdf.
I must be honest that these articles (especially the first one) are way too technical for me. However, I think I have good common sense. It doesn’t matter what biology tells us, to proof that something evolved from another thing, we need either transitional living creatures or at least transitional fossils.
Renier wrote: “We use the same techniques to determine parentage in humans. You are closer to your mother than you are to your cousin, we can see this in the DNA.”
It makes sense. However, I quote from “What about similarities and other such arguments for evolution?”, paragraph “Human / chimp DNA similarity – evidence for evolutionary relationship?”:
“DNA in cells contains much of the information necessary for the development of an organism. So, if two organisms look similar, we expect there to be similarities also in their DNA. The DNA of a cow and a whale, two mammals, should be more alike than the DNA of a cow and a worm. If it were not so, then the idea of DNA being the information carrier in living things would have to be questioned.”
Thus, the difference is that we know that everyone has parents and it makes sense that children’s DNA will be closer to their parents’ DNA than to strangers’ DNA. But one cannot say that humans evolved from chimps because the DNA of a human is closer to the DNA of a chimp than to any other animal. You need to assume evolution to be true. Isn’t that circular reasoning in a way?
Renier wrote: “Mutations are random, not selection. In short Daniel, evolution is not random.”
OK, I will accept that. However, mutations are random. Why then don’t we see things with one wing, 3 eyes, two tails, one from the back and one from the side (see post #13, point 3)? Why are all animals symmetrical? OK, symmetry sometimes helps to move better: an animal with a long and a short leg, will not run fast and will probably get extinct (but there should be fossils). But 3 eyes for example is not necessarily a disadvantage. Why don’t we see people with a hand on the one side and a claw on the other? Such a configuration could be very useful.
Renier wrote: “The first steps to speciasation. Go and read up on ring species, such as the salamander species in California to see how one specie is becoming more than one species, in our own time.”
Are you sure that genetic information increased in this example? Remember that you can get different salamanders only with natural selection. That is how we are breeding different breds of dogs. And that is not evolution.
Renier wrote: “You know what they say about assumptions Daniel?”
He he he! I heard that saying and if I am not misktaken, it comes from the movie “The Rock”. Sean Connery said it. I totally agree. Just remember about the assumptions made to prove evolution and millions of years, because there are a lot…
Renier said: “If we were to disprove the Noah flood story as found in the Bible, would you reconsider your YEC position? Not saying don’t be a Christian dude, just asking if are you honest enough to change your view if it is wrong?”
Interestingly, a while back I asked a similar question to a YEC friend of mine: “What if there is unquestionable proof that evolution did take place, that creation did not take place in 6 days and that Noah was just a story?” His answer was: “Then maybe we should discard our religion”.
However, no-one will be able to proof anything. Let me give you an example. Prove to me that there was a 2nd world war if you discard the history that was written up for us. All you have is buildings with holes in them. All that means is that some time ago someone shot the builing with an X calibre. And I can guarantee that you would not be able to date those holes very accurately. The only way to prove something without doubt, would be to send someone back in time with a time machine, which does not and never will exist.
Daniel, I see you have supplied more creationontheweb references. Why? Do you not understand that it is not science and that their fantasies are not peer-reviewed? If they want to critique some aspects of science, let the submit their stuff for peer-review. Peddling as “science” or “truth” to religious people is not going to help. The gullible gorge themselves on creationontheweb’s “objections” about evolution but it won’t stand scrutiny for facts and errors in peer-review. That’s why they don’t publish. They just convinced you it is because the poor little people are being persecuted by a massive scientific conspiracy to choke the last bit of life out of god. C’mon Daniel, you are smarter than that.
It’s so funny really. People enjoying the benefits of science in the one hand and slinging poo at science with the other. Let’s just pack up and do what the creationists suggest. Discard our knowledge we worked so hard for (all an evil atheistic anti-god conspiracy), biology, geography, cosmology, astronomy and physics and go back to answer any question with “It was the will or the way of god”. Let the dark ages commence once again for many people still yearn back to it.
Daniel, as for the rest of your posts, I’ll reply later but think we should deal with the Noah myth first. It seems all your faith in your god hangs on the thread of an ancient fairy tale and I think it would be amusing to see you defend an obvious myth.
Renier said: “Do you not understand that it is not science and that their fantasies are not peer-reviewed?”
I am unfortunately going to send you another reference to comment on this one: See “Creationism, Science and Peer Review”. I quote the introduction of the article:
“We have often received feedback in the form of questions on the lines of, ‘If creation is scientific, then why don’t you publish in peer-reviewed secular journals?’ Andrew Kulikovsky answers this common question in detail. He points out the advantage of peer review but then documents its many shortcomings in practice, including rejecting top research while admitting fraud, as well as an all-to-common role in protecting the ruling paradigm. So it is folly for anticreationists to hide behind it instead of dealing with the arguments. This is why, to keep the advantages and overcome its drawbacks, creationists have started their own journals, e.g. CMI’s longstanding publication now titled Journal of Creation.”
Renier said: “It’s so funny really. People enjoying the benefits of science in the one hand and slinging poo at science with the other. Let’s just pack up and do what the creationists suggest. Discard our knowledge we worked so hard for…”
Evolution is not science. And what did evolution bring to the table? Nothing, except doubt/disbelieve in God. OK, I know you would see that as a useful thing :- )
Renier said: “Daniel, as for the rest of your posts, I’ll reply later but think we should deal with the Noah myth first.”
OK, let’s do that. Let’s focus on one thing for a while.
Daniel wrote: “I quote the introduction of the article”
Just more people whining about peer-review. Look, nobody said it is perfect, but what arrogance to claim truth, knowledge and “science” without having the guts to let educated people (in their fields of expertise) have a look at whatever you came up with. Oh no, just flog the old persecution horse and claim victory. C’mon Daniel, you really think there is a massive conspiracy over many science disciplines in many different countries to pick on creationists? And I should note, there are way more Christians that reject creationism than non-believers that accept creationism. Think about if for a while, you might yet see reality and find yourself on the wrong side of honesty.
Daniel quoted: “as well as an all-to-common role in protecting the ruling paradigm”
Examples please, aside from creationism. I should also tell you, it is hard to point fingers at peer-review if you don’t submit anything. Or is it a more often than not the case of: “Oh, they won’t accept our research so we won’t ever bother submitting it.” And those papers that were submitted and got rejected, did you have a look at the reasons why they got rejected? Thought not. Just trust your “bothers” to think for you Daniel. I mean, Christians would never lie to you and your Bible could never be wrong. Right?
Daniel quoted: “So it is folly for anticreationists to hide behind it instead of dealing with the arguments.”
We have dealt with the “arguments” and it is getting boring by now. Submit the crap for peer-review and argue with the experts that think it is crap. So far, it seems like the experts (scientific community) thinks there is about as much truth in creationism as there is in fairyism. If you are wrong, you are wrong, and no amount of complaining about the scientific process is going to change the fact that it is wrong. Frack, it is 2009 and some people still thinks the universe is 6000 years old, no matter what data to the contrary are presented to them. Daniel, research varves (just one refutation of creationism) in Greenland and get a clue already.
Daniel wrote: “creationists have started their own journals, e.g. CMI’s longstanding publication now titled Journal of Creation.”
Lol. It’s not a scientific journal. If faryists started their own “sciency” journals (Fairy dust creationism), would you fall for it? No? So why should we take you serious when creationists are doing just that? They know they have no science and cannot play the science game, that’s why they are hiding from science publication.
Daniel wrote: “Evolution is not science. And what did evolution bring to the table? Nothing, except doubt/disbelieve in God.”
First off, not just evolution brought disbelief in god. Geology, astronomy, cosmology, physics, archaeology, biology (psychiatry)… they all played their part. After all, creationists do not just have an issue with evolution but also with cosmology, astronomy, physics, biology and archaeology. They moan and bitch about almost every branch of science because they hold on to Bronze Age myths dreamt up by nomadic desert tribe goat herders. The most unfair part is expecting us to take these myths of ancient nomadic desert dwelling goat herders as more accurate than modern science. The things we did not understand in the past, those things we called god. If an intelligent alien life was to ever observe us they would be laughing their assess off. Why? Because no other species other than humanity has ever built great shrines to their ignorance. Just count the number of churches in your neighbourhood. It gets even worse considering how many people worship their ignorance by calling it god.
Daniel wrote: “And what did evolution bring to the table? Nothing”
And what did religion bring to the table? Nothing. What did creationism bring to the table? Nothing. What did ID bring to the table? Nothing. Religion (belief in supernatural) has not given us one fact about reality. No atomic theory, no medicine, no science, no general relativity, no understanding of fusion and fission, not even Newtonian physics. Yet, evolution brought many things to the table. We are beginning to gain understanding about the diversity of life and how it happened. We keep evolution (Random mutation and Natural Selection) of viruses and bacteria in consideration when making medicine to fight them (that’s why you have to finish your penicillin course once started). But who knows. Maybe this year god will provide a cure to aids via “creation science”? I think not. What cure to any disease has Christianity ever provided? Oh wait that’s it. Drive out the demons that cause disease! haha. God was too stupid to even tell people about germs. For a book that is claimed to be the most important book ever written (The Bible) it sure as hell have very little to offer us.
Thanks for taking the time to engage in debate Daniel.
But let’s get back to the Noah flood myth. How does the flood explain the fossil record? Why is the order in the fossil record there in the way it is, with simple life at the bottom and complex life on top? Why do we see fossils that appear related to each other in such order that it seems they evolved from one another? Oh, and while you are at it, how does creationism explain whales being born with legs outside of their bodies? For prayer?
About peer review again:
Renier said: “I should also tell you, it is hard to point fingers at peer-review if you don’t submit anything.”
How would one know that nothing was submitted? They didn’t publish it.
Will it help to mention Benjamin Carson (see “Benjamin Carson: The Pediatric Neurosurgeon with Gifted Hands” by Jerry Bergman, Ph.D.)? I guess not. In any case, I quote from the article:
“Dr. Carson is a leading research scientist. A “voracious reader of the medical and scientific literature” from his graduate school days, he has long been very interested in scientific research and has been very active in this area for his entire career,5, 6 with over 120 major scientific publications in peer reviewed journals, 38 books and book chapters, and grant awards of almost a million dollars. His achievements have so far earned him 51 honorary doctorates, including from Yale and Columbia Universities.”
“I just don’t have enough faith to believe” that the living world happened by evolutionary processes.”
“As a neurosurgeon, he stresses the “factors that contribute to the failure to utilize fully the most amazing God-given resource, our brain, such as peer pressure and political correctness, which often limits our willingness, even as objective scientists, to have thoughtful, rational discussions about evolution versus creationism.” It is even harder for him to accept how so many people who can’t explain how evolution can account for all life claim that it is a fact, while at the same time “insisting anyone who wants to consider or discuss creationism as a possibility cannot be a real scientist.””
“In Dr Carson’s latest best-selling book, Take the Risk, he discusses the need to balance the risks and benefits of any activity that one considers undertaking. For example, although Dr. Carson has addressed students and general audiences hundreds of times, he took a big risk to explain his creation views as the keynote speaker at the National Science Teachers convention in Philadelphia. He told the science teachers that “evolution and creationism both require faith. It’s just a matter of where you choose to place that faith.””
(Why would it be a risk to explain his creation views? Maybe because of peer pressure and discrimination?)
I cannot really add anything of what is said in “Creationism, Science and Peer Review”. I think what sums it up good is the following quote from the article:
“(if young-earth research should only be taken seriously if it passes the peer-review of non young-earth scientists, then shouldn’t old-earth research only be taken seriously if it passes the peer-review of young-earth scientists? Are the ‘peers’ of old-earth scientists not also proponents of an old earth? Would this not cast serious doubt on the validity of their research?)”
I don’t know if one can call it a conspiracy against creationists, but there is no doubt that there is discrimination against creationists. I can give you a number of examples (I already mentioned Expelled). Let me give you another example from “Darwin Skeptics: A Select List of Science Academics, Scientists, and Scholars Who are Skeptical of Darwinism”: “On my public list [of scientists that don’t believe in evolution] I have well over 2,000 names, including about a dozen Nobel Prize winners but, unfortunately, a large number of persons that could be added to the public list, including many college professors, did not want their name listed because of real concerns over possible retaliation or harm to their careers. Many of those who did not want their names on this list are young academics without tenure, or academics who are concerned that “outing” them could seriously damage their career. This is a valid concern. For this reason I have a private list with well over a 1,000 names.”
Why would scientists be afraid to reveal that they do not believe in evolution other than that there is discrimination against them?
I am not going to argue the issue of peer review anymore.
#67
Renier wrote: “So far, it seems like the experts (scientific community) thinks there is about as much truth in creationism as there is in fairyism. If you are wrong, you are wrong, and no amount of complaining about the scientific process is going to change the fact that it is wrong.”
I just want to remind you that you are claiming that everybody knows that evolution is a fact, however I have answered all your arguments. The best argument you had was the example you mentioned in your opening letter about the same mistakes in human and chimp DNA, but I gave you an article about it. And further, to prove evolution, it is crucial to first prove mutations where genetic information increased. You could not give me even one example.
#68: About whales with legs:
To summarize the evolutionist case, evolutionists have been increasingly claiming that the fossil ancestors of modern whales have been found, and that a transition can be clearly seen between creatures walking on land (with legs) and whales (which have no legs today), and include the following:
– Pakicetus—however, it consisted only of jaw and skull fragments yet it’s been claimed to be a “walking whale.”
– Basilosaurus has also been offered as an ancestor to whales; while it did have hind limbs, they were far too small to have anything to do with walking. Yet evolutionists agreed that they were clearly functional, not useless, and the most common view is that they were probably used for grasping in reproduction.
– Ambulocetus had hind limbs, and could walk; it is thus the latest fossil candidate for whale evolution. However, as explained in Refuting Evolution, it is doubtful that this supposed creature (constructed with some imagination) had anything to do with the history of whales.
See more in Refuting Evolution, Whale evolution?
Renier said: “We keep evolution (Random mutation and Natural Selection) of viruses and bacteria in consideration when making medicine to fight them (that’s why you have to finish your penicillin course once started).”
That is not true. It could be that random mutation and natural selection is considered (I don’t know), but that is not yet evolution. Evolution is only possible if there are mutations that add genetic information (as I said before). Thus, it is not true that evolution brought anything useful to the table. I can send you a few quotes again if you like :- ) Yes, let me send you a couple:
“Certainly, my own research with antibiotics during World War II received no guidance from insights provided by Darwinian evolution. Nor did Alexander Fleming’s discovery of bacterial inhibition by penicillin. I recently asked more than 70 eminent researchers if they would have done their work differently if they had thought Darwin’s theory was wrong. The responses were all the same: No.
I also examined the outstanding bio-discoveries of the past century: the discovery of the double helix; the characterization of the ribosome; the mapping of genomes; research on medications and drug reactions; improvements in food production and sanitation; the development of new surgeries; and others.
I even queried biologists working in areas where one would expect the Darwinian paradigm to have most benefited research, such as the emergence of resistance to antibiotics and pesticides. Here, as elsewhere, I found that Darwin’s theory had provided no discernible guidance, but was brought in, after the breakthroughs, as an interesting narrative gloss.“
[‘Why Do We Invoke Darwin? Evolutionary theory contributes little to experimental biology’, The Scientist, bl. 10, 29 Augustus 2005]
The following quote is again proof that there are not mutations that increase genetic information:
“… this Darwinian claim to explain all of evolution is a popular half-truth whose lack of explicative power is compensated for only by the religious ferocity of its rhetoric. Although random mutations influenced the course of evolution, their influence was mainly by loss, alteration, and refinement. One mutation confers resistance to malaria but also makes happy blood cells into the deficient oxygen carriers of sickle cell anemics. Another mutation converts a gorgeous newborn into a cystic fibrosis patient or a victim of early onset diabetes. One mutation causes a flighty red-eyed fruit fly to fail to take wing. Never, however, did that one mutation make a wing, a fruit, a woody stem, or a claw appear. Mutations, in summary, tend to induce sickness, death, or deficiencies. No evidence in the vast literature of heredity change shows unambiguous evidence that random mutation itself, even with geographical isolation of populations, leads to speciation.”
[L. Margulis en D. Sagan, Acquiring Genomes: A Theory of the Origins of Species, Basic Books, New York, bl. 29, 2002]
The only useful thing that evolution brought to the table is a theory of how things came to exist without God.
#69 About Noah:
Renier said: “How does the flood explain the fossil record?”
Rapid burial, as I already said. This is the most realistic theory. This is why there are fossils of 88% of the animal today (if one include the animals that fossilises not so easy, it is 79.1%)
Renier said: “Why is the order in the fossil record there in the way it is, with simple life at the bottom and complex life on top?”
A good theory for this question is because complex life had the knowledge to flee to higher places when the flood came. That is probably why there are so little fossils of humans – they had the wisdom to go to the tops of mountains until the last moment.
Renier said: “Why do we see fossils that appear related to each other in such order that it seems they evolved from one another?”
For me to comment on this one, you will have to give me some examples.
On varves, see the article “What about the Ice Age?” on creationontheweb. I quote:
“Turbidity currents can deposit varve-like laminated sediments very quickly.6 These sediments are more accurately called rhythmites. A varve is defined as a rhythmite deposited in one year. Lambert and Hsu have presented evidence from a Swiss lake that such varve-like rhythmites form rapidly by catastrophic, turbid water underflows.7 At one location, five couplets of these varve-like rhythmites formed during a single year. At Mount St Helens in the USA, an 8 m (25 ft)
thick stratified deposit consisting of many thin varve-like laminae was formed in less than one day (June 12, 1980).8 Flow tank experiments have shown how laminations can form rapidly when two different grain sizes are carried together in flowing water.9”
You see, proven, tested and observed. It could form rapidly. Why is it then necessary to believe that it took millions of years? Because evolutionists hide behind millions of years. Without that, there is no chance for evolution.
In #62 I have said something about the Bible being reliable history. This is what creationists believe. And if you look at the facts, one can fit the facts with the Biblical history.
Evolutionists’ history of the world is evolution through millions of years. They try to fit the facts with their history, but they always end up in a dead end.
Another thing: You still did not answer my question: Why is there not currently living creatures between a human and a chimp? Let me help: I guess one theory could be that people killed them all. That is the only thing that I can think of you can answer. However, there are 2 problems with this:
1. Are there traditional legends telling about such an event? I don’t think so, but send it if it exists. And then, if there are, why are you unwilling to believe legends like Noah’s flood?
2. Where are all the bodies?
Renier said: “Thanks for taking the time to engage in debate Daniel.”
You are welcome. I also learn a lot in the process :- ). However, all jokes aside: I don’t know if I am doing you a favour: when you are going to meet God one day, He is going to say to you that you knew and you still did not believe…
Daniel wrote: “Will it help to mention Benjamin Carson …?”
No. What creationism did he try to publish, and if any, why was it rejected?
Daniel wrote: “Why would it be a risk to explain his creation views? Maybe because of peer pressure and discrimination?)”
Well, people do not like to be laughed at, for starters.
Daniel asked: “Why would scientists be afraid to reveal that they do not believe in evolution other than that there is discrimination against them?”
Reputable organizations generally don’t like granting tenure to people who simply peddle religion instead of science. That’s where the required peer-review publications comes in that you are moaning about.
Daniel wrote: “On my public list [of scientists that don’t believe in evolution] I have well over 2,000 names”
Oh please. Google Project Steve Steve launched by PandasThumb. Note the number of biologists on the “Project Steve Steve” list and the number of biologists on your list. The *fact* is that the vast majority of the scientific community accepts evolution, and those few rejecting it does it for religious reasons only. Evolution is not a theory in trouble as some people would have you believe. And remember. Even if evolution is disproved then it still does not mean creationism is true.
Daniel wrote: “I am not going to argue the issue of peer review anymore.”
No, not untill you understand that peer-review is part of scientific process and that complaining about creationism “work” (very very few) being rejected (for very valid scientific reasons) will not change the process. Daniel, think about it for a minute. Even Behe admitted that for ID to be considered science then so would astrology have to be considered science. Now you as a Christian probably reject astrology, but if we have to judge by creationism standards what science is, then kids would have to be taught astrology in science class together with astronomy and cosmology. Now you would have a major issue with that, right? Yet you fail to apply the same rules to yourself, making your worldview unfair towards other people.
Daniel wrote: “I just want to remind you that you are claiming that everybody knows that evolution is a fact, however I have answered all your arguments.”
No. I pointed out that the vast (vast vast) majority of the scientific community accepts evolution as fact. It is common knowledge that religious people have issues with evolution. But so what? They have issues with a lot of things.
Daniel wrote: “The best argument you had was the example you mentioned in your opening letter about the same mistakes in human and chimp DNA, but I gave you an article about it.”
And I showed you why your article was misleading (no surprise) by not dealing with the comparison in the way the GULO gene was broken in humans, chimps and guinea pigs.
Daniel wrote: “And further, to prove evolution, it is crucial to first prove mutations where genetic information increased. You could not give me even one example.”
I gave you an example of increase in genetic information and then you tap danced to some friggen obscure definition of increase mean in lions with wings would exist. It is only in creationism la-la land where people think evolutions means lions with wings. The fact is I gave you a solid reference to a genetic mutation that is being selected for and could be considered an increase in information, since the information that the gene now codes for did not previously exist. But perhaps you can do a bit of research where sometimes a whole genome gets duplicated. Enough information being added for you? Mutations then have a wider range of possibilities to play with without harming sensitive genes.
Daniel wrote: “To summarize the evolutionist case, evolutionists have been increasingly claiming that the fossil ancestors of modern whales have been found, and that a transition can be clearly seen between creatures walking on land (with legs) and whales (which have no legs today), and include the following:”
Oh man oh man. MODERN whales have been born with legs! Never minds the really good fossil record we have as well as DNA comparisons, what is your answer to MODERN whales being born with legs? For prayer? When you say “which have no legs today” you are telling a lie (probably in ignorance). See “http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section2.html#atavisms_ex1” for the stuff on whales and much more.
I wrote: “that’s why you have to finish your penicillin course once started” and Daniel replied: “That is not true. It could be that random mutation and natural selection is considered (I don’t know), but that is not yet evolution.”
Of course it is evolution. It is the mechanism that explain how evolution happened. Furthermore, ask your doctor next time you get anti-biotics why you *have* to finish it, since you won’t believe me. And if you are going to pull out the old macro vs micro evolution I have to wonder why small steps will take you from Cape Town to Bellville but could never possibly take you to Johannesburg, since it is after all the core of the creationist argument.
Daniel wrote: “Evolution is only possible if there are mutations that add genetic information”
Why? Why would a beneficial mutation on a existing gene not be considered evolution in your eyes? And if a genome is doubled due to an error, and there is now double the amount of chromosomes available for mutations, why is it not evolution?
Daniel wrote: “Thus, it is not true that evolution brought anything useful to the table.”
Oh, I see. The new Gene Apolipoprotein AI that recently mutated lipid-binding protein in the Italians is not evolution in action (mutation and selection). No sir, it just means god loves them more and “blessed” them with the mutation that lower the risk of heart issues. Daniel, evolution has brought great understanding of natural forces and life in general to the table. Unfortunately religious people have issues with it because it makes baby Jesus cry. On the other hand, think about what Christianity brought to the table… ignorance, fairy tales, made up stories…
Daniel quoted: ” “Certainly, my own research with antibiotics during World War II received no guidance from insights provided by Darwinian evolution.”
So we can blame these jokers in part for the many antibiotics resistant mutants of bacteria we are struggling with today. Pity they did not consider evolution.
Daniel quoted from: “[‘Why Do We Invoke Darwin? Evolutionary theory contributes little to experimental biology’, The Scientist, bl. 10, 29 Augustus 2005]”
Daniel. I told you to check your sources.
“http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2005/08/from-the-quote-2.html#more”
Daniel, I’ll have to check up on the Margulis quote. She has done great work proving mitochondria is a bacterium that developed a symbiotic relationship with Archea (solid refutation of creationism, b.t.w), since we all need mitochondria to survive. Yet, I also know Margulis has some other strange notions that has been refuted many times over and that she is an aids denier. Best to judge het work by the peer-review. Oh, sorry, forgot peer-review means nothing to you. Not attempting an ad hominem here on Margulis but I will have to dig deeper into this.
Daniel wrote “The only useful thing that evolution brought to the table is a theory of how things came to exist without God.”
No Daniel. People still find a place for their god in reality, it is just creationists that struggle with it. Evolution does not disprove god, it merely (once again) shows that a literal reading of Genesis is about as solid as a literal reading of the Norse creation myths. It’s a old myth book, written by ignorant desert nomads herding their goats. Get over it already.
Daniel wrote: “Rapid burial, as I already said. This is the most realistic theory. This is why there are fossils of 88% of the animal today (if one include the animals that fossilises not so easy, it is 79.1%)”
Uh huh? Rapid burial eh? Does that include Neanderthal and all the other proto-human fossils too? Since the flood must have covered every mountain on earth, where did all the water go and why is there no evidence for a world wide flood?
About the fossil order, Daniel wrote: “A good theory for this question is because complex life had the knowledge to flee to higher places when the flood came. That is probably why there are so little fossils of humans – they had the wisdom to go to the tops of mountains until the last moment.”
Really? So the primitive organisms were not smart enough to run for higher ground? Then please explain to me why primitive sea creatures were also “ordered” by the flood, from primitive to more modern/complex? And all those creatures of the Crocodilia family, being beaten to the top by horses and petunias. Sure… lol… sorry, but this is funny.
Furthermore, please explain to me how the willow tree outran the velociraptors? How did all flowering plants outran the dinos and how the hell did Neanderthal fossils get above ancient shark fossils? I would also like to know how the saltwater fish survived all the fresh water (rain). Did god by miracle create pockets of saltwater for them that defied osmosis?
I’ll have to research your rebuttal of the varves. I think there is a difference between normal seasonal varves and flood varves just like there is a difference in canyons forming from slow erosion and flood erosion (45 degree walls). I smell a creationist “half-a-truth” here, but will have to research a bit.
More to come about the flood myth. Thanks for your patience.
Oh, Daniel, I read this article by Lenny a while ago and have yet to see someone rebut it. Perhaps you can give it a go, because it is a solid refutation of the Noah myth.
Source : Lenny Flank (”http://www.geocities.com/lflank/”)
According to the creationists, all humans alive today are
descended from 8 people who got off a Really Big Boat. Anyone who
understands junior high genetics will know that 8 people have between
them a maximum possible of 16 different alleles for each genetic
locus (in reality, the 8 people on the Big Boat would have had even
FEWER, since some of them were descended from others and thus shared
alleles, but for the sake of argument we will give the creationists
every possible benefit of the doubt and assume that they were ALL
heterozygous and shared no alleles at all in common). That means, if
the creationists are correct that “most mutations are deleterious”
and that “no new genetic information can appear through mutation”,
there can not be any human genetic locus anywhere today with more
than 16 alleles, since that is the MAXIMUM that could have gotten off
the Big Boat.
But wait —– today we find human genetic loci (such as
hemoglobin or the HLA complex) that have well over *400* different
alleles (indeed some have over *700* different alleles). Hmmmm.
Since there could have only been 16 possible on the Big Boat, and
since there are over 400 now, and since 400 is more than 16, that
means that somehow the GENETIC INFORMATION INCREASED from the time
they got off the Big Boat until now.
That raises a few questions — (1) if genetic mutations always
produce a LOSS in information, like the creationists keep telling us,
then how did we go from 16 alleles to over 400 alleles (perhaps in
creationist mathematics, 400 is not larger than 16). (2) if these
new alleles did not appear through mutations, then how DID they get
here.
But wait – there’s more:
Not only, according to creationists, must these new alleles have
appeared after the Big Boat, but, according to their, uh, “theory”,
all of these mutations must have appeared in the space of just *4,000
years* – the period of time since the Big Flood. That gives a rate
of BENEFICIAL MUTATIONS, which add NEW GENETIC INFORMATION, of one
every 10 years, or roughly two every generation —- a much higher
rate of beneficial mutation than has ever been recorded anywhere in
nature. Nowhere today do we see such a rate anywhere near so high.
So not only would I like to know (1) what produced this
extraordinarily high rate of non-deleterious mutations, but (2) what
stopped it (indeed, what stopped it conveniently right before the
very time when we first developed the technological means to study
it).
But wait — we’re not done YET ……
Since less than 1% of observed mutations are beneficial (the vast
majority of mutations are indeed deleterious or neutral and have no
effect), that means for every beneficial mutation which added a new
allele, there should have been roughly 99 others which did not. So
to give us roughly 400 beneficial mutations would require somewhere
around 40,000 total mutations, a rate of approximately 100 mutations
in each locus EVERY YEAR, or 2,000 mutations per locus for EACH
GENERATION. Do you know what we call people who experience mutation
rates that high? We call them “cancer victims”. The only people
with mutation rates even remotely comparable were victims of
Chernobyl.
But wait, we’re STILL not finished ……
In order for any of those mutations to be passed on to the next
generation to produce new alleles, they MUST occur in the germ cells –
– sperm or egg. And since any such high rate of mutation in a
somatic cell (non-sperm or egg) would have quickly produced a fatal
case of cancer, if the creationists are right this mutation rate
could ONLY have occurred in the germ cells and could NOT have
occurred in any of the somatic cells.
If one of our resident creationists can propose a mechanism for me
which produces a hugely high rate of mutation in the germ cells while
excluding it from any other cells, a Nobel Prize in medicine surely
awaits — such information would be critically valuable to cancer
researchers. But alas, no such mechanism exists. The rate of
mutations made necessary by creationist “arguments” would certainly
have killed all of Noah’s children before they even had time to have
any kids of their own. In order to produce 400 beneficial alleles in
just 4,000 years, humanity would have been beset with cancers at a
rate that would have wiped them all out millenia ago.
Hmm. Scouting Wikipedia I came across this interesting article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Sinaiticus
Off-topic, but it would seem that thinking the Bible is 100% correct and without errors, like some people do believe, once again requires faith. It seems like the word faith is becoming synonymous with rejecting reality.
#73: Response to #71:
Renier said: “Anyone who understands junior high genetics will know that 8 people have between them a maximum possible of 16 different alleles for each genetic locus” and “today we find human genetic loci (such as hemoglobin or the HLA complex) that have well over *400* different alleles…”
See the article “New line of attack?” on creationontheweb, where Carl Wieland answers Lenny Flank’s remark you sort-of quoted.
I quote just a very short piece: “I would believe that the various alleles of hemoglobin, for instance, could easily have arisen by mutation. But this is without any increase in information. The confusion in the critic’s mind comes because he clearly believes that ‘lots of varying copies’ means ‘lots of information’. That is as erroneous as the other commonly heard evolutionist claim that if you have doubling of chromosomes (polyploidy), that represents ‘more information’ (it would be like buying two copies of the same textbook and expecting to be able to learn twice as much!).”
Also see “Can recombination produce new genetic information?” by Z.H. Leitzel on creationontheweb.
Renier said: “Oh, Daniel, I read this article by Lenny a while ago and have yet to see someone rebut it. Perhaps you can give it a go, because it is a solid refutation of the Noah myth.”
It is not such a solid rebut. Just search for “Noah’s Flood Questions and Answers” and you will find discussions on all the things mentioned in Lenny’s document:
“Yet no historical records of that time period, from the Egyptians, Phoenecians, Greeks or anybody else, mentions any such event”:
– I had a quick look if the Egyptians referred to the flood, but could not find anything. However, see “Egyptian history and the biblical record: a perfect match?” and “Archaeologist confirms creation and the Bible” to mention only two articles where archaeology confirmed the Bible. It seems there is proof of the 10 plagues. See also “The ten plagues of Egypt: miracles or ‘Mother Nature’?”
– What about all the flood legends that I already mentioned. See “Noah’s Flood and the Gilgamesh Epic” for a diagram of the correspondance between all the traditional flood legends.
– Where did all the coal and oil come from? There had to be huge forests that had to be buried rapidly. Think of the biggest flood ever – Maybe the Indonesian flood in 2004? Was it big enough to produce coal or oil? I don’t think so. A global flood sounds much more realistic. The formation of coal and oil fits the Bible like a glove: God created a paradise and it was covered by Noah’s flood. (And coal does not need millions of years to form.)
– The Grand Canyon and the Fish river canyon required a lot of water, something like a global flood. See articles like: “A canyon in six days!”, “A gorge in three days!”, “Grand Canyon strata show geologic time is imaginary” and “Surtsey, the young island that ‘looks old’”. Also search for Mount St Helens in the USA in the 1980’s. And “How landscapes reveal Noah’s Flood”.
– How did the ice age happen? A global flood is the most realistic way to explain how the ice age happened.
– You probably know that Derek Ager (an evolutionist) recognized the importance of ancient natural catastrophes in forming the geologic record. However, he will never recognise Noah’s flood – just the idea that the Bible could be correct, is too much.
“Noah managed to construct a wooden ship 150 feet longer than the largest one ever built, and managed to solve, by himself, all of the design, construction and materials problems that the world’s largest navies could not deal with 4,000 years later.”
“Now that we have the Ark built, how was Noah to stock it?”
The 2 above statements are totally impossible if God didn’t reveal it to Noah. It would also be impossible for Noah to gather all the animals. God did it. However, if you don’t believe in a God, then this WILL be ridiculous. For me it is not.
“But the creationists are forced to invoke the Deity once again, when they attempt to explain where the water for the Flood came from.”
See the article “Noah’s Flood— what about all that water?” It also highlights the problems with the canopy theory.
About creationists invoking the Deity “once again”, I just want to quote a piece from “Hibernation, Migration and the Ark”:
“In pointing to such things as present-day hibernation, in fact in all such ‘Ark feasibility’ studies, one is really trying to minimize the need for supernaturalism, to try to explain it naturally without the need for a miracle. This is an understandable goal, to want to avoid multiplying the number of miracles required in some arbitrary fashion.
That is not to be confused with bowing to naturalism and liberal theology in denying the miraculous in Scripture. The description of the Flood/Ark in Genesis reinforces what Henry Morris has called the ‘economy of miracle’ seen in the Bible in general. God could, for instance, easily have suspended all the animals and Noah’s family above the clouds during the year of the Flood. But He chose to use natural laws such as the principles of buoyancy involved in a floating ship. Even then, He could have materialized a readymade Ark of safety, but instead chose to give detailed instructions for its presumably long and laborious construction.
The absence of a flurry of capricious, ‘abracadabra-style’ miracles in the Bible (apocryphal gospels have an abundance of these) is actually one hallmark of its authenticity. It makes the rare, special-purpose miracle, like raising Lazarus from the dead, or feeding the five thousand, stand out all the more. This is in part why we feel more comfortable when we have a ‘naturalistic’ explanation for an Ark-feasibility problem, as per Woodmorappe’s book. Having to postulate miracle after miracle, especially ones the Bible does not mention, would seem awkward and would in practice make the Bible account less believable to sceptics.”
There are probably a number of things that we cannot explain about Noah’s flood and there are a number of things that had to happen supernaturally (like the animals that went to the ark). Christians also believe that Jesus healed other people and rose from the dead, things that are scientifically impossible. However, you cannot just say that if we cannot explain something, we throw in God. Science also help us to understand more and more of how God could have done it all. And don’t pretend for a moment that evolutionists can explain their theory 100%.
#74:
Renier wrote: “what is your answer to MODERN whales being born with legs? For prayer? When you say “which have no legs today” you are telling a lie (probably in ignorance). See “http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section2.html#atavisms_ex1″ for the stuff on whales and much more.”
That is more like it! This is proof of an increase in genetic information. I see that Carl Wieland also cannot explain this phenomenon. This is probably the best proof for an increase in genetic information that you have. That is if this is true, of course. I see that the neighbouring articles on the same web page are unfortunately a bit shaky. See “A dolphin with legs—NOT” and “Human tails and fairy tales” on creationontheweb: Therefore am I a bit careful to believe these legs so easily. It is a pity that they didn’t take pictures of it when they were busy removing it from the whale. And even if it is true, I still find it very strange that you struggle so show me more examples. As I said before, if evolution were true, I would expect much more types of whales and more whales with legs hanging out of their body.
Renier wrote: “why is there no evidence for a world wide flood?”
There is lots of evidence: see previous post.
Renier wrote: “Evolution is not a theory in trouble…”
Keep telling yourself that. :- )
Renier wrote: “Even Behe admitted that for ID to be considered science then so would astrology have to be considered science.”
Neither is evolution science. As I said in my first post #13, we (me and you) both believe in something: I believe in God and you believe in evolution. Science CANNOT explain where we come from. For starters, the big bang is in direct contrast with the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Remember the key words for science: proven, tested, observed (which I learned from you :- ) ).
Renier wrote: “I wrote: “that’s why you have to finish your penicillin course once started” and Daniel replied: “That is not true. It could be that random mutation and natural selection is considered (I don’t know), but that is not yet evolution.”
Of course it is evolution. It is the mechanism that explain how evolution happened. Furthermore, ask your doctor next time you get anti-biotics why you *have* to finish it, since you won’t believe me. And if you are going to pull out the old macro vs micro evolution I have to wonder why small steps will take you from Cape Town to Bellville but could never possibly take you to Johannesburg, since it is after all the core of the creationist argument.”
Random mutation and natural selection is the mechanism that explains how evolution happened, IF you can show me examples where mutation increased genetic information. Without that, there is no evolution. See “Superbugs not super after all” and “Episode 4: The Evolutionary Arms Race!” to mention only two.
Renier wrote: “Why would a beneficial mutation on an existing gene not be considered evolution in your eyes? And if a genome is doubled due to an error, and there is now double the amount of chromosomes available for mutations, why is it not evolution?”
A beneficial mutation is where for example a beetle lost its wings on a windy island (loss of genetic information). A loss of information could also cause bacteria to become immune against antibiotics (as I said above and in #43 about H. Pylori). A snake for example with two heads is only a copy of existing genetic information, not an increase of information. However, you believe that we have evolved from pond scum. Pond scum’s genetic information had to increase for humans to evolve from it.
#75: Probabilities:
On Friday evening I watched the movie “Expelled” on DVD. They had an interview with Richard Dawkins. He said that he is 99% sure that there is no God (thus, there is 1% chance that there is a God).
Somewhere else in the DVD they estimate the probability of life arising on its own to be 1E-72. This of course a a rough estimate, however, I don’t think you will disagree with this number too much, right? (If it was much higher, like 1%, then life would have arised everywhere around us in any case, and that does not happen.) My question is: why will Richard (and other ateists) believe in life arising on its own, which has a much lower probability than the probability of a God existing? That doesn’t make sense. And then he says in his book that because we are here, it is proof that the probability of 1E-72 must have happened.
See what Dawkins say about ID:
Ben Stein: “What do you think is the possibility that intelligent design might turn out to be the answer to some issues in genetics or in evolution?”
Richard Dawkins: “It could come about in the following way. It could be that in some earlier time, somewhere in the universe, a civilisation evolved by probably some kind of Darwinian means to a very, very high level of technology and designed a form of life that they have seeded onto this planet. Now that is a possibility, an intrigueing possibility. And I suppose it is possible that you might find evidence if you look at the details of biochemistry and molecular biology you might find a signature of some sort of designer.”
Thus, Dawkins keeps the door open for a designer!! He even says that there might be signs of a designer (or maybe he knows that there ARE signs of a designer, but he doesn’t want to acknowledge it). Very interesting. Thus he also moves the problem: We say God created and he says some higher intelligence created.
And by the way, if you doubted the fact that there is discrimination against people believing in ID, this movie will let you think twice (as I said before in a previous post). Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez from the Discovery Institute also stars in the movie :- )
Daniel wrote: “I quote just a very short piece: “I would believe that the various alleles of hemoglobin, for instance, could easily have arisen by mutation. But this is without any increase in information.”
Oh come on Daniel. Even you would have seen this has nothing to do with “increase in information”. Try not to confuse yourself. The mutation rate required to explain the mentioned 400 different alleles is the problem. It is not possible, plain and simple. Not even cancer victims show a mutation rate high enough to account for the genetic variation. In short, the evidence shows that all people on Earth are not from Noah’s stock. Ergo, the flood is debunked. Case closed.
Daniel quoted: “I would believe that the various alleles of hemoglobin, for instance, could easily have arisen by mutation.”
There they go with belief again. If something makes no sense, just believe it makes sense.
Daniel wrote: “Also see “Can recombination produce new genetic information?” by Z.H. Leitzel on creationontheweb.”
Pardon me, but are you simply a parrot for creationontheweb? I told you, it is not scientific and I should note that their conclusion iare in stark contrast to those of the scientific community. You need to check your sources dude. Do you really not smell the dead rat?
Daniel wrote: “I had a quick look if the Egyptians referred to the flood, but could not find anything. However, see “Egyptian history and the biblical record: a perfect match?”
*Groan*. The Bible and history does not gel. First off, there is no evidence the Jews were ever in Egypt, making a strong case that the Exodus myth might have been based on the Egyptian/Huksos relation. I’ll grant that the Bible was right about one thing at least, the Hittites.
Daniel wrote: ” It seems there is proof of the 10 plagues”
No, there is not. Provide the “proof” here and let’s deal with the idiocy of bending reality to fit your preferred myth. Specific claims please.
Daniel wrote: “What about all the flood legends that I already mentioned. See “Noah’s Flood and the Gilgamesh Epic” for a diagram of the correspondance between all the traditional flood legends.”
Look dude, it’s really simple. The Israelites got their bloody flood myth from the Sumerians (Gilgamesh). First Sumerians, then Israelites. It’s simple. The Israelites copied the flood myth from the Sumerian flood myth. How the hell do you think it is proof that such a flood happened, considering we know there was a big local flood around that time, not a global one?
Daniel wrote: “A global flood sounds much more realistic.”
Where did all the water go, and please provide evidence for the stories you make up to explain away all the water. Specific claims please.
Daniel wrote: “The Grand Canyon and the Fish river canyon required a lot of water, something like a global flood. See articles like: “A canyon in six days!”
I tried to tell you to check the difference between a rapid forming canyon and one that took millions of years of erosion. It seems you did not heed my advice, so I’ll just leave you with the falsehood you believe. Another hint. Check the fossils in the Grand Canyon. Sand…. dry sand… there’s your hint.
Daniel wrote: “How did the ice age happen? A global flood is the most realistic way to explain how the ice age happened.”
Oh yeah. Just a pity poor god forgot to record any Ice Age in the Bible. And pray, tell, how does the Global flood lead to an Ice Age?
Daniel wrote: “You probably know that Derek Ager (an evolutionist) recognized the importance of ancient natural catastrophes in forming the geologic record. However, he will never recognise Noah’s flood – just the idea that the Bible could be correct, is too much.”
No. We can gleam some truth between all the superstitious nonsense. Like I told you, there was a huge flood in that area at aprox that time, just like the Sumerians claimed. Geological analysis confirmed it. But it was not a global flood.
Daniel wrote: “The 2 above statements are totally impossible if God didn’t reveal it to Noah.”
You, uhm, never considered that it is just a story, right?
Daniel wrote: “However, if you don’t believe in a God, then this WILL be ridiculous. For me it is not.”
Thank you. But you must consider that the notion of such a god is just as ridiculous as the stories made up about him.
Daniel wrote: “Noah’s Flood— what about all that water?”
I told you, I cannot get to the articles. Please, extract a point that you think is the best argument, then state it here. That way I can respond to the specific claims.
Daniel quoted: “The absence of a flurry of capricious, ‘abracadabra-style’ miracles in the Bible (apocryphal gospels have an abundance of these) is actually one hallmark of its authenticity”
Are you kidding me? Talking snake, talking donkey, paradise, big flood, magic boat, sun stood still (yeah, right!), virgin birth, resurrection etc etc… pretty much abracadabra in my opinion.
Daniel wrote: “There are probably a number of things that we cannot explain about Noah’s flood and there are a number of things that had to happen supernaturally (like the animals that went to the ark). Christians also believe that Jesus healed other people and rose from the dead, things that are scientifically impossible.”
Very insightful of you. Now, if you can just prove *one* thing that happens/happened that is scientifically impossible, ie, supernatural, there is a JREF prize for you, big bucks and you would be the hero of superstition all over the world. But that’s the whole problem. All these claims about supernatural stuff but no evidence.
Daniel wrote: ‘However, you cannot just say that if we cannot explain something, we throw in God.”
I do say that. You cannot explain the animals migrating to the ark (even from Australia) without throwing in god. Ultimately you cannot explain god without throwing in god. You reject evolution, and so throw in god. You reject archaeology, and so throw in god. You reject physics, and so throw in god. You reject cosmology, and so throw in god. God is just another word for ignorance Daniel.
Daniel wrote: “And don’t pretend for a moment that evolutionists can explain their theory 100%.”
I don’t. Like I said, we look at the big puzzle and are still missing some blocks. But the big picture is pretty clear. Considering that the vast majority of scientists accept evolution it is clear that they also see and understand the big picture.
About Modern whales being born with legs, Daniel wrote: “That is more like it! This is proof of an increase in genetic information.”
Increase in genetic information? What are you smoking? Whales already have legs, they are just normally inside their bodies. Thus, the “code” for legs is still in whales.
But Daniel. Before we carry on, you need to first define what you consider and increase in information. While you are at it, please define information to me.
Daniel wrote: “This is probably the best proof for an increase in genetic information that you have.”
No, it is not. Like I said, whales have the code for legs already. Sorry, but they used to be land animals, that’s why they have the genetic code for legs.
Daniel wrote: “Human tails and fairy tales”
You are almost right here. Most tails with humans are nothing more than just growths on the skin. But Daniel, it is rare, but sometimes a human is born with a *real* tail. One with nerves (child can control it), muscles and vertebrae in it. A real tail like any other animal tail. Quote from Wiki: “The developmental tail is thus a human vestigial structure. Infrequently, a child is born with a “soft tail”, which contains no vertebrae, but only blood vessels, muscles, and nerves, although there have been a very few documented cases of tails containing cartilage or up to five vertebrae.”
Daniel wrote: “As I said before, if evolution were true, I would expect much more types of whales and more whales with legs hanging out of their body.”
Why?
Daniel wrote: “There is lots of evidence: see previous post.”
I see only people trying their best to make their myth fit reality. Specific testable claims please.
Daniel wrote: “Keep telling yourself that. :- )”
Keep telling the scientific community that you are smarter than the majority of them.
Daniel wrote: “Science CANNOT explain where we come from.”
Oh? Why not?
Daniel wrote” For starters, the big bang is in direct contrast with the 2nd law of thermodynamics. ”
Oh? How? And of course, you are sure that SLOT existed before particles even did?
Daniel wrote: “Remember the key words for science: proven, tested, observed (which I learned from you :- ) ).”
Verified too. Look, for the Big Bang it is clear we cannot observe the event. But our theory made predictions that we tested because we could observe the aftermath. Cosmic Background Radiation was predicted, and found. Verified. Good!
Daniel wrote: “Random mutation and natural selection is the mechanism that explains how evolution happened, IF you can show me examples where mutation increased genetic information.”
Stop hiding behind your terms and define them please. What is increase and what is information? But be careful Daniel, you might find more of your “information” in random noise than in patterns.
Daniel wrote: “A beneficial mutation is where for example a beetle lost its wings on a windy island (loss of genetic information).”
I am a bit puzzled by you. You don’t seem daft. Yet, do you not see that a beetle don’t just “loose” it wings. It takes time, and a lot of time. The wings will probably become smaller (if there is selective pressure to choose between wing lengths) until they can no longer be seen. Slow gradual steps. Not just one mutation is going to make the wings go away.
Daniel wrote: “A snake for example with two heads is only a copy of existing genetic information, not an increase of information.”
No, a simple mutation on a HOX gene could account for the 2 heads I think. But dude, you will have to specify “loss” and “information” before we continue. I think you are just hiding behind the words. Any mutation you don’t like, simple: “No new information so I caaant heaaar you!”
Daniel wrote: “However, you believe that we have evolved from pond scum. Pond scum’s genetic information had to increase for humans to evolve from it.”
Yeah, yet you believe we were made from mud. Besides, pond scum might not be true, not if life started around the thermal vents in the ocean. Then we came from nice ocean water, but you would still think you came from mud :-p
Daniel wrote: “On Friday evening I watched the movie “Expelled” on DVD.”
And let me guess. You just gobbled it all up as truth?
Daniel wrote: “Somewhere else in the DVD they estimate the probability of life arising on its own to be 1E-72.”
Yeah, and their maths have been shown to be of very poor quality.
Daniel wrote: ” My question is: why will Richard (and other ateists) believe in life arising on its own, which has a much lower probability than the probability of a God existing?”
Interesting question. Let me explain it to you. God, by definition is more complex than life, since you claim he designed life. If the complexity of life gives you issues of how it could have happened, then so much more are the issues for a more complex god. See Daniel, using god to try and explain the complexity of life is a bad idea, since by definition you try to explain the complex by using the much more complex. Consider this next time religious people wail about the “probability” of life and remember that the probability for a god is so much less, therefore it is dishonest to explain complex life with a more complex god, since you do not explain anything in reality.
Daniel wrote: ‘That doesn’t make sense. And then he says in his book that because we are here, it is proof that the probability of 1E-72 must have happened.”
I hope what I wrote above makes sense to you and that you now understand Dawkins’s position. The fact is Daniel, there is life, complex life and here we are. The chance that there is life? Enough so that we can be here. As you can see, even if the probability of life was half of what creationists predict, that fact is there is life, so the probability is therefore plausible (possible), since it *did* happen
Daniel wrote: “Thus, Dawkins keeps the door open for a designer!! ”
He would be a crap scientist if he did not Daniel.
Daniel wrote: “He even says that there might be signs of a designer (or maybe he knows that there ARE signs of a designer, but he doesn’t want to acknowledge it).”
Stop. You want to claim Dawkins is lying, then be careful. You Bible is clear what *your* god thinks of false accusations, so try and stick to your self imposed rules. All Dawkins is saying is that if there were designers, we would find proof for it. Since there is no proof we cannot conclude that such designers existed. Dawkins also says that if such designers did exist, they would also have formed do to evolution of life.
Daniel wrote: “We say God created and he says some higher intelligence created.”
Where does Dawkins say that? Dawkins say if there *were* designers involved, they would not be god, because god by definition is more complex.
As far as Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez is concerned, I suggest you go and find out what really happened. Please dude, don’t be so gullible. I followed the story closely at the time and there was no discrimination.
Oh, btw. How did the flowering plants end up on top of agile creates in the flood? How did the willow tree outrun the raptors?
Thanks again for your participation Daniel.
Just another nail in the coffin of cretinism.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16587-first-draft-of-neanderthal-genome-unveiled.html
Enjoy! While some people cling to outdated myth made up by bronze age nomadic desert tribes, science is advancing at a rapid pace. Slowly the truth about how we came to be is unraveling and it is more awesome than any silly old myth.
It seems the best line of attack on creationists is claiming that they are liers. In #47 I wrote “Also see a very interesting video clip where Dawkins was asked if he knew of a mutation where genetic information increased (http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/5136, “4. Changes in living things – Mutations”, 25:55). I don’t know what Dawkins answered in the end, but one could get the video and see.”
It seems he (Dawkins) is now claiming that the video was edited. You can search for the video on you tube as well. Also read the article “Was Dawkins Stumped?” on creationontheweb. I know you said you cannot enter the creationontheweb site, but make an effort – there is a whole new world beyond evolution.
Why can’t you enter creationontheweb? Aren’t you allowed to pollute your evolutionary ideas with the other side…? :- )
Daniel. You should really make a plan to get both sides of the story.
Dawkins does not accept interviews from creationists. Plain and simple. So, when a crew came in, dishonestly disguising their creationist agenda one has to wonder why god always seem to need dishonest liars to do his work. Dawkins realised they were creationists when they asked him the “increase in information” question. His silence was anger over being lied to, not because he did not have an answer.
Daniel wrote: “Why can’t you enter creationontheweb? Aren’t you allowed to pollute your evolutionary ideas with the other side…? :- )”
You forgot I was once a creationist, just like you. Try and broaden you horizons a bit dude. Reality is more wonderful than the bronze age myth you cling to. Have you seen the movie by Bill Maher called Religulous perhaps? See, Bill admits to creative editing of his movie, where the dishonest blokes of Expelled simply lies and lies.
Renier wrote: “You should really make a plan to get both sides of the story.”
That is also why I debate with you. However, I found that the articles on creationontheweb are accurate to show both sides.
Renier wrote: “Reality is more wonderful than the bronze age myth you cling to.”
You will understand that I don’t share the same sentiments :- )
Renier wrote: “See, Bill admits to creative editing of his movie, where the dishonest blokes of Expelled simply lies and lies.”
Are you implying that “creative editing” never happens in evolutionary circles? I don’t know Bill (maybe I must go and search for it on creationontheweb), but there you go again with your “lies and lies”. What probably happens everywhere is that only the information is shown where the point is illustrated best. I caught myself doing that as well. An you are probably also guilty. However, in Expelled they have interviews with many people, and they cannot all lie. What in Expelled are they lying about specifically?
In #32 I wrote: “Further do I trust CMI’s integrity. That is why they have articles like “Arguments we think creationists should NOT use” on creationontheweb.” I still stand with that. And the fact that CMI does not have time for Wyatt because he is dishonest.
I have another question: in #74 I wrote: “I see that the neighbouring articles on the same web page are unfortunately a bit shaky. See “A dolphin with legs—NOT” and “Human tails and fairy tales”” and it sounded that you kind of agreed. Shouldn’t talkorigins remove misleading articles from the web?
Daniel wrote: “You will understand that I don’t share the same sentiments :- )”
As is your right. I would even defend your right to believe what you want to. So long as people are not harmed by your beliefs.
Daniel wrote: “Are you implying that “creative editing” never happens in evolutionary circles?”
No. For instance, Heackel’s embryos was probably a sample of “creative editing”. I should point out though that embryos do teach us about our evolution, just that Heackel did something dishonest to drive home the point. The dishonesty was not needed, the truth was enough.
Daniel wrote: “I don’t know Bill (maybe I must go and search for it on creationontheweb), but there you go again with your “lies and lies”.
It’s simple Daniel. Everyone knows Dawkins does not let himself be interviewed by creationists. So, if creationists do a dishonest thing to trick Dawkins, then I can say they are liars. Do you really disagree on this point? Perhaps you should go and read how they tricked PZ Myers too? I mean come on. You want to claim they did nothing wrong?
Daniel wrote: “What probably happens everywhere is that only the information is shown where the point is illustrated best. I caught myself doing that as well. An you are probably also guilty. ”
What has this go to do with the dishonest tactics they used on Dawkins?
Daniel wrote: “However, in Expelled they have interviews with many people, and they cannot all lie.”
I am not saying all of them lied. You need to look at each statement separate from the rest to determine the truth to such a statement. Besides, I can perhaps understand that creationists feel persecuted, since they are laughed at by the scientific community. But magic boats and 6 day creation myths are funny in light of the vast knowledge base we have built up via science. What is not funny is people presenting their myth as science without proof.
I watched Dr Scott the other day. She said a very true thing. According to her, creationists treat evolution just like they treat the Bible. If one part is shown to be false they think you should throw out the whole shebang. Science does not work like that. The body of evidence for evolution is staggering (Ask the scientific community if you doubt this, not your religious sources). Bitching and moaning about a few specifics would not invalidate evolution.
Daniel wrote: “What in Expelled are they lying about specifically?”
You should start thinking for yourself. Check out the wiki entry for Expelled as a start. Do your own research and be careful of authority (your church/religion) in weighing up the evidence. Always consider that your current view might be wrong else you cannot follow the path that leads to truth. For one thing, if I were you I would go and find out what the modern theory of evolution is from the people who work in the field, not pastors and religious people. Dr Francis Collins is a Christian. He was one of the main people that actually documented our complete GENOME. Full on Christian, but does not deny evolution. Why? Satan lying to him or does he understand genetics (better than you and I put together) and see the traces evolution left? You have no creationists that can claim to have decoded the entire human genome. Yet you would call Dr Collins a liar, simply because he is honest about the observation that concludes evolution. What type of a life is that, always running away from the truth to protect your own preferred fairy tale?
Daniel wrote: “In #32 I wrote: “Further do I trust CMI’s integrity. That is why they have articles like “Arguments we think creationists should NOT use” on creationontheweb.” I still stand with that. And the fact that CMI does not have time for Wyatt because he is dishonest.”
To be honest, I was pleasantly surprised when I came across that list of “Arguments we think creationists should NOT use” a couple of years ago. Answers in Genesis (spit, yuck) still holds to many of those “obvious” lies as truth, spreading their lies all over the internet and in churches. Why are you not fighting the liars of Answers in Genesis? Bill Maher also talks to Ken Hamm in the movie I told you about. Yet Daniel, you might be missing something. The reasons those old creationist lies are rejected applies to many of the current “lies” (in my view) that you will find on creation web. It seems they just back peddle away from the more obvious ones. But I should be more generous and try to understand that they might be sincere in spreading the falsehoods, really believing them.
The Latin expert in the Vatican (also in Bill’s movie) at one stage said you cannot change peoples belief in nonsense like hell and angels and such, “you have to let them live and die with their stupid ideas” – his words. The senior astronomer at the Vatican made a very interesting point. He showed that scripture was written between 1200bc (aprox, I can’t remember the details) to about 400 AD. Then he shows that science only started around Galileo’s time. According to him, the huge gap between when scripture was written and when science starts is obvious truth that there can be no science in the Bible, since science did not even exist at that stage. He also said that creationism is like a plague. I know you probably think Catholics are perhaps not even better than devil worshipers. Just remember that these people also have a thing for Jesus, just like you do.
Daniel, try to find out more about both sides of the argument. If you keep pumping your head full of creationist propaganda then you will be nothing more than a creationist propaganda machine. Think dude. I mean, in the link above you will find out that we now know that humans and Neanderthal were 2 separate species, not mating nor sharing DNA. Of course the creationists are going to spin their stories about this, just a matter of time. But we are moving ahead with our knowledge while creationists are still stuck in the dark ages.
Daniel wrote: “See “A dolphin with legs—NOT”
I have not researched this so I cannot comment. Whales however are born with legs, and than one little fact should have been enough to make you stop and consider it from and evolutionary perspective. You chose to shrug of information that disproves you pet theory. It’s a shame, really.
Daniel wrote: ” “Human tails and fairy tales”” and it sounded that you kind of agreed. Shouldn’t talkorigins remove misleading articles from the web?”
I told you about the “real” tails and the false tails. Real tales are extremely rare, the way I understand it. Obviously, our path split away from primates with tales many millions of years ago. Apes close to us (genetic study!) also have no tails, like we do. If one real tail was documented (the one with bones, nerves, muscles, in short, no different from an animal tail) then I don’t see what the problem is. If you want to claim talkorigins misleads us, then please show me the statements and we can take it up from there, tracing it back to the peer-reviewed papers to get to the sources.
Renier wrote: “No. For instance, Heackel’s embryos was probably a sample of “creative editing””
And what about Piltdown man?
“Almost forty years later, in 1953, Piltdown Man was exposed as a forgery, mainly through the work of Dr Kenneth Oakley. He showed that the skull was from a modern human and that the jawbone and teeth were from an orangutan. *The teeth had been filed down* to make them look human. The bones and teeth had been *chemically treated* (and sometimes even painted) to give them the appearance of being ancient. In addition, it was also shown that none of the finds associated with Piltdown Man had been originally buried in the gravel that had been deposited at Piltdown. The Piltdown Man fraud was a great embarrassment to the UK scientific community and questions about it were even asked in the House of Parliament.”
And Nebraska man?
They constructed a man and his wife from only a tooth and later realised that it was a tooth of a pig. This example is probably not an example of dishonesty, but rather super creativity to make a theory work. Now I wonder how much of this is happening today – this creative science?
And Lucy is also an example of very creative science.
Renier wrote: “Everyone knows Dawkins does not let himself be interviewed by creationists.”
This is very interesting!!! Why is that? Why did he allow to be interviewed for Expelled then?
Renier wrote: “Whales however are born with legs…”
O, I thought you mentioned it as an example where genetic information increased. So you still owe me an answer :- )
On the whales with legs, I quote from “Refuting Evolution, Whale evolution?”:
“Many evolutionists support whale evolution by alleging that there are vestigial hind legs buried in their flesh. However, these so-called ‘remnants’ are not useless at all, but help strengthen the reproductive organs—the bones are different in males and females. So they are best explained by creation, not evolution. As with the allegedly functionless limbs of Basilosaurus, we should not assume that ignorance of a function means there is no function.
One myth promulgated by some evolutionists says that some whales have been found with hind legs, complete with thigh and knee muscles. However, this story probably grew by legendary accretion from a true account of a real sperm whale with a 5.5 inch (14 cm) bump with a 5-inch (12 cm) piece of bone inside. Sperm whales are typically about 62 feet (19 m) long, so this abnormal piece of bone is minute in comparison with the whale—this hardly qualifies as a ‘leg!’”
Daniel wrote: ‘and what about Piltdown man?”
It was exposed as a hoax by the scientific community, not the creationists. Science is self-correcting in that way. Also note that the Piltdown man stood out as a sore eye among the other fossils. See below:
“In the decades prior to its exposure as a forgery in 1953, scientists increasingly regarded Piltdown as an enigmatic aberration inconsistent with the path of hominid evolution as demonstrated by fossils found elsewhere.”
Hmm. “inconsistent with the path of hominid evolution as demonstrated by fossils found elsewhere”. It took scientists to provide proof that it was a hoax. And they did. Yet those scientists still accepted human evolution. Learn something from this Daniel. We have more than a fake fossil to prove the theory.
Daniel wrote, about Nebraska man: “They constructed a man and his wife from only a tooth and later realised that it was a tooth of a pig. This example is probably not an example of dishonesty, but rather super creativity to make a theory work. Now I wonder how much of this is happening today – this creative science?”
Go and see what happened. Also notice that science found the facts and rectified the situation. If you want to hang science for every mistake ever made then turn of your TV and all your technology (and meds) that came from science, since per your definition it does not work. Humans make mistakes. That’s one reason why I like science, because the scientific method can rectify mistakes simply because of the way it works. Unlike your religion that is cast in stone and immune to change. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/a_nebraska.html
Daniel wrote: “And Lucy is also an example of very creative science.”
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/lucy.html
So tell me, what’s your issue with Lucy? Specific statements please.
About Dawkins, Daniel wrote: “This is very interesting!!! Why is that? Why did he allow to be interviewed for Expelled then?”
Because creationists are simply religious peddlers that have issues with modern science? As for your question: “Why did he allow to be interviewed for Expelled then?” – Go and find out how they got to interview him Daniel… that’s the whole point. While you are at it, see how they got to interview Myers too? Oh, and a tip, the movie’s name “Expelled” were not the name they disguised themselves with at first…
Daniel wrote: “O, I thought you mentioned it as an example where genetic information increased. So you still owe me an answer :- )”
No dude, I gave you an answer. Whales still have the genetic code for legs because they were land animals… forget the information increase crap (they are just poisoning the well fo you) for now and try to understand what I am saying. An ocean creature shows signs of limbs used on land, i.e, legs. What other explanation but evolution could account for this?
Daniel quoted: “Many evolutionists support whale evolution by alleging that there are vestigial hind legs buried in their flesh. However, these so-called ‘remnants’ are not useless at all, but help strengthen the reproductive organs”
What the F??? And when they are outside of the body, do they then hold the whales willy so that other fish cant suck on it? It’s remnants of legs, go and have a look at the bone structure for Pete’s sake Daniel.
Daniel quoted: “the bones are different in males and females. So they are best explained by creation, not evolution. ”
Where do you find all this nonsense? Think dude. Human females and human males have differences in the hip structures. Why? Because males don’t need to get a 4kg baby out between their legs, females do. That’s the reason why they even walk different from us. It is also the reason why childbirth is so very painful for females, because walking upright requires a certain bone structure that makes childbirth difficult. Even baby heads evolved to be squeezed. The scull plates can even overlap. All this because we walk upright. And dude, watch human babies play and climb and watch ape babies do the same. Open your eyes, the truth is right in from of you. Research humans that got raised by animals for instance to learn even more.
Daniel wrote: “As with the allegedly functionless limbs of Basilosaurus, we should not assume that ignorance of a function means there is no function. ”
My word but these people can confuse themselves. The legs inside a whales body might have function, i.e to strengthen other parts. Why do they think this is a problem for evolution only their god knows, because the rest of humanity can only shake their heads. What about it when the legs are outside of the body? And the claim that is has function might just be false. If it is not attached to the skeleton, then how does it provide support Daniel?
Daniel wrote: “Sperm whales are typically about 62 feet (19 m) long, so this abnormal piece of bone is minute in comparison with the whale—this hardly qualifies as a ‘leg!’”
Look at the bone structure to see what qualifies as a leg and what not. Did you expect long legs? Why? For goodness sake man, the kickback in hind legs outside of the body is from a time when the hind legs no longer had the function of walking, not from the time when the ancestral organism still ran on land! Your attempts to deny evidence makes it clear. Go and look at the bones structures Daniel. Not a leg eh? Please! http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section2.html#atavisms_ex1
Perhaps you will enjoy this too:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_Cetaceans
And Daniel, go and look at the embryos of whales and dolphins, you can learn a lot from a creature’s evolutionary past by the stages an embryo develops in. I mean, how does creationism explain the *clear* legs on the dolphin embryo? How does creationism explain the *clear* tale in human embryos?
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section2.html#ontogeny_ex3
I found pics of a tail, it seems like one of the real ones and not just a simple growth. Notice the child could eve contract or relax the tail.
http://www.anatomyatlases.org/AnatomicVariants/SkeletalSystem/Images/19.shtml
Just quickly something about Lucy:
How can they possibly conclude anything with so little fossil remains? If you are looking for missing links, you will get them. It is only an interpretation of the facts. Creationists interpret it differently. Thus, it is open for interpretation, therefore not scientific fact.
See how people are being misled in “‘Ape-woman’ statue misleads public: anatomy professor” on creationontheweb:
“The St Louis zoo in Missouri, USA, has a $17.9 million exhibition majoring on evolution, which includes a statue, purportedly a reconstruction of the famous australopithecine part–skeleton ‘Lucy’, showing remarkably human–looking feet (see photo below).
Associate professor of anatomy and neurobiology at the nearby Washington University, Dr David Menton (interviewed in Creation 16(4),16–19) says that these feet are not based on the fossil facts.
The usual artistic licence in reconstructing the fleshly features of ‘apemen’ from bones allows evolutionary bias enormous free rein. However artists do not usually misrepresent the bones. This statue’s feet and hands are simply wrong and mislead the public.
Menton cites evolutionary sources which show that creatures in this species had hands and feet which were ‘not at all like human hands and feet; rather, they have long curved fingers and toes’—even more so than apes today that live mostly in the trees.
Canadian school teacher David Buckna has weighed in on the debate by posting an Internet challenge to this ‘misleading’ statue. He says that if people visiting this exhibition were to see an accurate replica of Lucy in the trees, with features typical of tree–dwelling primates, it would make them question the whole notion of human evolution; Lucy would be seen as just some sort of extinct ape.
Dr Menton, who first complained about it in 1989, says, ‘I think the zoo owes it to all the people who helped pay for that exhibit to give (Lucy) an honest presentation.’
Bruce Carr, the zoo’s director of education, has no plans to alter the exhibit. ‘We cannot be updating every exhibit based on every new piece of evidence,’ he says. ‘What we look at is the overall exhibit and the impression it creates. We think that the overall impression this exhibit creates is correct.’ Dr Menton points out that if Lucy’s feet were accurately shown, it would be obvious they could never fit into the famous Laetoli fossil footprints. These are ‘exhibit A’ for evolutionary belief in upright walking by Lucy’s kind, whereas in fact they are identical to bare-foot humans.
Professor Betsy Schumann, evolutionist expert at Menton’s university, admits that the statue’s feet ‘probably are not accurate’, but when asked whether the statue should be changed, she says, ‘Absolutely not’.
In other words, it doesn’t matter if people get indoctrinated into evolution by wrong evidence, because ‘evolution is a fact’. Christians need to realise that we are facing a full–scale religio–cultural war!
Deceptive museum displays contribute to the worldwide push to replace the Christian worldview with that of evolutionary naturalism (‘everything made itself—we are answerable to nobody’). Sadly, many millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money support such museum displays.”
Also from “No more love for Lucy?”:
“Perhaps the most famous icon of human evolution in modern times may now have to be quietly discarded. For over the last thirty years, the supposedly 3.2 million year old Australopithecus afarensis specimen known as ‘Lucy’ has been boldly proclaimed as the ancestor of all humanity in magazines, television shows, books, newspapers, and museums. However, Tel Aviv University anthropologists have published a study casting serious doubt on Lucy’s role as mankind’s ape ancestor.1 Based on a comparative analysis of jaw bones in living and extinct primates, researchers concluded that Lucy and members of her kind should be ‘placed as the beginning of the branch that evolved in parallel to ours.’ In other words, by evolutionary reasoning, Lucy should no longer be considered to be our direct ancestor. Lucy’s demise falsifies thirty-three years of evolutionary hyperbole and propaganda.”
Hi Daniel.
From what I can see, no bones were found for little Lucy’s feet. So I have to wonder why creationists thinks we are lying about it when we infer? Would you have preferred hoofs? It seems the scientific community has no reason to think her feet would have been dramatically different from humans.
I have to ask you again Daniel. What would it take to disprove your Bible to you? Failed prophesies? Proof that Moses did not write the first five books? Proof that the Bible lies over David and Solomon’s kingdoms? How about proof that the Jesus figure was just a cheap copy of the myths from other civilizations? What is your measure of objective truth? You seem like a smart guy. It hurts to see you rape your intellect and integrity by defending proven myths.
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