BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka--Contd...

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka--Contd...
From: GUEST,999
Date: 23 May 12 - 05:13 PM

What I have learned over the years is that sometimes I'm wrong and sometimes I'm right. As with many unfortunate souls, I am in a quandary as to the existence of a supreme being.

It remins me of a story I heard from a good and dear friend who was in the lecture hall when Edward Teller was speaking to third-year university students at I think Berkeley. This friend is a co-discoverer of black holes, so he's no slouch in the brains department. Parenthetically, he doesn't believe in God, G-d or gods. Anyway, when Mr Teller came to the end of his lecture he asked if there were any questions. A student raised his hand and said, "Dr Teller, do you believe in God?" Teller replied in the affirmative. The student then queried, "Well, if there is a God, what was he doing before he created the universe?" Dr Teller responded, "He was dreaming up Hell for people who ask such questions!"

I think that Pete is wonderful. He never loses his cool, and he's straight-forward with his opinions. Although I disagree with most of his beliefs, I take refuge in the fact that they are his beliefs and call for no remarks from me. I saw a side of him on another thread that will evermore disallow me to fight with him or denigrate what he thinks. He has a moral stature which I feel should be envied. He's polite where I know I would not be, and he cares for others. He's a 10/10 as a Christian as far as I'm concerned, so there ya go. I have nothing to add to this thread other than what I just wrote. Keep well, Pete, and best wishes to your Mom.

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka--Contd...
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 23 May 12 - 04:35 PM

i'm quite sure that if a horse fossil were found in the burgess shale,or any other fossil in the "wrong" strata that evolutionism would be able to accomodate it.is it not true that the upper limits and lower have extended to accomodate finds that were formerly in a settled place in the geological column?.the rationale would be that scientists are open to new evidence.inasmuch as thats true that must be good but it seems to me that it also means that there is no way the GTE can be proved false as it is so flexible.
fossil record for example-neo/darwinism claims that there is a gradual column revealing "simple" to complex progression[except maybe the cambrian explosion?]whereas punctuated equilibrium acknowledged the extreme rarity of transistional forms and that became the evidence for that theory.i think there has been more of a merger since[closing ranks?]but i think it will do for an example.
pete.

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka--Contd...
From: Musket
Date: 23 May 12 - 08:51 AM

Three if you include the great Don Megson, Capt of Sheffield Wednesday in the late '60s and father of Gary.

(Managed to get my faith system in twice in one day. Result.)

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka--Contd...
From: Monique
Date: 23 May 12 - 05:11 AM

Guys, there're two Don's... so maybe this explains that.

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka--Contd...
From: Stu
Date: 23 May 12 - 05:05 AM

I wouldn't worry Don. As pete eschews fact-based evidence he's no more likely to be correct about any of our views or opinions expressed by us on these threads than he is about some pretty basic facts on subjects he keeps pontificating on.

Found a horse in the Burgess Shale yet pete?

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka--Contd...
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 23 May 12 - 04:45 AM

pete,

You wrote, further up this thread:

" ... it is an illogical challenge to say who caused him [God}.you may say you dont believe in him but IMO it is nonsence to ask who or what caused him ..."

No, it's not an "illogical challenge to say who caused him [Him]" - but asking the question generates a problem i.e. if the creator had a creator then that implies that the creator's creator had a creator ... and so on (an infinite doodah ... can't remember the right word at this time in the morning!). Just to insist the it all started with The Creator because it says so in the Bible may have been enough to stop a superstitious medieval peasant from asking awkward questions - but no-one on this thread is a superstitious medieval peasant (although I wonder about you sometimes, pete!).

It's interesting to compare your absolutist position with the question, "what came before the Big Bang?" The fact is that some physicists will tell you that all time and space started with the Big Bang - so the question has no meaning, others will tell you that the question does have meaning but we just don't know - and some in that camp will tell you that we will never be able to answer the question, while others will tell you that we may be able to answer the question some day ... and so on. At least we don't have tyrannous absolutism which denies us the right to ask questions based on some dubious ramblings in an old book!

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka--Contd...
From: Musket
Date: 23 May 12 - 03:50 AM

Interesting question. His track record is that he does.

As well as atheist, he makes similar withering remarks about what he calls creationists and Darwinists.

You see, his particular diagnosis includes seeing opinions as belief systems, in the same way as he is wedded to his idea of a supernatural comfort blanket. (I wonder how many ways the term "god" has been represented on this thread and it's predecessor?.. Wonder how many different ways by me alone for that matter.)

Mind you, at least he acknowledges Don. His "Christian" approach of debating with those he doesn't agree with seems to include blanking me out completely. Ok, he doesn't have to acknowledge me, but if I take that as a sign that he cannot argue with my position, I'll be smug enough to accept that.

You see, I have faults, hundreds of the buggers. But I at least am comfortable with being wrong from time to time, and welcome the fact that some people fundamentally disagree with my take on life.

So long as the beer flows, the wine pours and the BBQ fires up, I don't give a shit. Am I an atheist? I support Sheffield Wednesday, so I can't be...

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka--Contd...
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 22 May 12 - 11:35 PM

Uhhhhh.... pete, just asking....do you intend to use "atheist" as a pejorative?

Sure seems so from the interchanges with Don.
(E.g. semi-apologizing for having called him an atheist or "appearing" to be an atheist.)

Do you look down on atheists?

Is that a Christian attitude?

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka--Contd...
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 22 May 12 - 05:17 PM

don-i seem to recall that you did call yourself a christian sometime on the previous thread but i am willing to admit mistakes, and if you find having some kind of christian belief offensive,it was unintentionally so.
if you recheck my last post you will i hope notice i used the word "appear"
the object of the use of this word was intended to indicate that i did not charge you with being an atheist but with pursueing arguments that atheists would use.
on that post i indicated the eternality of God by 3 texts.you latched on to the 1st two asking when the "beginning" was.the 3rd text read "from everlasting to everlasting".
sorry if you dont read that as meaning "eternal"but that is how i understand it.
i was presuming that you would believe God[the maufacturer!]was eternal but i am at a loss as to how you would describe him.
of course it is your perogative to be vague should you wish.
best wishes    pete.

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka--Contd...
From: Mrrzy
Date: 22 May 12 - 03:58 PM

I recall Minchin's comment at the Reason Rally about having a rally for the bloody obvious 380 years after the enlightenment...

Nur in Amerika!

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka--Contd...
From: Bill D
Date: 22 May 12 - 12:42 PM

Ebbie.. "that link" about Jesus & dinosaurs.

The story is written tongue-in-cheek......... but the museum does exist, and the basics are true. They DO have exhibits which try to reconcile paleontology with purported biblical chronology. They don't succeed very well, but bad science never hindered the faithful much.

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka--Contd...
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 22 May 12 - 10:34 AM

My mistake.

It was in the original thread as follows:

""Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T - PM
Date: 04 Apr 12 - 06:45 AM

""Don, frankly I find it a bit scary that I'm part of a minority of 14.09%!""

I wouldn't worry Shimrod, at least you haven't any evangelising fundamentalists in that group, which makes it probably the best place to be.

I'm there too, though not an atheist. I follow no organised religion, but deal direct with the manufacturer, as it were.

I never could see the need to listen to the personal interpretations offered by men in black frocks.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T - PM
Date: 23 Apr 12 - 11:15 AM

There is a basic flaw too, in the reasoning process of fundamentalists, who make the entirely erroneous assumption that if you are not one of them, you are an atheist.

This is demonstrably not the case. Most Christians do not believe in YEC, and a belief in YEC is neither necessary nor logical as a requirement for following Christ's teachings as they have been reported to us by generations of men with varying agendas.

I believe in the basic tenets of that teaching, but not in the Christian Church, fundamental or moderate.

I believe in a Deity, so I suppose I am a Deist or Theist, what you will!

I have no need of organised religion of any stripe, it is simply irrelevant to my existence.

The reason why I combat fundamentalism and particularly YEC, is the total denial of all logic in its expression, combined with a proselytising fervour in the disemination of its false reasoning to the most impressionable of humans, our children.

Don T.""

Try reading and making some attempt at understanding this time.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 22 May 12 - 05:09 AM

""yes don,i know you are not an atheist.i know you call yourself a christian and in the broad sense i accept that.""

BTW, I do not, and never have called myself a Christian!

You really must pay attention to what people actually say and stop misinterpreting and misquoting. It destroys any vestige of credibility in your rather weak attempts at discussion.

If you can be arsed to look, you will find my self assessment clearly delineated further up this thread, though I doubt you'll bother, given that you didn't bother to read it the first time.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: Ebbie
Date: 22 May 12 - 01:31 AM

That link - are they serious?

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 21 May 12 - 07:05 PM

""yes don,i know you are not an atheist.i know you call yourself a christian and in the broad sense i accept that.""

I don't give a tuppenny damn whether you accept it or not, as long as you stop lying and misrepresenting my position.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 21 May 12 - 03:59 PM

yes don,i know you are not an atheist.i know you call yourself a christian and in the broad sense i accept that.

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 20 May 12 - 08:06 PM

YEC and Trickle Down Economics are products of faith based belief systems.

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 20 May 12 - 08:05 PM

lIKE "tRICKLE DOWN?

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 20 May 12 - 07:57 PM

""George W Bush has even been named patron of the creationist movement and was last year honoured at Kentucky Fry University with a Masters in Young Earth Studies.""

That definitely settles it!

If Geedub believes, it just has to be total f**king nonsense.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 20 May 12 - 07:48 PM

""in the beginning God..." gen 1v1 "in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.."john 1v1"..from everlasting to everlasting thou art God. ps 90v2.""

So, when exactly was the beginning?.....Four and a half billion years ago?

And please don't tell out and out lies! You know damn well if you've actually read anything I've said, that I am NOT an Atheist.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: Don Firth
Date: 20 May 12 - 06:19 PM

Uh. . . ?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: Penny S.
Date: 20 May 12 - 05:42 PM

Re Ruddy Ducks - another bird variation is the circum-polar gull distribution. There is a ring of gull "species" around the north pole, members of which can breed with adjacent members, but where the end species, the Herring Gull and the Lesser Black-backed Gull, which can be found together in Europe do not normally do so.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: Bill D
Date: 20 May 12 - 05:19 PM

"...and in this i have every right to believe the revelation of a self existent,eternal creator is as valid as you to believe it has some unexplained cause.

Yes...as I have agreed before. The difference is that I think 'God' is an "unexplained cause", so it makes no difference what you call the 'first cause'. The other difference is that you attribute 'conscious caring & planning' to your first cause, and I make no such assumption.... indeed, I don't even necessarily believe there WAS a single 'casual event', God or otherwise. Since it is not something we can prove, I don't worry about it. What concerns me is what we do with the existence we have, and interpreting supposed scripture is not what I care to spend time on.
At least science & mathematics can do checks on each other. Interpreting scripture is a HUMAN argument.

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: DMcG
Date: 20 May 12 - 04:20 PM

'expert', not 'expect'. Sigh... As usual, assume my posts come from someone incapable of typing. You won't be far wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: DMcG
Date: 20 May 12 - 04:12 PM

The other definition is "a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring.". In this sense, it is not a "structure we humans impose on the world"" but a practical reality and has nothing to do with the human ability to distinguish between species.
Nothing is ever that simple of course.

I agree on all counts, especially the latter! As a definition, interbreeding is not too useful sorting out dinosaurs, obviously, but nor can we really use it to determine whether a fox-like creature is capable of cross-breeding with a wolf-like creature. Suppose only 0.1% of the offspring is viable to the extent of being able to have its own offspring. Should we count that as 'able to cross breed' or not? And if we did accept that, would we actually carry out the cross-breeding experiment that long in practice anyway? Probably not. And if you do accept it, how about 0.01, 0.001 etc etc.

Now, I've deliberately overstated my position to some extent. I'm quite happy to agree there are groups that definitely won't cross-breed however many candle-lit suppers we give them; it's more that I grow suspicious of a litmus test that says that creature is or is not a lion, for example. It's more accurate to say that there is some idealisation of what a lion is (shades of Plato!) but everything we call a lion is actually an almost-lion. Moreover, when an animal live in packs or prides, there can be genetic variation between them sufficient to identify an individual as belonging to a specific pride. That smacks of the very early stages of differenciation that could in time lead to new species, even though they are capable of interbreeding at the moment.

I am no expect on the matter, but it wouldn't suprise me if some of the Galapagos finches could interbreed, for example.

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 20 May 12 - 03:41 PM

by another coincidence-or maybe not-the article on CMI site today is on the competing theories re-evaluating the big bang.

in light of my last post outlining the eternal,self existent nature of God as the bible witnesses to;it is an illogical challenge to say who caused him.you may say you dont believe in him but IMO it is nonsence to ask who or what caused him.
don challenging how he can exist if there was nothing before creation.
it is not the christian position that nothing was before."in the beginning God..." gen 1v1 "in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.."john 1v1"..from everlasting to everlasting thou art God. ps 90v2.
rather it is an atheist position[which don t appears to defend?]that has posited absolutely nothing some time past[though some dispute how that is understood ;as the CMI article discussed]
in such godless philosophy a spiritual realm wherein God dwells is excluded.what remains is no cause for origins other than it just happened.
pete

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: saulgoldie
Date: 20 May 12 - 03:39 PM

And still...how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? The scientific method of inquiry cannot possibly evaluate that. But the fantasy world can probably come up with thousands of answers, all perfectly explainable. And depending on which Bible you refer to and how you cherry-pick your "evidence," possibly thousands more. Whatever.

Saul

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: TheSnail
Date: 20 May 12 - 03:28 PM

My rather flippant, off the cuff remark did have a serious intent. For the purposes of taxonomy, species may well be distinguished by the number of spots on their wing cases, the colour of their winter plummage, the number of petals...
The other definition is "a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring.". In this sense, it is not a "structure we humans impose on the world"" but a practical reality and has nothing to do with the human ability to distinguish between species.
Nothing is ever that simple of course. Lions and Tigers don't mate in nature because, under normal circumstances, they never meet. When they do (thanks to human interference), the offspring are of limited viability. (Google on Ligers and Tiglons). Other obvious examples are mules and zebroids. On the other hand, the Ruddy Duck from the Americas has caused problems by crossbreeding with the European White Headed Duck.

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: frogprince
Date: 20 May 12 - 11:09 AM

I've thought about that when looking at birding guides, too; the North Livingston County Taupe Breasted Warbler, the South Livingston County Beige Breasted Warbler...          : )

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: DMcG
Date: 20 May 12 - 09:33 AM

LOL! Yes, its important to the beetle, but it doesn't follow that divisions we think are significant bother the beetle one iota (and also things we've not noticed might be vital!)

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: TheSnail
Date: 20 May 12 - 08:59 AM

by beetles where the various species can only be distingished by highly trained specialists

The important difference is whether they can be distinguished by other beetles.

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: DMcG
Date: 20 May 12 - 04:44 AM

By way of injecting some interest into this thread, it might be worth examing another issue here. There seems to me a flaw in 'Origins' and many the documents that flow from it - and, by a happy coincidence the same flaw is in the Bible - namely, the assumption that the whole concept of a species is valid. I can, and do, accept evolution occurs, and that we, as a sentient life form' can cluster gene-machines and call them goats, or sheep, or whatever, but the older I get the more I feel that the concept of 'species' is a structure we humans impose on the world rather than what is actually there, in the same way we impose seven colours on the light spectrum. In short: the concept of species is digital but I grow more and more convinced it is continuous at a macro level, (in the sense that a liquid or sand is continuous, though composed of discrete particles; I agree that at the DNA level things are digital). I think this issue is exemplified by beetles where the various species can only be distingished by highly trained specialists.

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: DMcG
Date: 20 May 12 - 03:48 AM

Not quite, don f, as I understand it. Aquinus asserted that the first cause was God. There are at least two basic flaws in his argument: one that it is simply asserted that this is the way out of the infinite regress, the other that even if FirstCause exists, it does not necessarily have any attributes of God as commonly understood. It could, for example have attributes much more like BigBang.

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: Don Firth
Date: 19 May 12 - 10:23 PM

That was the refutation that tripped up Thomas Aquinas. Unanswerable.

The Church made him a saint anyway.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: frogprince
Date: 19 May 12 - 10:07 PM

"anything existing has to have a sufficient cause"

So...what caused God ?

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 19 May 12 - 06:19 PM

OK, explain how your putative eternal creator could have existed where there was nothing.

No matter, no space, no time = no eternal entity.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 19 May 12 - 05:32 PM

well bill;i assume the many new experiments have not obtained their objective ,and whatever may have been achieved still has matter and human effort to facilitate however much is.
in the meantime we still have something rather than nothing,which IMO is what would [not] be if there were no cause sufficient.and in this i have every right to believe the revelation of a self existent,eternal creator is as valid as you to believe it has some unexplained cause.simple science so far still posits that anything existing has to have a sufficient cause -last i heard!.
is utter nothing a sufficient cause?

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: Bill D
Date: 18 May 12 - 08:32 PM

Must have been the arse.... they seem to have more varieties.

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: Paul Burke
Date: 18 May 12 - 07:55 PM

Which came first- the arse or the elbow?

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: Bill D
Date: 18 May 12 - 07:40 PM

As Paul says...there are many new experiments
The point is that we have synthesized the amino acids. Nature took many millions of years to get from basic chemicals to recognizable life forms. All that is necessary to know in order to make the theory feasible is that we know the building blocks were there and that we HAVE replicated the 1st steps.

Don't forget, Pete, that claiming a 'creator' doesn't even begin to answer why or how such a thing happened. Even science doesn't know "why there is something, rather than nothing".... but all religion does is ignore the question and assert an answer.... and I'm afraid that "God says He did it." doesn't carry much weight when one book written by men is the only data.

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: Paul Burke
Date: 18 May 12 - 06:41 PM

pete- browse foe up to date experiments. Urey et al was sixty years ago.

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 18 May 12 - 06:12 PM

bill-i read that even dawkins admits the urey miller experiments lead to a dead end .even the hoped for protein would be inadequate for life.and that is with controlled tests by intelligent creators .
if they come to a dead end it is even more unlikely that life can arise without benefit a creator.dawkins proposes RNA but sarfati in the "greatest hoax on earth" outline the problems in this idea.thats probably as far as i am capable of taking this .

penny-i did'nt spot anything in your link that supports macro change.
as you say the YEC position is of change within types.this of course is not just argument countering darwinism, but noted by creationists before darwin.

pete

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: Penny S.
Date: 17 May 12 - 01:38 PM

OK, I was a bit lax there - and what a lot of new stuff you've given me there. I seem to remember the feather was one of the features that used to surface in creationist arguments as evidence of something that had no purpose in a form less than the fully developed flight feather.

I have been thinking of these things as members of a cohort between definitely dinosaur and definitely bird, some of which would go on to be birds, and some not. So that even if a particular species did not go on to be an ancestor, it could indicate the direction things were moving. Is that reasonable?

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: Stu
Date: 17 May 12 - 08:27 AM

Microraptor isn't so much an intermediate between non-avian and avian dinosaurs (birds, if you will), it's more a branch on the tree with them. It's later than Archaeopteryx which is still considered a bird despite some recent discussion on the subject.

Bird evolution is a fascinating, complex subject. We're finding feather-like integumentary structures on dinosaurs far removed from birds and and it's possible feathers evolved before dinosaurs did. There is a constant stream of new and exciting discoveries on a pretty much weekly basis regarding avian dinosaur and their relatives' phylogeny and morphology and I suspect things are gong to get even more exciting in the future.

Heck, we even know Archaeopteryx had black flight feathers, other dinosaurs had black and white plumage, reds and russets also feature.

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: Penny S.
Date: 17 May 12 - 06:14 AM

The problem is, as Pete hinted a while back, that the group to which he belongs holds that evolution is the claptrap, children are being taught error, and it is important to prevent this.

This would presumably be because, on the one hand, their immortal souls are at risk, and one the other, that society would be better if it were founded on their beliefs rather than grounded on the ideas that can be drawn from evolution.

Arguing that to teach untruths is child abuse is not, therefore, going to be convincing, since, to them, it is an argument in their favour.

Gradual evolution - I have previously referred to the development of micraster heart urchins in the Chalk. Obviously these are heart urchins at the beginning of the sequence and heart urchins at the end, just heart urchins with different features, so maybe this is not convincing. It can be written off as microevolution. I may add to this the development of the horse (see Wikipedia) where a long sequence from little eohippus to modern equus (which they point out does not necessarily mean that each step is in a direct line of descent from the previous) shows a gradual change in time. Technically, this may be called macroevolution. See distinctions from an Indian university Other examples are given. Darwin's finches, camels, elephants.

However, these too can be argued to be within "kinds" by creationists.

But dinosaurs producing birds, for which change there are more and more genuine transitional fossils being found, would not be. (Yes, Archeoraptor was a fake, but its source fossils were not, and one, Microraptor, was a genuine intermediate between dinosaurs and birds. Arguing from fakes, while ignoring the vast number of genuine evidence is spurious. Piltdown does not invalidate all the African hominims and so disprove evolution. I have suggested Pete would make his song more effective by dropping that reference.)

While fact checking on dino-birds, I found the first google suggestion was a creationist site about evolutionist fraud. It included Piltdown and Archeoraptor, but also a number of cases where there had been misinterpretation, subsequently corrected through the normal processes of science, such as the initial identification of Neanderthals as shambling brutes because of the failure to identify the effects of rickets. It referred to the corrections showing the intelligence, altruism, skills and spiritual dimension of Neanderthals.

I am getting concerned at the way that when I search for scientific details in this field, the early search results are frequently from creationist sites, and I have to be very picky and go through a few pages. If my search terms are very technical, I get the Royal Society, JSTOR, Wiley et al, behind paywalls.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 17 May 12 - 05:21 AM

No problem

Star struck Pete gets his magic pixies to wave their magic wands and his book of fairy tales supplies all the answers.

Teaching creationism as being an interpretation of scripture that faith relies on to a greater or lesser extent is good education and helps children understand where people are coming from.

But teaching it as fact? I got a bollocking from my lad's teacher because he believed me when I said for fun that wind farms are all about giant fans to counteract global warming.

The lecture I got, rightly so, would serve to explain why the teaching of superstitious claptrap is tantamount to child abuse.

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: frogprince
Date: 16 May 12 - 10:21 PM

Ah, Don? : ) I know, but, why should someone who takes Genesis dead literally say that abiogenesis is impossible? Some of the sources further define abiogenesis in terms of strictly natural processes. Some of them just give the root definition that I gave.

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: Don Firth
Date: 16 May 12 - 09:59 PM

Analogy, frogprince. Metaphor.

But pete can't accept that that is what it is. He wants it literal.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: frogprince
Date: 16 May 12 - 09:49 PM

Abiogenesis is the scientific study of the origin of life from inorganic matter.

"i have often pointed out that abiogenesis is impossible" - Pete

Genesis chapter 2, verse 7: "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground"

I would have to agree with Pete on this; there's no way that statement in the Bible could be true.

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: Bill D
Date: 16 May 12 - 07:46 PM

That's an 'interesting' way of interpreting Spencer's quote, Pete. But that is how someone constructing a sermon might do it.

(I personally own Spencer's major work and find it is not exactly what serious scientists refer to these days. He is historically interesting, but not mainstream.)

The thing about your remark: " the fossil record is largely lacking in anything evidencing gradualistic change .i have quoted evolutionists admitting as much." is: We are not lucky enough to have every stage in evolution laid out. Most animals did not die 'conveniently'. But, it is NOT true that we do not see "gradualistic change". We do not see ALL stages of it, but we can date many, many fossils and see THAT the changes represent evolutionary progress. For some commoner species, we actually do see a fairly representative 'gradual' series!
(All that 'evolutionists' admit is, as I have said, that we don't have every step.... and if we did, there would not be enough museums in the world to hold millions of specimens.)

As to abiogenesis, it is quite possible! Science has synthesized certain amino acids and shown how they could combine.

from the Wikipedia article:(read it and the links in it- it says much more)
"Most amino acids, often called "the building blocks of life", were shown to be synthesized in the Miller–Urey experiment and similar experiments that involved the simulation some of the hypothetical conditions of the early Earth. Other equally fundamental biochemicals, such as nucleotides and saccharides can arise in a similar manner."

Perhaps "God" controlled what happened way back then - we can't test THAT in a laboratory.... but it did happen.