BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: Bill D
Date: 26 Jan 12 - 01:54 PM

well, nameless troll, there are many of us who assert that 'belief' which is unfounded (which is why it is called belief) can lead to multiple opinions which people are willing to fight over and even start wars over.

There is an **important** philosophic principle which states: "From false premises, anything follows!" Note... that does not prove that anything in particular IS false, but merely that IF you find many, many contradictory claims following from a couple of premises, those premises should be suspect!

Thus:

1)God exists
2)God is concerned and issues rules about our lives & behavior.

what follows? Hundreds of different, and many contradictory, opinions as to what a god might want or control...etc. Since we have no direct, testable proof of either of those two assertions, many sincere, honest, sensible people have serious doubts about whether either or both beliefs are true.

THAT'S why we 'pontificate' when others 'proselytize' and tell us we should believe 'X'...or 'Y'.. or any set of letters. It is not just that they personally choose to believe, but that there are strong forces trying to USE those beliefs to control lives and entire governments.

If personal belief were just kept that way... personal... it wouldn't be so complicated.

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: akenaton
Date: 26 Jan 12 - 02:02 PM

"So why the constant push to hate gays, women and fun?"

That statement shows a remarkable lack of understanding. I know many people who would define themselves as Christian, go to church occasionally and live a decent lifestyle. Most are involved in community projects,and give their time generously to help addicts, the homeless etc.

They never push their beliefs on to others and hatred is not in their nature....in fact they are most tolerant and sympathetic towards those who suffer problems of any kind.

In fact, i have never meet anyone who hates "gays, women or fun", the only hatred I see is towards a group who has the common sense to see that humanity requires a small roadmap, on the journey from the cradle to the grave.

The statement is also an insult to the many good people on this forum who have any form of spiritual belief, whether through organised religion or not.

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: Paul Burke
Date: 26 Jan 12 - 02:17 PM

You really should see a doctor about it ake.

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: akenaton
Date: 26 Jan 12 - 02:17 PM

Most of us have our secret gods Bill.

On the Mudcat haters, I am minded to repeat a cartoon I read several years ago.

A couple of christians waiting outside the Golden Gates to be admitted to the kingdom of heaven.....on their left is a huge queue snaking over the hills to a glowing manhole, where two little devils are gleefully forking the atheists, agnostics etc into a fiery hell.

One christian turns to the other and says......."Dont look so bloody smug now....do they?"

It works on many levels.

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: Bill D
Date: 26 Jan 12 - 02:19 PM

"... i have never meet anyone who hates "gays, women or fun","

You haven't? I have...(well, some just have an 'unusual' idea of 'fun'.)
I lived for 30 years in the Bible Belt of the USA, and heard almost every fundamentalist, hateful idea expressed or implied. If you do an internet search you can find them by the carload!
It is possible to 'mostly' insulate oneself from those sorts, but they are out there, and they are serious. (You don't know about the church in Topeka, Kansas, which sends people to street corners and to the funerals of veterans to scream that "God hates fags!"?)

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: akenaton
Date: 26 Jan 12 - 02:21 PM

Actually paul, I am an atheist who believes in telepathy and spirituality.

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: Bill D
Date: 26 Jan 12 - 02:36 PM

"I am an atheist who believes in telepathy and spirituality."

telepathy is at least potentially able to be tested. I would LOVE to find that it is really possible and replicable, rather than just anecdotal.

Spirituality? That idea can mean many things to many people. It can mean simply an...umm.. 'inner feeling' about relationships...basically a linguistic way to express personal attitudes-- or it can mean some metaphysical belief in the reality of 'powers & entities & realms' which might be 'accessed' in certain ways.

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: Paul Burke
Date: 26 Jan 12 - 02:45 PM

Atheism doesn't inoculate you against prejudice. As I said, see a good doctor, craniotomy is a sure cure, but has implications about quality of life. But here's a doctor with a lot of experience in both telepathy and spiritual matters: Dr Susan Blackmore.

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: akenaton
Date: 26 Jan 12 - 02:48 PM

I have experienced telepathy two or three times Bill.
With another very dear family member....witnessed by Mrs Akenaton.

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: Don Firth
Date: 26 Jan 12 - 04:36 PM

I'm all for telepathy. It would help to alleviate all that incessant TEXTING!!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: Bill D
Date: 26 Jan 12 - 05:35 PM

"... alleviate all that incessant TEXTING!!"

And cure 78.431% of all thumb complaints!

Ake... your report is, of course, what I mean by 'anecdotal'. I know several people who assert they have had .. ummm.. 'experiences' that they attribute to 'tuning in' to another's thoughts or emotions. Maybe they did...maybe they didn't.
What is NOT possible, so far, (and not even claimed) is testable, *replicable* tranfer of specific information - that is, on demand and in detail. Whether we can discover the facts behind the various claims is hard to say.

I am a 'skeptic', which is not the same as a 'denyer' on the matter.

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: akenaton
Date: 26 Jan 12 - 07:44 PM

If it is of any interest Bill, my ummm "experiences" were related to periods of extreme stress in one of the participants; in one instance involving the horrific death of another family member.

At the time, I told my wife what thought had happened and within hours we were awakened by someone bearing the news.
I have had these ummm "experiences" on several occasions, always involving very stressful circumstances and always with someone very emotionally close to me.
I think there is are perhaps many "senses", which may have been available on demand in an early stage in our evolution, but which may have been lost or become faint like our sense of smell or hearing.

Sorry about the drift.

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: Bill D
Date: 26 Jan 12 - 08:16 PM

(yes... the reports *I* have been told about were also mostly stress instances. Perhaps brains do something extra at those times. *shrug*.)

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: GUEST,Iona
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 12:34 AM

Take that smug grin off your face, Iona, and read a book called 'The beak of the finch by Jonathan Weiner (Vintage Books, 1995) in summary:

"The Beak of the Finch tells the story of two Princeton University scientists - evolutionary biologists - engaged in an extraordinary investigation. They are watching, and recording, evolution as it is occurring - now - among the very species of Galapagos finches that inspired Darwin's early musings on the origin of species. They are studying the evolutionary process not through the cryptic medium of fossils but in real time, in the wild, in the flesh. The finches that Darwin took from Galapagos at the time of his voyage on the Beagle led to his first veiled hints about his revolutionary theory."

Also evolutionary processes happen all the time e.g.
when bacteria develop resistance to anti-biotics i.e. those bacterial strains, which are most resistant to ABs,
sutvive and propagate themselves whilst those with least resistance are eliminated from the population.

Shimrod

__________________________________________________
I don't want to be smug, Shimrod, and I beg your pardon if I came off that way. However, the facts that you present, Darwin's finches, are simply exhibiting microevolution , otherwise known as adaption. We don't see lizards changing into birds, and we never have seen that, even in the fossil record. We don't see species changing into another species, but we do see adaption. Adaption is the ability of the creature to change to fit better in it's environment, which changes are already programmed into the creature's genetic code by the Creator. Evolution says that monkeys can change into humans, that fish can change into reptiles, that reptiles can change into birds. What evidence do you have for that? What fossils have we found to support this claim? I see an awful lot of adaption being promoted as 'Evolution', but I have yet to see one species change into another.

______________________________________
Iona, let me put it to you this way:

Your vision of God is too simple. As is that of fundamentalists and Biblical literalists.

God is not some kind of "Super-Gandalf." He doesn't do the things He does, like create the sun, the earth, and the stars, and Man, and all the beasts of the earth by muttering some incantation and waving a Magic Wand.

Evolution is the way He does it. He flips the switch and the process takes care of itself.

A God who is only able to create things AS Is is too--Harry Potter--if you get my meaning.

Don Firth
_____________________________________________________
I haven't seen Harry Potter or read much of the books, so I'm afraid I can't completely understand what you're trying to say. However, how can you say that my "vision of God is too simple"? I haven't said anything about my belief in God until now. I'm simply asking for evidence for evolution.

______________________________________________________
Shugarfoot Jack said:
"I'd like to hear somebody give me one--only one evidence for evolution."

Darwin's finches.

The development of resistance of some pathogens to antibiotics.

The mutation rate of the common cold virus.

Polymorphism in Capaea sp. shell colour.

The evolution of the Polar Bear from the Brown Bear.

I could go on but I suspect you're not interested in evidence anyway.
_________________________________________
Adaption!
Adaption!
Adaption!
We don't see polar bears turn into cats. We see dogs and varieties of dogs, we see cats and varieties of cats, but there are no cogs and no dats! We see plenty of microevolution, but I have yet to see any macroevolution--one species turning into another. It just doesn't happen. There is overwhelming evidence for Creation and the worldwide flood of the Bible, but there is no evidence for millions of years or beneficial mutations. Evolutionists, at their very base of theory, believe that everything came from nothing. They believe that nothing existed and then *BANG!* the world and all it's glorious programming showed up.

"I could go on but I suspect you're not interested in evidence anyway.

On the contrary, I'm very interested in evidence. However, all that I've seen presented so far is simply adaption. I haven't yet seen evidence for evolution.

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 12:43 AM

"'god' is a generic name for any number of imaginary deities, whereas Zeus, Apollo etc are proper names of individual fabled entities"
.,,.,.

Mr Happy ~ Sorry; you are just plain WRONG. The 4th word of the AV of The Bible, & all other versions I have come across, give 'God', thus printed, as the actual PROPER NAME of the deity thus referred to on every occasion of his mention throughout the entire 68 Books. That just happens to be what he is CALLED by the adherents of the two religions whose holy book this is. I agree that all the other deities, 'Zeus, Apollo etc', are referred to as 'gods'; but God with a cap G is an actual referential proper name, just like theirs; so grammatically requires a capital letter ~

~ for God's sake!

〠☺〠~M~〠☺〠

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: GUEST,Ian Mather sans cookie
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 01:43 AM

Evolution and typos.

This ruddy iPad types what it thinks you mean and the submit and preview buttons are too close together.

Anyway, you don't have to be superstitious to observe correct grammar and written English. I have no issue with upper case for either the metaphor or the man made comfort blanket. I was quoting exactly the book as it appears on my Kindle.

I do note that if you express a view on a subject that isn't welcomed, you are referred to as a troll. Surely you mean heretic?

On other matters,

Keep taking the tablets Bridge, they seem to be working!

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: GUEST,Paul Burke
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 01:47 AM

Only adaption? Now we're getting to it, this is why I asked you to tell us what you mean by evolution. What do you mean by evolution, and what do you mean by adaption? What evidence do you need to tell the difference?

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: GUEST,Ian Mather sans cookie
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 01:47 AM

Oh, and Akenaton. Your well publicised homophobia does lump you with the god botherers.

A person who hates on the basis of a lifestyle that doesn't concern them is a homophobic person, regardless of how they spend their Sundays.

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 01:51 AM

Living creatures do not change from one species into another overnight. A new species appears as a result of an accumulation of adaptations over a period of time and through many generations.

The closest living relative of the Tyrannosaurus Rex is the common chicken. This took millions of years and happened over thousands of generations. (Bit of a come-down, eh?)

No, you don't see polar bears turn into cats. But you see wolves turn into Yorkshire terriers. Through many generations.

God and evolution are not incompatible. As I said above, that's how God did it.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: GUEST,Iona
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 02:16 AM

Paul Burke:
When I say 'Evolution' I'm referring to the belief that man evolved from different creatures like algae, and then further down the 'line', monkeys. Like what's taught in public schools.

Adaption is simply variations of animals within the same kind.

Don Firth: Of course Evolutionists don't believe that species can mutate into another species overnight. But adaption and variation is completely different from evolution. Evolution says that a cat can turn into a dog, given the right genetic mistakes and mutations. We have yet to discover a beneficial mutation; and yet for Evolution to be true, there has to have been thousands of them in the past to create all of the amazing creatures we see in our world.

No one has found a 'missing link', but there must be thousands of them if creatures truly do evolve like Evolution says. Why is it that we find all these creatures in the fossil record, but no one can find the 'links' between them?

Wolves can turn into Yorkshire Terriers simply because they are both part of the dog kind. But the Yorkshire Terrier, if you keep breeding and breeding and breeding, will not create a bigger, better dog--the gene pool gets weaker and weaker as the generations progress. That's the direct opposite of evolution, which requires thousands of beneficiall mutations and genetic mistakes.

"God and evolution are not incompatible. As I said above, that's how God did it."
Then what do you call Genesis?

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: GUEST,Paul Burke
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 02:17 AM

That is, for example, there are many varieties of dogs and many varieties of cats, but no "dats" or "cogs."

Not from our "interested" GUEST, but from the Institute of Creation Research website.

They believe that nothing existed and then *BANG!* the world and all it's glorious programming showed up.

Obviously so interested that he/ she hasn't read anything about biology that wasn't on the ICR site or Answers in Genesis.

Not even a troll. A religious propagandist, and an incompetent one at that.

Don't strain our tolerance.

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: GUEST,Ian Mather sans cookie
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 02:59 AM

Don, when you state that evolution and God are not incompatible, are you stating God as a metaphor for "How did it all happen then?" or the interventional jealous dude who told people to sacrifice their sons etc.

I can warm to the former but can be no more than dismissive of the latter. Although, that's just my view, and the view out of the hotel window leads me to put the iPad down and enjoy a run down the slopes for a couple of hours.

Now... Some people we were speaking to in the bar during après ski the other day looked out of the window seeing the sun set behind the mountains and declared (to everybody in general) that God was most certainly in his heaven.

It would have been churlish of me to rattle on about turning earth, tectonic plates causing our bit of the Alps and pollution coming from Northern Italy helping make the sky so red.

I was far more comfortable with agreeing that God was most certainly in his heaven. Far more to the point, pertinent, succinct and about as relevant to this holiday as the movement of the plates.

So, God as a metaphor can be quite useful. Problem is, it can inadvertently give credence to dangerous nonsense.

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: GUEST,Sugarfoot Jack
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 03:56 AM

"Adaption!
Adaption!
Adaption!"

Er, one of the mechanisms of evolution is descent with modification, examples of which I gave you. Screaming "adaption" is not really much of an argument.

"We don't see polar bears turn into cats."

An ridiculous example, and we might see genetically isolated populations of polar bears become a new species over time, as a population of their ancestors (Brown Bears) did to become Polar Bears.

"We see plenty of microevolution, but I have yet to see any macroevolution--one species turning into another."

If you can see microevolution then you are actually watching evolution. You'd have to stay around a mighty long time to watch one species turn into another, although we can see that happening of course (see examples given earlier).

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: Penny S.
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 04:02 AM

Iona, you state that lizards don't change into birds. True, but...

Dinosaurs have been recognised as being distinct from lizards and other reptiles. Dinosaur fossils have been found with feathers. Bird fossils have been found with dinosaur characteristics. (And yes, claims have been made, and refuted, that Archaeopteryx was a fake, and one piece from China was a fake. The rest are not.)

Get a grip on Deep Time. Changes take a very long time, a very long time indeed.

You point out that small terriers no longer have the genetic material to revert to wolves. That is pertinent to the inability for dogs to change to cats. Time is like a pair of trousers, and once a creature has moved off down one leg, it can't reproduce with a relation which moved down the other. Neither canines nor felines any longer have the material whice resembles their common ancestor. And on the related question of missing links, they are being found all the time - but each link produces two more gaps...

Evidence for the relationships between kinds of animals does not only lie in the fossil record, but in the genomes of all creatures (perhaps a word I should not use). Why, if we are all separate creations, is there so much material in our DNA in common?

You suggest that no-one has found any beneficial mutation. In New Scientist this week was an article about one which had hitherto been thought to be the opposite. Up until recently, this gene in children had been associated with bad behaviour, but work in Israel showed the opposite. In an experiment where a very young child and an experimenter opened a pack of snacks, and the experimenter had only four, while the child had 24, a few children offered to share evenly. These were children with the same mutation which in others led to bad behaviour and selfishness. It appears that the gene actually helps the child to adapt to behaviour in its environment. Those with the bad behaviour all came from disadvantaged families. The sharers came from families who behaved like that. The distribution of the gene shows that it has been selected for, so has been an advantage to its bearers - it actually makes the bearers more human. (I summarise - do read the actual article.) It was a mutation. The article also suggests that the mutation(s) producing the gene or genes leading to ADHD was/were advantageous in leading to the spread of humanity out of Africa and across the world.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: Mr Happy
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 05:25 AM

Penny,

'Those with the bad behaviour all came from disadvantaged families.


The sharers came from families who behaved like that'


Surely that's a matter of nurture, rather than nature, not a good example IMO

*********
MtheGM

'The 4th word of the AV of The Bible, & all other versions I have come across, give 'God', thus printed, as the actual PROPER NAME of the deity...'

You'll agree, I presume, that the bible is a translation into English from Greek, Latin, Aramaic, Hebrew & other languages & therefore what's printed in a book published by confirmed adherents of the philosophy will contain errors, assumptions & above all, dogma & therefore should not be taken as gospel.

Further examples of this dogmatic approach to grammar can be found freely sprinkled throughout the tome in such cases as; He, His, Him, the Lord etc, occuring mid sentence.

However, Jahweh,Jehovah & Allah as the proper names of the deity in question are proper nouns & should be capitalised

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 05:41 AM

"We have yet to discover a beneficial mutation; and yet for Evolution to be true, there has to have been thousands of them in the past to create all of the amazing creatures we see in our world."

No, not 'thousands' but 'billions' over many millions of years. Brute probability says that a certain percentage of these mutations will be beneficial, given the right circumstances. Evolution, like everything else in nature, is a statistical phenomenon.

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 07:03 AM

With all due respect we do see dog breeds getting larger, if so bred.

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 07:48 AM

Iona,
You say "No one has found a 'missing link', but there must be thousands of them if creatures truly do evolve like Evolution says. Why is it that we find all these creatures in the fossil record, but no one can find the 'links' between them?"

Are you identical to your parents?

If you have children are they identical to you?

You are the missing link between them.

This picture should help:

click

http://i.stack.imgur.com/RtfaM.jpg

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 07:49 AM

That was me above

click

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: DMcG
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 07:57 AM

Evolution says that a cat can turn into a dog, given the right genetic mistakes and mutations

As mentioned above, we need a definition of species from you to work with, because without that you could even say a hypothetical cat-to-dog change where we knew every single parent and child would simply be 'adaption, adaption, adaption'. Of course, rather more than 3 adaptions would be required! And by definition of course, we mean something that can work with a completely unknown animal (etc) we might discover for the first time tomorrow.

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 09:23 AM

"MtheGM - You'll agree, I presume, that the bible is a translation into English from Greek, Latin, Aramaic, Hebrew"?
.,,.,..,
Of course I will, Happy. Happily. And I would point out that the Old Testament's Hebrew & New Testament's Aramaic יהוה, & the New Testament's Greek Θεóς {which literally means "God"}, are both translated in the work in question by "God". This work happens to be the English version of the Bible; so that these words are translated into the English PROPER NAME "God" throughout. Hence the necessity for the capital letter.

If you still pretend not to get it ~~ tough: you will merely be demonstrating your own denseness, or obstinacy, or both.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: Mr Happy
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 09:31 AM

Eh?

So you're now resorting to name calling?

'are both translated in the work in question by "God".'

So the deity's a creative translator, as well?

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 09:44 AM

"Allah",which you adduce, belonging to a different tradition is not in question; tho I am of course happy to conced its Prper-Nominal sraus.

The translators' somewhat eccentric policy of capitalising pronouns referring to the deity "God", presumably to emphasise their respect for him {not for 'it'} is a separate matter, it seems to me.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 09:45 AM

"concede its proper-nominal status"

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 12:55 PM

What do I call Genesis?

A Creation story. One of many. Myth. Metaphor.

Joseph Campbell made the very much to the point statement that where religions tend to go off the rails is when their followers mistake myth and metaphor for literal historical fact.

Iona, define God.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: Paul Burke
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 01:00 PM

I wonder in what sense g/God is a "he". X and Y chromosomes? Naah, he can't have those, in any case in at least one of h/His cameo appearances h/He ought to have been genetically female (unless the miracle was h/He was actually a bird pretending to be a human- might explain the ascension). Barring a miracle of course. The appropriate equipment? again, g/God is omnipotent so h/He can do anything h/He wants, but it strikes one as a little inappropriate, especially when the local tradition insists that there aren't any nice g/Godesses to use it on. And playing with angels is just abuse. So is gender for g/Gods a matter of lifestyle choice? Or have I missed some deeper, more theologically subtle, meaning of the word "he"?

Oh, as for our Answers in Genesis t6roll, I don't know why people are trying to explain science to someone who pretends to be eagerly investigating, and has found all the old worn-out creationist sites, yet hasn't found a single one of the many scientific sites that give the answers to every point in detail.

A waste of time, or in other words, religion.

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: Greg F.
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 01:06 PM

You guys gonna debate a Holocaust denier & confront them with facts next? You'd have about the same amount of luck.

I guess masochists come in all forms.

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 01:32 PM

By the way, there IS no "missing link." The process of evolution was (is) sufficiently gradual that it would be impossible to point out one individual or group of individuals and say, "There it is!" That's why one will never find "the missing link" and why the "missing link" is actually a red herring in the evolution vs Creation argument.

And when did proponents if evolution ever sat that "a cat can turn into a dog" under ANY circunstances? The only people I've ever heard make statements like that are those who are rabidly ANTI-evolution on the grounds of their own limited religious concepts.

In logic, this is called the "straw man" fallacy.

A "straw man" is a fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by replacing it with a superficially similar yet unequivalent proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting IT, without ever having actually refuted the original position.

Unacceptable.

By the way, when I say "their own limited religious concepts," I am not referring to the concepts of a particular religion itself, but to the limited concepts of many of the individuals who practice that religion, and who all too often, get all bound up in unimportant detail. I can give you dozens of examples of this if you wish.

They get wrapped up in minutia and miss the whole point of what their religion is all about.

Don Firth

P. S.   By the way, Iona, don't make the mistaken assumption that I am an atheist or anti-religious on the basis of my position on this matter. I am a member of Central Lutheran Church of the Holy Trinity in Seattle, and I know a great deal about the Bible. Not just about its contents, but about how it came to be.

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 02:29 PM

"I don't know why people are trying to explain science to someone who pretends to be eagerly investigating, ..."

Of course, 'Iona' isn't investigating anything. She/he (?) knows the Answer already - 'it was God wot dun it' and all you need to know is in the Bible. What she/he and her/his fellow creationists are trying to do is to discredit that branch of biology which deals with evolution. It's a sort of anti-science. There's no such thing as 'creation science' - only 'creation anti-science'. No true scientist would ever start from the Answer and then look for information to support the Answer and seek to discredit any information that failed to support the Answer!

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: Penny S.
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 02:39 PM

Mr Happy, in condensing a long article, I may have left out some vital details. There were two populations compared. One was a group including sharers and non-sharers, neither set previously identified with behavioural problems, indeed being too young for much of this to show. In this well behaved group with similar backgrounds, the ones who suggested sharing had a particular gene which the ones which did not suggest sharing lacked. The other group compared children with bad behaviour and found a relationship between that same gene and bad behaviour. The scientists studying the sharing behaviour were surprised by the connection they found because of this previously recognised association.
Yes, nurture was involved - the argument was that the gene enabled a more pronounced response to environmental input, rather than instigating a particular style of behaviour. It was a response not observed in children lacking the gene.


Article - needs signing in to see whole

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: Penny S.
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 02:48 PM

And, Iona, I think the word you wanted was "adaptation" - just in case I was missing something, I did check, and your version, missing the linking @, is not familiar to Google, though it will fish up definitions if forced. And then, at the bottom of page three, after definitions, and various commercial uses, it finds an "intelligent design" page using it in a new specific way.

There's no reason to use a less used version when they mean the same.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: Bill D
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 03:18 PM

Further, Iona, regarding 'missing links'...it is the case that not ALL the minute changes in the evolutionary record were conveniently preserved in some stream, landslide, tar pit, lake bottom...etc. Of course we don't have examples from all the millions of generations, laid out in order so we can study the tiny variations! If we did, there would not be enough museums in the world to display & study them.

But.... in a building at the Univ. of Kansas there ARE thousands of generations of mouse skins, all carefully documented and labeled as to geneology...with some very interesting variations, even in a study of only a few decades.

When you assert that the "is no evidence" for evolution, YOU are showing a very limited, shallow understanding of both the concept of evolution and the parameters of what actually counts as evidence.

When you begin with a personal view, usually shaped by a set of religious convictions, that **THIS** is how it works, you must then do some awkward mental reasoning to make all of science & all other reasoning fit into your pre-digested scheme.

Read about Galileo, Copernicus and the Catholic church and see how s-l-o-w-l-y we came around to simply admitting that the Sun does NOT go around the Earth...which is not flat.

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 04:39 PM

Beyond mere ignorance, what may be keeping this kind of science vs religion debate going is that Man started out being the center of the universe. Everything revolved around the earth, which God created as the home of Man.

But some ancient Greek (way pre-Christ) had already figured out that the earth was round, not flat, and had even come up with a remarkably accurate figure for its circumference.

Then Copernicus comes up with the outrageous notion that perhaps the earth revolved around the sun, not the other way around. Then along comes Galileo with his handy-dandy Tom Swift telescope and proves it! The Church had a wall-eyed fit about this and threatened to fry his tookus unless he recanted. Galileo did, partly to save his life and largely because he knew that, what with all kinds of astronomers getting telescopes in their cereal boxes, the word would swiftly get around, and since he proved it first, he'd get the credit.

Then, as astronomy moves forth apace, we learn that, rather than some 6,000 years old, the Cosmos is more like 13 billion years old, the solar system, including the earth (along with the Garden of Eden, someplace in the Mid-East, presumably) has been here for some 4.5 billion years, and not only is the earth not the center of the Cosmos, the Cosmos doesn't even have a center, as such!

If God really did create the heavens and the earth—and Man—it would appear that Man is not really anywhere near as important as he thought he was. Even to God!

What a blow to Man's ego! Some folks are really miffed about this!

Hence, all the convoluted efforts to deny the obvious.

Don Firth

P. S.   Here's a thought to play with:   Just suppose that the Cosmos were a Petri dish, the entity that we think of as God is actually just one of many, say, biology students or lab technicians in a biology laboratory in some Super-Cosmos, and we--are merely a bacteria culture on that Petri dish.......

P. P. S.   By the way:    42

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 06:27 PM

right on iona;though i understand that some mutations can be beneficial in some circumstances but involve loss of information.eg fish in hudson river adapting to polluted water-but would not survive in clean water.as i understand it mutations exhibit no information gain that is required for goo to you evolution.

as to the fossil record or evolutionism generally ;some of it's own academics have confessed the absense of evidence.call it quote mining if you like but i call it honesty.
pete.

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 06:43 PM

Oh for goodness sake go and look at the statistical distribution of heritable characteristics. I know that ignorance is said to be bliss, but please go away and play with the other children.

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 06:50 PM

Ah, pete! I thought you'd show up at some point!

You keep telling us that you don't understand things and that you don't know much - but you keep popping up in these discussions. I wonder why?

Perhaps if you're a 'creationist' who believes that God created everything yesterday and that all truth is contained in an ancient text of dubious provenance then you don't need to know or understand anything more.

Have you read any texts other than the Bible or 'creationist literature' since we last exchanged thoughts? ... No? Thought not! Who knows you might broaden your mind ... but we can't have that, can we?

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: Paul Burke
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 07:03 PM

Sancta simplicitas, that's all.

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: Bill D
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 07:11 PM

"...some of it's own academics have confessed the absense of evidence."

DO tell us which ones, pete. (*and 'confessed' is a loaded word, designed to suggest they KNOW)

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 07:50 PM

Ar least "academics" will say "I don't know" if they don't know.

It's been one helluva long time since I've heard an advocate of Creationism say that they don't know when they obviously don't know.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka!
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Jan 12 - 12:00 AM

That is, for example, there are many varieties of dogs and many varieties of cats, but no "dats" or "cogs."

Not from our "interested" GUEST, but from the Institute of Creation Research website.

They believe that nothing existed and then *BANG!* the world and all it's glorious programming showed up.

Obviously so interested that he/ she hasn't read anything about biology that wasn't on the ICR site or Answers in Genesis.

Not even a troll. A religious propagandist, and an incompetent one at that.

Don't strain our tolerance.

Don Firth

To be honest with you, Don, I have never been to the ICR website until today, when you mentioned it. It's true, I've heard a number of lectures by them (that's where I heard "Cogs" and "dats"), but for cryin' out loud, I certainly don't base my beliefs upon what they say. The Bible supports creationism, ICR and AIG simply show the evidence as it is--created by God.
So, if the world didn't show up all of a sudden (with or without a bang), how did it happen?

And if I'm a religious propagandist, you are one too. You are just as 'religious' in your belief of evolution as I am in a Creator God. And I think our definitions of 'tolerance' differ. I define tolerance as "I disagree with what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it". You define tolerance as "You can believe what you want, just don't say anything about it to anybody". Why shouldn't I speak up and defend my worldview? You are!

"Adaption!
Adaption!
Adaption!"

Er, one of the mechanisms of evolution is descent with modification, examples of which I gave you. Screaming "adaption" is not really much of an argument.

"We don't see polar bears turn into cats."

An ridiculous example, and we might see genetically isolated populations of polar bears become a new species over time, as a population of their ancestors (Brown Bears) did to become Polar Bears.

"We see plenty of microevolution, but I have yet to see any macroevolution--one species turning into another."

If you can see microevolution then you are actually watching evolution. You'd have to stay around a mighty long time to watch one species turn into another, although we can see that happening of course (see examples given earlier).

ShugarfootJack

"An ridiculous example, and we might see genetically isolated populations of polar bears become a new species over time, as a population of their ancestors (Brown Bears) did to become Polar Bears."
But they're still bears, right? They're not turning into seals, or puffins, or lemmings (or cats). There is no evidence, in the fossil record or otherwise, of a half-and-half creature. You say that "You'd have to stay around a mighty long time to watch one species turn into another, although we can see that happening of course".
But the fossil record has an awful lot of animals, supposedly laid down over millions of years. Where are the mutating animals? All I'm seeing are fully formed creatures and varieties. Some have gone extinct, but that's still going on today (the Tasmanian wolves, etc)
_________________________________________________________

"We have yet to discover a beneficial mutation; and yet for Evolution to be true, there has to have been thousands of them in the past to create all of the amazing creatures we see in our world."

No, not 'thousands' but 'billions' over many millions of years. Brute probability says that a certain percentage of these mutations will be beneficial, given the right circumstances. Evolution, like everything else in nature, is a statistical phenomenon.

Shimrod
For an evolutionist, time is the solver of all problems. "Given millions of years and millions of mutations, anything can happen". I have yet to see evidence for millions of years, or any fossil evidence for mutations-turning-one-species into another.
You believe that everything came from nothing! That's one reason I'm not an athiest--I just don't have that much faith.
____________________________________________________

Iona,
You say "No one has found a 'missing link', but there must be thousands of them if creatures truly do evolve like Evolution says. Why is it that we find all these creatures in the fossil record, but no one can find the 'links' between them?"

Are you identical to your parents?

If you have children are they identical to you?

You are the missing link between them.

Tia


Every person is different, and every snowflake is different, and every fingerprint is different. This is not evidence for evolution, but rather evidence for an all-knowing Creator. Hw could random chance accidents create all the complexity we see in our world? There is no missing link in the fossil record. To call DNA changes "Evolution" is incorrect—the changes we see do not lead to greater complexity or add new and advanced information (as is required by Evolution). Neither mutations or DNA shuffling has produced the ability to generate any new and useful genetic information. Mutations in the gene pool and DNA has not ever produced new and beneficial organs, let alone whole organisms. But we have seen is that mutations serve to corrupt or rearrange already existent information.


What do I call Genesis?

A Creation story. One of many. Myth. Metaphor.

Joseph Campbell made the very much to the point statement that where religions tend to go off the rails is when their followers mistake myth and metaphor for literal historical fact.

Iona, define God.

Don Firth

I define God as the Bible defines Him—the all-knowing Creator of the universe, consisting in three Persons, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I reject any definitions of God that the Bible does not supply, and am ready and willing to join forces in refuting all other beliefs.


If you believe that the Creation Account in Genesis is fiction, then you have no basis to believe in the Crucifixion. You have no basis to believe the Bible is of any value other than a few little fairy tales. If there was no Creation, then the world has been around forever, and death is not a result of sin, as the Bible says it is. If death is normal and instituted by God, then we have no need for a Savior.

By the way, there IS no "missing link." The process of evolution was (is) sufficiently gradual that it would be impossible to point out one individual or group of individuals and say, "There it is!" That's why one will never find "the missing link" and why the "missing link" is actually a red herring in the evolution vs Creation argument.


Then at least we ought to find creatures in the fossil record, preserved in corresponding layers, that show a progression from simple to complex. But we don't! We haven't found any simple life forms turning into complex creatures like bats, porcupines, frogs, etc. Instead all we find in the fossil record are fully formed animals with unique and detailed attributes.

And when did proponents if evolution ever sat that "a cat can turn into a dog" under ANY circunstances? The only people I've ever heard make statements like that are those who are rabidly ANTI-evolution on the grounds of their own limited religious concepts.

Under evolutionary theory, a cat ought to be able to turn into a dog, given enough beneficial mutations and enough time. No, it doesn't happen. Neither can a frog turn into a bird, or a monkey turn into a human. Evolutionists say that similar attributes point to a similar ancestor. Then how do you explain the platypus? It has a bill like a duck, fur like a beaver, spines on it's legs like a spiny anteater, and the list goes on. How in the world do you fit that into a category? I propose that common traits simply point to a common Creator—not a common ancestor.

P. S.   By the way, Iona, don't make the mistaken assumption that I am an atheist or anti-religious on the basis of my position on this matter. I am a member of Central Lutheran Church of the Holy Trinity in Seattle, and I know a great deal about the Bible. Not just about its contents, but about how it came to be.

The Holy Trinity? How can you believe in the Trinity? How do you know it's not just a metaphor? A myth? One story out of many different theories of God? If you undermine the Creation Account in Genesis as a metaphor, then you must also doubt the death and Resurrection of Christ as accounted in the Gospels. You must doubt the miracles of Jesus and the apostles. You must doubt that Jesus ever existed, because, after all, perhaps he's just another one of those pesky metaphors we find in the Bible!


"I don't know why people are trying to explain science to someone who pretends to be eagerly investigating, ..."

Of course, 'Iona' isn't investigating anything. She/he (?) knows the Answer already - 'it was God wot dun it' and all you need to know is in the Bible. What she/he and her/his fellow creationists are trying to do is to discredit that branch of biology which deals with evolution. It's a sort of anti-science. There's no such thing as 'creation science' - only 'creation anti-science'. No true scientist would ever start from the Answer and then look for information to support the Answer and seek to discredit any information that failed to support the Answer!

Shimrod

"No true scientist would ever start with the answer".
That's not true. We all have presuppositions. My presupposition is that God created the world. Your presupposition is that Evolution created it all. You believe that matter created itself out of nothing, or else you believe that matter is eternal and knows no beginning. I say that it makes much more sense to believe in a God who created it all just as He says He did in Genesis.
And there are real scientists that believe as I do. They aren't out to discredit science, they're out to glorify our Creator by disclosing the magnificence of His creation.

" and seek to discredit any information that failed to support the Answer! "

I don't discredit any information, I just see it with a Biblical worldview. There is no true fact that doesn't fit with the historical account of Genesis.
Of course I believe that God did it. God and His word is the ultimate authority. But that doesn't mean I discredit science. I believe that all science is in harmony with the Bible, and there's plenty of evidence for it. For instance, Evolutionists say that the Grand Canyon was laid down in millions of years. But there is a similar canyon near Mount St.Hellens, which has layers very similar to Grand Canyon. However, these layers in Washington state were laid down in the course of one afternoon. Why couldn't the same thing have happened in the Grand Canyon?

Even atheists borrow from Christianity for their worldview. For instance, you all abide by traffic signs (at least some of you do). You stop at red lights, etc. Why? Why would you let those people who put up that light impose their worldview on you? After all, the stoplight imposes that human life is of value (Thou shalt not kill), and that we ought not to damage other people's property (thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself). If you reject the Bible, you must reject all the worldview that you hold because of Biblical ethics. If we are all just aquatic sludge, humans are no different than earthworms.