10 Dangers of Theistic Evolution

"This is an overstatement. There are many knowledgable and accomplished scientists that are YE. After 150 years of building upon naturalistic viewpoints, there is a great deal to chew on for a YE, but things may change, especially in light of all the recent challenges. Neither position is perfect, but I believe honest scientific inquiry will resolve these issues if the Lord tarries. "

It was a reference to polling which consistently shows that the more informed one is on these subjects, the less likely one is to hold YE positions.

I agree with you that there will be an answer that most people accept at some point. I would be happy for either side to win, OE or YE, though you know which side I think is correct.

"Case in point, the ICR RATE team research on helium diffusion and carbon 14 in diamonds."

The problem is that you cannot date a diamond by C14. C14 is produced in the atmosphere which is then fixed into living systems while they are alive. After they die, the level starts to decline due to decay. You date them by measuring how much of the C14 has decayed. Since the carbon in diamonds IS NOT biological in origin, it should not even be expected to have C14 from organic sources that would allow for an accurate date.

Next, they make sure and tell you about those strong bonds in a diamond that will not allow contamination. What they do not tell you is that those strong bonds have no bearing on whether energetic particles from natural radioactive decay in the background can penetrate the diamond and convert some of the carbon to C14. A very low rate of such activity will give you a detecable level of C14 in your sample. This is one reason that there is a limit on how far back you can date things with C14. Eventually that signal gets lost in the noise.

Which leads to the third problem. More noise. There is a limit to the detectable C14 level because of the background radiation at the lab. Even a sample with truly no C14 would be expected to show some small amount in testing due to error caused by the background radiation during the testing.

The helium diffusion problems are more technical in nature. To summarize the problems would take a while so I leave you with a link. http://www.answersincreation.org/helium.htm If you want even more information, there is a link in that page's first paragraph to a very long analysis. The gist is that they assume a linear relationship that may not be valid and that their most important measurements to get their numbers to work out are also the most uncertain.

"The discovery of T-Rex soft tissue recently is going to be a hard one for OE folks."

Why exactly? This is not even new. (Well, the particular find is.) But flexible fossils have been found that were much, much older.

One hting to keep in mind is that fresh, unfossilized tissue was NOT found. The material has been preserved, it was mineralized. Only when the minerals were dissolved away was the flexible material found. There is no indication that this is anything other than a very well preserved fossil. A molecular paleontologist, Prof. Matthew Collins, explained it to the BBC as such.

"This may not be fossilisation as we know it, of large macrostructures, but fossilisation at a molecular level. My suspicion is this process has led to the reaction of more resistant molecules with the normal proteins and carbohydrates which make up these cellular structures, and replaced them, so that we have a very tough, resistant, very lipid-rich material - a polymer that would be very difficult to break down and characterise, but which has preserved the structure."

In the same issue of Science that reported the findings, it was said "Hendrik Poinar of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, cautions that looks can deceive: Nucleated protozoan cells have been found in 225-million-year-old amber, but geochemical tests revealed that the nuclei had been replaced with resin compounds. Even the resilience of the vessels may be deceptive. Flexible fossils of colonial marine organisms called graptolites have been recovered from 440-million-year-old rocks, but the original material--likely collagen--had not survived." [Written by Eric Stokstad, "Tyrannosaurus rex Soft Tissue Raises Tantalizing Prospects" (Science, vol. 307:1852).] That bolsters my assertion about such well preserved tissues being old news.

"The debate did not go well for them, and 300 students were there to see. All subsequent invitations for discussions with students off line were turned down by the evo profs. I can arrange a debate with Dr. Jackson for any of you that are interested. He travels the U.S. speaking and debating, so I don’t thing you have to be concerned with his “unwillingness.” Let me know."

Oral debates do not usually go so well for the scientists. As an example, look up. It only takes you one or two sentences to say that soft dinosaur tissue was found which could not be old. It takes me paragraphs to explain why that is not so. In an oral debate, succinctness counts. It is hard to give a short but convincing explanation of these technical issues. It is the same for most subjects.

But get that same group of people from your debate together for a formal, written debate with a tightly defined topic and things would be different. Even more simple, get the group back together for a debate in front of the geology and biology graduate students from the university. In either case, things would be different.

 

"Here is my definition, UTE - we are already on the 2nd page of this topic and you have YET to address a single point of it's opening post."

Why bother with a response? You do not actually enter into debate on any of these topics so it would be a waste of time.

Here are just a few of the places where you are proving my point my making assertions but never bothering to back them up or spamming AIG FAQs on us but ignoring the criticisms of them.

Information (one of your favorites to bring up but not to defend) - Answer to Gitt

Human Genetics - Start / End and link to details

Whales which covers the congruence of fossil, genetic, vestigal, developmental and atavistic data - Start / End

Dating - Unanswered response on RATE

Grand Canyon - Start / End BTW, I visited Mt. St. Helen's last month which is a player in this debate. I have also been to the Grand Canyon. Hard to believe after seeing each that some YEers try to confuse the two.

Bird Evolution - Link

Neoproterozoic geology - Link

Ice cores - Link

Information (again) - Link - At least you responded on this one. It was all handwaving, of course. You never actually defined "information" in a measureable way nor gave a factual reason why the examples given were not new information. But you typed something in.

 

I would say educated, not informed. And you would have to agree that there is a distinct possibility of indoctrination here.

You show yourself to be a reasonable fellow here.

There still should not be any. 90k is the current upper limit.

It’s not about how far you can go back, it is why is there any in the first place in this material. I talked with Baumgardener personally on this one, and he went into great detail about the care taken to obtain samples for testing that would not be exposed to surrounding radioactivity, and in fact used independent scientific agencies to obtain the sample and do the testing. So I think they have addressed this.

Great care was taken to eliminate artifacts of testing. This is also a question I put to John myself. This would be obvious though since it has been showing up in samples for a long time and dismissed for this reason as being valid.

I read these about a month ago. Humphrey’s did a good job of exposing Henke’s work for what it is….a whole lot about nothing. And of course, in an almost commical reversal of roles, Humphrey’s challenged Henke to address the RATE team’s results in peer reviewed journals. How funny.

Now your stretching a bit. Com’on man, your playing me.

Yes, and it is a problem there too.

Correct, no blood ran out. But it was like beef jerky. The blood vessels were stretchable.

My buddy the Harvard trained organic chemist said that it should be dust, or rock, but not still possessing the molecular bonding found. He claimed that no honest organic chemist would claim otherwise. I guess we know how he feels about Collins.

This is spin. It is an astounding finding and we will hear much more about it as time goes by.

“Suspicion.” So this is speculation. I think we will need more info to bury the hatchet here. As I said, Dr. White has 36 patents in polymers, he is not an armchair scientist strolling the halls of academia, so I will stick with his assessment for now.

And this is a key point, hermetically sealed in resin is different than being buried in the ground.

It only takes a while if you are struggling with facts. I know from experience that people that know their subjects shoot from the hip and are succinct. The ability to synthesis and put in simple terms is the highest expression of understanding.

Well, like I say, there are creationists ready to debate, just not many takers in the evo camp.

 

FFF, you seem like a reasonable person. I have a couple of sincere questions for you.
Who do you believe are the most credible evolution critics (on scientific grounds) today?
And would you like to comment on how many credible scientific organizations such as the NAS hold the stance that creationism is not scientific, and evolution is well established?

What about peer-reviewed journals? (That's not rhetorical)

 

Thanks for the compliment npc. The guys that are the heavy hitters are:
www.arn.org
www.trueorigin.org
www.answersingenesis.org
www.icr.org

[ June 12, 2005, 02:22 AM: Message edited by: Faith, Fact & Feeling ]

 

npc, as to the rest of your question the NCSE is the primary creationist hate group, currently headed by Eugenie Scott. She's all over the press, most recently on MSNBC's Hardball. Matthews actually pressed her about what she believes and she wouldn’t say. It was funny. It was as if he was trying to demonstrate she was intent on not revealing bias. At least that is the way it looked to me. I taped it.

About peer reviewed journals, ID is making headway into getting published and established as something testable. A recent ID article got censored with a Smithsonian guy getting reprimanded. He wasn't even ID, but wanted to publish an ID article. Of course there is no bias in science. ID is focusing on testability of irreducible complexity of our nanotech celluar systems. It will roll alongside evolution in public schools in 5 or 10 years me thinks.

On the YEC front the big news is the results from the 8 year RATE study that is taking a poke at radiometric dating. They have some good stuff that will go through peer review over the next few years. You can read my comments on the thread by that name. See ya.

 

#10 "Missing the point of the Gospel" was perhaps the best of ALL.

Theistic evolutionism is an oxymoron - even Richard Dawkins recognized it. All Creator-trusting Christians see its self conflicte Gospel-defeating position just as the Atheist evolutionists.

Richard Dawkins is Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. He is the author of many books including the international best-sellers "The Selfish Gene", "The Blind Watchmaker", and "Climbing Mount Improbable."

FROM : http://www.pbs.org/faithandreason/transcript/dawk-frame.html
Excerpt –

In Christ,

Bob

 

You can not base a debate with UTEOTW on Christian sources - like scripture.

Nor can it be based on good science - since evolutionism relies heavily on junk science when it lies and then relies.

The opening post stated that the myths and fables of evolutionism actually oppose the Gospel. (Just another "inconvenient fact" to UTEOTW I suppose).

In Christ,

Bob

 

"I would say educated, not informed. And you would have to agree that there is a distinct possibility of indoctrination here."

You say "tomato"...

Yes, when you hear one side it becomes possible that you cannot see the weaknesses.

"There still should not be any. 90k is the current upper limit."

So, since diamonds are not organic, where did the original C14 for him to date come from?

If you are going to assert that they actually do come from life, then you require another step. Life also makes use of C12 and C13 at differing rates. The standard ratio for comparison is the ratio in the Pee Dee Belemnite. The average deviation for marine organic C13 is -22%. For terrestrial C13 it is -26%. But for diamonds it is -5%. The RATE group either needs to explain why the C13/C12 ratio for diamonds is not in line with that of organic material when it really is organic ... or they need to explain just what their basis is for dating inorganic material with C14.

"It’s not about how far you can go back, it is why is there any in the first place in this material. I talked with Baumgardener personally on this one, and he went into great detail about the care taken to obtain samples for testing that would not be exposed to surrounding radioactivity, and in fact used independent scientific agencies to obtain the sample and do the testing. So I think they have addressed this."

Maybe you can explain this one a bit further. Even a tiny amount of background radiation would cause some of the C13 or N14 (which can be shown to be a normal contaminent of diamonds) to become C14. How does he know that the mine where the diamonds were produced was free of all background radiation? Perhaps you can comment on the possibility of finding a spot in the ground that has been free of background radiation since the formation of the diamond. What was the source of the diamonds? It sounds like he may have been telling you about the precautions taken AFTER he procured the samples.

"Correct, no blood ran out. But it was like beef jerky. The blood vessels were stretchable."

The material was flexible only after a good soaking to remove the minerals from the fossilization process.

"I think we will need more info to bury the hatchet here. As I said, Dr. White has 36 patents in polymers, he is not an armchair scientist strolling the halls of academia, so I will stick with his assessment for now."

SInce there seems to be explanations for this finding for both YE an OE, it does appear to be able to contribute to the resolution.

"And this is a key point, hermetically sealed in resin is different than being buried in the ground. "

You do know that the material in question was from the middle on a large, intact thigh bone, yes? Only broken open and exposed after discovery.

"Well, like I say, there are creationists ready to debate, just not many takers in the evo camp."

Why don't you explore getting the participants from the recent oral debates to do an extended online, written debate about some specific topic?

 

And therein lies the problem…..on both sides.

This is an unsettled question. It is commonly held that they come from the upper mantle, but they may have been created by descended organic material. In either plate tectonics model, uniformitarian (you do believe science currently states this mechanism that way don’t you?), or catastrophic, this is distinctly possible. But alas, this is beside the point. If some is there, and it is buried in rock dated at hundreds of millions of years old, then the problem is still the same, assuming external recent causation is eliminated, per your point.

Not really. The heat an pressures of diamond formation make this falsification methodology fraught with problems at best.

Sorry UTEOTW, they did take these precautions up front. In fact, the original impetus of this 8 year project was to assess long-lived isotopic dating. They knew about the C14 anomalies but felt pursuing it would distract them from their primary objective. About 4 years into the project it became apparent how lacking careful research of this issue was in the current body of science. So I assure you, they took great care in sampling and testing. I’m not saying it is foolproof or anything, they alone will have to defend their research, but I think I can lay to rest any presumptions you have of sloppiness.

We agree here. The fact that chemical breakdown had not fully fossilized it into powder or rock in 68 million years is the issue.

I think there is something to chew on here for the OE. The official stance is that fossilization theory needs to be revisited. Of course this is accurate. These findings are not analogous with our current understanding of fossilization from the standpoint of long chronologies. Other scientists have urged breaking other bones we have from paleontological research to see how pervasive this phenomena is. Of course, empirical evidence of long lived fossilization may be hard to obtain. This is of course the way many OE theoretical constructs about vast ages go. Since they cannot be demonstrated, they cannot be demonstrated false either. One of the first responses you gave me when I came to the board recently regarding the chemical origin of life was this: “The origin of life is forever shrouded in the mists of time.” Of course to be fair with you, as I am trying to be, the YE’s response will be “God did it.” But I think we can both agree that there are a great many things shrouded in mystery from a scientific viewpoint. And OEs hides their deficiencies with “given enough time” or “it happened so long ago”, where YEs claim “God created it that way.”

It was actually broken during excavation, if I understand correctly. However, the issue was porosity. Bones, rock and dirt have a degree of porosity in many if not most cases. Your own response demonstrates this when you said “The material was flexible only after a good soaking to remove the minerals from the fossilization process.” The fact there was partial fossilization proves my point. The resin you mentioned is hermetically sealed, thus making it a separate issue. Remember you originally introduced it with an excerpt from Science magazine and a comment by Poinar stating: “that looks can deceive: Nucleated protozoan cells have been found in 225-million-year-old amber, but geochemical tests revealed that the nuclei had been replaced with resin compounds.” Do you cede my point that this a different animal, and not a reasonable comparison? Then Poinar states: “Flexible fossils of colonial marine organisms called graptolites have been recovered from 440-million-year-old rocks, but the original material--likely collagen--had not survived." This does not help his case either, since it is a problem on the same order as the T-Rex if the rock was permeable, or a non-issue if it was hermitically sealed. He even admits that he is talking about what is “likely”, indicating speculation. This certainly would not constitute hard science in line with your reasoning.

I would love to. Unfortunately I am not personal friends with most of them, and they have pretty full schedules. It’s kind of like trying to get real Ph.D. scientists of evo sort out here. It seems that only folks like you and me, that only know part of the story and must rely extensively on other sources, are the only ones willing to debate in these forums. Maybe we’ve got more time on our hands or something. I will be hosting 3 seminars on UT campus in the fall. Dr. Charles Jackson will be there speaking. The first will be on the new McClung museum at UT that focuses on hominid fossils and human origins. He will go through the details of why none of this stuff works. Maybe you could plan to be here, your wife from Oak Ridge and all. Or maybe you could send someone out. We will be in open forum with 50 students or so. BTW, I wasn’t trying to antagonize you or anything. When I said “evo camp” I was really referring to professors, not laypeople like you or I. So don’t take what I said earlier, or just now as a challenge. I know it is hard to judge intent on these forums.

 

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/forumdisplay.php?f=66

 

Yes sir, I have debated out there under the member name Cosmos. It was super difficult, especially since I was outnumbered fifty to one, and going against a few Ph.D.s, but I feel I successfully defended myself. I started a thread that contended equating population changes over time with universal common descent is a logical fallacy of ambiguity called the equivocation fallacy (Evolution is a Fact is an Equivocation Fallacy). This is the micro/macro bait and switch tactic so common among evos. I had observed the forum for a while before entering the fray. I noticed that they had a number of traps set to catch unsuspecting Christian visitors. I think I have that list I made at home. If I do I will post it. They love to trap unsuspecting Christians using this equivocation fallacy. They do it by stating evolution is a fact and then go on to confuse them about the issue by continually equating PCOT with UCD. Through this they try to bully the uninitiated into thinking evolution has been observed. In doing so they proclaim “that it happened is a fact” and “how it happened is the theory.” Evolution is a fact? I don’t think so. This is just another attempt by those that purport to be unbiased to overstate their position.

I also took on their “challenge to creationists” by their med student champion and infidels creation/evolution hero “scigirl” on the topic of human chromosomal fusion (Human Ape Chromosome Challenge ). I contended that human chromosomal fusion demonstrates human chromosomal fusion, not evolution. In fact, I believe this has potential to be a good explanatory mechanism for the age reduction after the flood. We could be down syndrome children compared to Adam and the other early patriarchs. I know those reject Genesis 1-10 as literal history would probably chuckle at such a comment, but of course they are not biased.

I also demonstrated how Turkana boy resembles modern aborigines, and how lining up similar skulls does not prove progressive common descent. This type of error has been recently demonstrated in the long taught and fallacious view of horse evolution, another one for the evolutionary hall of shame. Not to mention all the proven fakes like Piltdown, Nebraska, and Peking man. Furthermore, features like prominent brow ridges, occipital buns, and protruding jaws are all found in the current human population. Sure evos can claim they’re still around because of the transitionals, but Christians can also point out that maybe these “so-called” transitionals were modern like their contemporaries. There are two sides to this sword, as much as evos hate to admit it. Of course creationists have the Hitler example when comes to this view. His viewpoints were perfectly logical from an evolutionary viewpoint. And if God uses death and misfits to create advanced life forms, then even from a theistic evolutionary standpoint it is difficult to argue that this could not be God’s will, assuming evolution is true. We also have the recent scandal involving a prominent German anthropologist that has rocked the “unbiased” religious….oops….I mean….scientific establishment regarding hominid fossils (Anthropologist resigns in dating disaster). Turns out those “unbiased” scientists turned a blind eye to suspected fraud for a long time. I guess they are not as careful to be truthful and accurate as some claim.

This Philistine Giant can be defeated, but there are just not many Davids out there yet. But that is changing, and that is why you have a forum like infidels, and their sister site TalkOrigins. I thank God for these sites because they are making more creationists than al the creation evangelists combined. It’s kind of like the gays trying to force the gay lifestyle on America. This has done more to revive sleeping Christians than all the preaching of the 10 years preceding it. Evos know the heat is on, and that with the internet the problems with naturalistic science and the bias of those that embrace it is getting out of the bag. It will be a few years yet, but you watch, these forums will rapidly fill up with knowledgeable Christians challenging these atheistic dogmas in science. Things are changing, and there was even a thread about this on infidels recently. They know there is a growing contingent of adversaries, and a battle coming.

With that said, it is very difficult for a layperson to defend themselves on the whole cumulative body of knowledge of science against 10 Ph.D.s, each with specialties in separate fields under discussion. But I have seen these folks in open debate at universities against peers, and they are not so tough. If you have a Ph.D. friend out there that is going to be in Knoxville in the Fall, I can probably arrange a debate at UT. Of course it will not be in some dark shadowy internet forum for atheists, it will be in the bright lights of an auditorium, on a stage, in front of dozens of young minds that would just love to see this stuff challenged. Help me out if you will.

The infidels forum is probably the best place for a serious creationist to sharpen his skills. It is also the best place to illustrate the darkness in the people that hold the evolutionary view. This is an atheist forum. Of course theistic evolutionists are welcome as long as they keep that theistic garbage to themselves. For most professing Christians, that would never be a problem.

 

Which demonstrates the necessity of distinguishing faith, fact and feeling.

Ask what your faith is in, and determine why forcing the evidence of natural history into an unecessary interpretation of the creation account is so imperative to that faith.

 

Do you think I chose this name on a lark? My question to you is why you place your faith in a dying atheistic paradigm masquerading as science?

 

What makes it atheistic?

 

What makes it dying?

 

I left that question for you

 

"This is an unsettled question. It is commonly held that they come from the upper mantle, but they may have been created by descended organic material."

and

"Not really. The heat an pressures of diamond formation make this falsification methodology fraught with problems at best."

Are you proposing that pressure and heat can alter the ratio of C12 to C13 as the original carbon source, whatever it may be, is converted into a diamond? Is your suggestion that diamonds preferentially form from C12 and if so, is there a proposed mechanism? Alternatively, are you proposing that heat and pressure convert some of the C13 to C12 and what would be the mechanism for that?

It would seem to be that the differing ratios of C12 to C13 for diamonds and for organic carbon would seem to be a challenge that needs to be met if RATE is going to continue to promote this.

"Sorry UTEOTW, they did take these precautions up front. "

Could you then point me to documentation that would tell from which diamond mine or mines the samples came from, when they were mined, and the results of measurements of background radiation in that mine including who and when and all the other relevant data? If that was not done, or if they were and it is not made public, then these results are as meaningless as I previously asserted. If that data is available, then someone needs to examine it.

It would also be good to know what precautions were taken to prevent contamination after they procured the samples. A bit of back of the envelope calculating shows that for a carbon source that dated to about 50000 years, the ratio of C12 to C14 should be about 100,000,000,000,000. That seems like such a low number that contamination could be hard, but not impossible, to avoid.

But mostly I am interested in the details of how they determined that the geology from which the diamonds were removed has absolutely no background radiation. Do you know where this information can be obtained?

"We agree here. The fact that chemical breakdown had not fully fossilized it into powder or rock in 68 million years is the issue."

I'll add that we do not yet know what the flexible material is.

"It was actually broken during excavation, if I understand correctly."

I think we are saying the same thing here.

"However, the issue was porosity. Bones, rock and dirt have a degree of porosity in many if not most cases."

Again, agrement. If there was not some degree of porosity, the material would not have fossilized.

"Remember you originally introduced it with an excerpt from Science magazine and a comment by Poinar stating: 'that looks can deceive: Nucleated protozoan cells have been found in 225-million-year-old amber, but geochemical tests revealed that the nuclei had been replaced with resin compounds.' Do you cede my point that this a different animal, and not a reasonable comparison?"

The mechanisms of replacement were obviously different, but we still do not know what the flexible material that was recently found is actually made from.

I think the similarity arises that in both cases, the samples were protected from the normal rapid decay process long enough for some sort of replacement to happen which preseved great details of the original. How they were protected, I'll give you, was different.

 

Travelsong,

Do you believe the premise of the modern investigation of origins is theistic in nature?

 

Is the premise of the modern investigation of the standard model of particle physics theistic in nature?

Does that matter?