The lie of evolution, part II

Here's some facts about the Grand Canyon from the book "Grand Canyon- A Different View" by Tom Vail. A book evolutionists attempted to have censored.

The Grand Canyon is perplexing to geologists, and especially evolutionary geologists. Here are a few reasons why.

Gaps: The gaps are much larger than Schmidt admits; one gap is 10 million, another 60 million, and another 100 million. Above the Great Unconformity is a gap of over a billion years, with no soil between it and the overlying sedimentary layers. These gaps give no evidence of large passages of time between the one below and the one above, suggesting the gaps are fictional: no long ages did elapse. The ages claimed for the layers come not from the onsite observations, but from the a priori belief that they must be fitted into a pre-existing construct, a model constructed and later Darwinized in England: the Geologic Column.
Flat contacts: The contacts between many layers are knife-edge thin and straight for hundreds of square miles, with no evidence of erosion between.
Flat layers: The “generally accepted notions” expect us to believe that the Colorado Plateau rose and sank above and below sea level repeatedly, yet kept the layers flat and undisturbed, a preposterous notion.
Gravity: The Grand Canyon traverses the Kaibab Plateau, a mile higher in elevation than the river upstream. Clearly, rivers do not flow over mountains. Something caused the canyon to scour through this region after a catastrophic period of sheet erosion and rapid downcutting.
Source of material: secular geologists don’t know where all the sedimentary material came from. Some have speculated that it was transported somehow over long distances, from as far as Appalachia (09/15/2003). On the other hand, a flood could have scoured and pulverized great quantities of lime mud and sand, and deposited it rapidly underwater. The characteristic layers could represent material brought in from different directions as the currents changed. (This could also imply that the similarities to Appalachian sediments indicate that similar processes were occurring there also).
Fossils: One layer of the Redwall Limestone contains billions of fossil nautiloids, apparently buried in one day over a vast area covering 5,700 square miles (12/24/2002). Other fossils common in the canyon are broken and jumbled, indicating they were not buried in situ, but were transported for great distances by powerful currents and quickly buried in sediment.
No evolution: Squirrels on the north rim are subspecies of those on the south rim, with smooth gradations of varieties in between (CRS). They differ mainly in fur color. If these species were geographically isolated for at least five million years, why did they not evolve further apart? In that same length of time, evolutionists claim that humans evolved from ape-like ancestors.
No evolution II: Investigations of organisms inhabiting the forests of Shiva Temple, a forested butte isolated from the north rim, found no differences between species on the rim, even though they, too, should have been geographically isolated for millions of years. (CRS.)
Downstream: no large river-delta deposits can be found downstream that would be expected if the Colorado River carved the canyon over a long time.
Upstream: large basins that could have held enough water to carve the canyon by a dam breach can be discerned upstream. Also, portions of the canyon (Marble Canyon, inner gorge) are convincing secular geologists that it was carved quickly (see 07/22/2002) entry).
Tectonics: faults intersect the canyon all the way from top to bottom at multiple points, but not part way up. This indicates the layers were deposited rapidly, then faulted together as units.
Folding: The layers fold together as if they were still soft and unconsolidated at the time. Some folds, such as in Carbon Canyon, show more than 90° fold with no evidence of cracking or crumbling.
Volcanos: Volcanic dikes and cones poke up through all the layers from bottom to top, but not part way up, casting doubt that millions of years transpired during sedimentation.
Fluting: The inner gorge rocks are only fluted at river level, indicating the river has not been cutting downward through the igneous rocks for long.
Sheet erosion: Vast quantities of rock above the canyon were swept away by sheet erosion before the canyon itself was carved. Evidence for this can be seen at Cedar Mountain and other buttes which protrude above the canyon, displaying remnants of the thousands of vertical feet of sediments that had been swept away before the downcutting of the canyon began.
Sand Dunes, Not: The Coconino Sandstone, long claimed to be sand dunes turned to rock, are too fine-grained to be aeolian (wind-blown) sands, and cover too a vast an area (much of the Southwest: 100,000 square miles, with a volume 10,000 cubic miles) for this scenario to be plausible. The crossbedding could have been laid down as sand waves by deep ocean currents. The fossil trackways could have been made in shallow water and would have had to be buried suddenly to be preserved. All other layers in the canyon are indisputably water-deposited. To believe the Coconino was wind-deposited, the entire region would have had to be lifted above sea level without cracking or folding, yet the contact with the water-deposited Hermit Shale below it is flat and smooth. This indicates that deposition of the Coconino in the Grand Canyon began immediately after the Hermit formation, without 10 million years between them.
Monsoons: a type of 3-D crossbedding called hummocky cross-stratification, visible in numerous places in the canyon, gives evidence of gigantic cyclonic storms on scales larger than anything observed today.
Sapping: The Redwall shows evidence of sapping (rock fall occasioned by springs weakening the rock above). The large amphitheater-shaped alcoves characteristic of the Redwall suggest that the layers were still soft and unconsolidated and impregnated with water when they formed.
Dam Break Redux: Large lava dams that formed in the lower canyon are known to have backed up the Colorado River into a huge lake since the canyon formed, yet broke and catastrophically drained quickly, perhaps multiple times. Why not suggest the same mechanism for formation of the canyon itself? In recent years, this idea – first proposed by creationists – has become popular among secular geologists (05/31/2002). Why have they not given the creationists credit?
Lava Dates: Radioactive dates from the lowest lavas in the canyon (underneath all the sedimentary layers) show up “younger” than those on the top at Vulcan’s Throne, indicating that radioactive dating methods that yield millions of years cannot be trusted. Another falsification is that different radiometric methods applied within the same formation yield widely divergent dates. In addition, carbon-14 has been found in coal seams around the Grand Canyon. Since the half-life of carbon-14 is 5,700 years, none should remain if the coal were really millions of years old, as claimed.
(For more detail on these evidences, see Tom Vail’s book, ICR’s Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe, and Walt Brown’s analysis.)

 

More plagarizing/spam. Please at least give references if you are going to copy and paste.

And do you have any answers to the questions I posted? I was really trying to get a feel for how you think and to try and give you some insight into how I think. Will you look and answer?

http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/3/3194/17.html#000244

And why have you never addressed any of the problems that have been raised with your previous spam jobs? The last few were full of holes. Like the others. I guess since you did not respond to the criticism that you accept the responses as accurate. I guess you would just rather move on than talk about the topics you bring up. THough as often as your material is shown to be inaccurate, one would have though that you would have started checking your references.

http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/3/3194/16.html#000239
http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/3/3194/17.html#000240
http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/3/3194/17.html#000241
http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/3/3194/17.html#000242

"Planets can be formed MUCH quicker than previously thought. "

Hey, if you are willing to accept that planets can be built in a million years as the article claims, I'm game. A millions years to make a planet eliminates your ideas but not mine.

"A planet or moon covered with craters just looks old, doesn’t it?"

Well, well. It turns out that secondary impacts can mean that you must be careful in how you estimate age by counting craters. COuld you explain for us just how this is supposed to help you? You still have no means to generate all those craters we observe out there in such a short period of time as is available to you. Let's just stick to the large craters on earth. When and where did they happen / come from? Don't you see how destructive large impacts can be? They even scar the land severely with secondary impacts.

You also managed to accidentally copy and paste the part that says that this only really applies to counting small craters because large ones cna still be considered primary. I think it might also be possible to identify patterns that point the way to which impacts are secondary.

 

UTEOTW

Well, I certainly did not write any of this, and I seriously doubt anyone thought I did, so this is not plagiarism.

Why do I have to answer your questions? I am presenting articles that can be found on the web. Many show sources. Many are taken from well known sites such as Space.Com. Some are taken from Nature.

You can look these up as easily as I did.

All I am doing is showing that your evolutionary "facts" are not facts at all. There is much controversy in science. You seem to present only the evidence that supports your belief. Well, there's TONS of evidence against it.
I have been showing it, and will continue to show it.

You know, many polls and surveys have shown that the majority of people do not believe in evolution. This is not due to ignorance. You can hardly watch a show on TV about nature without hearing many statements supporting evolution. Kids are taught it everyday in school.

The problem is, is that you evolutionists are not convincing. People see through the circular logic and the unsupported claims.

And people can look around them and see that evolution is not going on. We should see hundreds of thousands of creatures in transition from one species to another.

You will say people would not be able to identify these creatures. YOU HAVE SAID THAT.

Well then, how do YOU recognize them??

Nah, your bogus story just ain't sellin'.

I like that recent article showing the fantastic diversity of genes within people, and how some people's genes are more similar to chimpanzees that other people.

It just proves that your method of using genes to prove relationship is completely flawed and unreliable.

But I'm sure you will rationalize this away as you do all other problems that confront evolution.

 

Hi JWI! Just reminding you of my unfortunate continued existence. As long as we're talking about unsupported claims, would you care to answer my question of whether you think all mutations are detrimental and all result in loss of specificity? I feel it would really enhance our dialogue if you would, I don't know, actually respond to me!

 

I knew this was baloney when I read it the first time, but I forgot to go track it down today. Unfortunately I'm home now so I can't read the whole article, but I found a blog that "reviews" the article. They fortunately quoted this exact paragraph.

If we read what the article really says rather than what your web source thought it says, it tells us that in the study of multitudes of people they found 800 different variants. These 800 variants as a group made up 3.5% of the genome. Additionally, when we look at chimpanzees we find they have 48 chromosomes instead of 46, and the chromosomes are arranged differently than in humans. The chimpanzee genome is also larger than the human genome. So no, there are not people walking around that are more closely related to chimpanzees than other humans.

I kind of wonder that you even brought this article up in the first place, since it is threatening to the YE position. It definitely provides evidence that mutations do occur and are often not detrimental (still waiting to hear your final position on this one--currently it seems to be that mutations aren't all bad, but that could change!), and it provides support for the mechanisms of information addition to the genome.

 

Petrel

It is evolutionists that claim a similarity of genes. Someone on here mentioned the similarity to gorillas. This article chimpanzees. Someone on here mentioned the similarity of crocodiles to birds as proof of ancestry.

Creationists are not the ones arguing this similarity, it is evolutionists like yourself.

I believe God created man just as he is. I do not believe we decended from some common ancestor as the apes.

But the real problem is that this article shows that very little is understood about genetics. Showing a similarity is not a reliable method to determine relationship.

And that has been your big argument hasn't it??

The evolutionary theory fails in every way. Natural selection is rarely even spoken of anymore. There are huge gaps in the fossils. And now your last refuge, genetics is falling apart on you too.

But I have noticed that evolutionary theory evolves quite rapidly to adapt to any new scientific findings.

When transitional fossils couldn't be found, new theories like Punk Eek and the Hopeful Monster spring up.

So, I am sure you will adapt again. Not because it is true, but because you MUST believe in this theory.

As far as mutations, I am no expert. I am sure some evolutionists claim there are beneficial mutations.

The mutations in bacteria are Micro-evolution which really amounts to adaptation. This type of evolution is even admitted by creationists. Some mutations of this type might be beneficial.

The types of mutations needed for Macro-evolution have never been observed, even after hundreds of thousands of controlled experiments.

And this is what evolution needs, Macro-evolution. Unless your theory has evolved again.

You evolutionists are plain stubborn. Time and real science will prove you wrong. The more you resist the truth, the more foolish you will finally look.

And all the scientific mumbo-jumbo will not help you.

 

"Well, I certainly did not write any of this, and I seriously doubt anyone thought I did, so this is not plagiarism."

YOu copied and pasted without attributing a source. It is plagarism. Even if you disagree, it is stilll good form to provide links when you spam material.

"Why do I have to answer your questions?"

First off, could you at least take a look at my questions?

http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/3/3194/17.html#000244

They are not of a technical nature but are instead opinion oriented. I hope that the questions are the kind that could lead us to understand one another better.

Second, I think that if you are going to continue to spam article after article, you at least owe us the decency to respond to the criticisms that are raised about your postings. It seems to me that you just randomly copy from YE sources without even having the back ground information to know if they are telling the truth and without broad enough knowledge to defend the criticisms of them

Finally, all of your spam postings have been shown to have major errors. It gets a little old to point out all of hte errors over and over and yet you do not try and defend your claims but instead post more material of questionable scholarship.

"I am presenting articles that can be found on the web. Many show sources. Many are taken from well known sites such as Space.Com. Some are taken from Nature."

Where you are pulling your spam posts from seem to have trouble accurately reporting the facts. Your more mainstream references do not often seem to say what you or your source is claiming they say.

"You know, many polls and surveys have shown that the majority of people do not believe in evolution."

Fallacy - Argumentum ad Populum.

The opinion of those who are not experts is not conseqential when determining the truth of something.

Biologists, and others who are experts in relevent fields, accept evolution at near universal rates. They have put in the study. They have done the actual research. Their opinion counts. And it does not support you.

"And people can look around them and see that evolution is not going on. We should see hundreds of thousands of creatures in transition from one species to another. "

Strawman.

Besides, how do you expect to know right now what a given species will transistion to in the future. Many extant species are very likely to be transitional. Any who do not go extinct without speciating ARE transitional.

"I like that recent article showing the fantastic diversity of genes within people, and how some people's genes are more similar to chimpanzees that other people."

Petrel has addressed this in one way. But I need to point out that you are not accurately reporting what they said. The comparison was the genetic diversity within humans compared to the genetic distance between humans and chimps. Nothing in there said that any of the humans were closer genetically (overall) to chimps than to other humans.

There is also likely an equivocation fallacy in there as there are many different ways to express the percentage difference in genomes. It seems likely that two different methods are being compared.

"But I'm sure you will rationalize this away as you do all other problems that confront evolution."

Borrowing from an earlier post, I think it was Petrel...

Let's define "rationalize."

"to free from irrational parts"

"to bring into accord with reason"

So, yes, your "problems" will be rationalized and in the process they will be exposed as wanting.

 

This really made me laugh out loud! Can it really be that you have such a different understanding of the way this discussion has been going? We've seen the demolition of the idea that mutations are always detrimental, proof that information can be added to a genome via either gene copying or gene theft (including an account I posted of the origin of an entirely new virus), and proof provided by yourself that chromosomal remodeling is not invariably fatal, yet you think it is evolution that is in trouble? You talk about evolutionists squirming out of things, but when one minute the YE creationists are saying that evolution moves much too slowly to ever produce any useful changes and the next minute they are saying that most species alive today originated in a massive radiation following the Flood, you know it's someone else doing the squirming!

 

"It is evolutionists that claim a similarity of genes. Someone on here mentioned the similarity to gorillas. This article chimpanzees. Someone on here mentioned the similarity of crocodiles to birds as proof of ancestry."

It is not just the similarity, it is the particular patterns of similarity that matter. I don't remember anyone mentioning gorillas but I am the one that mentioned birds and crocs. The key thing is the whole picture. With birds and crocs we have such things as fossil evidence and homologies that strongly suggest a close link between them. The genetics confirms the link from a totatlly different perspective. The key part, the thing that remains unaddressed, is that no one can tell us why, from a YE perspective, birds and crocs specifically should be so closely related.

"But the real problem is that this article shows that very little is understood about genetics. Showing a similarity is not a reliable method to determine relationship. "

I think you have misunderstood the article as I outlined in the last post.

But please explain to us why the specifics of how we use genetics to infere relationships is not valuable. Not a strawman.

I'll give you an example. There are some types of virus, called a retrovirus, that inserts some of its DNA into its host during infection. Now occasionally a virus will infect a sperm or an egg cell and insert a DNA seqence randomly into the genome of that cell. Even more rare is that the cell is actually used for reproduction, passing on the insertion. Even more rare will be when that insertion then gets passed around until every member of the population has it.

Despite that, a few percent of your genome is old retroviral inserts. Now when you look at humans, you see that they share the same essential set of inserts. Now, as it turns out, you can find the almost exact same set of inserts in the other apes. But not the same exact set. As it turns out, when you look at which inserts are shared between the various apes, you can map out the relationships between the species. And these relationships among the apes as determined from retroviral inserts matches the relationships as determined by other means.

Now, because of the huge size of the genome and the randomness of the insertion, to find two species with the exact same insert at teh exact same location is considered to be incontrovertible proof of common ancestry. Humans and the other apes share many such insertions.

"The evolutionary theory fails in every way."

Please tell us all the ways in which it fails.

"Natural selection is rarely even spoken of anymore."

False. A keyword search on "natural selection" at pubmed, sorted by date, gave a list of over 3000 papers.

I did the same thing at the Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences. This one let's you copy the URL of the search.

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/search?&submit.y=12&submit.x=7&submit=GO&fulltext=%22natural+selection%22&sortspecbrief=date&sortspec=date

Over 1100 hits. Natural selection is not rare in publication.

"There are huge gaps in the fossils."

I sense a misrepresentation of puncuated equilibrium coming on. Wait for it..

"And now your last refuge, genetics is falling apart on you too."

How so? There is a whole parallel thread developing that is focused on just genetics. No one is willing to provide YE answers there, either.

http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/3/3200.html


"When transitional fossils couldn't be found, new theories like Punk Eek and the Hopeful Monster spring up."

There it is. I knew it would show up.

I'll just repeat a recent post of mine dealing with this issue.

I have presented you with examples of transitionals. Here is a link to where I made a very long post detailing the transition from reptiles to mammals in a rich set of transistional fossils.

http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/3/3155/4.html#000056

Should I dig out other examples or is the witness considered impeached?

This post list some transitional whales.

http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/3/3155/3.html#000041

Here is a post where I direct you to an article on transitional birds.

http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/3/3178/12.html#000177

Is THAT enough? Do I need to point to more ignored posts? Do I need to just start listing transitional series for you?

And as far as PE goes, I don't know if you just don't get it or if you are just ignoring what you have been told, but you are misrepresenting PE. I'll let Gould speak.

"As far as mutations, I am no expert. I am sure some evolutionists claim there are beneficial mutations."

That seems a bit dodgy. Are you really admitting that not all mutations are harmful? That some might be, gasp, beneficial?

"The mutations in bacteria are Micro-evolution which really amounts to adaptation."

Please define the difference for us and what prevents a series of small steps from accumulating to larger change.

"The types of mutations needed for Macro-evolution have never been observed, even after hundreds of thousands of controlled experiments."

You really need to check out the other thread. It is directly refuting this. You might want to start where it picks up on this.

Here is where Petrel provides some useful links.

http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/3/3200.html#000008

Also look at the two posts of his above that.

Here is where I start in on this issue specifically.

http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/3/3200/2.html#000018

Read that post and the next. The thread suffers an attempted hijacking but you can pick it up here.

http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/3/3200/3.html#000040

 

Hi Helen! I'd appreciate it if you would help flesh out some of your statements here . . .

Given empty ecological nitches, how many years would it take - in your view - for 1 species to become two species? Any kind of rough estimate will be fine

What do you have in mind when you say "every genetic evidence"?

Do you have in mind the shared vitamin c defiency amoung primates?

Do you have in mind the genetic structures for forming tail moving muscles in the human kind?

Do you have in mind the genetic structures for making feet in whales?

Do you have in mind the genetic structures for making feet in snakes?

Since these have been cited as evidence in favor of evolution, how can you say with a straight face that "every genetic evidence from actual living organisms proclaims it is impossible?"

Well, now that we all remember that your claim for unversality of evidence isn't sustainable, have you got anything at all to cite that would lend any credence to that view? Evidence, that is.

 

It is interesting you used that (in view of Genesis 3:14).

A.F.

 

Minds and Genes;

Do we have in mind The Mind that provided the information contained in the genetic codes in every thing we call living?

My God, how great Thou art,

Selah,

Bro. James

 

What, did the Volvocides just entirely disappear while I was asleep last night?

Here is a link to my last discussion of the Volvicides and their origin.

Oh, and your husband's work does not provide an internally consistent explanation of all of the data. From what I've seen he attempts to account for the cosmological data, but cannot explain the biological data. YE creationists need a model that coherently explains all of the data. If this model is so self-evident, why has it eluded, well, everyone?

 

"Speciation is just a TINY bit different from the sort of evolution you folks are claiming happened."

How so? There are numerous examples of finely divided enough transitional series where each successive member was just a tiny bit different from the preceeding member yet it adds up to large change. There have been recent posts detailing this for everything from forams to the emergance of mammals.

So, tell us just what it is that prevents the small changes from accumulating. Every journey begins with a single step.

"Rapid speciation into empty ecological niches is not a problem. That is simply a matter of natural selection from already existing genetic variety."

Sounds like you are describing punctuated equilibrium.

On a timescales of millions of years, there are constant new mutations constantly adding to the existing genetic diversity.

"HOWEVER, the changing from one kind to another is something else entirely. It has never been seen..."

Again, how is it different?

In any case, I think what you mean to say is that the larger transitions, which take much longer than the length of a human lifespan to occur, have never been observed by a single human to have happened during his lifespan.

If you allow for the complete weight of the scientific observations to be brought to bear, then we have strong but indirect observational evidence for these transitions to have occured.

Once again, look around the existing threads. These lines of evidence from different areas have been brought togther by various posters recently presenting the evidence for all sorts of things to have evolved. There has not been the slightest hint at a rebutal of these posts yet you and others are able to continue to assert the same refuted things. Apparently with a straight face.

All the while the real evidence sits out there. And it refutes your assertion.

"...and every genetic evidence from actual living organisms proclaims it is impossible."

You will have to enlighten us on this one as well.

Once again, look around the existing threads. You have several times made your unsupported assertion that all mutations lead to a loss of "specitivity." In response, various posters have presented details of mechanisms in which this is not the case and examples of these mechanisms happening out there in the real world. There have also been several attempts to show how the details of the genome fit in with it being built up over time through said mechanisms.

As with all the real data presented, these posts are never, ever addressed. The observations are never ever explained with those oft mentioned but never presented alternate ideas. But the same baseless assertions are repeated over and over, with a straight face somehow, without ever addressing the data that shows them to be incorrect.

It must be frustrating to think that the data supports YE. It frustrated me right out of their camp.

 

It is interesting you used that (in view of Genesis 3:14).

A.F. </font>[/QUOTE]OOO that connection slipped my mind!
But I never thought the snake had legs in Eden anyway. I thought of him as being a tree snake forced to leave the trees and live in the dirt.