Do the doctrines of evolutionism protect the Bible?

"Thank you for the welcome, and no, I have not been lurking. I was invited to come here by our mutual friend, Bob, who saw me posting on a secular Creation VS Evolution forum. To tell you the truth, I would MUCH rather argue creation VS evolution with believers as the basis if YEC (young earth creationism) is the Bible - which is most usually scoffed at by secularists."

I agree. I like to talk about this, but I have never been willing to venture off to any other sites. I have lurked there on occasions, but never often. A problem around here is that most of the people who once discussed it at this site no longer come around since they discontinued the dedicated forum. I think the moderator for it got too busy and no one else wants to get into that mess. So, there are only a few people that post regularly on each side. My loyal opposition seems to have been reduced to "I don't want it to be true so it must not be." You seem to be fairly informed and could make this much more interesting. There is one other well informed individual 'round here, Helen, but she is too busy to pop in much. Her husband is Barry Setterfield of the decaying speed of light fame.

"Adaptation does not mean evolution took place. It is, however, strong evidence that the bacterium has some seriously wonderful design. It was designed for a wide range of environments as well as with the ability to adapt to new situations."

Well, yes, I would disagree. Let's go back to the most basic definition of the theroy of evolution (as opposed to the observation that evolution has actually occurred / occurs). The change in allele frequency. A new and useful allele has appeared. It made the bacterium more fit for that environment and so bacteria with it were more likely to survive and increased their numbers. I call it evolution. Any type of adaptation I would call evolutiion.

"Would you agree that God designed the bacteria? Do you think that God created Bacteria discreetly as he did Adam?"

That is a tricky one. No, I do not think any of the lifeforms we see today were discretely designed. I think the evidence is against it. But, there may be a scant piece of common ground, but I do not think you will take it. Abiogenesis is something that we will never be able to tease out of history. We will never know for sure how that happened. As a Christian, I have no problem with God sticking that first population of simple life on the early earth knowing in His wisdom where things would end up. If you look back above, you will see that I did a paragraph on the genome being evolved to evolve because of how substitutions to the code affect proteins. Maybe we could agree to designed to evolve and disagree on the magnitude of that evolution.

"Secondly, (to address your 1st point) I would argue that nuclear DNA is what is most important."

Well, I would agree. But, when advantage is conferred on an individual, I don't think that it matters where the change comes from. Thinnk about how much we have learned in the past several years about how non-coding parts of the genome affect traits.

"Here we see God creating creatures and commanding them to reproduce after their own kind. "

Do you think you are a creation of God? Did your parents not give birth to you? Is there a contradiction here?

In evolution, change is slow. A creature never gives birth to something that is not of the same species. But with changing allele frequency within a population with time, a population can become something new. It is a misrepresentation of the process to suggest that it means that a "sea creature would reproduce after it's kind to give birth to a land animal." Evolution follows the reproduction within kind. It is just that kind changes with time. Even you accept speciation. And apparently new genera, too. Nothing stops that process from going higher. I believe I went over a couple of examples for you in a very general way above.

[snip information discussion]

First, nice answer on the apoprotein. You make that point well.

But I do not think that you have demonstrated that mutation is always an overall degrading process. With point mutations, you have the chance of giving a protein the ability to better do its job. No loss of complexity there. Even better, in duplications you now have two copies of the same gene. One can maintain function while the other mutates. If it turns into junk, nothing was lost. If it turns into something useful, then something was gained. And, as mentioned before, since there are many different classes of proteins where similar structures perform a wide variety of functions, we have circumstantial evidence that this is an import method of producing new and useful genes.

[snip discussion of skin color]

But, sticking with skin color, we do not actually see that humans are either full on or full off in their pigment production. They exist on a continuum. Each adapted to his environment.

"Ah, but again, this uses the unifomitarian concept that we can interpret the past by what we observe in the present (the thought that things are now as they have always been). It may very well be that, as I have indicated, there were many functions which were not polar, but dynamic and mutation and 'micro-evolution' (sometimes called speciation by creationists) is acceptable within the creationist paradigm."

First, if you oppose unifomitarian you have the burden of proof to show us that things actually operated differently in the past.

Now, in the real world of today, we see a wide variety of different versions of the same allele giving rise to different versions of the function. These varieties of genes with adapted function goes against the idea of no new "information."

[snip junk DNA discussion]

I will fully agree that we are learning that much of the "junk" is actually useful. Doesn't change that a lot of it is truely junk. I made a specific example. A large proportion of the genome is retroviral insertions. Humans essentially share all the same insertions. If this class of junk was added during the last few thousand years, then there would be a lot of variance in what LTRs were in which humans. You would even expect to see variation from generation to generation. But, we do not see this. The insetion of a LTR into a germ line cell that is used for reproduction and passed on seems to be a very rare event. More directly related to evolution would be the several LTRs shared between all the apes including humans.

 

Bob

Your quoting of Dawkins on matters of religion is a fallacy, specifically appeal to authority. He has no special expertice on religion and his views on religion are no more relevent than the man on the street.

""And until now, no one’s been able to demonstrate how you could do that at the genetic level with specific instructions in the genome."

You are connecting two things which are unconnected. They are talking about a very specific type of change that they can now understand genetically. You are misapplying it to new traits in general. This is a mistake.

"I had already read Gup20's devastating responses ..."

You call admitting to a new trait but trying to disregard the change because it was not in the nuclear DNA "devastating?" Please.

If you want to show a problem with mDNA, then destroy my math. You seem to imply that we can just stop the process at some point and that the pattern no long hold true. WRONG. The population of mothers of a given population will continue to get smaller. It is a mathematical certainty. You even quote an authority to tell you what I already did. There were other mothers living at the time, but at some point their lines ended without daughters. If one of these lines had had a daughter, then the common ancestor would just be pushed back a bit further.

 

"In fact, for one to assume that they are an evolutionary ancestor-decendent tree, one would have to discount the creation of distinct creatures in Genesis 1."

If they were all alive at the same point, the fossil record should reflect this. It does not.

"Also - I am curious - How do you reconcile Noah's flood? If you believe evolution, do you believe in Noah's flood?"

I think it was local. There is not any evidence for a global flood.

Here is an interesting link that makes the case that everywhere the Bible uses the words translated for the whole world in the Flood account that it always means local.

http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/localflood.html

"I don't see why he must deny it. He isn't saying that a sea creature turned into a land creature - he is saying that sea creatures have a continuum of species and land creatures have a contnuum of species for the wide range of environments each could face. "

I think it is an admission that such a continuum has been found, consistent with evolution, and he is seeking an alternate explanation since he can no longer deny their existence. Again, deiscretely created kinds predicts that we should see everything that ever lived in the lowest levels of the fossil record and loss of "kinds" above that. This is not hwat we see.

As far as the paste, I have a fair understanding of the idea of kinds among the various flavors of creationists. (BTW, I would include myself in the "Creationist" category, just at a far end from some others.) But we still need to define exactly how to do you tell what a kind is.

 

"Here we have a "confession after the fact" that evolutionist had "NOT been able to demonstrate how you could do that (infuse new genetic information into DNA) at the genetic leve with specific instructions IN THE GENOME"."

I know I have already responded to this but I want to do so again in a different manner. First, I maintain that the article you quoted from was talking about finding the genetic basis for that specific type of change. Second, I disagree with your assertion that this was a desperate attempt to show any kind of genetic change for evolution. So, I have gathered together some abstracts for you that show you that science has many examples of the chemistry behind evolution. This should show you that your criticism was based not on fact but on a lack of knowledge of the current state of the science. If you have objections, go find the actual paper, reas it, and give us your factual criticism. I am hoping to focus on a few of these examples in a later post to later show how the classes of similar proteins show evolution as I have mentioned above.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Retrieve&list_uids=7242661&dopt=Citation

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Retrieve&list_uids=6456024&dopt=Citation

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Retrieve&list_uids=8765308&dopt=Citation

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Retrieve&list_uids=92130261&dopt=Citation

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Retrieve&list_uids=9098062&dopt=Citation

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Retrieve&list_uids=90212054&dopt=Citation

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Retrieve&list_uids=84172188&dopt=Citation

http://www.americanscientist.org/amsci/articles/99articles/Hardison.html

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Retrieve&list_uids=8794877&dopt=Citation

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Retrieve&list_uids=9060395&dopt=Citation

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Retrieve&list_uids=96275651&dopt=Abstract

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Retrieve&list_uids=1688138&dopt=Citation

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Retrieve&list_uids=8056788&dopt=Citation

That should be enough to make the point. Many, many more are available.

 

UTEOTW: A new and useful allele has appeared. It made the bacterium more fit for that environment and so bacteria with it were more likely to survive and increased their numbers.

I am not arguing the merits of Natural Selection. That, indeed, was a useful observation by Darwin. However, one should not attribute so much 'intelligence' to natural selection. It is merely the weeding out of those unfit to survive. The result is a population that IS fit to survive. However, natural selection has no mechanism or ability to confer information. It is an indescriminate killer. It has no ability to 'make the bacteria more fit' or less fit to survive. Those who can adapt survive... those who don't adapt die.

It would appear that the plasmid on which the change occurs has some intended function for adaption as it is only activated when selective pressure is applied. Hard times come so the bacteria opens the 'storehouses'. However, as we said before, the primary structure of the bacteria itself doesn't change. As soon as the plasmid is de-activated it goes back to ist's mild mannor 'Bruce Banner' self (for all those comic book junkies out there).

Another important and overlooked distinction here is that bacteria are asexual - they have the ability to reproduce on their own. This is a seemingly ignored topic. Asexual reproduction is much more efficient than sexual reproduction. What possible naturally selective process could have lead to the less efficient sexual reproduction? Instead of an organims simply dividing and reproducting itself, it now has to find a partner in oder to pass on it's genes to the next generation.

UTEOTW: No, I do not think any of the lifeforms we see today were discretely designed. I think the evidence is against it.

Evidence is a funny word isn't it? Creationists and evolutionists all have the same body of 'evidence' but we come to such drastically different conclusions. Why is that? Well, for starters Evolution is exclusionary to supernatural influence and causation. It attempts to explain what it sees in a completely natural setting. Therefore the conclusions that are drawn from an interpretation of the evidence are exclusionary to the supernatural as well - they are entirely naturalistic. Creationism on the other hand accepts many of the naturalistic mechanisms of evolution, however, it also accepts the Bible's account as truth. YEC's can convincingly show evidence of a 6000 year old earth and evidence of Biblical events, such as a Global flood. These line up naturalisticly and scripturally. It comes down to - do you want to believe the fallible theories of man, or the infallible word of God. I choose the latter. Therefore we can see how the Bible and evolution become a lense through which all the evidence we find is seen and interpreted. We all have the same evidence, and come to distictly different conclusions.

UTEOTW: As a Christian, I have no problem with God sticking that first population of simple life on the early earth knowing in His wisdom where things would end up.

That is perhaps one of the most curious statements I hear some christians make. If God is God, and he 'knew' where life would end up - do you think He is unable of creating man as the Bible says he did - in less than 24 hours? God was smart enough to create a universe, create planets and stars, create time and space - and then he plopped a whad of goo down knowing full well it would turn into man? If God can create all that, don't you think he is capable of creating Man in the mannor described in Genesis?

UTEOTW: If you look back above, you will see that I did a paragraph on the genome being evolved to evolve because of how substitutions to the code affect proteins.

You will also see (looking back) that I posted on non-coding RNA and psuedogenes. It would appear that there are many many more genes with function that do not involve coding for proteins. It used to be thought that those genes that didn't code for proteins were just 'junk' but researchers are discovering that isn't true, and that what we know about non-coding genes only scratches the surface of what there is to know. In fact, it is being discovered that many of the traits that separate man from chimps (and other apes) is in the non-coding RNA. That these 'junk' genes place a much more cruicial role that we had previously thought. During the human genome project it often argued as to if the 'junk' should even be mapped (as some had thought that it would be such an incredible waste of time and resources).

UTEOTW: Do you think you are a creation of God? Did your parents not give birth to you? Is there a contradiction here?

I think God created Adam & Eve and told them to 'be fruitful and multiply' and I am a result of their obedience. Adam and Eve reproduced after their own kind on and on down the line to my parents.

UTEOTW: It is just that kind changes with time. Even you accept speciation. And apparently new genera, too. Nothing stops that process from going higher.

Except when you consider that sea creatures and land creatures were created separately - the Bible does make that clear. It also makes the disctinction that sea creatures reproduce after their kind and land cratures reproduce after their kind. In that light, I would see the continuum of creatures designed for land and sea and say that they are discreet not morphing into another section of 'kinds'.

This discussion will always come down to 'do we believe what the Bible says is true or not'. If we do, then we can argue from a position of power and authority, if not, we undermine Biblical authority and it becomes a battle of mans intellect vs mans intellect.

UTEOTW: But I do not think that you have demonstrated that mutation is always an overall degrading process. With point mutations, you have the chance of giving a protein the ability to better do its job.

This story about AiG's Carl Wieland is very interesting. It speaks to the concept of the difference between natural selection and evolution.

In this account, Dr. Wieland give his account with a trip to the intensive care unit. During his recovery he got infected with a "SuperGerm". These are germs that are resistant to every known anti-biotic. These are dreded infections indeed! Dr. Wieland got infected with some of these germs however he did manage to recover. Even after his recovery, these 'supergerms' still infected his body. What did the doctors tell him? They told him to go home, get some rest, and roll in the dirt. Why? Why would you roll in the dirt? Because while these 'supergerms' can't be killed with the most powerful anti-biotic, their mutations had left them extremely succeptable to natural selection. As soon as there were other germs to compete with, the supergerms would soon die out as they turned out to be 'superwimps' when in competition with other normal germs. Their mutated state left them unable to compete in a natural environment. In the article Dr. Wieland makes the following statement:

UTEOTW: First, if you oppose unifomitarian you have the burden of proof to show us that things actually operated differently in the past.

Certainly -

Gen 5:5 And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.

People don't live for 900 years anymore. They bearly get to 120 (guiness says the oldest living person is 113).

Gen 6:3 And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also [is] flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.

Gen 2:5 And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and [there was] not a man to till the ground.
Gen 2:6 But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground

Here you have one example in biology, and one example in geology.

UTEOTW: I think it was local. There is not any evidence for a global flood.

To quote Ken Ham of AiG "all you see are billions of dead things burried in rock layers laid down by water all over the earth".

There are marine fossils on top of Mt. Everest. Evolutionists claim the whole region was once under an ocean (millions of years ago). We have marine fossils in just about every layer of the Grand Canyon - evolutionists say the majority of the US was under an ocean at one point. You find this repeated over and over and over. All you see is local flooding all over the face of the globe to explain the fossil record. But then you try to make the case that the Bible is true, and people jump up and say - there was no flood! or they say Noah's flood was local!

Again, you are COMPLETELY undermining the authority and accuracy of the Word of God to say that the flood was local. If what the Bible says about the flood isn't true, then how can we trust that what the Bible says about the Virgin Birth, or about Salvation is true? If what the Bible says about the flood isn't true, how can we trust or believe that anything in the Bible isn't also a fabrication?

Gen 7:18 And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters.
Gen 7:19 And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that [were] under the whole heaven, were covered.
Gen 7:20 Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.
Gen 7:21 And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man:
Gen 7:22 All in whose nostrils [was] the breath of life, of all that [was] in the dry [land], died.
Gen 7:23 And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained [alive], and they that [were] with him in the ark.

These verses make it astonishingly clear that everything (meaning EVERY THING) that was outside the ark perished in the flood. Everything on the whole earth.

AiG has a great article listing common sense reasons why the flood was global (beyond the bare fact that the scripture makes that claim):

UTEOTW: Here is an interesting link that makes the case that everywhere the Bible uses the words translated for the whole world in the Flood account that it always means local.

On that same link to AiG, it lists the following:

You can also see the following article from AiG some more reasons why the flood wasn't local.

And finally, this article from AiG shows some discussion between a presbiterian minister who believed in local flooding.

UTEOTW: I think it is an admission that such a continuum has been found, consistent with evolution, and he is seeking an alternate explanation since he can no longer deny their existence.

Or it may simply be that he believes that the Bible is true, and it says that there are distinct kinds that reproduce after their own kind. Mixing that with common sense (humans dont' give birth to chimpanzees, cows don't give birth to dogs) one can only come to the conclusion that the life we see now is a result of special creation of a discreet continuum of animals.

The only way to get evolution out of the fossil record is to start with the premise that God didn't create full grown animals as the Bible says he did. One has to assume that the Bible is wrong and that God didn't create man on an ordinary day to arrive at the conclusion that we evolved from Apes.

UTEOTW: (BTW, I would include myself in the "Creationist" category, just at a far end from some others.) But we still need to define exactly how to do you tell what a kind is.

Well in that, then, we agree.

 

Actually this point has been addressed. I've even addressed it myself. I made a little program that simulates evolution both with and without genetic exchange. Genetic exchange greatly facilitates the purging of bad genes from the group.

I've never seen any reasonable creationist explanation of the continents having once been united and now separated by thousands of miles at inches per year. I've never seen any reasonable creationist explanation of the hawaiian island chain, extending thousands of miles past midway island.

 

Bob

Did you read any of the abstracts I provided for you? What do you think of scientist's ability to trace the evolution of various proteins?

"Using Richard Dawkings as a prominent example of "just such an evolutionists" who does "know something about the claims of evolution" is EXACTLY the salient point of the thread."

If it is not a fallacy to use Dawkins as a source of information regarding religion then tell me what qualifications he has on religious matters that would make him an expert compared to the average man on the street?

IMHO, you quoting of Dawkins does more to support my opinion than yours. You are the one agreeing with the athiest that Christianity is incompatible with reality. I OTOH recognize that if you accept the overwhelming evidence for common descent and interpret Genesis in a non-literal manner, you then remove this line of attack from the atheist camp.

"Dawkings becomes a "case in point" of how the Bible and Christianity is "At risk" and "held to ridicule" by NOT accepting the Creator's account as He stated it."

No, the ridicule comes when he points out that the position that you and others holds goes against what is as plain as day to those who look at the data objectively. The ridicule is of the literal interpretation. I again question your definition of "devastating."

"My point was to call for critical thinking - in asking "where this confession was" before the experiment of McGinnis was available as a "Story" for evolutionists. Still no answer."

I HAVE answered you. The pont of the article was that they did not have a genetic basis for that particular kind of change. Now they do. You were saying that they had no genetic basis for ANY change. That simply is not true. I answered. I answer again. Did you read ANY of the abstracts I provided you?

"This is NOT a change in the DNA of the Bacteria - in fact the Bacteria's DNA remains UNCHANGED."

Look. The plasmid DNA is part of the DNA of the bacteria. I do not see how you can say otherwise.

" EVEN The affected Gene of the Plasmid - RETURNS to its initial state once deactivated.
EVEN The affected Gene of the Plasmid - RETURNS to its initial state once deactivated."

And... Any gene will lose its function if deactivated. Now, here is an important part. You say that "the effect of the change to the plasmid was to REDUCE complexity in the organism." So, tell me, what function did the bacteria lose? (This is actually an opening for you because there likely is an answer.)

"reverting to a simpler less complex discrimination for food "

Still wrong. It gained the ability to metabolize nylon. You could decide to start eating nylon tomorrow but I doubt that your cells would have the enzymes to break it down and metabolize it.

"Again - some critical thinking on your part is needed to respond to each of the points made. "Pretending" not to get the point does not form a "valid substitute" in the mean time. I have simplified the task of critical thinking for you - by enumerating the points that need a response from Gup20's post. You may respond with substance - when ready."

I think I have responded. Multiple times. Who exactly is pretending not to get it?

"Evolutionism DOES NOT START with "one lucky pair" so the number CAN't go to ONE - since ONE is not the starting point. (Can I make it any more direct????)"

You cannot be more direct but you cannot be more wrong. You can accept that the population of mothers in a given generation that lead to the population today must decease each time you go back a generation. But then you decide to arbitrarily stop the process at some point. That is not how math works. It keeps getting smaller. It has to, there is no way around it. Your objections are not grounded in fact and therefore are invalid.

"In other words NOVA said every other strain must somehow die off – this is not a “mathematical certainty” that “all other lines MUST die”. Yet evolutionist need to "pretend that it is"."

Yor going the wrong direction which makes this much harder to understand. Go back and look at my math proof again. You'll see if you are objective.

"Then (as if circular reasoning would help) you make this statement..."

Come on Bob, where is the circular part? You are going to have to do a much better job than that to show a fallacy on my part. I told you in my first response what happened to the other lines. You then quote an expert that says the same thing, as if that helps your case. Nothing circular about it.

I do find it "devastating" that you will not answer the entropy question when given the statement of the second law from a thermo text and asked to apply the real statement to the question of human evolution.

 

Gup20

Do you yet have any explanation for the retroviral LTRs that are found in the human genome, the specific pattern of how they are found, and why they would be shared with the other apes?

"I am not arguing the merits of Natural Selection. ... It is merely the weeding out of those unfit to survive. The result is a population that IS fit to survive. However, natural selection has no mechanism or ability to confer information. It is an indescriminate killer. It has no ability to 'make the bacteria more fit' or less fit to survive. Those who can adapt survive... those who don't adapt die."

I am glad that we both agree that NS is a viable and useful process. NS by itself does not have any ability to adapt or evolve. But, when you combine it with mutation which provides different levels of fitness to selct upon, it provides a powerful method for developing the diversity we see today.

"Asexual reproduction is much more efficient than sexual reproduction. What possible naturally selective process could have lead to the less efficient sexual reproduction?"

Sexual reproduction provides some distinct evolutionary advantages. Yes, as you allude, there are tradeoffs and we see that most of the life on the planet uses asexual reproduction. But, sexual reproduction ofers an advantage in the mixing of genetic information. If a bacteria has a particular advantageous mutation, it has no way to spread that to the rest of the population. (OK, that is not completely true, but close enough.) If another bacteria has a different advantageous mutation, they are simply left to compete with one another. Not real efficient at bringing about large changes. But with sexual reproduction, the two benficial traits can be brought together ans spread.

"Evolution is exclusionary to supernatural influence and causation."

If must be. If you allow such causes in, how do you identify them? How do you make use of them? Does ravity control orbits or is it angels pushing the planets around? YOu have no way of knowing. Science must restrict itself to reproducable, natural causes.

"YEC's can convincingly show evidence of a 6000 year old earth and evidence of Biblical events, such as a Global flood."

I have seen no evidence to support these conclusions.

"Therefore we can see how the Bible and evolution become a lense through which all the evidence we find is seen and interpreted. "

You have decided that your interpretation of scripture is the only valid one and you exclude all data that contradicts that. You do not allow the evidence to lead you where it will. YOu have already made up your mind and try and fit everything into that round hole no matter how square the peg.

"If God is God, and he 'knew' where life would end up - do you think He is unable of creating man as the Bible says he did - in less than 24 hours? "

He is capable of whatever He wishes. Do you think it impossible for Him to create a universe 13.5 billion years ago with a set of initial conditions that would lead to what we see today? I am not putting God in the box of your own creation that you are. The evidence indicates He used an old earth. Why question that?

"You will also see (looking back) that I posted on non-coding RNA and psuedogenes."

Yes, we both agree that some of the non-coding parts of the genome serve a purpose.

But since you brought up psuedogenes, let's dicuss vitamin C. Humans and the other apes and primates all lack the ability to make vitamin C. They lack this ability because they all share the exact same mutation in the exact same gene that codes for one of the enzymes used. Why do they share this? You can look at other species and see what the function of the the gene is. You can see what mutation disabled it. Common descent explains this well. How do you explain it?

"In that light, I would see the continuum of creatures designed for land and sea and say that they are discreet not morphing into another section of 'kinds'."

This is merely a convenient way to define away transitionals. You define them as an originally created "kind." Yet the evidence does not support this. All the various kinds must have been alive at the beginning. They should all be found together in the fossil record. Yet this is not what we see. We see only a very narrow slice of life at any given layer. Can you show me a single whale, for example, in Cambrian fossils?

I have already given a general discussion of two apparent transitional series and alluded to others. Do you simply dismiss these away a seperate created kinds even though they are only found in narrow slices of the fossil record.

And a related question. What do you make of the fossil hominids? Here you have creatures that were much like humans. They walked with a fully bipedal gait. They had large brains. They made tools, some rather complex. Some even buried their dead. But they were not homo sapiens. How do you handle these creatures?

"To quote Ken Ham of AiG "all you see are billions of dead things burried in rock layers laid down by water all over the earth"."

But let's look at this more closely. The way in which we find the fossils does not fit them all being laid down in a single flood. We have already discussed that the fossils should be rather randomly mixed instead of the very specific arrangement that we see. Such a catastrophe would be expected to destry delicate creatures. But instead we find well preserved examples in places. We find fosils that were buries slowly in still water. We find fossils buried by blowing sand. We find evidence of the scavenging of fossils. We find fossils buried by landslides. We find fossils buried in volcanic ash. Ham's overly simple statement masks the complexity of what we actually see.

"...We have marine fossils in just about every layer of the Grand Canyon..."

We find fossils of things in layers that could not possibly be attributed to a great flood. Fossil footprints. Fossil rain imprints. Fossil burrows. Fossil animal tracks. Many more examples can be given.

Let me focus on a specific aspect. 65 million years ago, a large object smashed into the earth near the present Gulf of Mexico coast of Mexico. This wiped out much of the life on earth including all of the dinosaurs except the birds. As we look arounf the world, we see many things. First, from just below to just above this layer, the KT boundary, we find that about 70% of the species disappear. If all the fossil were laid down in the flood, there should be no change in fossils, especially in such closely spaced layers. Second, the boundary layer worldwide is concentrated with iridium attributed to the space rock. This dust would take a long time to settle out. If all the fossils were laid down in the flood, this concetrated layer of iridium would not exist, it would be scattered through the various flood layers. At the KT boundary, worldwide, we also find grains of shocked quartz and tektites. A space impact is the only known event forceful enough to form shocked quartz. Tektites are small balls of molten rock from an impact. If the dust, the quartz and the tektites would distributed across the ocean surface, they would not sort out togther into the same flood layers because of the differing particle sizes and densities. So how do you explain these observations?

I went up to Tennessee a few months ago and toured one of the many caves in the foothills of the Appalachians. Did the flood lay down the limestone from which the mountains are made? When where the mountains uplifted? When were the cabes dissolved? Or maybe the flood caused the erosion of the mountains. Then where did the limestone come from? How were the caves dissolved? Or maybe the flood carved the caves. If so, where did the limestone and erosion come from? And what about the magma intrusions into parts of the lountains. When did these occur? How did they cool so quickly? When magma cools, if it is cooled quickly, say in only thousands of years, it makes no crystals. We can tell how long it took rocks to cool from the chemistry. Different minerals form at specific temperatures and grow at known rates. We can cross check this with heat transfer calculations that show how long it takes heat to get out. These agree with one another and can be millions of years. So how did the igneous rocks of the world, with their crystals of various minerals, form in such a short time? Neither the physics of cooling nor the chemistry of crystal formation allow it.

A related question. To which flood model do you ascribe? Specifically, where did the water come from and where did it go?

" (humans dont' give birth to chimpanzees, cows don't give birth to dogs)"

Strawman and a poor one at that. Science does not hypothesize that creatures give birth to anything bu the same species. A newborn is never of a new species. That type of change happens to populations and over time.

"Here you have one example in biology, and one example in geology."

No. You need to show me that a cause today had a different effect in the past.

There are a number of problems you need to address: retroviral LTRs; the shared vitamin C crippling mutation; the nature of the fossil record including why we do not find past life mixed in a way consistent with everything having been alive together at the beginning; the tyoes of fossils we find including trace fossils; the evidence for a major impact at the KT boundary; the details of mountain formation; and the fossil hominids. Paul has also brought up some good issues. Some items related to his questions would be the linear relationship between age of the vocanoes of the Hawaiian chain and their distance from the active volcanic region and the consistent change in amounts of erosion with age. The measurment of seafloor spreading combined with indications that the rates are the same now as they were in the past, that rocks dated from different distances from the spreading agree with the expected age based on distance and rate of spreading, the magnetic field reversals chronicled in the rocks, and the many millions of years that these facts show that spreading has been happening. The paleomagnetic data supporting continental drift.

 

"Had I chosen the fallacy of "authority" to support my argument - it could only come in the form of quoting the Pope or Billy Graham saying "Christians should not corrupt the text of Genesis" or something of the sort."

I think you are confused. Quoting the Pope or Billy Graham on religious issues would be acceptable because they would be considered to be experts, at least to some degree. Quoting them on science issues would not, they have no special knowledge to be a scientific expert.

Same thing with Dawkins. If you wish to quote him on evolution, fine, he is an expert. You want to quote him on religion, no can do. He has no expetice.

Look, you think Dawkins helps your case, I think it hurts your case. We are getting no where as we do not understand the others reasoning. I suggest we move on. How about that question of how evolution fits or does not fit the real statement of the 2LOT. That sounds like a good place to move on towards.

 

Bob Ryan posted:
#2. My claim is that the "boogy man" dreamed up by evolutionists sitting around their campfires is the "great fear" that "some dark and stormy day a long long time from now - a scientist MIGHT create life or MIGHT come up with evidence that LIFE creates itself. And THEN - where will Christians be??? whooooooo!".

It is that "fear" that is "supposed" to drive Christians that trust in the Creator's account - away from that trust.

Gina: Unfortunately that fear DOES drive Christians away from that trust sometimes. I don't know why, but it does. I'm constantly suprised when I find people who see science advance and instead of it deepening their faith it drives it away. I don't get that. The more we advance as humans, as God created us to do, the more amazing it is to me to find how God and His creation works. How a baby develops, how the body works, how mountains are formed, bodies of water made. Instead of explaining away the power of God it reinforces it for me.

Ok, continue on, just had to throw that in there.

Gina

 

I have given up that line with you, we are accomplishing nothing on it. How about answering the 2LOT question. Apply the actual statement from a thermo text to evolution. You claim there is a conflict. Show us using the actual 2LOT instead of a lay, popularized account where the problem is with human evolution as outlined above.