Arguments against evolution

[StAnastasia]

Ladies and gentlemen, we have here a perfect example of the YE creationist style of argumentation known as the “Gish gallop”. Notice that it is such a common occurrence that it even has a name.

Rossum, the problem is more than the “Gish gallop” – it is that Gish and most YECs lie through their teeth, and continue to repeat the same lies after they have been refuted. Duane Gish has been shown to be wrong numerous times, but he can take the lie to his next audience of earnest but simple people, and use the same thing on them. He never needs to lose a “debate” because the truth doesn’t matter to him or other YECs at all.

 

[rossum]

So will you settle that the CC is second only to Buddhism?

I do not have sufficient knowledge to tell. For instance my knowledge of Sikhism is insufficient to tell if it is superior or inferior to Catholic Christianity.

The message of Jesus. Very difficult indeed. To lay oneself down for his brother. Very few humans can do it.

We can agree on that.

It is revealing to study the ones who were able. What do they all have in common?

They were all Bodhisattvas.

rossum

 

[edwest2]

No. Science cannot detect any difference between a world in which Eve was an ensouled hominid like Adam or a world in which Eve was miraculously created from Adam’s rib. Since science cannot detect any difference then science can say nothing about whether or not a miracle took place.

rossum

Then, hopefully, those who regard science as the source of all knowledge will cease butting their heads against divine revelation. If not, it appears what I call the Bible Explanation Industry is at work here as well.

Peace,
Ed

 

[edwest2]

Rossum, the problem is more than the “Gish gallop” – it is that Gish and most YECs lie through their teeth, and continue to repeat the same lies after they have been refuted. Duane Gish has been shown to be wrong numerous times, but he can take the lie to his next audience of earnest but simple people, and use the same thing on them. He never needs to lose a “debate” because the truth doesn’t matter to him or other YECs at all.

Ah yes, they are all like that. Please stop with the generalizations.

Peace,
Ed

 

[Bob_Crowley]

Bob Crowley;5855210:

I take it that you look at these questions and conclude "It’s impossible, it must have been magic

" ?

Please forgive me for not answering any of the questions, but I’d like to skip to the point where we talk about why you will accept evidence or natural explanations or not. Do you really expect there to not be hypotheticals in science? Science is about building models that fit the evidence, if you have a better model then present it, but it better fit all the current evidence.

I waiting for “science” to show me the links. All you’ve got so far, in the birds evolution debate for example, is one true bird with teeth (Archeopteryx) and a few repitilian fossils with feathers. Where’s the rest of the evidence, filling in the enormous gaps?

The rest is HYPOTHETICAL CONJECTURE. I can do that too, as can any good story teller. For example, a lot of people believed in the Da Vinci code when it came out, not because it stood on irrefutable evidence, but because it was told well.

What we have in the evolution debate is another Grand Myth. The singularity exploded, then slowly the stars and planets formed, then by the milionth of a millionth chance, the beginnings of life formed, then by an even more herculean struggle it “evolved” till it reached it’s highest form in Man (who in his high evolutionary state then proceeded to create concentration camps, ethnic cleansing, drug wars, nuclear MAD-ness and economic exploitation of the planet to the point of environmental collapse). Meanwhile the universe moves on to a grand heat death, or cold death, whichever the case may be.

All very grand and noble. And in my opinion, a load of bunkum.

There is no explanation for the origin of life, no explanation for the nano machinery in the cell, no reason for a non-vertebrate creature to develop a backbone, no reason for asexual single celled creatures to develop sexual differences, no reason for phenomenal beauty to coexist with the mere urge to survival, no reason for life to begin in the first place by sheer chance, no reason for evolution to push the colossal migratory instincts of some species and not others. We have a decaying magnetic field for instance, which if historical measurments are a sign of continuity, posits an absolute maximum age of about 20,000 years.

There is no reason for morals to develop by sheer chance, and there is one hell of a lot of gaps in the so-called transitional record.

There is evidence of a collossal catastrophe at some time (thousands of snap frozen mammoths, and mass deposits of billions of fossils. And what might be called civilised human history appears to be quite recent. Surprisingly the Biblical record, written by men isolated from most of the rest of the world, indicates that men would be all over the earth divided by linguistic differences, as the European “explorer’s” rediscovered thousands of years later.

DNA appears to be extraordinarily persistent for a chemical reaction, with alleged examples of specific continuity running into the millions of years, despite the tendency to negative mutations.

My own belief, personally, is that the earth was created “in situ” about 10,000 years or so ago, and that many of the features of the fossil record and geological record fit the criteria of a massive world wide catastrophe.

On the other hand, I’m not interested in the literal 7 day stuff, for the simple reason it’s not important. If the earth is young, then there is no other option but “God made it”. The “7 day” bit is unprovable, and I couldn’t care less whether it’s true or not.

Personally I think there’s a fundamental flaw in dating. Whether light has slowed down, or whether there is some other factor at work, I don’t know. But I’d need a lot more evidence before I became convinced evolution is true, regardless of what the Pope’s advisors might think.

 

[Matthias123]

liquidpele;5855248:

I waiting for “science” to show me the links. All you’ve got so far, in the birds evolution debate for example, is one true bird with teeth (Archeopteryx) and a few repitilian fossils with feathers. Where’s the rest of the evidence, filling in the enormous gaps?

The rest is HYPOTHETICAL CONJECTURE. I can do that too, as can any good story teller. For example, a lot of people believed in the Da Vinci code when it came out, not because it stood on irrefutable evidence, but because it was told well.

What we have in the evolution debate is another Grand Myth. The singularity exploded, then slowly the stars and planets formed, then by the milionth of a millionth chance, the beginnings of life formed, then by an even more herculean struggle it “evolved” till it reached it’s highest form in Man (who in his high evolutionary state then proceeded to create concentration camps, ethnic cleansing, drug wars, nuclear MAD-ness and economic exploitation of the planet to the point of environmental collapse). Meanwhile the universe moves on to a grand heat death, or cold death, whichever the case may be.

All very grand and noble. And in my opinion, a load of bunkum.

There is no explanation for the origin of life, no explanation for the nano machinery in the cell, no reason for a non-vertebrate creature to develop a backbone, no reason for asexual single celled creatures to develop sexual differences, no reason for phenomenal beauty to coexist with the mere urge to survival, no reason for life to begin in the first place by sheer chance, no reason for evolution to push the colossal migratory instincts of some species and not others. We have a decaying magnetic field for instance, which if historical measurments are a sign of continuity, posits an absolute maximum age of about 20,000 years.

There is no reason for morals to develop by sheer chance, and there is one hell of a lot of gaps in the so-called transitional record.

There is evidence of a collossal catastrophe at some time (thousands of snap frozen mammoths, and mass deposits of billions of fossils. And what might be called civilised human history appears to be quite recent. Surprisingly the Biblical record, written by men isolated from most of the rest of the world, indicates that men would be all over the earth divided by linguistic differences, as the European “explorer’s” rediscovered thousands of years later.

DNA appears to be extraordinarily persistent for a chemical reaction, with alleged examples of specific continuity running into the millions of years, despite the tendency to negative mutations.

My own belief, personally, is that the earth was created “in situ” about 10,000 years or so ago, and that many of the features of the fossil record and geological record fit the criteria of a massive world wide catastrophe.

On the other hand, I’m not interested in the literal 7 day stuff, for the simple reason it’s not important. If the earth is young, then there is no other option but “God made it”. The “7 day” bit is unprovable, and I couldn’t care less whether it’s true or not.

Personally I think there’s a fundamental flaw in dating. Whether light has slowed down, or whether there is some other factor at work, I don’t know. But I’d need a lot more evidence before I became convinced evolution is true, regardless of what the Pope’s advisors might think.

You are certainly free to believe this of course. I would suggest though that if someone finds that your personal beliefs are an obstacle to embracing the Catholic faith, you would suggest that the views you hold are not doctrine. Some people would find this to be an obstacle.

 

[tjm190]

Personally I think there’s a fundamental flaw in dating. Whether light has slowed down, or whether there is some other factor at work, I don’t know. But I’d need a lot more evidence before I became convinced evolution is true, regardless of what the Pope’s advisors might think.

You’ve already alloted yourself the power to deny the accuracy of current methods with no cause, other than the fact that they hurt your current beliefs. There is less evidence for such massive variations in the speed of light than there is for the existence of unicorns.
(This is not hyperbole: here-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Einhorn-Guericke.jpg- is my evidence for unicorns. That is more than you that you’re going to find for variations in the speed of light)

 

[buffalo]

liquidpele;5855248:

But I’d need a lot more evidence before I became convinced evolution is true, regardless of what the Pope’s advisors might think.

The Pontifical Academy of Atheists?

 

[liquidpele]

I waiting for “science” to show me the links. All you’ve got so far, in the birds evolution debate for example, is one true bird with teeth (Archeopteryx) and a few repitilian fossils with feathers. Where’s the rest of the evidence, filling in the enormous gaps?

The rest is HYPOTHETICAL CONJECTURE. I can do that too, as can any good story teller. For example, a lot of people believed in the Da Vinci code when it came out, not because it stood on irrefutable evidence, but because it was told well.

What we have in the evolution debate is another Grand Myth. The singularity exploded, then slowly the stars and planets formed, then by the milionth of a millionth chance, the beginnings of life formed, then by an even more herculean struggle it “evolved” till it reached it’s highest form in Man (who in his high evolutionary state then proceeded to create concentration camps, ethnic cleansing, drug wars, nuclear MAD-ness and economic exploitation of the planet to the point of environmental collapse). Meanwhile the universe moves on to a grand heat death, or cold death, whichever the case may be.

All very grand and noble. And in my opinion, a load of bunkum.

There is no explanation for the origin of life, no explanation for the nano machinery in the cell, no reason for a non-vertebrate creature to develop a backbone, no reason for asexual single celled creatures to develop sexual differences, no reason for phenomenal beauty to coexist with the mere urge to survival, no reason for life to begin in the first place by sheer chance, no reason for evolution to push the colossal migratory instincts of some species and not others. We have a decaying magnetic field for instance, which if historical measurments are a sign of continuity, posits an absolute maximum age of about 20,000 years.

There is no reason for morals to develop by sheer chance, and there is one hell of a lot of gaps in the so-called transitional record.

There is evidence of a collossal catastrophe at some time (thousands of snap frozen mammoths, and mass deposits of billions of fossils. And what might be called civilised human history appears to be quite recent. Surprisingly the Biblical record, written by men isolated from most of the rest of the world, indicates that men would be all over the earth divided by linguistic differences, as the European “explorer’s” rediscovered thousands of years later.

DNA appears to be extraordinarily persistent for a chemical reaction, with alleged examples of specific continuity running into the millions of years, despite the tendency to negative mutations.

My own belief, personally, is that the earth was created “in situ” about 10,000 years or so ago, and that many of the features of the fossil record and geological record fit the criteria of a massive world wide catastrophe.

On the other hand, I’m not interested in the literal 7 day stuff, for the simple reason it’s not important. If the earth is young, then there is no other option but “God made it”. The “7 day” bit is unprovable, and I couldn’t care less whether it’s true or not.

Personally I think there’s a fundamental flaw in dating. Whether light has slowed down, or whether there is some other factor at work, I don’t know. But I’d need a lot more evidence before I became convinced evolution is true, regardless of what the Pope’s advisors might think.

Well, you mixed about 10 different fields of study in the beginning of your post, so I’ll just ignore that.

If you think there is a fundamental flaw in dating, it’s because you don’t know basic chemistry. When you prove a half life is not a half life, wake me and I’ll be interested.

asa3.org/ASA/RESOURCES/WIENS.html

As for morals/abiogenesis/whatever, if you have specific questions just ask. I’ll be glad to tell you what I think. I imagine you don’t want to hear it though.

 

[StAnastasia]

Ah yes, they are all like that. Please stop with the generalizations.Peace,Ed

OK, “You are like that.” I didn’t generalize that time.

 

[StAnastasia]

My own belief, personally, is that the earth was created “in situ” about 10,000 years or so ago, and that many of the features of the fossil record and geological record fit the criteria of a massive world wide catastrophe.

My own belief, personally, is that the earth was created last Thursday by a triune effort between the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, and Santa Claus, and that many of the features of the fossil record and geological record fit the criteria of a massive world wide catastrophe on Saturday.

 

[rossum]

I waiting for “science” to show me the links. All you’ve got so far, in the birds evolution debate for example, is one true bird with teeth (Archeopteryx) and a few repitilian fossils with feathers. Where’s the rest of the evidence, filling in the enormous gaps?

You are either being lied to by your creationist sources or you are ignorant. Ignorance is curable by study. You can start by studying Ichthyornis, a toothed bird that lacked the bony tail of Archaeopteryx. Ichthyornis and its fellow Odontornithes (you can study them as well) are all birds with teeth. Your claim that we only have “one true bird with teeth” is false, and should be withdrawn. Please acknowledge that science knows of more than one true bird with teeth. You have made an error, no doubt inadvertently; it would be right for you to withdraw your incorrect statement.

To summarise the evolution of birds, we have examples of all of the following stages:

                    Feathers   Flight   Bony Tail   Teeth
                    --------   ------   ---------   -----
Dinosaurs            No         No       Yes         Yes
Feathered Dinos      Yes        No       Yes         Yes
Archaeopteryx        Yes        Yes      Yes         Yes
Early Birds          Yes        Yes      No          Yes
Modern Birds         Yes        Yes      No          No

And in my opinion, a load of bunkum.

Your personal opinion carries no weight in science. In science only evidence carries weight.

There is no explanation for the origin of life,

Creationism has no explanation for the origin of life, and indeed often refuses to recognise that such a question is legitimate. Science does not have a complete explanation, but it is currently working on putting together such an explanation. We already have some of the pieces.

There is evidence of a collossal catastrophe at some time (thousands of snap frozen mammoths, and mass deposits of billions of fossils.

Again, your creationist sources are lying to you. Why do you give credence to liars? They will only lead you into error. There are many frozen mammoths dating from different times, not all from the same time. There are many fossils dating from different times. Some of those fossils were caught and buried in sandstorms; what does that tell you about the particular catastrophe they were caught in?

My own belief, personally, is that the earth was created “in situ” about 10,000 years or so ago, and that many of the features of the fossil record and geological record fit the criteria of a massive world wide catastrophe.

You can believe that the moon is made of green cheese if you want to. Your beliefs do not change reality.

Personally I think there’s a fundamental flaw in dating.

In post #107 liquidpele pointed you to Roger Wein’s article “Radiometric Dating - A Christian Perspective”. Please study that article and point out to us where this “fundamental flaw” is.

Whether light has slowed down,

It has not. The speed of light has been measured constant for the last 10 billion years. It was very probably constant for another two billion years before that, but the measurements are not yet quite accurate enough to rule out a very small change of less than 0.0001% between 10 and 12 billion years ago. Some more study for you I’m afraid - look up the “fine structure constant”.

But I’d need a lot more evidence before I became convinced evolution is true, regardless of what the Pope’s advisors might think.

There is ample evidence for evolution, astronomy, geology, physics and cosmology; enough to establish them beyond reasonable doubt. There will never be enough evidence to establish them beyond unreasonable doubt.

rossum

 

[redneck22]

What “populations” of animals are in the process of evolving/changing RIGHT NOW… Millions of years have gone by…I guess we’ll have to wait Millions more to find out.

If you subscribe to the theory of evolution you will believe that whales were once creatures that roamed the land and for some survival purpose went it the sea. Their nose hole went to the top of their head, their teets became specifically designed to stop seawater and milk mixing, otherwise their young would die (and evolution would stop dead), and their tales became fishy fins etc etc the story goes on and on and on.

Now when people help whales who beach themselves, by pushing them back to the ocean, they are stopping evolution. Since the whales remember being land creatures and now want to go back.

 

[Bob_Crowley]

I went looking for AIG’s comments on early bird fossils.

I found the following link which indicates the early bird fossils were found in the same sediment as dinosaurs. They were also fully formed birds, not transitional species. Archeopteryx had teeth, but so what? Some fish have beaks eg. Parrot fish, whereas most have teeth.

answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v3/n4/early-bird

From Creation Wiki - This might be “quote mining”, but when the paleontological experts themselves are admitting they have hardly any transitional fossils, why should I believe that “Evolution is proved”?

"Absence of fossil forms

There are over one hundred million identified and catalogued fossils currently in the world’s museums.[3] If macroevolution happened, then there should be “transitional forms” in the fossil record that show the intermediate life forms. Another term for these “transitional forms” is “missing links”. If young earth creationism is true then there should be a lack of transitional forms or at the very least there should be merely a handful of disputed transitional fossils.

Charles Darwin himself stated that the evolutionary theory required the existence of “transitional forms.” Darwin wrote: “So that the number of intermediate and transitional links, between all living and extinct species, must have been inconceivably great. But assuredly, if this theory be true, such have lived upon the earth.” [4] However, Darwin wrote: “Why then is not every geological formation and every strata full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely-graduated organic chain; and this perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against my theory.” [5] Darwin thought the lack of transitional links in his time was because

“ only a small portion of the surface of the earth has been geologically explored and no part with sufficient care…".[6] ”

Darwin’s theory of evolution required that transitional forms exist. As Charles Darwin became older, however, he became increasingly concerned about this lack of evidence in regards to the fossil record. Darwin wrote,

“ When we descend to details, we cannot prove that a single species has changed; nor can we prove that the supposed changes are beneficial, which is the groundwork of the theory.[7] ”

Evolutionist Michael Denton further stated:

“ It is still, as it was in Darwin’s day, overwhelmingly true that the first representatives of all the major classes of organisms known to biology are already highly characteristic of their class when they make their initial appearance in the fossil record. This phenomenon is particularly obvious in the case of the invertebrate fossil record. At its first appearance in the ancient paleozoic seas, invertebrate life was already divided into practically all the major groups with which we are familiar today.[8] ”

Creation scientists state that evolutionists have had over 140 years to find a transitional fossil and nothing approaching a conclusive transitional form has ever been found and that only a handful of highly doubtful examples of transitional fossils exist.[9][10]

Noted anthropologist Edmund Ronald Leach stated,

“ Missing links in the sequence of fossil evidence were a worry to Darwin. He felt sure they would eventually turn up, but they are still missing and seem likely to remain so.[11] ”

“Evolution requires intermediate forms between species and paleontology does not provide them…” wrote David B. Kitts of the School of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Oklahoma.[12]

David Raup, who was the curator of geology at the museum holding the world’s largest fossil collection (the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago), observed: “[Darwin] was embarrassed by the fossil record because it didn’t look the way he predicted it would… Well, we are now about 120 years after Darwin, and knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded. We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the situation hasn’t changed much… [W]e have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin’s time.” (David M. Raup, “Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology,” Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin 50 (January 1979): 22-23, 24-25)

One of the most famous proponents of evolution was the late Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. But Gould admitted, "The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life’s history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection, we view our data as so bad that we never see the very process we profess to study.[13] In a 1977 paper titled “The Return of Hopeful Monsters”, Gould wrote: “All paleontologists know that the fossil record contains precious little in the way of intermediate forms; transitions between major groups are characteristically abrupt.”[14]

The senior paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History, Dr. Colin Patterson, put it this way: “Gould and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no transitional fossils.”[15]

 

[Bob_Crowley]

If you subscribe to the theory of evolution you will believe that whales were once creatures that roamed the land and for some survival purpose went it the sea. Their nose hole went to the top of their head, their teets became specifically designed to stop seawater and milk mixing, otherwise their young would die (and evolution would stop dead), and their tales became fishy fins etc etc the story goes on and on and on.

Now when people help whales who beach themselves, by pushing them back to the ocean, they are stopping evolution. Since the whales remember being land creatures and now want to go back.

And their teeth or whatever they used to eat with on land majestically sprouted into massive rows of baleen so they could eat plankton, which they had no access to on land.

Looks like the killer whales must have followed them in though, side by side. But they decided to keep their teeth. No claws anymore to grab anything though. They must have developed good fins very fast.

Plus sonar… don’t forget that development for a place where you can’t see very far.

And they preferred the chilly Antarctic and Arctic seas to the warmth of the original humid forests. Plus deep diving half a mile on a single breath to get at those big squid they’d never seen before. Amazing what blind chance will do when it gets a chance.

Reminds me of the shark who gave a sick squid a ride, to the squid’s mortified surprise. It was short lived though. He swam up to his mate the Sperm Whale, and said, “Hey, Bert, here’s the sick squid I owe you”.

 

[rossum]

Now when people help whales who beach themselves, by pushing them back to the ocean, they are stopping evolution. Since the whales remember being land creatures and now want to go back.

Now when people help rescue others who are buried by landslides, they are going against creationism because they are just going back to the earth they were created from.

One ridiculous argument deserves another.

rossum

 

[rossum]

I went looking for AIG’s comments on early bird fossils.

AiG is not a reliable source. They expressly state that they are going to ignore any evidence that they disagree with. Here is an excerpt from their Statement of Faith:4 6 By definition, no apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the scriptural record. Of primary importance is the fact that evidence is always subject to interpretation by fallible people who do not possess all information.

Source: AiG Statement of Faith

I found the following link which indicates the early bird fossils were found in the same sediment as dinosaurs. They were also fully formed birds, not transitional species.

How is this a problem? Some Dinosaurs evolved feathers while other Dinosaurs did not. Some of the feathered Dinosaurs evolved into birds while others did not. There were non-feathered Dinosaurs, feathered Dinosaurs and birds all alive at the same time.

Archeopteryx had teeth, but so what?

You yourself said that Archaeopteryx was a bird with teeth. No modern birds have teeth. Having teeth makes Archaeopteryx a transitional between toothed feathered dinosaurs and toothless feathered birds. There is a lot more detailed evidence available should you want to go to a site with complete information rather than one with deliberately limited information like AiG. You have, I presume, heard of ‘lying by omission’. Right up front, AiG tell you that they are going to lie to you by omission.

Darwin’s theory of evolution required that transitional forms exist.

It does, and they do. We have lots of transitionals. Do you remember that list of the Synapsid to Mammal transitional series I posted for you in my post #20. In case you have forgotten, here thay are againaleothyris, Clepsydrops, Archaeothyris, Varanops, Haptodus, Dimetrodon, Sphenacodon, Biarmosuchia, Procynosuchus, Dvinia (aka “Permocynodon”), Thrinaxodon, Cynognathus, Diademodon, Probelesodon, Probainognathus, Exaeretodon, Oligokyphus, Kayentatherium, Pachygenelus, Diarthrognathus, Adelobasileus cromptoni, Sinoconodon, Kuehneotherium, Eozostrodon, Morganucodon, Haldanodon, Peramus, Endotherium, Kielantherium, Aegialodon, Steropodon galmani, Vincelestes neuquenianus, Pariadens kirklandi, Kennalestes, Asioryctes, Cimolestes, Procerberus, Gypsonictops.
That is just one of the many series of transitionals we have. They are not as well known as Archaeopteryx, but they are still transitionals. We do have the transitionals - their existence is just one of those inconvenient pieces of data that AiG is hiding from you in their lying by omission.

One of the most famous proponents of evolution was the late Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. But Gould admitted, "The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life’s history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection, we view our data as so bad that we never see the very process we profess to study.

Quote-mining is another common creationist tactic - so common that it even has a name. You really are a perfect compendium of creationist bafflegab.

The reason quote-mining does not work is that you are trying to make people say things that the did not say - a bit like those glowing reviews posted outside theatres. As an example, I have prepared a quote-mine from the Bible:Sheep have souls:
“one soul of five hundred, both of the persons, and of the beeves, and of the asses, and of the sheep.” [KJV - Numbers 31:28]

Jesus was a sheep:
“John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God…’” [John 1:29]

Jesus only saves Israeli sheep:
“I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel” [Matthew 15:24]

These sheep hate their parents:
“For I have come to set a man against his father” [Matthew 10:35], [Luke 14:26]

They are all atheists:
“There is no God” [Psalms 14:1, 53:1]

It is quite amazing what you can “prove” with out of context and misinterpreted quotes. Your creationist quotes are about as convincing as my Bible quotes.

AiG are again lying by omission. Here is another quote from Stephen Gould:Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists - whether though design or stupidity, I do not know - as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups.

• S J Gould “Evolution as Fact and Theory” Discover Magazine May 1981.
  To quote your the authority you yourself cited, Stephen Gould, transitionals are “abundant”. No wonder AiG lied to you about that.

In brief, AiG are lying to you. You would be well advised to avoid websites that lie to you. You can do better than this.

rossum

 

[cassini]

If you subscribe to the theory of evolution you will believe that whales were once creatures that roamed the land and for some survival purpose went it the sea. Their nose hole went to the top of their head, their teets became specifically designed to stop seawater and milk mixing, otherwise their young would die (and evolution would stop dead), and their tales became fishy fins etc etc the story goes on and on and on.

Now when people help whales who beach themselves, by pushing them back to the ocean, they are stopping evolution. Since the whales remember being land creatures and now want to go back.

Thanks for this hilarious post Redneck, my understanding of evolutionism also.

A few points have come up on this thread that recent reading of mine might contribute to our understanding of the faith/‘science’ issue.

Where did science come from?
Paris, France, March 7 1277AD
What Happened?
A censorship of parts of Aristotle’s belief system.
Who was the censor? The ‘quality-controller’ was Etienne Tempier, Bishop of Paris.
Who was he answerable to?
The universal scholar Peter of Spain (Pope John XXI)
Who were censored?
The teachers at the Sorbonne, Paris University.
What did the censorship consist of?
Primarily, replacing Aristotle’s doctrine that the universe has always existed with the doctrine of the creation of the universe from nothing in finite time long ago.
ETERNALISM - Aristotle, the Pagan, reasoned correctly 'It is impossibler to make something out of nothing., thus concluded the world has always existed.
ANIMISM That the world is an animal.
PANTHEISM That the universe and God are one. Aristotle believed the ‘heavens’ were divine.
ASTROLOGY: That the stars determine happening on earth
CYCLIC HISTORY all repeats itself.
There was an amazing degree of agreement between all of the major ancient cultures with the above beliefs of Aristotle condemned by Bishop Templer the Roman Catholic. These included the Hindus, the Chinese, the Aztecs, the Egyptians, the Babnalonians, the Greeks etc. In all 219 propositions of Aristotle were condemned as false. Eternalism was replaced by the creation of the world out of nothing in time, the world was declared inanimate, God was declared separate from the world that He created out of nothing, astrology was forbidden as nonsense and the cyclic nature of history - that Aristotle believed was inevitable and thus investigation into this nature was useless - was replaced by a history starting at the creation point and proceeding along a straight line (rather than a circle) since the creation.

All of the above pagan beliefs were a hinderance to any progress in science so none of these cultures fostered any worthwhile progress in science. The Muslims could not get the balance right so their culture remained scientifically stagnant also. Thus it was only when Aristotle’s philosophy was cleansed by Catholic theology did real science begin.

Today of course ETERNALISM and CYCLIC HISTORY is back to keep God out of science.
Nothing new under the sun?

The next bit of news is evolutionists CYCLIC HISTORY repeating itself again. It is another of those great ‘MISSING-FOSSIL’ finds they so desperately need.

Remember IDA, hailed as the greatest fossil discovery of all time? David Attenborough was convinced that the missing link between humans and animals had been found. The newspapers and radio were alive with the news, books on it appeared no doubt, but most of all SCIENTIFIC REPUTATIONS were ENHANCED by the find of this fossilised Lemur . No doubt evolutionists on this thread were delighted also, another nail in the creationists coffin they thought.

But ‘experts (are there any experts in this field of evolutionists one could ask) from four US universities have concluded the fossil is not related to humans (I could have told them that) and appears to have no living relatives at all. Instead she is more like a lemur or another primate, a small loris.’

The article goes on: ‘If they are right (ha!) it will be a huger disappointment for those who were calling Ida the “eight wonder of the world”, an “evolutionary Rosetta Stone” and “our Mona Lisa” five months ago. The fossil - three feet tall and equipted with human-like eyes and thumbs - was feted as “the first link to all humans” when Dr Jorn Hurum of Oslo University introduced her inMay 2009. It was said that Ida, named after Dr Hurum’s young DAUGHTER, marked the point at which the evolutionary tree split into two groups - one with humans, apes and monkeys, the other with lemurs and bush babies.’

See all the ingredients of evolutionary imagination and fraud are present here also. Give the bones a HUMAN NAME, then spin out the ‘missing-link’ theory, collect the scientific honours and accolades that come with finding missing-links (there are none for 4 US university bone detectives who falsify such missing links).

Most of all, in these recessionary times, Dr Hurum will probably have to give back the cash bonus he probably earned as well as the rise in pay. You see it is really about WHO gets the well-paid JOBS in universities these days that keeps evolutionist ‘science’ going.

 

[redneck22]

And they preferred the chilly Antarctic and Arctic seas to the warmth of the original humid forests. Plus deep diving half a mile on a single breath to get at those big squid they’d never seen before. Amazing what blind chance will do when it gets a chance.

Keep in mind “Chance of the Gaps” is one the sharpest tools in the evolutionary arsenal. I’ve been cut by it many times.

Reminds me of the shark who gave a sick squid a ride, to the squid’s mortified surprise. It was short lived though. He swam up to his mate the Sperm Whale, and said, “Hey, Bert, here’s the sick squid I owe you”.

 

[Bob_Crowley]

AiG is not a reliable source. They expressly state that they are going to ignore any evidence that they disagree with. Here is an excerpt from their Statement of Faith:4 6 By definition, no apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the scriptural record. Of primary importance is the fact that evidence is always subject to interpretation by fallible people who do not possess all information.

Source: AiG Statement of Faith

How is this a problem? Some Dinosaurs evolved feathers while other Dinosaurs did not. Some of the feathered Dinosaurs evolved into birds while others did not. There were non-feathered Dinosaurs, feathered Dinosaurs and birds all alive at the same time.

You yourself said that Archaeopteryx was a bird with teeth. No modern birds have teeth. Having teeth makes Archaeopteryx a transitional between toothed feathered dinosaurs and toothless feathered birds. There is a lot more detailed evidence available should you want to go to a site with complete information rather than one with deliberately limited information like AiG. You have, I presume, heard of ‘lying by omission’. Right up front, AiG tell you that they are going to lie to you by omission.

It does, and they do. We have lots of transitionals. Do you remember that list of the Synapsid to Mammal transitional series I posted for you in my post #20. In case you have forgotten, here thay are againaleothyris, Clepsydrops, Archaeothyris, Varanops, Haptodus, Dimetrodon, Sphenacodon, Biarmosuchia, Procynosuchus, Dvinia (aka “Permocynodon”), Thrinaxodon, Cynognathus, Diademodon, Probelesodon, Probainognathus, Exaeretodon, Oligokyphus, Kayentatherium, Pachygenelus, Diarthrognathus, Adelobasileus cromptoni, Sinoconodon, Kuehneotherium, Eozostrodon, Morganucodon, Haldanodon, Peramus, Endotherium, Kielantherium, Aegialodon, Steropodon galmani, Vincelestes neuquenianus, Pariadens kirklandi, Kennalestes, Asioryctes, Cimolestes, Procerberus, Gypsonictops.
That is just one of the many series of transitionals we have. They are not as well known as Archaeopteryx, but they are still transitionals. We do have the transitionals - their existence is just one of those inconvenient pieces of data that AiG is hiding from you in their lying by omission.

Quote-mining is another common creationist tactic - so common that it even has a name. You really are a perfect compendium of creationist bafflegab.

The reason quote-mining does not work is that you are trying to make people say things that the did not say - a bit like those glowing reviews posted outside theatres. As an example, I have prepared a quote-mine from the Bible:Sheep have souls:
“one soul of five hundred, both of the persons, and of the beeves, and of the asses, and of the sheep.” [KJV - Numbers 31:28]

Jesus was a sheep:
“John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God…’” [John 1:29]

Jesus only saves Israeli sheep:
“I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel” [Matthew 15:24]

These sheep hate their parents:
“For I have come to set a man against his father” [Matthew 10:35], [Luke 14:26]

They are all atheists:
“There is no God” [Psalms 14:1, 53:1]

It is quite amazing what you can “prove” with out of context and misinterpreted quotes. Your creationist quotes are about as convincing as my Bible quotes.

AiG are again lying by omission. Here is another quote from Stephen Gould:Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists - whether though design or stupidity, I do not know - as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups.

• S J Gould “Evolution as Fact and Theory” Discover Magazine May 1981.
  To quote your the authority you yourself cited, Stephen Gould, transitionals are “abundant”. No wonder AiG lied to you about that.

In brief, AiG are lying to you. You would be well advised to avoid websites that lie to you. You can do better than this.

rossum

How about the quotes by your secular paleontologists, stating that they have a dearth of transitional fossils? These are highly qualified people, experts, admitting freely they haven’t got transitional fossils.

Take for example the sperm whale. Here we have a very large animal showing very specialised adjustments to its lifestyle, which includes bony protection for it’s air space to protect it for its deep diving for a specific prey, the large squid, and not a skerrick of evidence in the fossil record to show how it got there. The same for the blue whale and all the rest.

As far as I’m concerned the palaentologists have a lot of work to do to show me how these creatures got to their highly specialised state, if they really expect me to believe in “evolution”. WHen they then admit that they haven’t got the evidence, then as far as I’m concerned, they can keep their theory.

And “quote mining” is quite in order when it is in context, regardless of what AIG’s fundamentalist platform might be.

I don’t believe in evolution (“from goo to you”) because as far as I’m concerned the evidence isn’t there to support it. And it’s also impossible in statistical terms, knowing what we do about chemical reactions.