Is Darwin's Theory of Evolution True? Part 4.1

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Yes, I find it mighty strange that Europeans -one of the most advanced civilisations - only discovered the existence of the Americas 500 years ago.
 
Bradskii said:
But gee, as Hugh I think said, it gives some of us a really good laugh when people take it seriously. The rest of the world looks on and laughs.
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No doubt, they all laughed at Noah too - until the flood came.
 
Whether you chose to believe in the Bible or not is another matter. I merely pointed out that your suggestion that Noah’s Flood is allegory is contrary to how the accont is presented to the reader. The writer of Genesis obviously intended the text to be read at literal history.
 
Except they didn’t. It was already discovered by Vikings, and the Europeans you’re talking about had pretty recently come out of the Dark Ages. And it’s not an issue of technology-- they’ve had boats capable of crossing the Atlantic for thousands of years.
 
No, that’s not obvious at all. There are at least two more interpretations: 1) it was an allegory; 2) the numbers are numerological rather than historical.

We also don’t know the significance of those dates to people of the writer’s culture. Some dates may already have been considered prophetic or significant.
 
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rossum said:
Archaeopterys is an excellent example of a transitional between larger groups. In this case between Theropod dinosaurs and the Aves (birds). A transitional fossil contains a mix of characteristics from the earlier group and from the later group, which Archaeopteryx does: flight is characteristic of birds, while teeth and a bony tail are characteristic of dinosaurs.

Archaeopteryx has all three…
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My point is despite having similarities of physical or functional characteristics, that in itself is insufficient to prove that A descended from B. At most one can claim that A has some characteristics of B. When the term transitional is used, it creates an illusion that something descended from another organism when in fact nothing has been proven. Perhaps intermediate may be a more apt description. It could be that some of the major groups have similarities even among themselves without having a common ancestor. In the Cambrian explosion, suddenly new groups just appear without precursors. And multiplied again in the Ordovician radiation.
 
Hugh_Farey said:
Arranged in terms of broad morphological similarity, the evolution of birds from reptiles over 70 or 80 million years looks continuous and unbroken.
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The question I’d ask is whether this is the appropriate method to establish descendancy? One based upon looks or function and not on paternal/maternal evidences? Surely that would fail most tests?

If nature is indeed blind and random, one should expect multitudes of groups that may exhibit similar looks/feel (by chance) but in fact has no relation with each other , other than sharing common building blocks. Nature would just output variations continuously, many will go extinct because the traits didn’t survive the challenge. But connecting dots or jigsaw puzzles with such fossils is bad science based upon familiar looks.
 
A couple of Creationist axioms here which I’d like to know more about.

Buffalo: you’ve mentioned several times that you think ‘adaptation’ can only be a destructive process - recently modified to “Natural selection is now understood to be a conservative process, not a creative one.” Well not by me it isn’t. So who, do you think, pretends that evolution/adaptation only involves destruction rather than improvement? Can you help, or is it too deeply entrenched now to be unearthed?

Glark: Allegorical stories don’t feature very precise chronological details. Have you any evidence to suggest that this is generally true? Most of Jesus’s parables contain precise details, some of them chronological.

And an old favourite…
Ericc: Stop going on about proof. We’ve managed to teach some of your fellow Creationists that this is a wholly wrong conception of Scientific discovery, and it’s time you learnt it too. We know very well that a row of fossils with gradually differing characteristics is not ‘proof’ of anything. That’s not how evolution, or any science, works. Science is a coherent comprehensive explanation of observed phenomena, and evolution is the best explanation of the observed phenomena of fossils and the living world. Creationism is a very poor explanation.
 
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ericc said:
it creates an illusion that something descended from another organism when in fact nothing has been proven.
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In science very little is “proven”. Newton’s theory of gravity was never “proven”; which is just as well since it was replaced by Einstein’s theory of General Relativity. That too is not proven and it will in due course be replaced by a better theory. Currently scientists are working on Quantum Gravity to replace Einstein.

Science has evidence. Newton had evidence for his theory. Einstein had better evidence for GR and the eventual theory of Quantum Gravity will have better evidence still.

Science has evidence that Archaeopteryx is transitional between birds and dinosaurs. Features of their skeletons link them. Protein sequences link them: T. rex collagen is closest to modern chicken. Feathers link them.

If you want to show that Archaeopteryx is not a transitional fossil then you need to show us your contradicting evidence. No need for proof, just the evidence please.

rossum
 
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benjamin1973 said:
Except they didn’t. It was already discovered by Vikings, and the Europeans you’re talking about had pretty recently come out of the Dark Ages. And it’s not an issue of technology-- they’ve had boats capable of crossing the Atlantic for thousands of years.
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Dark ages do not mean backwards. They are called dark because we do not have much information on that period.
 
Hugh_Farey said:
Buffalo: you’ve mentioned several times that you think ‘adaptation’ can only be a destructive process - recently modified to “Natural selection is now understood to be a conservative process, not a creative one.” Well not by me it isn’t. So who, do you think, pretends that evolution/adaptation only involves destruction rather than improvement? Can you help, or is it too deeply entrenched now to be unearthed?
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Conservative does not necessarily mean destructive. NS conserves the organisms kind by limited variation within.
 
[If you want to show that Archaeopteryx is not a transitional fossil then you need to show us your contradicting evidence. No need for proof, just the evidence please.]

post 1931 and 1932 show some latest thinking…
 
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Hugh_Farey said:
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Richca:
For example, did the sacred writer combine some historical fact with some non-historical details? I don’t know but I never assume some text of scripture is not literally true or historical unless there is a very good reason for believing otherwise.
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Fair enough. In this case there is indeed a very good reason for believing otherwise.
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Maybe so. But the same can and must be said about the evolutionary tale of microbe to man that without miracles there are indeed many very good reasons for believing otherwise.
 
Richca said:
Maybe so. But the same can and must be said about the evolutionary tale of microbe to man that without miracles there are indeed many very good reasons for believing otherwise.
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I have yet to come across any that suggest spontaneous creation is better.
 
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Which line is longer?

We can be fooled by what we observe.
 
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Did I say Dark Ages meant “backwards”? Nope, that didn’t happen.

The fact is that we know FOR SURE that there were Europeans in North America long before Columbus got there. I mean-- there are settlements.

We also know that there were people in North America when Columbus arrived, and had been for tens of thousands of years. He didn’t discover ANYTHING, except in terms of the rather poorly-kept historical records of his day.
 
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