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Comments · 14
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Re:ATTENTION CREATIONISTS!
it has copious interlocking evidence on many different levels supporting the theory.
Interlocking false premises, which result from biased interpretations of observations. Studying the unknown past is fraught with pitfalls. Read The Parable of the Candle.
Then we can glance at the fossil record and see that speciation long predates the presence of humanity which is contrary to your assertion and goes back to very simple organisms. This also brings up the point of how old the Earth is. Concensus is that it's between 4 and 5 billions years old based on examination of rocks from the Earth, Moon, and elsewhere in the Solar System (usually in the form of meteorites). Some creationists claim the Earth is as young as 6,000 years old despite copious evidence to the contrary.
*sigh* This is what I'm talking about. Khallow, you've got to unlearn so much of what you think you know before you can begin to see that our observations are in line with the history that the Holy Bible describes. In fact, they make sense only in light of Biblical accounts. See this article about fast fossils (more at Fossils FAQ).
More it seems the disagreement [between creationists and the ID movement] is in how the argument is pursued.
I think that's it. For Biblical creationists, the Bible is the foremost and clearest authority on how the earth came to be. The waging of a campaign to "fight the good fight" wherein invoking God is taboo and quoting the Bible is off-limits is offensive to some creationists. Moreover, it is seen as possibly being non-productive, as the ultimate goal in creationism is to see more people put their trust in a specific, identifiable, creative God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, and accept His gift of salvation that was made possible by sending His Son, the Messiah, to die for our sins on a cross.
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this is intresting
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Patents are atheistic
As a righteous, God-fearing Christian nation, the United States of America cannot allow patents to abide on her fair soil.
The heathen Japanese may do as they like, but right-thinking Americans know that all things were invented first by the Intelligent Design of the Almighty. Honor thy father and thy mother, and no sinful man shall lay claim to that which belongs to his Creator. Do not commit the sin of pride an imagine that you have seen what God could not. Amen. -
Re:Common sense, for the love of Pete...
There presumably isn't anybody who's responsible for the poor design of sex
Infidel! -
Re:free speech has a costReligious zealots do not like science, because there is no 'believing' involved.
Actually, many Christians have contributed to science throughout the ages. And in the spirit of modern science, I will back up my statement with references so you can have the opportunity to check them out.
Christian Influences in the Sciences
Keppler
Review of "The Galileo Connection"
Scientific Facts and Christian Faith: Are they compatible?I especially liked the last article. The quotes provided at the end truly sum up my feelings on science and faith.
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Re:Dawkins and Berlinski
Yes! I highly recommend Dawkins, especially The Blind Watchmaker and Climbing Mount Improbable.
It's interesting that one of the authors recommended by so many on this thread, David Berlinski, is as famous for writing The Deniable Darwin as he is for A Tour of the Calculus.
You can also read replies to his article in Commentary (including one from Dawkins).
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Darwin and Racism
There are some ugly points about the implications of Darwin's book (full title: "On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life") which are not mentioned in this review. If you're going to examine Darwin and the results of his theory, you need to know things were not all rosy.
First, the horrific case of Ota Benga.
A well written summary of the dark side here. Look in that section for the bit about how Aborigines were targetted for extermination. -
Re:Too BadAnd note Woodmorappe's refutation of Morton's paper (the work cited at talkorigins) is also available for your study. And as mentioned, since Woodmorappe's book alone has over 1400 references, this is a topic for an entire board, not one topic on
> He spends very little space describing how these animals could have
> survived out in the turbulent flood waters.
False. I have a whole chapter addressing, among other things, the frivolous "turbulent water problem"--to the extent that this anti-Creationist charge has any coherence at all.
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Foundations, polystrata, three stars, a question
I've often wondered why so many evolutionists are reluctant to question their foundations. Thanks for clearing that up for me!
Maybe I can clear it up a little further.
Or not....
"Questioning my foundations" is what led me to reject creationism, and favor evolution, in the first place.
And so what happened? You seem to have either stopped questioning too early, or to have based your conclusion on the strength or weakness of some individual's position, rather than on the strength or weakness of the available evidence itself.
I started my thinking life as an evolutionist. I upset Mum badly one day (but she didn't show it then or ever) by mentioning some one-line wisdom I'd heard to her in a 'phone conversation: `a man needs religion like a fish needs a bicycle.' She started praying for me that day (and asked her church to as well), said nothing to me, and within two months I was studying the Bible, history and science with a variety of people and within six months was a committed Christian - although in such a completely different branch of Christianity to hers that I think Mum died not completely convinced that her prayers had been answered.
One advantage that I've had is in directly witnessing several supernatural events, through my association at the time with a `white' witch (the basic difference is in purpose, not in methods). One of those takes a while to describe, involved two other sober people, and was deeply shocking. Another was watching some books leap out of a book-case unaided (I checked the book-case and books (and wall) all over, inside and out, carefully, and made sure that there was no mechanical trickery here) and several meters across the room. Even without that advantage, you can turn to one of the very many events which were clearly supernatural, witnessed by many people, and well documented (Lloyds subsequently came back at $500 PA and extended coverage to Guyana).
I suspect that such events are not more prevalent today for several reasons, foremost among which are (1) any diety interested in wholehearted allegience would probably want it to depend on that nature of that diety, rather than on a `sugar-daddy' stream of miracles, and (2) there is apparently more than one source (direct or indirect) of supernatural effects, which opens the field more widely to fraud.
I'd presumed upon the millions-of-years thing myself, and polystratic fossils are one of the more graphic and convincing observations which overturned that presumption for me. Of course, sans millions of years, materialism doesn't even give the appearence of being in the running.
For example: the Yellowstone trees (so often cited as evidence of life over millions of years) combined with dendrochronology (also so often cited as proof of excessive amounts of time) are actually a fairly clear witness to the absence of those years, for the Yellowstone fossils are not only polystratic and bedded on different strata but also grew contemporaneously and show strong symptoms of having been emplaced by a mechanism essentially identical to that observed in Spirit Lake after the eruption.
There are many, many other good polystratic examples to
hand, including inclined trees, and also many half-hearted attempts to explain them away. One of the common `counterexamples' is a set of lycopods with root systems; an examination of the available samples indicates that these trees grew floating, or at least on an extremely spongey substrate, so it is reasonable to expect them to be disturbed and embedded complete with roots. Even ignoring this, it is still most unreasonable to expect even relatively short (1.2m, in the worst case) stumps to be fossilised upright and intact in an evolutionary scenario.
It is the height of arrogance to assume that someone is closed minded just because they have reached a conclusion different from yours.
Yah, and the height of stupidity as well. Given the number of viewpoints in the world, simple arithmetic tells you that most or all of your (and my) opinions are globally wrong in some way. (-:
...and don't get me started on `contextually wrong'! (-:
After all, if we hold a view, it's usually because we think it is correct. Each side would do well to remember that this is true of the other side as well. I can't count the number of times I've been guilty of this error myself.
If I was a Wemmick, I'd give you at least three stars for that statement. (-:
Food-for-thought time.
Five-year-old Mary was obliged to undergo an operation, and lost so much blood that it was necessary to resort to blood transfusion. The blood of thirteen-year-old brother Jimmy was found by test to match exactly the little patient's. "Will you give your sister some of your blood, Jim?" asked the doctor. Jimmy set his teeth. "Yes, sir, if she needs it." He was prepared for the transfusion. In the midst of the drawing of the blood, the doctor observed Jimmy growing paler and paler. "Are you ill, Jim?" he asked. "No, sir, but I'm wondering just when I'll die." "Die?" gasped the doctor. "Do you think people give their lives when they give a little blood?" "Yes, sir," replied Jimmy. "And you are giving your life for Mary's?" "Yes, sir," replied Jimmy.
Mary and Jimmy are pseudonyms, but the story is true. If you had been Jimmy, would you have done the same? -
Explanatory power, hammer, canyons, Patterson
Odd that you should choose that example (you're good at this), because the `theory of gravity' only matches what gravity does, it can't actually say why it does what it does. It says `gravity does this' and stops before getting to the `because' part. Same goes for theories of magnetism. The theory of evolution, despite its amazing flexibility, does not explain the data. For example, turtles have nice hard shells that fossilise readily, and indeed we have plenty of turtle fossils - but no fossils at all of proto-turtles, half-formed turtles. Nothing markedly different from the turtles that swim past a few kilometers east of me right now. Pulling the `unlucky' gag about the incompleteness of the fossil record won't wash, because - as I said - we have plenty of turtle fossils... and the same goes for many other species.`Well-supported' means that there is much evidence to back it. Evolution has had much opinion, much theory and much modelling grow up around it but essentially zero actual hard evidence in support of it being right.
Well, despite your claims, there is overwhelming evidence that evolution occurs. And the theory of evolution explains the data. Just like the theory of gravity explains the effects of gravity.
No, I use science to deal with science. You are the one subcategorising everything and wriggling like a worm on the hook instead of giving straight answers. You don't seem to have understood the point about explanatory power. If it explains too much, then it shows that it has really explained nothing. If it is so flexible that it will fit anything, then it is also so weak that it cannot support anything.One of the big problems with evolution is that it can be bent to fit almost any circumstance, almost any evidence. In other words, it has very little - if any - actual
Well, you are the one trying to use a theory in the field of biology for questions dealing with geology (see below), or Adolph Hitler
explanatory power.About Pattersons lecture. Everything he wrote before and after that time supports evolution. So I expect that it is an out of context quote, an opening dialog meant to be contraversial to get their audiences attention.
Suspect all you like, then go read the docs. Patterson was indeed troubled to the depths of his heart (read a lot more context here) by what he could see. His faith was not as string as Lewin's - or, come to think of it, as the other participants in the Wistar series:After a particularly telling paper by Marcel Shutzenberger of the University of Paris, the chairman of the gathering, C.H. Waddington, said, "Your argument is simply that life must have come about by special creation!" The stenographer records, "Schutzenberger: No! Voices: No!" Anything but creation; it wasn't even fair (in spite of the evidence!) to bring up the word. --
No materialist prejudice here, is there?
Facts of Life , Page 21 (quote from the transcript)Well, I don't know what an evolutionist would do with this but I could guess. When I ask them about evolution the only answer I get from them is, "Convergence is everywhere." -- Pattersen again
Oh yes, Baughs famous hammer. Typical creationist "Evidence". A 19th century miners hammer encased in soluble minerals.
You say that very simply, as you do with many things, but how was that actually done? The report you link says things like `Well-preserved wood from Mesozoic or Paleozoic formations would not be expected to have such an appearance' - as if the entire situation were expected. As it turns out, wood just sticking out of the ground in France, and wood embedded in Hawkesbury sandstone (ie, neither sample from `modern' times, the Hawkesbury at least double the `age', and see RAE for some other examples) was not mineralised either. In short, good effort but no definite conclusions. I do wish anyone but Baugh had it, he's not a very careful researcher at all - and a few other things.And Mt St Helens - you really cannot try to compare "canyons"
Were they indeed carved through hard rock? How do you know? Or is it materialist presumptions again? If Creation theory is correct, the rock the Grand Canyon was carved through was likely to have been not particularly hard at the time.
carved through ash to canyons carved in rock.Furthermore, evolution isn't supposed to explain these two things. Evolution is a theory in the field of biology, and those events are (other than fraudulent or deceptive) in the field of geology.
Yes, they are. But biological evolution has certain prerequisites, and these prerequisites can be eliminated by examining geology. Again, you are acting as if reality were partitionable at will to suit your needs. It isn't. It's all interconnected. Which, BTW, is another problem for evolution. -
Peering at reviews
I have seen no empirical evidence whatsoever, published in an accredited, peer-reviewed scientific journal, which supports any detail of the 'creation of the world' as described in the bible.
If it seems dark to you, it's because you're so far up yourself that you can't see out. (-:
Read these:
http://www.i5ive.com/article.cfm/christianity_scie nce/75915
http://www.visi.com/~contra_m/cm/reviews/cm06_rev_ creationists.html
http://mypage.direct.ca/w/writer/gish-response.htm l
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/538.asp
http://www.aaas.org/spp/dser/RESOURCE/WARMING.HTM
http://www.rae.org/censor.html
...then tell me why you expect such an article to be considered for publication. There are many more examples around if you want them.
Nevertheless, Robert V Gentry, Willem J Ouweneel and other Creationist authors have had material published in journals like Nuclear Physics, Science, Nature and Journal of Geophysical Research, including the odd snippet of material which might cast doubt on the ruling Darwinist ideology.
Quote:
On May 19, 1992 Humphreys submitted his article *"Compton scattering and the cosmic microwave background bumps" to the Scientific Correspondence section of the British journal Nature. The editorial staff knew Humphreys was a creationist and didn't want to publish it (even though the article did not contain any glaring creationist implications). The editorial staff didn't even want to send it through official peer review. Six months later Nature published an article by someone else on the same topic, having the same conclusions. Thus, most creationist researchers realize it is simply a waste of time to send journal editors openly creationist articles. To say that a "slight bias" exists on the part of journal editors would be an understatement.
There is a layman's version of the article on-line at ICR (ref 5 mentions Nature).
Any questions so far? -
They _have_ already come for us all
Ah, yes! The evil, black-helicoptered Scientific Orthodoxy! An army of jack-booted, blue-helmeted thugs, commanded by Persian-catted evil overlords in their concrete fortresses on the far side of the moon. They are coming for us. They are coming for us all.
Well, no. All that needs to happen, and it often does without specifically evil intent, is for papers to go unpublished often enough. And evidently they do. -
Clarificiation: organised religion
I don't like organized religion
Actually, if you look very closely at the problem, you'll find that the issue is generally the organisation, not the religion.
Here in Australia, we have unions, which may be somewhat different to American unions. Most unions here have gone from being a vital lever for employees to use against expliotative employers, to being exploitative self-serving bullies in their own right. Unions should serve freedom of choice, but they've actually reduced freedom of choice. This becomes clear when you see building sites covered with ``NO TICKET, NO START'' stickers. It's not as if the building companies have any choice left, and regardless of what the law says, the reality is that if you want to work on a large site, you must join a union and you must continue to obey the union.
It's almost the same in Science. In many disciplines, you must believe in ``natural history'' (ie a theory of origins which supports Atheism in particular) in order to hold a job. If you don't do this, even if you hold no particular religion, it becomes effectively impossible to publish in mainstream journals, regardless of the value [detailed] of your work.
This is a problem to do with people, and with the nature of mankind - about which religion has much to say, some of it true - not with the particular area of dispute.
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Re: Bilogical evolution is as much a factI believe you meant "biological" evolution.
Evolution is not "as much a fact as Physics". Physics has observable and proven laws. Evolution is still a theory for a reason. No one can find any proof for it. There are no inbetween forms - which should permeate the fossil layer if evolution were true.
Instead, we hear about archaeological evidence that supports stories in the Bible. But no one wants to believe the Bible because it's tied to Christianity and Christianity claims exclusivity to the Truth (capital T). The world doesn't believe in Truth anymore - everything is relative and subjective and there is no such thing as an absolute. However, the statement "There are no absolutes" is an absolute itself. because it absolutely denies the possibility of absolutes.
Try a website with real information. Take a look at www.x-nilo.org/creation or www.rae.org for a scientifically supported view on Creation. (And follow their links, too - there's alot of proof out there for intelligent creation. It takes more faith to believe in evolution without proof than to believe in creation with proof.