Creation vs. Evolution

[ClevelandDiver]

"To put it another way, please show one example where you posted that you agree with something that contradicts the bible or a post where you say the bible is wrong."

Look at all the responses I gave to items off the lists that Thal posted. Maybe I failed but I tried to clearly show that what the Bible said was not what the list claimed that it said. Of course I didn't agree with the contradictions in the list that I addressed. I picked what you might call the LOW hanging fruit. I went after the stuff that was so obvious the even the most novice could spot them a mile away. I mostly went after the ones that were so easy that we didn't even need to talk about whether or not the Bible was correct because it's easy to show that the Bible didn't even say what they claim it said.

For instance...where they claimed that the Bible called a whale a fish...simply not true. Not one of the references they gave mentioned a whale at all...EVER.

Pick another, if there's one where you don't think I was clear and I'll try again.

In the example you brought up about Jonah not being able to spend three days in the GREAT FISH...It's an account of a miracle. It's obvious to me that the Bible isn't claiming that it's a natural occurance that would be possible without the intervention of God. Now you can argue that miracles aren't possible or that there is no God or whatever but to argue it based on the likely hood that the average person could spend three days in the belly of the average fish doesn't seem relevant because that IS NOT what the Bible said happened.

We are talking about 2 different things here. I was not arguing as to whether or not what other people were quoting from the bible was correct.

I was asking whether you ever disagreed with what was written in the bible or agreed with something that contradicts a biblical account.

 

[Soggy]

Ah, the transition from flying through water to flying through air is much easier to imagine

Your imagination is hardly a scientific construct and is irrelevant for the purposes of evolutionary discussion. We've got the fossils to show that it happened.

 

[Hemlon]

Remember, a non-guided selection must have an immediate advantage; a selection with some future advantage only makes sense if one puts a little ... guidance ... in the mix
Rick

What advantage does it have by leaping out of the water now?

 

[Hank49]

No, you've got it wrong.

A more relevant example would be if you had one species that got separated into two groups, and you kept one group the same while allowing the other one to differentiate into another species. Over time the two would become less and less able to interbreed, and eventually loose the ability to interbreed all-togeather.

Bryan

No, your "more relevant example" is what I was trying to describe with my clown fish being put into an instant "Ice Age". And I understand what you're saying in that at one point, they wouldn't be able to breed. My point is that literally, at an instant, over one generation, at least some new offspring, generations down in the separated clown fish, would not be able to breed anymore with the original parents still living in tropical paradise. Some of the siblings still could....and for a few more generations less and less would until the old species was virtually gone. So, let's prove it can be done. I have aquaculture skills, you have a PhD? so we can get a grant from NSF to get started?

 

[Soggy]

What advantage does it have by leaping out of the water now?

I don't see a lot of fisherman coming home with flying fish on their hooks, do you?

 

[ClevelandDiver]

Noah and the ark. How is it possible? As I understand it, God gave a command, and Noah followed without intervention from God. He, as a mortal (a 700 year old mortal!?), managed to build a wooden ark of impossible size, get every single species on board, and keep them alive with only 7 days notice.

Please tell me how we can reconcile the impossibility of this situation with a literal interpretation of the Bible.

If he can make a one off fish/submarine, inserting an extra-dimensional space in an ark and teleporting the animals in shouldn't be a problem.

The argument that I'm trying to get Mike to admit to, is that his core premise is: if it is in the bible it is true and no further proof is necessaty.

 

[lamont]

It is interesting that you refer to the Cambrian Explosion as it is when from out of almost nowhere there are all these fully mature fossils of various kinds but no transisional ones. You would think that there would be some kind in this same strata for all the supposed millions and millions of years that these fossils cover but there aren't.

I don't really find it all that interesting. As more life forms exist, there's more kinds of life to mutate into even more kinds of life. That will give rise to an exponential rise in the number of life forms. The only feedback which will cause this exponential growth to slow down is when you start making it less likely that there will be any available ecological niches for new forms of life to fill.

And we see processes like this all over in human culture as well. The whole boom and bust cycle of capitalist economics is just forces like this acting and evolving on a substantially quicker timescale.

Looking at the cambrian explosion and going 'gosh, evolution must be wrong, god did that' is not the most likely conclusion.

You say "What we know is that species evolve over time and eventually can become new species. " I would like you to state or site specific evidence that one species has turned into another.

i just did that.

And what I mean by proving it scientifically was that per the definition of scientific theory you can demonstrate what it is you are trying to prove repeatedly. Here is the definition from Wikipedia - Science in the broadest sense refers to any system of knowledge attained by verifiable means.[1] In a more restricted sense, science refers to a system of acquiring knowledge based on empiricism, experimentation, and methodological naturalism, as well as to the organized body of knowledge humans have gained by such research. In this most basic sence you can not prove evolution as you can not do it in experimentation or observe it in nature right now.

I look forward to you reply!

Jeff

we observe evolution all the in the mutation of genes in the lab. we've observed speciation in nature. we've observed all kinds of adaptation in domestic animals. in viruses we can see evolution acting much faster and on a much faster timescale because of how fast they multiply and mutate. there's also the fossil record. we can also do genetic studies to determine things like how the cheetah nearly went extinct. genetics has also produced a large taxonomic reclassification of many existing animals as we understand which species are actually evolutionarily closer to each other on the basis of genetics. evolution is observed.

 

[pterantula]

In the example you brought up about Jonah not being able to spend three days in the GREAT FISH...It's an account of a miracle. It's obvious to me that the Bible isn't claiming that it's a natural occurance that would be possible without the intervention of God. Now you can argue that miracles aren't possible or that there is no God or whatever but to argue it based on the likely hood that the average person could spend three days in the belly of the average fish doesn't seem relevant because that IS NOT what the Bible said happened.

Well, given the human propensity to exaggerate, especially when lending an epic tale down through generations, it's just as likely that Jonah went fishing one day, had his boat capsized by a bull shark in view of another fisherman, didn't appear to surface right away, the other fisherman went to port and told of the event, and Jonah was spared the shark's further curiosity and swam into shore, perhaps using a piece of boat for flotation. He didn't make an appearance back in town until the next day.
This was then changed to "attacked" by the shark, returning one day later, to "eaten" by the shark, returning one day later, "eaten" by the fish and returning two days later, etc. etc. etc.
There is NO reason to believe that a tome of collected tales from a variety of sources is giving a fact-based account of exact happenings.

We have every reason to believe that the power of storytelling outweighed the power of journalistic analysis in the time of Jonah, as it still does in many places today (coupled with the fact that most people still see what they think they see, not what is actually occuring.)

The story proves nothing.

 

[Warthaug]

Why would an intermediate legs-to-wings be an advantage, why would it be selected?

Speed. The earliest dino's that appear to be turning into birds had structures which appear to be like the rudder and ailerons of airplanes. It appears that the point of those were to allow the animal to control itself while moving quickly. For an example of one of these, see the link in me second-last post.

Oh, and that isn't as odd as it sounds - Ostridges use their wings and tails in this same manner today.

Over time these control surfaces became larger structures, eventually leading to animals which could glide, and from there eventually lead to animals which could fly.

Bryan

 

[Hemlon]

I don't see a lot of fisherman coming home with flying fish on their hooks, do you?

That's my point. Whatever advantage they have for leaping NOW could turn into an ability to fly and breathe air eventually.