Meatros
You seem to be laboring under a number of misconceptions. First, did you know that paleontologists can actually be evolutionists? You did not seem to think so in your reply to “A Christian” when you stated, “Also, it's not evolutionists you would be disagreeing with, I believe they would be paleontologists (sp?).”
I did a quick Google search and came up with the fact that water breaks down DNA:
http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/dinosaurs/newtest.jsp
as does heat at above -80C:
Important DNA isolation points to emphasize are
• -- All tissue samples are frozen immediately after collection in liquid nitrogen or on dry ice.
• -- All tissue and purified DNA are stored at -80°C; use of a -20°C freezer for any length of time can yield DNA with breakdown products that co-chromatograph and interfere with the quantitation of DNA adducts derived from hydrophobic compounds, such as PAHs (Fig. 3). After several months at -20°C, the yield of DNA from tissue samples starts to decline and eventually DNA is not recoverable, whereas, 32P-postlabeling grade DNA can be extracted successfully from tissues stored at -80°C for at least 2 years.
• -- If the DNA samples are stored for an extended period before being postlabeled, storage of whole tissue is preferable to storage of extracted DNA. DNA appears to be stable in whole tissue for at least 2 years and extracted double-stranded DNA is stable in a Tris/EDTA buffer (pH 7.4) for at least 2 months at -80°C.
• -- High quality chemicals must be used for the extraction of DNA. Phenol and m-cresol must be redistilled before use, saturated with nitrogen, and stored at -20°C. However, Boehringer Mannheim sells a molecular biology grade of phenol (No. 100300) that has been redistilled and stored under argon which is suitable for DNA purification. Oxidation of phenol yields quinones that crosslink nucleotides resulting in chromatograms with high backgrounds that are difficult to quantitate.
• From
http://www.nwfsc.noaa.gov/pubs/tm/tm14/dnaisol.html -- in fact, you will find there is a TWO YEAR limit on storage for some types of testing!
In other words, if you did a little checking yourself, you will find that DNA breaks down quite easily and that the idea of ‘checking’ ‘ancient’ DNA against anything modern is a highly questionable undertaking.
And when you say you do not take Genesis literally, I find that interesting. It means that you, with your human brain, are deciding when something in the Bible is correct and when it isn’t. It means you are refusing to take it on its own terms (or reject it on its own terms) and are forcing YOUR terms upon it so that you can attempt to combine God’s mind with man’s mind. That will never work.
You asked what a ‘kind’ is. You have been told. It is the original population of created organisms and their descendants.
Paul of Eugene
The point was NOT whether or not good science can be done regardless of one’s religious beliefs, but that the fact was that Darwin was not a Christian, as some claim, but was, in fact, in rebellion against his Creator, as his own letters show. In the meantime, however, the idea that you stated that religious beliefs don’t matter where good science is concerned really should be applied to creationist Christians as well, don’t you think?
About Barry’s material – if you have to define a theory as ‘complete’ before you are willing to consider it, then I’m afraid you are out on a limb where evolution is concerned as well! It most certainly is NOT a complete theory, but is altering constantly, trying to accommodate all manner of contradicting evidence where evolution is concerned. In addition, it is astronomical evidence as well as our own (human beings’ own) data collection which indicates within all statistical frameworks that the speed of light has slowed, and that Planck’s Constant and atomic mass have both increased even in the last few hundred years. You can ignore the data, but that does not mean these things have not changed. By saying these things have not changed over millions of years, you are denying the work of some very intelligent and incredible scientists of the past, as well as pronouncing Birge, the Berkeley physicist who kept track of those constants through the years, a liar! That does take gumption – I have to hand it to you there!
I enjoy one of the jokes Barry often uses to get a point across. It goes something as follows:
A mathematician and an astronomer were friends. One day the astronomer rushed into the mathematician’s office in a state of high excitement.
“I have discovered something remarkable!” he announced.
“What have you discovered?” asked his friend, the mathematician.
“I have discovered that all odd numbers are prime!” said the astronomer. “Look, one is prime, three is prime, five is prime, seven is prime, eleven is prime, thirteen is prime…”
“Hold everything!” interrupted the mathematician. “What about nine? It is divisible by three. It isn’t prime.”
“Oh that,” countered the astronomer, “that’s just observational error.”
Data counts, Paul. You can choose to ignore it, but it is still there. The speed of light has slowed through time. In the meantime, I have told you and Mark and the others to contact Barry himself for responses to your challenges. For the most part I think he has answered them quite thoroughly. You just don’t seem to understand.
You asked why salts aren’t present in the ice cores of Greenland. Because the ice in those cores is the result of precipitation, and I’ve yet to taste salty rain or snow! As far as them being the result of storm cycles rather than seasonal cycles, you are right in that it might be impossible to tell the difference – which is exactly why storm cycles should be seriously considered rather than just assuming things have ‘always’ gone on the way they do now.
You then stated that coal had to form over vast eons of time as there was too much of it for a catastrophic origin. I disagree.
As far as the Hawaiian chain and coral reefs are concerned, you have simply swallowed the long ages explanation hook, line, and sinker. That is your choice, too. You can either research the data or believe what you are told. I used to do the latter. I now do the former. I realized we were being lied to by evolutionists.
I had to chuckle when you told me “Mainstream science is not my "particular" interpretation. God's word is true when properly interpreted, and the evidence from science is your interpretation is wrong. This has happened before in the history of science and religion. I am not alone in this, many christians agree with the findings of science. This is going to be how Christianity survives, should our Lord tarry.” I have a funny feeling, Paul, that not only does God know how to communicate without depending our our feeble attempts at ‘interpretation’ of His communication, but that Christianity will survive despite science because it is of God. The Christian faith depends upon Christ, not man.
You said you don’t see any problem for you with Genesis 1:29-30 and cited the food chain idea that all life EVENTUALLY depended upon plant life. But that is NOT what the Bible is saying there, is it? It is stating directly and succinctly that land animals and birds would depend upon vegetation for their food – directly and not indirectly. Same for man. In order to accept that statement, you had to impose the ‘food chain’ concept on it and say that what it ‘really meant’ was that all things ‘either directly…or indirectly’ are dependant on plant life. You had to change the clear meaning of the passage. Tell me, what do you do with Isaiah 11:6-9?
You then stated that it has been documented that a cell can produce and then use a de novo (brand new – not previously known to the cell before) protein. I would REALLY like reference to that one, as several geneticists I know claim that this has never been seen.
So references please, on that one.
You also seem to think positive mutation rates can keep up with natural selection. References, please, with the data. While I am waiting, I might mention that the very term ‘genetic load’ indicates that your claim is wrong.
You denied your faith is in man where evolution is concerned and stated that your faith is in God. The God who is responsible for the Bible? That’s interesting. You really think that He couldn’t get the message right where it disagrees with what modern science has said? What is that other than depending on man more than God?
As for the rest of that post, I am not going to respond to your personal insults.
You next post, on the following page, stated that mainstream science stated the earth was 4 billion +/- years old and the universe itself 14 billion. This is not from the data, Paul. This is from interpretation, and interpretation alone. That is why the ‘age’ keeps changing!
You wrote:
” So I'm not left with the alternative you suggest, to disbelieve the evidence and believe that the earth is only 6 to 8 thousand years old. I'd have to sacrifice my intellectual integrety to do that.” No, you don’t have to sacrifice your integrity to do that. You only have to sacrifice your gullibility. Search for yourself, Paul, and quit going with the herd. Please, please, start thinking for yourself.
In the meantime, I have started another thread on abiogenesis, for to separate it from biological evolution is, as I stated in my closing, creating a false dichotomy.
Galatian
Regardless of your twisting and distortion of the Word of God, Genesis presents creation
ex nihilo for time, space and matter, for intelligent life, and for mankind. Genesis 1:1, 21, and 27. That’s good enough for Bible-believing Christians; if it is not good enough for you there is nothing that I know of that can be done to change that.
By the way, Penzias became a believer in the Bible during his work:
From Barry’s notes at a recent lecture:
1965 – Arno Penzias & Robert Wilson – found a microwave background radiation @ 3 K.
Even though temp. of radiation - much lower than predicted – this background radiation -
accepted as proof – cosmos - initially superhot/superdense - & was then expanded out
Arno Penzias - looked at Scripture - God stretching out - heavens.
As a result – ended up accepting Hebrew Scriptures as true. - He said his discovery -
Was to be “expected from the book of Genesis, the Psalms, the Bible as a whole.”
[please see
http://icu.catholicity.com/c02305.htm for confirmation of this from your own Catholic church]
In the meantime, you stated that Linneaus was ‘on record’ as believing humans and apes should be in the same genus.
Reference please.
Incredibly, you stated,
” There is much common ground between atheists and creationists, since both oppose orthodox Christianity.” I thought about that, then I had to start laughing. You consider orthodox Christianity to be Roman Catholicism! Many of us do not even consider that religion to be Christian! So with your idea of ‘orthodox Christianity’, of course almost everyone disagrees with you!
You said evolutionary theory is based on evidence. No, it’s not. It’s based on an interpretation of the data which often runs directly contrary to other data (which is conveniently ignored), and is based primarily on the desire to eliminate God from the equation. Your stance as a theistic evolutionist is inherently illogical, unbiblical, and definitely unscientific!
Nor is biology “firmly based on evolutionary theory”. It is taught that way; it is not practiced that way, however! And, actually, no evolutionary ideas are needed at all for classification, identification, cellular mechanisms, genetics, or a host of other areas of biology. It is only in Evolutionary Biology where evolutionary ideas are indispensable.
In your attempt to ‘prove’ the statistical impossibility of any one individual being here, you are misusing statistics to the point of the ridiculous. If someone were to look AHEAD and predict any one individual, then the odds would be enormously against them! However to do as you are attempting to do and look BACK and say that you are here despite the odds is bizarre. The fact that you are here means you had a probability of ONE (it had to happen; necessity) when postdicted. It has nothing to do with prediction based on probability. The fact is that SOME individual will happen.
In the same way, with the cards, the fact is that SOME hand will happen. That probability is 1. Unless you are going to PREdict a specific hand appearing, the probability of some hand appearing is simply 1. AFTER the fact, the probability that that hand would appear is also 1.
However, in dealing with abiogenesis, which has NOT been seen to happen (and therefore cannot be postdicted), the probability argument still stands. There are specific combinations of elements required and predicting them to happen in natural and material circumstances does have direct implications on probability. Thus, the probability argument stands, and it is good. You will note that even the esteemed mathematician Hoyle thought so! Are you as esteemed a mathematician? It was because of this probability argument, which he approached from his own field of expertise, that he has fallen back on panspermia – which only shows how far rebellion against God can take you.
