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See who is a Creation Scientist

Discussion in 'Free-For-All Archives' started by BobRyan, Sep 7, 2004.

  1. UTEOTW

    UTEOTW New Member

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    Still no answers to the questions about index fossils, missing links, information, specific examples of fraud from what you read on that site, whether you read the information thread at all, potential problems with the transitional series presented, explanations for such things as shared retroviral inserts and paralogs between the humans and other apes, if you saw Haeckel's drawings being used on what you read, and where you think the line should be drawn between chemistry and life.

    "We seem to be dealing with the clash of three world views: 1. God did it suddenly; 2. God did it with an evolutionary spin with punctuated equilibrium(commonly called theistic evolution); and last but certainly not least: 3. Nature(there is no God) used evolutionary processes such as natural selection, mutations, primordial ooze, comets, asteroids and other random processes."

    If those are the three choices, then number two is the only one it can be. We both have faith in God which eliminates 3 and there is no evidence for 1. There is abundant evidence for 2 and the others can be eliminated. It can only be.

    "How all this specialized existence we see in the present world came about by happenstance boogles the mind of this pea-brained homo sapien."

    Which is unfortunately an argument from incredulity. Just because something is too complex for us too understand or because we do not have sufficient knowledge of a subject to understand it does not mean that it cannot be true. It is an argument from lack of knowledge not an actual argument against evolution.

    "to say it could have been a million years is completely contrary to the scripture--and history"

    As to the first part, no more contrary than your immediately preceeding statement that it "could have been a creation second." The account is true but not literal.

    As to the second part, you have yet to make any sort of argument as to how an old earth goes against actual history or to refute the things that show the earth to actually be old.

    "As long as we cannot agree that there is an infallible standard revealed from God, there really is no basis for discussion."

    Huh?

    "A day, week, month, a million years, a billion years,
    --that is not enough time to evolve the DNA of the simplist creatures--statistically, the numbers are astronomical.
    "

    Another assertion I will have to ask you to support.

    But in case you try, which I doubt, I'll go ahead and predict that your basis will fail because it makes the mistake of assuming both a serial set of events and that it assumes that these events are random. That is to say, you will ignore that there is a massive amount of parallel actions occuring and that selective forces chose which events lead to favorable results.

    Edit to add:

    "Easier to get a Webster's Unabridged by exploding a print shop. Want to implode it? Go ahead. It probably will not work either."

    Huh?

    Who is talking about imploding or exploding anything? There are no selective pressures in an explosion of a print shop that would be expected to lead to a dictionary.

    But then you reveal what will be another flaw in your logic if you try and justify your associated assertion. You will assume that a specific sequence is the only one that could do the job. In reality, there may be many, many more sequences that would do the job that you will not consider.

    For a real world example see cytochrome C. This is a widespread protein that is not very sensitive to the exact sequence used to code it. Across the spectrum of life, a wide variety of versions of this protein (or the gene that codes for it, however you want to look at it) exist and they can be pretty much exchanged between widely different species and still work properly. And there is no way to know what other proteins with completely different sequences might be able to step in.
     
  2. Bro. James

    Bro. James Well-Known Member
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    "Incredulity?"

    Yeah, right--Trust me, I'm a Doctor. Methinks the word should be: "incredability"--not possible to believe.

    The word "Believe" is used on both sides of this matter. That puts us in the "religion" class or the "Religion of Science" class.

    None of the conclusions can be put to the "scientific method"--that is why we still call them theories. Most of our contentions are basically unprovable given the circumstances.

    Short of God destroying the world(Noah's Flood), some people call it catastrophism, to get our attention, we probably will not prove anything.
    To say that we can is pseudo-science--we have plenty of that.

    Selah,

    Bro. James

    P.S.

    By the way, all that digging we do to find our ancestry is done in the aftermath of Noah's Flood.
     
  3. UTEOTW

    UTEOTW New Member

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    "Yeah, right--Trust me, I'm a Doctor. Methinks the word should be: "incredability"--not possible to believe.

    For any old earth discipline, whether it be geology or biology or astronomy or paleontology or whatever, surveys have consistently shown that the better educated in any of the fields, the more likely you are to accept their findings. I assert that this shows quite the opposite of what you say. That as you learn more about it and how it works, the more you are able to see the truth in it, the evidence for it and the logic behind it. The ones that have trouble accepting it are those that are the least educated about it. Sure, there will be anecdotal examples in all directions, but the overall trend is quite clear.

    "The word "Believe" is used on both sides of this matter. That puts us in the "religion" class or the "Religion of Science" class."

    Just because someone uses the word "believe" to describe their acceptance is woefully inadequate to equate evolution to a religion. Some people "believe" in the Adkins diet for some strange reason. Does that make it a religion?

    And while I personally try to avoid using that word because of how it can be used, that does not mean that it is entirely incorrect to use. The definition does not have to be entirely religious. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
    lists about 7 definitions for "believe" and only one implies religious believe: "to accept as true, genuine, or real," "to hold an opinion," "to consider to be true or honest," "to accept the word or evidence of" and so on.

    There is nothing religious at all about any of the old earth sciences. They are based empirically on the facts of the particular field.

    "None of the conclusions can be put to the "scientific method"--that is why we still call them theories."

    You may want to do some reading up on the scientific method. It is used every day in all the relevant fields. It is their way of doing business. In science, something can only rise to the level of theory once is has wide evidentiary support and explains many things. The theory of evolution is used to explain the observed fact of evolution. SOrt of like we are still working on a complete theory of gravity to explain the observation of gravity. You do not doubt that gravity exists just because were are still working on the theory to explain it do you? I would assert that out theory of evolution is better developed than our theory of gravity.

    "Most of our contentions are basically unprovable given the circumstances."

    And which ones would that be?

    "By the way, all that digging we do to find our ancestry is done in the aftermath of Noah's Flood."

    Huh? Point? This addresses what?

    One day, I believe ;) , you will actually answer some of the questions raised on this thread instead of talking in pure, unsupported (and unsupportable) assuptions. I have faith in it. (Actually not really. You have gone on this long without answering any of the questions posed to you. If there were factual answers, you would have given them by now instead of talking about evolution being false because of exploding and imploding print shops.)
     
  4. El_Guero

    El_Guero New Member

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    uteoh,

    Again you claim evolution as truth ... there has never been a single evidential example of evolution ... Scientific method does not support your hypothesis. Evolution must stand the test of time to become a theory ...

    Men like your self have spent 50 years trying to create life ... Soon they will "seem" to succeed ... I pitty those involved in the deception that is coming ... that dare to step upon God's domain ...
     
  5. BobRyan

    BobRyan Well-Known Member

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    Then of course there is the subject posted - where we find atheist evolutionist persectuting SCIENTISTS that dare to expose the data that is not in support of the myths of evolutionism.

    How "unnexpected" is that?

    In Christ,

    Bob
     
  6. UTEOTW

    UTEOTW New Member

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    Digging up an old thread. Interesting.

    " Again you claim evolution as truth ... there has never been a single evidential example of evolution"

    Hard to understand just what you mean there. I gave you a long list recently of examples of species evolving. Let's see if we can refresh your memory with some of the titles.

    "Speciation by Hybridization in phasmids and other insects"

    "Chromosome evolution, phylogeny, and speciation of rock wallabies"

    "A Molecular reexamination of diploid hybrid speciation of Solanum raphanifolium, Evolution"

    "Predator induced evolution in chemostat culture"

    "Instances of observed speciation"

    "Changes in mating behavior produced by selection for ethological isolation between ebony and vestigial mutants of Drosophilia melanogaster"

    "Reproductive isolation as a consequence of adaptive divergence in Drosophila melanogaster"

    That's just a few from the list. And that is just the observed speciation.

    For you to claim that there is "single evidential example of evolution" the you have to arbitrarily discard all of the evidence that does point towards evolution. The twin nested heirachy.
    Anatomical parahomology.
    Molecular parahomology.
    Convergence of independant heirachies.
    The know transitional series.
    Anatomical vestiges.
    Genetic vestiges.
    Atavisms.
    Suboptimal function.
    The chronology of hte fossil record.
    Ontogeny.
    Past biogeography.
    Present biogeography.
    Transposons.
    Pseudogenes.
    Retroviral inserts.

    As before, you make the assertion that there is not a single bit of evidence to support evolution. You have the burden of proof of showing why all of these do not constitute evidence in favor of evolution.

    I raise the bar by also asking that you provide a consistent theory and framework which better explains our observations in all of these fields.
     
  7. UTEOTW

    UTEOTW New Member

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    "Then of course there is the subject posted - where we find atheist evolutionist persectuting SCIENTISTS that dare to expose the data that is not in support of the myths of evolutionism."

    Bob

    There was nothing in your exerpts that was discriminatory and the things listed in the article are false.

    I'll show you how on the appropriate thread.
     
  8. El_Guero

    El_Guero New Member

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    UTEOTW

    As always, you have twisted the truth to support your religious beliefs.

    Again, there is no evidential evidence. DUH
    Scientific method has been around for centuries ... Maybe you could practice it.

    ... Evolution has never been tested according to the standard of scientific method.

    Evolution is a story ... there are many stories ... choose wich one you will believe.
     
  9. UTEOTW

    UTEOTW New Member

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    " As always, you have twisted the truth to support your religious beliefs."

    Please tell me what specifically I have twisted from the truth. Please.

    " Again, there is no evidential evidence. DUH"

    Asserting this to be does not make it so. Look above. I gave you a list of many kinds of evidence.

    I'll repeat my request that if you deny these as evidence that leads to evolution that you provide a testable, falsifiable framework which does a better job of explaining all of these observations.

    " Scientific method has been around for centuries ... Maybe you could practice it.

    ... Evolution has never been tested according to the standard of scientific method.
    "

    False assertion.

    For giggles, let's Google "scientific method." The first hit is

    http://teacher.nsrl.rochester.edu/phy_labs/AppendixE/AppendixE.html

    It states the scientific method as follows.

    So let's see how evolution stacks up.

    Step 1. I have given you a partial list of observations above. So check.

    Step 2. Well, we hypothesize that these observations seem to show that all life may be related. So we will go with that as a hypthesis. New life forms can develop from other life forms.

    Step 3. Now the fun begins. Let's look at a few examples.

    Take whales for example. They are sea dwelling mammals. During their development, they have cute little legs and feet that emerge and then are reabsorbed. Sometimes this programmed cell death does not occur and the whales are born with full on rear legs. Well, we'll predict that whales have a land dwelling ancestor and we should be able to find fossil of such. And we do. Pakicetus, Ambulocetus, Basilosaurus and many others. Well, once we have the fossils we see that they show whales evolving from ungulates. So if we test modern ungulates we should find them closely related to whales. We test and they are. Now, if whales came from land animals, they then once had a functional sense of smell. We might be able to find the remains of the genes for this system. And guess what, whales have scores of pseudogenes of a sense of smell just like what the land animals to which it is related have.

    Man has traits that makes us another ape. There should be links between us and the other apes. And there are. (For a whole thread on the genetic links see http://www.baptistboard.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi/topic/66/19.html? ) Some of the links are genetic. We find shared pseudogenes and retroviral inserts and transposons between man and the other apes. We have a rich fosil record leading back to common ancestors.

    The fossil record shows the horses and rhinos share a common ancestor. We predict that genetics should show the same link. And it does.

    Darwin even predicted that there must be a means for carrying the instructions for making life. Last century we found it, DNA.

    So, evolution passes the thrid step with flying colors. This third step is where we really spend all of our time in debates.

    Step 4. Well here we refine our theory as we make more observations and we see how different scientists support different notions with new discoveries. Some ideas are cast off in favor of new ones, such as cladogenesis replacing orthogenesis for the most part, but such is the process. We have lab experiments where rapid evolution can be observed. Evolution meets the criteria of the fourth stage.

    So we see, contrary to your assertion, that evolution does follow the scientific method. Perhaps someone has tried to deceive you. Why would anyone promoting the "truth" need to do such.
     
  10. El_Guero

    El_Guero New Member

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    English: There has never been any evidence to support the evolution of species.

    Hypridization is not the evolution of a new species ...
     
  11. Phillip

    Phillip <b>Moderator</b>

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    It would help if you would get your New Testament doctrine correct also. People cannot join the church until they are Christians. They may have been visiting, but they were not members. Read about the New Testament churches. :rolleyes:
     
  12. Phillip

    Phillip <b>Moderator</b>

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    Well, again as I have told you before, over and over, you throw out all of your half-truth scientific arguments, but you will not argue scripture? What is the problem? Does science come before scripture?

    Again, if you have Jesus in your heart and you know that He is TRUE and ALIVE. Then your science is BAD if you do not accept His omnipotence as a variable during the creation. You can ignore that variable all you want to, but you only have two choices: The first choice, is to say the variable does not exist and everything is naturalism, or you know in your heart that it does exist because Christ is in your heart and the variable does exist.

    The ONLY arguments I see you making are observations based on science; I have yet to see you use scripture to make your arguments. So, where is God?
     
  13. UTEOTW

    UTEOTW New Member

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    Not going to support your assertion that evolution does not follow the scientific method?

    " Hypridization is not the evolution of a new species ..."

    Do you simply want to define evolution away? What other term should I use? Besides, a couple of the examples were hybridization but several were not. But I guess that you would just as easily dismiss them, too. You will not give us a reason why not. Much easier to just summarily dismiss anything that challenges you a bit. But you said that there was not a single example of evolution. I think your exact words were "There has never been a single evolution of a new and observable "species"." So when given new species you then move the goal posts and claim that the given examples of what you said did not exist at all do not count. Why do you even insert yourself into the debate if you can so easily change your story when your assertions are shown to be wrong?

    "There has never been any evidence to support the evolution of species."

    I gave you many categories of evidence. Maybe we should look slightly more closely at a few.

    The known transitional series - There are many known transitional series in the fossil record. From new species all the way up to new orders and classes. Some of the best are things like the whales, the horses, the mammals from the reptiles, the reptiles from the amphibians, the amphibians from the lobe-finned fish. But the list of series is much much longer than this. You should look into it some before you summarily claim that they do not exist.

    Genetic vestiges - I'll give one of my favorite genetic vestages here. Whales evolved from land dwelling animals. The even toed ungulates to be more specific. One of the vestiges they have of their land ancestry is scores of vestigal genes for a sense of smell. Now the genes they have are the genes that land dwelling animals use. However, these genes are not useful in the ocean and have mutated into forms that no longer have a function.

    Pseudogenes - Are you aware that man and the other primates including the other apes all share a very specific mutation that disables one of the four enzymes needed to manufacture vitamin C? Common descent tells us why such a group should share such a very specific mutation.

    Atavisms - Did you know that sometimes apes, including humans, are born with tails like their ancestors had? What about whales, do you know that they are occasionally born with atavistic legs? Now, if apes did not evolve from creatures with tails and if whales did not evolve from land dwelling creatures, then why should they have the genes for making these parts?
     
  14. DHK

    DHK <b>Moderator</b>

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    UTEOTW:
    A very simple question.
    Let's start at the beginning. Do you believe this verse?

    Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
     
  15. UTEOTW

    UTEOTW New Member

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    Phillip

    When discussing origins, you must take a look at both. Now it is not true that I never mention any scripture. I did so in a post yesterday. But it is also my opinion that the Bible does not concern itself with the hows of creation but just the what. And the what is that God created.

    If you look at the creation, there is no doubt that it records billions of years of history and evolution is a part of that history. Is it possible that God could have created everything to simply look that way. Yes. But I find that personally deceitful and do not believe that such is in the character of God. I could be quite wrong about that. But I don't think so. And going on that premise, if God shows us that he used evolution, then why should I deny that?
     
  16. UTEOTW

    UTEOTW New Member

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    Of course. When have I even given any indiation that I did not.

    So, when you are literally interpreting Genesis do you accept Genesis 1 where God makes the animals and then finishes with man. Or do you accept Genesis 2 where God makes man and then forms all the animals trying to find a suitable helper before finally making woman? Which order do you accept and why do you dismiss the literal account of the other chapter?

    Do you literally accept the words in Genesis where the "earth bring forth the living creature?" That sounds a little like evolution to me.

    Do you literally accept Genesis 1 where a dome is placed over the earth?
     
  17. DHK

    DHK <b>Moderator</b>

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    So with the acceptance of Genesis 1:1 then do you consider yourself a "theistic evolutionist?"
     
  18. UTEOTW

    UTEOTW New Member

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    I consider myself a CHristian.

    I find theistic evolution to be the only intellectually honest position to take on the matter. To drop one side of that coin you must deny the existance of God. To drop the other side of the coin, you must deny the overwhelming evidence God has allowed us to find in His creation for the methods He used to create. They are both true and to adopt any other position you must deny the truth.

    I do not have beef with most YEers. If you find that you must accept the literal reading of the creation then I applaud your faith. My problem is with those who claim that the evidence for an old earth does not exist, those who claim that the data points to a young earth. It simply does not. If you take an unbiased look you can only come to the conclusion of old earth. My bias was young earth when I took a look and I still ended up on the other side of the fence.
     
  19. DHK

    DHK <b>Moderator</b>

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    I don't find that the case at all. I find that the case is: the evolutionist wants to believe in God, and does not want to give up his evolutionary beliefs. He therefore finds a way to squeeze them into the Bible no matter how much distortion of the Bible it may take. This is what happened years ago when Darwinism first came out. What theory came out just after? The gap theory--a theory put forth to compensate for the evolutionary theories that were just starting to be put forth at that time. Bible believers were running scared of "science so-called," and instead of sticking with the straight truths of Scripture they accomodated themselves by making up another theory, not previously believed.

    Present theistic evolutionists are doing the same thing. But you can't have your cake and eat it too. Basically your problem seems to be one of questioning God. You say you believe God when He said:
    "In the beginning, God created..."

    But then you continue to question God.
    But why couldn't God do this?
    Why couldn't God do that?
    Why couldn't God do it this way or that way?

    Instead of taking God at his word, and believing what he has written, you want to force your beliefs into an account that is written from an historical point of view and make it into an allegory--something it was never intended to be. And thus completely change the intended meaning of the author. What would happen if we apprached the New Testament presentation of the gospel--the death, the burial, and the resurrection in the same way? We have no reason to butcher God's word in this way.
    DHK
     
  20. UTEOTW

    UTEOTW New Member

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    Why would I possible want to do that? What basis do you have for question my motives? What do you think I hope to accomplish?

    I am a Christian, not an "evolutionist." I originally accepted YE until I realized how unteneable it really is. I accept that God created. I just do not have the same view of the procedure as you do. I had nothing to gain by dropping my YE beliefs other than accepting the truth. You ask that I deny what is true without any reason other than your assertion that you know better how to interpret than anyone else. There is no data to support a young earth. Either it really is old or God went through a lot of trouble to make it appear that way. Do you really think that God would create recently and then make everything in life look evolved?
     
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