The lie of evolution, part II

[Scott J]

Originally posted by UTEOTW:
" Of course there are. Genesis 1 and 2 however are written as a general narrative with no hint that the details are allegorical or open to interpretation."

And when Jesus is tempted, that sure sounds like narrative to me. But the writer appears to think that the world was flat since all the kingdoms of the world were shown to Jesus. But I bet you find another interpretation that is not even hinted at in the text, do you not?

"Appears to think"? IOW's, you need an argument and since this seems to be a convenient thing for you- you go ahead and add to scripture. This was all but certainly a supernatural accomplishment but since you are so predisposed to naturalistic explanations it shouldn't be surprising that you would automatically limit the choices to the one that seems to best comply to that rule.

I have little doubt that this was a literal, narrative account in which Satan tempted Christ by showing Him all the kingdoms of the world. Whether he rolled out an image of them like a scroll or brought in a portable DVD player or used some other method, I don't know. I simply read and trust the account given that Satan was able to show it and Christ was able to see it.

" Evolution does not agree with Genesis at its very basic premise. Genesis recounts numerous supernatural acts by God to include speaking the universe into existence. Evolution says that everything must ultimately have a naturalistic cause. You can hand wave all you want but Genesis declares the reality of the supernatural as it pertains to the natural world while evolution fundamentally denies it."

You are asserting that I have a position which I do not have.

Not that I know of.

I recognize God as the Creator but through the natural laws He has set up.

Which is contrary to what He said He did.

He kicked it off and uses it to HIs will.

The Bible doesn't say nor allude to the notion that God started things off then let nature run its course. It says He spoke creation into existence.

BTW, if you violate your own premise by insisting that God was the source for natural law and whatever starting point there was, you defeat your own argument against inserting God anywhere in our explanation of origins.

"I have given you alternatives but all you do is hand wave since a) I reject naturalism as a constraint and b) because I lack the time and funding to impress you with some verbose, technical sounding answer."

Your alternatives have been little more than ad hoc stories. They have had no ability to be tested to see which explanation is better nor any support that makes them seem to be more likely.

Not true. Not only can they be tested, they are both observable in nature without prompting and are practical for science.

"I didn't say that observations cannot be trusted. But your faith isn't in the observations. Your faith is in the interpretations of the observations that are built on a presupposition of naturalism.

The sad thing to me is that you accept and even demand such answers even though a basic rule of those giving those answers is that God cannot be invoked to explain anything in nature at any point."

You misrepresent my position.

I don't think so. You do presuppose naturalism, right? You do demand answers that are naturalistic that do not invoke God to explain creation, do you not?

Science is unable to invole the supernatural as an explanation.

Not true. "Science" can invoke anything in a theory that adequately explains the data.

For instance, intelligence very well explains creation. It doesn't preclude a partially or wholly naturalistic explanation the way naturalism does intelligence. Intelligent design obviously points toward an entity that we could only term "supernatural".

To say that the study of how intelligence can act within the natural world is unscientific is to call engineering, medicine, chemistry, etc. non-science.

You are free to invoke the supernatural. Just please explain how you are supposed to tell the difference.

What difference?

If I say that God created everything according to the general account provided by the Bible then all that presupposition requires is that interpretations of the facts conform to it. This is no different than the presupposition of naturalism.

If there is no way to tell the difference, then the supernatural explanation should be dismissed by Occam's razor as not being the most simple.

Ockham's razor would say that if you observe complexity, order, and information... the most simple explanation for the invention is an intelligent creator since none of those things are likely to arise by natural processes.

If a natural answer is sufficient to answer the question, then to impose the supernatural can only be done on an arbitrary and illogical basis.

If a thoroughly honest, infinitely intelligent and powerful creator claims credit for work that only He directly observed then to impose a highly improbable, natural explanation can only be done on an arbitrary and illogical basis.

If a man never known to have lied claimed to have shovelled snow out of your drive way, why would you ever accept another person's naturalistic explanation for how your driveway was cleared by purely naturalistic means when they even admit they didn't witness it?

That is what I see you all doing. You say you don't question God's ability nor honesty as expressed in His Word but when He tells you that He spoke the world into existence you can't accept it.

 

[Scott J]

Originally posted by UTEOTW:


Science is unable to invole the supernatural as an explanation.

This leaves us with a problem of logic. You are saying that science cannot accept something that is true unless it is natural. You suggest that science would have to categorize something as false even though it were true but supernatural- like say the resurrection.

You have redefined science as the pursuit of a naturalistic explanation rather than a process for determining what is true.

 

[UTEOTW]

" Each time I have seen you do this, you restrict the creationist conclusion to something ridiculous while claiming proof positive for the evolutionist model. This goes back to what I said before. Evolution is fluid enough to accommodate virtually any evidence. Therefore it is irrational to say that the evidence supports it."

Did you miss my post above on this?

Please demonstrate your assertions to be true while dealing with what I have actually said and not a charicature of it.

It would also be nice for you to accept or reject my attempt at characterizing what we should expect to see if your position where true. If my assertions about what would be expected for these topics are inaccurate, then by all means correct them with what we should really expect and why.

The question to be asked is what interpretation best explains the evidence that we observe. As new information comes in, it will either support your interpretation or contradict it. Support tells you that you are on the right track. Contradiction tells you that you need to rethink your theory.

The first observation that gets discussed is morphology. Now if we look at the animals that are alive today and the animals that the fossil record tells us were alive in the past, we see that the form a nested heirarchy. All by itself this could mean that all of these animals were produced by common descent or by common designer. (As a note, I am not trying to set up a false dilemma here. I recognize that there may be other explanations that could be put forward but I am purposely restricting the discussion to the two possibilities under discussion.) So you have to go to the next observation.

The next most obvious observation is genetic. If you examine all the different types of genetic material that has been tested and use it to construct phylogenic trees, you find that you get much the same pattern as you do when you arrange the fossils by morphology. Let's see how these observations stack up.

One easy test is to look at just the functional genes. These can again be used to support common descent or a common designer. Both will claim that creatures that are the most similar should have the most similar DNA.

But you can start to untangle the two by looking into further types of genetic material that is not related to the functional part of DNA. One example would be to look at retroviral inserts. These happen when a virus inserts part of its genome into its host. If this happens in a reproductive cell, then the genome of the virus can be passed on to the offspring. Since this has nothing to do with the functional part of the genome, it can shed light on the situation for us. For example, if common descent were true, then you would expect the retroviral DNA to show the same pattern as the other lines of observation. If a common designer were the true explanation, then you would expect a random distribution of the retroviral inserts when compared between the species. In fact, you see that the pattern follws that which wbe expected of common descent. The common designer option cannot explain this pattern.

If you take the retroviral discussion and repeat it with things like paralogs, pseudogenes, retrotransposons and such you will find the same result. One pattern would be predicted by common descent and another by a common designer but the patterns only fit that of common descent. For example, whales have a complete set of psuedogenes identical to what land based animals possess for their sence of smell. If whales evolved from land based ancestors, this is easily explained. But if they were recently created as is, there is no reason for them to possess such useless genes. A common designer advocate is forced into giving an arbitrary, ad-hoc explanation for this observation.

From here let's move on to other topics. Let's first loook at atavisms. We have brought a few into discussion already. Atavistic legs on whales. Two extra toes on horses. Unfused leg bones in horses. Atavistic tails on humans. The observation is that these atavisms ONLY manifest themselves in a pattern consistent with the phylogenic trees generated from the other lines of evidence. The atavisms only make parts that were possessed by their ancestors in the common descent interpretation. You never see atavisms that fail to follow this pattern. Common descent offers a simple explanation. The common designer option gives no reason why we should expect whales to have genes for making legs of humans to have genes for making tails. They are again forced into capricious explanations.

Development tells a similar story.This has the potential to get rather complicated, so I'll stick with an example already in play. We observe that whales go through a developmental stage in which they possess rear legs. Again, this shared developmental trait follows the same pattern as the other lines of evidence. Common descent offers a simple reason for this to be the case. A common designer has no logical reason to send whales through a stage with legs which must later be reabsorbed.

This can keep going for a long time. If you look at other areas of evidence, you keep coming back to the observation that all the bits always fit the tree that you get from morphology and genetics. This is true for parahomlogy. This is true for vestiges. This is true for the chronology of the fossils. Every observation that you make brings you back to these same trees.

So the question is which interpretation of the data fits the observations. The answer is that common descent offers a simple and compelling answer for each one. A common designer can be hypothesized for some of the observations but for many of the observations, the evidence is the opposite of what would be expected. The only recourse for YEers is to ignore these contradictions. But you really must worry about someone's ideas when they must ignore so much.

 

[Petrel]

Originally posted by JWI:
Scott J said,

"Your faith is in the interpretations of the observations that are built on a presupposition of naturalism."

Right on! This is exactly what they do.

Everything MUST be interpreted to support evolution because to them evolution is true.

They can see no alternative. They can believe nothing else.

Any evidence that supports evolution must be true because they believe evolution to be true. Any evidence against evolution must be false because they believe evolution is true.

It is circular reasoning.

Except we don't, so that can't be true, can it?

UTEOTW and I and probably others previously believed YEC until we found that the evidence shows it is not true. There is not one person who has come up with a unified framework to explain the natural evidence from a young earth perspective. You folks keep talking about evidence that support YEC--if the evidence is so manifest, why has it eluded everyone who has done in depth study in those fields? The only serious attempt at crafting a unified framework that I know of is Setterfield's, yet it is incomplete. Why in your opinion does God seem to feel it necessary to obscure the past and confuse us by presenting evidence that can so easily be understood to lead to an ancient creation? Why does he make it such a chore for YE creationists to uncover the explanation for geological strata, fossils, radiometry, gene similarities, etc., while those who work from an ancient creation point of view can put this together so fast?

I would say that YE creationists use circular reasoning by saying that evidence that supports evolution is false while evidence that support YEC is true, but YE creationists don't seem to be much for evidence. We have brought up mountains of evidence and there is not a lot of interest in explaining the evidence in depth from a YE point of view. Look at this very thread--for pages and pages we just had the theistic evolutionists posting data and you on your lonesome responding with quote mines and web links. Then after the discussion dies someone changes the topic to how theistic evolutionists just can't read their Bibles and all of a sudden the YEers come out of the woodwork. . .

Also since you've returned from your absence (midterms? if so I hope they went well) would you please tell me if you still think that all mutation is detrimental and leads to loss of specificity?

Scott J, if something has a supernatural origin, science is not required to declare it false, it just declares it outside the bounds of science. Science is not able to discover all truth--you're wandering off into metaphysics there.

 

[UTEOTW]

""Appears to think"? IOW's, you need an argument and since this seems to be a convenient thing for you- you go ahead and add to scripture. This was all but certainly a supernatural accomplishment but since you are so predisposed to naturalistic explanations it shouldn't be surprising that you would automatically limit the choices to the one that seems to best comply to that rule.

I have little doubt that this was a literal, narrative account in which Satan tempted Christ by showing Him all the kingdoms of the world. Whether he rolled out an image of them like a scroll or brought in a portable DVD player or used some other method, I don't know. I simply read and trust the account given that Satan was able to show it and Christ was able to see it."

Please do not make strawmen out of my arguments.

The plain, literal, narrative account says that Jesus was shown all the kingdoms of the world simply by going up on a high mountain. You then willingly admit that this does not make sense to you as written based on what you know today about the shape of the earth. SO you add to the scripture with your own interpretation of what "really" happened that has no basis in the actual written word.

"BTW, if you violate your own premise by insisting that God was the source for natural law and whatever starting point there was, you defeat your own argument against inserting God anywhere in our explanation of origins."

I have never said any such thing.

I have only pointed out that I chose to believe my lying eyes.

" Not true. Not only can they be tested, they are both observable in nature without prompting and are practical for science."

Please, give us an example of such an alternate explanation to some set of observations and how they are to be tested and differentiated. I might suggest the specific reason that crocodiles genetically test as closely related to birds rather than other reptiles. This is from the first page of the thread and has been completely ignored.

" I don't think so. You do presuppose naturalism, right? You do demand answers that are naturalistic that do not invoke God to explain creation, do you not?"

Not at all. I simply ask that you tell us how to tell the difference. If a set of observations has a natural explanation, then it is arbitrary and illogical to insist upon a supernatural explanation instead which has no ability to be distinguished from the natural.

" Not true. "Science" can invoke anything in a theory that adequately explains the data."

Let me rephrase. Science has no ability to test the supernatural.

"If I say that God created everything according to the general account provided by the Bible then all that presupposition requires is that interpretations of the facts conform to it. This is no different than the presupposition of naturalism."

If the observations of the creation are perfectly aligned with being caused by natural law and occurances, then it is arbitrary to then suggest that you should use the supernatural instead. You are telling us that we can never trust that things are as they appear. We lose the empirical nature of all human experience.

Now if you can show where your alterante assumptions lead to an alternate expectiation, then we have a way to tell the difference.

" Ockham's razor would say that if you observe complexity, order, and information... the most simple explanation for the invention is an intelligent creator since none of those things are likely to arise by natural processes."

Another strawman. You changed my assertion.

If there is a natural explantion that fits the data, there is no reason to adopt a supernatural one.

No if you want to raise a separate topic about whether life appears to bear the traits of natural or supernatural design, well I have given a start to that above. No one seems to want to commit to specific expectations of supernatural design.

"This leaves us with a problem of logic. You are saying that science cannot accept something that is true unless it is natural. You suggest that science would have to categorize something as false even though it were true but supernatural- like say the resurrection."

Another strawman. YE would not have arguments to make, it seems, if it was not for misrepresentation.

The statement is that science can only study the natural. It does not say anything at all about the supernatural, much less preclude it as you assert. Science can only say that it could not study the ressurrection. It cannot and will not say that it did not happen. That would be beyond the bounds of science. I and others have been very clear in this categorization, so why say otherwise?

 

[Scott J]

Originally posted by UTEOTW:
" Evolution is not science. Science can only deal with what can be observed, measured, and tested. History is beyond those bounds."

Good thing we are talking about evolution and not history then. If you ask for evidence of evolution you will be given plenty of observations. From genetics to homologies to atavisms to vestiges to fossils. These are all things which can be observed and measured. These are all things where others can examine the same materials and where new data can be used to test and refine the original hypotheses. It is definately science.

These are also all things that do not support evolution but rather are accommodated by evolutionary theory.

Homologies for example do not support evolution any more than they support ID. In fact, evolutionists claim that both homologous and analogous (sp?) traits support evolution. That is saying that both "true" and "false" are correct answers. Evolution can accommodate both answers therefore as I have said many times, it is not impossible. However you cannot turn around and say that homologies prove evolution if the lack of those homologies would be no more difficult to accommodate.

All of these things that you cite are the same way. You eventually end up back at a presumption that evolution is true being the only real basis for claiming them as support for evolution.

" Actually, you can do much more than that. You can see how that an intelligent entity in a very short period of time can take organic matter, heat, and pressure- and produce a barrel of oil."

Well we were talking about coal not oil, but they're all fossil fuels I suppose. Here is a chart I like to pull out whenever the quick organics to coal is mentioned.

http://www.blackdiamondenergy.com/Figures/Figure1.gif

This shows you changes to the chemical makeup of coal based on how high of a temperature the coal is held during formation. Now this is from a coalbed methane company so they do not have a dog in this fight. The rapid fossil fuel assertions are always based on some high temperature and pressure. But that only makes something superficially similar to a real fossil fuel. If you look at the chart, you will see changes in the chemistry of the coal based on how high of a temperature the coal reached. Now this puts a limit on the temperature during formation. Which eliminates the quick coal schemes that some propose.

Whoa... I am now invoking the right that evolutionists frequently claim. There was at some point in time conditions not known to those doing this experiment that resulted in the slight differences you cite as proof against the general conclusion that coal or oil can be formed more quickly than evolutionists demand.

"Now what do we know? Do we "know" that natural forces could ever accidentally create oil? No. We don't. That's an assumption we cannot observe."

Define observe. Do you mean to be around for the whole period of time of formation? Well then we can never "observe" a redwood forest growing, either, but I think you will admit that we know how that happens.

Someone could have been here and observed. Moreover, this is something that is a directly observable cause and effect relationship.

While the development of one redwood cannot be observed, we have redwoods at various stages of development so that we can make general assumptions about both the future and past of existing redwoods... and one of those generalizations is that none will ever become a fern.

e can hypothesize on how it formed and see if various traits, such as chemistry and geology, are consistent with that. We can also observe fossil fuels in various stages of formation.

IOW's, the process we observe now precludes any other process being active in the past, right? I want to be sure since I am pretty sure that evolution at many points depends on unproven things in the past yielding significantly different processes.

"Do we know that an intelligence with sufficient power and resources can do it? Yes. We do. That is a theory we can test and prove."

Now the challenge for you is to hypothesize what traits you would expect from the fossil fuels if they had been rapidly formed. Then test these predictions against actual fossil fuels to see how they stand up.

No. I prefer the evolutionist's method. Tell me the traits and perhaps someone will be able to weave a story to accommodate them.

See how this works?

Yes. You want to employ a double standard. You can arbitrarily demand a naturalistic presupposition to govern the evidence but will object if someone invokes a supernatural intelligence.

Invoke supernatural explanations if you wish, but you need to be able to tell what would be different from the natural explanation.

The opposite is likewise true. Demand the natural if you want but you need to be able to tell what would be different from a supernatural explanation... IOW's, you would have to read the mind of God.

If there is no difference, then you have no explanation that can be examined.

Nor do you.

And in this case, I have already given you one small piece above, chemistry, that argues against rapid fossil fuel formation.

Chemistry also argues against natural processes creating the genetic materials and coding needed to explain life on earth... but that doesn't keep very creative evolutionists from coming up with elaborate yarns to obfuscate that fact.

" Again, science cannot give categorical answers about unobserved history. It can only speculate."

And test. You forgot that part. The most important.

Tests require intelligence.... you forgot that part.

 

[Scott J]

Scinece does not claim to give "categorical" answers. Just the best explanation that fits the observations.

Then there should be no objection to exploring intelligent design as the best explanation, should there? Surely you don't believe that all of best explanations for all observations are naturalistic?

And yes, no matter how many times you say otherwise, it is observations that we cite to support evolution and astronomy and geology and paleontology and all the other disciplines.

Nope. You explain those things using the theory... you cannot then turn around and claim the theories accommodation of those things as proof for the theory. That is classic circular reasoning.

" Go ahead. You argue that the appearance of age would make God a liar and I will argue that his truthfulness is not determined by whether your perceptions of age are accurate or not."

YOu are equivocating a bit there. If you can show that the perceptions of age are wrong, then there is no "appearance of age." Only if the perception is correct is there such an assertion.

Perceptions are either true or false whether the means to prove them is available or not.

"Appearance" is subjective based in large measure on ones presuppositons.

This gets right back to the alternate explanations. If there is one, then let us have it. That destroys our argument that God would not do such a thing and therefore the earth must really be old.

I have a reliable Eyewitness who says that He spoke the world into existence in six days.

But if there is not a YE explanation, then you are telling us that it was supernaturally made with specific traits that show that something happened other than what really happened.

I already addressed this fallacious argument. God's Word is inspired, inerrant, and infallible. Human interpretations of natural history are none of these things.

And if you suggest that, then I suggest you are making God out to be a deceiver and not the God of the Bible.

Nope. I am simply stating that your interpretations are false while God's direct claims are true.

"Evolution's explanations are improbable to the absurd so for anyone to treat them as reliable fact is irrational."

Nice assertion but where is the backing? Just what is so "improbable" and please demonstrate your assertion.

Your own rule of parsimony. Five consecutive events that are 90% likely to have occurred yield a probability for the string of 59%. Evolutionary trees are dependent on far more than 5 interdependent events or factors and few if any are 90% likely compared to analogous possibilities.

" Is there a way to put evolutionary explanations of natural history in a box and test them as a coherent set of interdependent events?"

Yes. I gave you an example of how to test one piece of the puzzle earlier today. If you want the larger picture, then things like how phylogenies from so many independent sources match one another is a good way to test and to demonstrate evolution as a theory with good explanatory powers and which passes detailed testing.

That is accommodation. Not testing.

" If not, I propose that you stop saying that evolution makes a more reasonable and scientific framework for explaining origins than God."

False dilemma.

God made and uses the laws. Evolution follows the laws.

That isn't what God said.

It is the only possible conclusion from the Creation itself.

That is a categorically false and unscientific statement.

Your alternate is presently arbitrary and without an ability to be distinguished from evolution.

Evolution is arbitrary and without an ability to be distinguished from my alternate except for its dependence on the unobserved process by which mutations can form novel biological systems.

"If for example common descent from certain kinds is true then later forms would become more genetically fixed, less adaptable/variable, and unable to breed with fairly close relatives. That's what we see. If it is true then we would routinely observe the loss of genetic information within species... and we do."

If this is your assertion, then demonstrate it. There are a lot of assertions here, but I have not seen any evidence that they are true. In fact, you may run into your own problems when you try and gather data because you are going to have to find a way to compare the present to the past without violating your own assertions about the lack of observability in the past.

These things I cite are proof... and commonly known, understood, and useful... all of the things the key process need for evolution is not.

But please, explore this possibility. Tell us about genetics and fossils and all sorts of interesting things. Let us know what we can test about this to distinguish it from the alternatives.

Give me an army of scientists and virtually unlimited resources and you will get much better answers from my idea than you do from evolution.

"If common ascent is true however we should routinely be seeing the accummulation of genetic information and the formation of new biological systems."

And these threads are full of examples of such.

No they aren't. At best you have shown modifications of existing systems... but even that is dependent on inherited traits.

 

[Scott J]

Originally posted by UTEOTW:
""Appears to think"? IOW's, you need an argument and since this seems to be a convenient thing for you- you go ahead and add to scripture. This was all but certainly a supernatural accomplishment but since you are so predisposed to naturalistic explanations it shouldn't be surprising that you would automatically limit the choices to the one that seems to best comply to that rule.

I have little doubt that this was a literal, narrative account in which Satan tempted Christ by showing Him all the kingdoms of the world. Whether he rolled out an image of them like a scroll or brought in a portable DVD player or used some other method, I don't know. I simply read and trust the account given that Satan was able to show it and Christ was able to see it."

Please do not make strawmen out of my arguments.

The plain, literal, narrative account says that Jesus was shown all the kingdoms of the world simply by going up on a high mountain. You then willingly admit that this does not make sense to you as written based on what you know today about the shape of the earth. SO you add to the scripture with your own interpretation of what "really" happened that has no basis in the actual written word.

Nope. I simply accept what it says and that any explanation for how it might have been accomplished must be consistent with what the account says.

God didn't have to give me the mechanics of this or creation. However any mechanics that I might suggest must be consistent with what He did say or else I am guilty of contradicting Him.

 

[Paul of Eugene]

Originally posted by Scott J:
Then there should be no objection to exploring intelligent design as the best explanation, should there? Surely you don't believe that all of best explanations for all observations are naturalistic?

The trouble with "intelligent design" as a "scientific theory" is that the theory is inherentlly limited to a negative. That is, it goes like this: Such and such a feature is clearly so complicated it could not have evolved naturally, therefore it must have been intelligently designed.

The appearance of intelligent design, therefore, might just as easily reflect the limitations of the observer instead of the limitations of the theory of evolution.

As in all such "i don't see how it could be done".

It is for this reason it can never be a scientific theory. Mystery and the unknown are part and parcel of the science landscape; but they are never taken as a cause for giving up, but as a spur to further research.

 

[Paul of Eugene]

]No they aren't. At best you have shown modifications of existing systems... but even that is dependent on inherited traits. [/QB]

Brother, that's all it takes. Grant that, and you've granted evolution. Its ALL modifications of existing systems.

 

[UTEOTW]

" These are also all things that do not support evolution but rather are accommodated by evolutionary theory.

Homologies for example do not support evolution any more than they support ID."

But only evolution offers a unified explaantion for diverse bits of data. You have to rip it apart bit by bit and claim that you can accomodate the pieces. It is the overall picture that matter.

Go back to the first page of the thread. There I lay out a series of homologies that suggests that birds evolved from dinosaurs. I then connect this to fossil evidence that shows that dinosaurs and crocodiles are both from the archosaur branch of reptiles. I then use this to correctly predict that genetic testing should show crocodiles to be more closely related to birds than to other reptiles.

Now, when you can come up with such details for ID and how to test them, let me know. Again, I tried doing just this in a post above, but no one seems interested in accepting my assertions or rejecting them and showing what they should have been.

" Whoa... I am now invoking the right that evolutionists frequently claim. There was at some point in time conditions not known to those doing this experiment that resulted in the slight differences you cite as proof against the general conclusion that coal or oil can be formed more quickly than evolutionists demand."

Your assertion. Back it up.

"While the development of one redwood cannot be observed, we have redwoods at various stages of development so that we can make general assumptions about both the future and past of existing redwoods... and one of those generalizations is that none will ever become a fern."

Yet another strawman. No part of evolutionary theory would ever suggest that a redwood tree would have a fern as offspring. If you had an argument, you would not need to result to such extreme fallacious logic.

But you will also notice that I pointed out that we can also observe fossil fuels in various stages of formation. Just like the redwoods.

" IOW's, the process we observe now precludes any other process being active in the past, right? "

If you have an alternate process, let us know about it and what we should expect to observe.

" No. I prefer the evolutionist's method. Tell me the traits and perhaps someone will be able to weave a story to accommodate them."

How about folks who are willing to put their money where their mouth is. Billions of dollars.

So, what assumptions and methods do oil companies use to find oil? You think it might just be the mainstream geology that you dismiss? When ideology is thrown out the window and results are required, it is not your assumptions that produce.

" Yes. You want to employ a double standard. You can arbitrarily demand a naturalistic presupposition to govern the evidence but will object if someone invokes a supernatural intelligence."

Everyone together now...

Not at all. Just tell me what would be different if it were supernatural.

" The opposite is likewise true. Demand the natural if you want but you need to be able to tell what would be different from a supernatural explanation... IOW's, you would have to read the mind of God."

I have done just this above. No one want to answer.

" Chemistry also argues against natural processes creating the genetic materials and coding needed to explain life on earth... but that doesn't keep very creative evolutionists from coming up with elaborate yarns to obfuscate that fact."

You have been mislead. Chemistry offers many possibilities.

I have a few pages of supporting references. DO I need to find them for you?

 

[UTEOTW]

" Then there should be no objection to exploring intelligent design as the best explanation, should there? Surely you don't believe that all of best explanations for all observations are naturalistic?"

Thus far the best are the natural ones. They fit the observations. If ID can do better, I'm all ears. Thus far their claims, such as irredicible complexity, have not stood the test of scrutiny.

" Nope. You explain those things using the theory... you cannot then turn around and claim the theories accommodation of those things as proof for the theory. That is classic circular reasoning."

Red herring.

You did not even bother to address the claim that evidence from such things as genetics, biogeography and fossils really are observations.

As far as your assertion here goes, you are not showing an understanding of the scientific process. Let's say you are Kepler. You go out and make observations of the motion of planets across the sky. You then turn these observations into a theory describing the motions of the planets. You then make some more observations to see if they fit your hypothesis. Maybe you find it needs a little tweaking, maybe not. Eventually you have made enough observations that you put forth your theory with great confidence. Now, when someone comes to challenge your theory, what are you going to do. You are going to pull out your observations and show how your theory explains them. There is nothing circular about that.

And neither is there for evolution. The theory of evolution explains many observations of the creation. If you want evidence for it, we will pull out these observations and show how they are best explained by the theory. That is how science works. You cannot define it differently because you do not like it.

" Perceptions are either true or false whether the means to prove them is available or not."

Okaaaaaaayyyyyy......

And if you are unable to show my perceptions to be wrong...

" I already addressed this fallacious argument. God's Word is inspired, inerrant, and infallible. Human interpretations of natural history are none of these things."

Which fallacy did I mistakenly use?

So, man's interpetation of creation is flawed but you have complete faith in the interpretation of scripture by the same fallible man?

" Your own rule of parsimony. Five consecutive events that are 90% likely to have occurred yield a probability for the string of 59%. Evolutionary trees are dependent on far more than 5 interdependent events or factors and few if any are 90% likely compared to analogous possibilities."

You are making a serious math error. You assume that a particular route was the only one possible and was leading to a specific place. That is not the case. So you cannot take the odds of a single outcome and a single path to that outcome and multiply them all together.

" That is accommodation. Not testing."

No, it's an actual test.

Let's summarize. Evolution predicts that atavisms will only see traits that an ancestor, according to other lines of evidence, posessed being expressed. So if you see an atavism that expresses a trait that was not posessed by an ancestor under the theory of evolution, such as my example of a mammal with feathers, then you have scored a point against evolution. Unfortunately for you, no such problematic examples exist.

" That is a categorically false and unscientific statement."

I'll restate.

At the current time, there is no theory other than common descent which can account for the observations we have about past and present life on the earth.

" Evolution is arbitrary and without an ability to be distinguished from my alternate except for its dependence on the unobserved process by which mutations can form novel biological systems."

Completely false.

There are whole books written and journals dedicated to what you just called "unobserved." Why don't you go to the library and browse a copy of The Journal of Molecular Evolution?

Or, if you like, here is a couple of pages of mechanisms that provide the paths you call "unobserved" and examples of the mechanisms in action.

http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/66/104.html

" These things I cite are proof... and commonly known, understood, and useful... all of the things the key process need for evolution is not."

You claim that it is "commonly known" that current life is "more genetically fixed, less adaptable/variable" than past life. I was not aware that this was "commonly known." Perhaps you could provide references to support this assertion.

" Give me an army of scientists and virtually unlimited resources and you will get much better answers from my idea than you do from evolution."

I thought YEers claim that they have alternate and better explanations. Now when pressed, you claim that you don't actually have them? Which is it?

It doesn't take that much money for all these YEers to go down to the library and get the data from the journals and do their own interpretation. Scientists often do reviews of the literature for data. This time would be better spent that the time usually spent quote mining the same articles.

"No they aren't. At best you have shown modifications of existing systems..."

Once you concede that, you have conceded the game.

 

[UTEOTW]

" Nope. I simply accept what it says and that any explanation for how it might have been accomplished must be consistent with what the account says."

Nope. You are adding to the words as written based on facts you know from outside of the Bible. Without said knowledge, the plain and literal meaning is that He was taken up high enough to see the whole world. Nothing in there about supernatural acts by satan or of DVD players or anything else. You add to it to fit what scientific knowledge with which you are comfortable.

But...

"God didn't have to give me the mechanics of this or creation. However any mechanics that I might suggest must be consistent with what He did say or else I am guilty of contradicting Him."

Even though you here say that the mechanics of creation are not given, you are willing to villify those who subscribe to a different set of mechanics than you, for the same reasons you add to the temptation account, even though they also claim that God was establishing Himself as the creator of all here.

 

[JWI]

UTEOTW

Your argument is ridiculous. The temptation of Christ MUST have been a supernatural event for several reasons.

1) There are no high mountains in or near Israel

Mat 4:8 Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;

Notice the verse says "exceeding high mountain".

So this was not the relatively small hills and mountains of this area.

This brings several reasonable questions to mind.

1)How did they get there? There are no mountains of this stature within hundreds of miles. There were no modern modes of transportation at this time. No airplanes, no helicopters, no spaceships.

2)How could they survive at such high altitudes?

Modern mountain climbers must necessarily carry oxygen and other modern technology to survive at high altitudes. This type of equipment was unknown at this time.

3) How could you see all the kingdoms on a round Earth?

Of course you can't. It is even improbable you could see all the kingdoms on a flat world. You certainly could not see detail ("and the glory of them")of even a nearby kingdom from the top of a huge mountain without some type of assistance, such as a telescope or binoculars, also unknown at the time.

So, this HAD to be a supernatural event. That is not to say it should not be interpreted literally.

Funny, you want to argue that the creation account cannot be taken literally because it doesn't conform to your naturalistic viewpoint.

Then you argue that the temptation of Christ should be taken literally.

Both the creation account and the temptation of Christ should be taken literally. And both were supernatural events.

It is sad and silly that one has to argue like this.

You simply do not believe the Bible. Why don't you just admit it?

What parts of the Bible do you take at face value?

 

[JWI]

And as far as evolution being almost univerally accepted as scientific fact, that is hogwash. To claim otherwise is blantant dishonesty.

You hate my "quote mining", but here are many by prominent scientists.

http://www.creator-creation.com/evolution.htm

Many prominent scientists reject evolution. Here are some lists.

http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-scientists.html

http://www.christiananswers.net/creation/people/home.html

Here is an account of the controversy within evolution.

http://www.pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/20hist12.htm

So, to claim evolution is so sure is not true at all.

Of course you know more than all these prominent scientists.

That is why you should write a book. Apparently, many are not yet as convinced as you claim.

 

[JWI]

And here is a recent article 10/20/05 that shows science does not yet understand all that much about genetics.

But you guys talk like you know everything.

I have seen a few on here ask why God should make "junk" DNA.

Well, maybe he doesn't.

Genes Are Not Telling the Whole Story 10/20/2005
A growing realization is dawning on geneticists: there is more going on in DNA than previously imagined. Now that whole genomes are becoming available, scientists are eagerly trying to understand how the genetic code (genotype) produces a full-grown organism (phenotype), like a fruit fly or human. The interesting stuff in DNA used to be the genes, but two recent stories are showing that other players in the nucleus may have much more to do with the outcome than just the genes that code for proteins (09/08/2005, 09/23/2005).
(1) A study from UC San Diego has, once again, showed the functional value of “junk DNA”. Peter Andolfatto found large differences in non-coding DNA between closely-related species of fruit flies (Drosophila). These differences appear to be important to the flies, perhaps in maintaining their genetic integrity. He speculated that these non-coding regions may, therefore, have evolutionary importance. Andolfatto, who published his findings in Nature,1 explained the change in focus:

“Protein evolution has traditionally been emphasized as a key facet of genome evolution and the evolution of new species,” says Andolfatto. “The degree of protein sequence similarity between humans and chimpanzees, and other closely-related but morphologically distinct taxa, has prompted several researchers to speculate that most adaptive differences between taxa are due to changes in gene regulation and not protein evolution. My results lend support to this view by demonstrating that regulatory changes have been of great importance in the evolution of new Drosophila species.” (Emphasis added in all quotes.)
Andolfatto et al. found that about 50% of the non-coding DNA appeared to be under negative selection (i.e., evolutionary conservation), and other parts appeared to be under positive selection (although determining this is a statistical comparison of nucleotide substitutions to polymorphisms, not a linking of variations to actual fitness benefits). This appears to be a “double whammy” against Kimura’s neutral theory of evolution, said Alexey S. Kondrashov, in the same issue of Nature,2 who said about this study, “Fruitfly genome is not junk.” He began his analysis with a fairy tale that has been debunked:
Once upon a time, the world seemed simple when viewed through the eyes of evolutionary biologists. All genomes were tightly controlled by various forms of natural selection. DNA encoded functional genes, and most mutations that occurred were rejected through negative selection. Those exceptional mutations that were beneficial substituted for the original gene variant (allele) and spread through the evolving populations by positive selection. And polymorphisms – where several alleles coexist within a population – were maintained by yet another, balancing, form of selection.
Though Kondrashov is not ready to conclude that higher vertebrates are lacking in junk DNA and neutral mutations, or that Kimura’s neutral theory has been debunked outside of fruit flies, he draws one important conclusion from the new study: “It is truly amazing how little we know quantitatively about mutation and selection in the genomes of even the most well-studied organisms.” See also Science Daily summary of this story.
(2) A separate study – closer to us humans – also found a big surprise in our DNA. Ten years ago researchers were talking about “the human genome” as if there were a commonly-shared genetic code among us all. While that is still largely true, scientists have been stunned by the amount of individual variation. Erika Check, writing in Nature,3 explained:
Exactly one year ago this week, scientists announced that they had finished the ‘Book of Life’. The complete sequence of the human genome had been painstakingly reduced to an ordered list of letters representing the four bases of DNA. This text was believed to be virtually identical for every person on Earth – and the major differences between individuals, such as hair colour, were said to be the equivalent of typographical errors, no longer than a single letter. The next major task for scientists was to find out which of these tiny differences can cause disease.
But even as the ink was drying on the complete sequence, some researchers were questioning whether there was really such a thing as the definitive edition of the Book of Life. By skim-reading individual genomes, these scientists were finding bizarre and unexpected irregularities. In some people, whole paragraphs of the text were duplicated, whereas in others, large passages were missing, or even printed backwards. These major revisions turned up in all kinds of people, including many who seemed healthy and normal. Suddenly, it seemed possible that there was actually no standard version of the Book of Life, and researchers wondered whether we are all much more different from each other than they had thought.
These discoveries of major individual genetic differences, which began to surface in 2002 and 2003, have grown. Scientists were “freaked out” to find different numbers of copies of genes in different people, and then to find whole sections missing or written backwards in normal-looking people was almost unbelievable. So far these seem to affect 3.5% of the genome – a bigger portion than the oft-alleged differences between humans and chimpanzees. (Those differences have grown, also, in the realization that non-coding elements and regulatory processes play a much more significant role than previously thought.) Some of the differences may be matters of life or death – susceptibility to disease, or ability to adapt to certain environments, but many of them seem to provide no obvious phenotypic advantage or disadvantage, and all humans are clearly interfertile still. What all this means is a matter of intense debate. Erika Check concludes, “For now, the realization that we are all reading from individual texts has already altered scientists’ understanding of humanity – and of the library of unique volumes that makes up the human race.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1Peter Andolfatto, “Adaptive evolution of non-coding DNA in Drosophila,” Nature 437, 1149-1152 (20 October 2005) | doi: 10.1038/nature04107.
2Alexey S. Kondrashov, “Evolutionary biology: Fruitfly genome is not junk,” Nature 437, 1106 (20 October 2005) | doi: 10.1038/4371106a.
3Erika Check, “Human genome: Patchwork people,” Nature 437, 1084-1086 (20 October 2005) | doi: 10.1038/4371084a.
Neo-Darwinism was built on a pre-genomic, simplistic view of inheritance. It, and its successors, can no longer pretend to account for the new complexities of genetics that are coming to light.
More recently, evolutionists have attempted to arrange organisms into phylogenetic trees based on sequence similarities of this or that gene. This is like focusing on individual trees and missing the forest. There is much more than just genes and their protein products accounting for our individual differences. If the genes are just pawns of regulatory processes, who is regulating the regulators? How does a mature individual arise from the complex sequence of developmental processes that know which genes to switch on at the right times?
In times of intellectual ferment such as this, it is unfair to grant sole authority for explanations to one team, the Darwin Bulldogs, that has repeatedly struck out. Manager Charlie would never have predicted the curve balls that the nature would pitch at them. Bluffing confidence and armchair strategies have proven inadequate. Let design science come to bat.
Next headline on: Genetics • Evolutionary Theory • Human Body • Zoology

 

[JWI]

Gotta love this line.

"These discoveries of major individual genetic differences, which began to surface in 2002 and 2003, have grown. Scientists were “freaked out” to find different numbers of copies of genes in different people, and then to find whole sections missing or written backwards in normal-looking people was almost unbelievable. So far these seem to affect 3.5% of the genome – a bigger portion than the oft-alleged differences between humans and chimpanzees"

So, if I understand this correctly, some people have more similarity in their genes to chimpanzees THAN THEY DO TTHER PEOPLE.

I bet I could pick some out right now.

 

[Petrel]

Originally posted by JWI:
In some people, whole paragraphs of the text were duplicated, whereas in others, large passages were missing, or even printed backwards. These major revisions turned up in all kinds of people, including many who seemed healthy and normal. Suddenly, it seemed possible that there was actually no standard version of the Book of Life, and researchers wondered whether we are all much more different from each other than they had thought.
These discoveries of major individual genetic differences, which began to surface in 2002 and 2003, have grown. Scientists were “freaked out” to find different numbers of copies of genes in different people, and then to find whole sections missing or written backwards in normal-looking people was almost unbelievable.

Whoa, you're saying you found evidence for the mechanisms of evolution in gene duplication, gene deletion, and palindromic DNA (which can be used to "correct" recombination). Good work!

 

[JWI]

No, I've found that you cannot tell relationships by the similarity of genes.

If there are more differences between some groups of people than there are between people and chimpanzees, which this article seems to say, then you cannot judge relationships or common ancestor by the genes.

By the way, I also found a great article about the so called "feathered dinosaur" you guys claim shows evolution of birds from dinosaurs.

While the author said he "believes" dinos and birds are still related, he says the current stories of feathered dinosaurs are false.

Have We Been Sold a Bill of Goods About Feathered Dinosaurs and Bird Evolution? 10/10/2005
Most people remember the poignant moment at the end of Jurassic Park when the professor, on a flight away from his harrowing experiences on the island of dinosaurs run amok, sees a flock of modern birds and ponders their peaceful existence as descendants of the velociraptors and tyrannosaurs that nearly killed him and his friends. The story of birds evolving from dinosaurs has taken on the status of confirmed truth in the minds of many. This has been reinforced by repeated announcements of alleged “feathered dinosaur” fossils being uncovered in China. Yet Alan Feduccia, a paleontologist at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has long contested this view. He and his colleagues have just come out swinging against his fellow evolutionists, accusing them of easy-believism and wish-fulfillment in spite of the evidence. According the U of NC press release:
“The theory that birds are the equivalent of living dinosaurs and that dinosaurs were feathered is so full of holes that the creationists have jumped all over it, using the evolutionary nonsense of ‘dinosaurian science’ as evidence against the theory of evolution,” he said. “To paraphrase one such individual, ‘This isn’t science . . . This is comic relief.’” (Emphasis added in all quotes.)
Feduccia has published 150 papers and six major books, including one The Age of Birds (Harvard, 1980) and The Origin and Evolution of Birds (Yale, 1996). He and his colleagues have published these attacks on bird-from-dinosaur evolution in the Journal of Morphology. His views were also reported by EurekAlert that asked, “Did feathered dinosaurs exist?”
Although Feduccia believes birds and dinosaurs had a common reptilian ancestor, he argued, “to say dinosaurs were the ancestors of the modern birds we see flying around outside today because we would like them to be is a big mistake.” His team, using powerful microscopes, compared the skin of reptiles, the effects of skin decomposition, and the alleged “protofeathers” on fossils.
Here are some of the reasons in the press release for doubting the dino-to-bird evolution story:
Resemblance only: “They found that fossilized patterns that resemble feathers somewhat also occur in fossils known not to be closely related to birds and hence are far more likely to be skin-related tissues....”
Taxonomy confusion: “Much of the confusion arose from the fact that in China in the same area, two sets of fossils were found. Some of these had true feathers and were indeed birds known as ‘microraptors,’ while others did not and should not be considered birds at all.”
Preservation bias: Because collagen has low solubility in water and is tough, “we would expect it to be preserved occasionally from flayed skin during the fossilization process,” Feduccia said.
Wanting to believe: The strongest case for feathered dinosaurs was Sinosauropteryx, found in 1996, which sported a coat of “dino-fuzz.” Some concluded this fuzz provided insulation and pointed to the possibility dinosaurs were warm-blooded. Major journals presented Sinosauropteryx as definitive evidence for feathered dinosaurs, complete with artist renditions of colorful feathery coats on the creatures. “Yet no one ever bothered to provide evidence -- either structural or biological -- that these structures had anything to do with feathers,” said Feduccia. “In our new work, we show that these and other filamentous structures were not protofeathers, but rather the remains of collagenous fiber meshworks that reinforced the skin.”
Fumble fingers: The most critical link between dinosaurs and birds, according to Feduccia, has been the three-fingered hand pattern. Dinosaurs used digits 1, 2, and 3, but the team found that developing bird wings in the embryo derive from digits 2, 3 and 4. “To change so radically during evolution would be highly unlikely,” the article states.
Back to the future: The earliest known birds predate the feathered dinosaurs.
Also, the current feathered dinosaurs theory makes little sense time-wise either because it holds that all stages of feather evolution and bird ancestry occurred some 125 million years ago in the early Cretaceous fossils unearthed in China.
“That’s some 25 million years after the time of Archaeopteryx, which already was a bird in the modern sense,” he said. Superficially bird-like dinosaurs occurred some 25 million to 80 million years after the earliest known bird, which is 150 million years old.”
Feduccia himself had studied Archaeopteryx in detail. “He determined its flying ability by observing that the fossil’s feathers had leading edges significantly shorter than their trailing edges, which is characteristic of all modern flying birds.”
With all these evidences against bird-from-dinosaur evolution, why would the story take hold so deeply in the popular mind and in scientific circles? Feduccia argues that the promoters simply wanted to believe it. In a ruthless attack, he claimed that the desire to believe and promote this story indicates a serious collapse of credibility in the field of paleontology:
Feduccia said the publication and promotion of feathered dinosaurs by the popular press and by prestigious journals and magazines, including National Geographic, Nature and Science, have made it difficult for opposing views to get a proper hearing.
“With the advent of ‘feathered dinosaurs,’ we are truly witnessing the beginnings of the meltdown of the field of paleontology,” he said. “Just as the discovery a four-chambered heart in a dinosaur described in 2000 in an article in Science turned out to be an artifact, feathered dinosaurs too have become part of the fantasia of this field. Much of this is part of the delusional fantasy of the world of dinosaurs, the wishful hope that one can finally study dinosaurs at the backyard bird feeder.”
So what does Feduccia himself believe about the evolution of birds? “It is now clear that the origin of birds is a much more complicated question than has been previously thought,” he said.

Just goes to show that all this "scientific fact" you evolutionists claim is quite a stretch of the truth.

 

[UTEOTW]

"Your argument is ridiculous. The temptation of Christ MUST have been a supernatural event for several reasons."

How exactly is it "ridiculous?"

The rest of your post demonstrates my point. You add to the account all these other things that "must" have happened based on knowledge you possess from outside of the Bible. You are willing to alter the plain reading based on knowledge from outside of the Bible with which you are comfortable.

But of course you have no problem if you are the one doing so but when I do it you assert falsely that I "do not believe the Bible."

Typical YE inconsistency.