Young Earth - 6,000 or 10,000 Years?

[Scott J]

Paul, If I said "scientists" then I apologize for I meant "evolutionists". I do not equate the two nor limit the "scientists" to those who believe in evolution.

Evolutionists accept/demand that only the philosophy of naturalism can be a premise for earth science and history. So even though we can study intelligence, coding, mathematics, design... and those things are not natural processes... evolutionists arbitrarily preclude the idea that intelligent design of any kind could have been involved in natural history.

 

[El_Guero]

Scott,

I think that you said:

The very simple fact is that I will not consider evolution's arguments seriously until they are honest about their philosophical presuppositions in a consistent and public way.

 

[UTEOTW]

"Could be the same instance, I don't know.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7285683/

This is not the original article I read but one that appears to have been written prior to the one I read.

None the less, this tissue should not have been there after "70 million" years... no one in the article even attempted to address that problem. On another note, the original article I read said that no one had been looking for soft tissue. This one indicates that the discoverer had been."

That's the one. Look at your own link.

The subtitle is "70-million-year-old fossil yields preserved blood vessels".

As I said, it is well preserved material, not fresh material.

The third paragraph reads "When they got it into a lab and chemically removed the hard minerals, they found what looked like blood vessels, bone cells and perhaps even blood cells."

As I said, it was well preserved material. It was fossilized. Minerals had penetrated int othe material and permanently preserved it. The minerals were able to be dissolved out, leaving something flexible. The last I heard, it was still unclear just what this material was.

The best that can be said is that we learned something new about fossilization. The process is able to preserve materials much better than was thought possible. It may even be a new method of preservation. But it says nothing to indicate that the t-rex lived recently.

One thing it may have taught us is that the inside of large bones where scavengers cannot get to may be a good place to look for other well preserved structures.

There is something else you should notice. Birds evolved from the same type of dinosaur as what a t-rex is. Theropod dinosaurs. Earlier, we had found a tyrannosaur with feathers. Now we have found that tyranosaurs had blood vessels like what birds possess. We have also found the tyranosaurs had air sacs in their bones like what birds have. We have found that theropods had hearts like birds. We have a pattern in theropods where downy feathers appear in the fossil record and then get more complex until the dinosaur microraptor had fully formed flight feathers on all four legs. Theropods have been found to have a reproductive system similar to birds. And genetically, while we do not have access to dinosaur DNA, dinosaurs evolved from archosaur reptiles as did crocodiles. And would't you know it, birds are genetically similar to crocodiles.

Now all this is a fair example of some of the things that lead to a conclusion of evolution. We have a record of change in the fossils of theropods showing some of them becoming more birdlike. We have a number of homologies between birds and theropods. We have genetic data showing a close relationship within the group. That birds evolved from dinosaurs is the best fit of the data and is well supported by the data. A distant second is the idea that birds and dinosaurs share the same archosaur common ancestor. But this is by far the best explanation of the data.

What other explanation could you offer that is not arbitrary? What bits of data could you provide to support your interpretation instead of the mainstream scientific explanation?

You can offer what ifs and stories. But there is nothing in the data that says that such things even approach how well common descent explais the data. These stories ofer no ability to be tested. They offer no ability to give predictions about what else should be found. They accomodate every possible situation by refusing to commit to anything specific. They are specious.

So when we apply Occam's razor, common descent is left as the only explanation.

 

[UTEOTW]

" This tells me that you are impressed with the high sounding, educated, technical parlance of evolutionists. Notably, they aren't the only ones who attempt to impress their fans and overwhelm their critics by using technical jargon."

Nope.

My faith in YE cracked from reading YE material. I did not need to turn to other sources to be impressed.

I can even tell you the item that set the ball rolling. Entropy. When I read the argument about how entropy prevents evolution, I immediately knew how and why that was false. I may have only had a couple of courses in thermo, but that was a mistake that even I could spot.

That led me to broaden my search and to start checking up on those other things that YEers said that did not seem to quite make sense. It fell apart like a house of cards.

 

[Paul of Eugene]

Originally posted by Scott J:
Paul, If I said "scientists" then I apologize for I meant "evolutionists". I do not equate the two nor limit the "scientists" to those who believe in evolution.

Evolutionists accept/demand that only the philosophy of naturalism can be a premise for earth science and history. So even though we can study intelligence, coding, mathematics, design... and those things are not natural processes... evolutionists arbitrarily preclude the idea that intelligent design of any kind could have been involved in natural history.

You are mistaken there when you say evolutionists demand "the philosophy of naturalism". Like all scientists, they confine their studies to naturalistic material when they do science. Some of them are undoubtedly naturalistic in philosophy as well; many of them are devoutly religious.

 

[Paul of Eugene]

Originally posted by Helen:
Robert Brown is past director of the Geoscience Research Institute. Yes, it is SDA and out of Loma Linda University. It is also respected worldwide among those on both sides of the evolution and ages arguments.

As far as implying academic misconduct, I guess you don't know about radiocarbon dating! Go to Google. Type in Radiocarbon "best fit" and you will get nearly a thousand hits, some of which will explain the method in detail for you.

When Carbon Dating was first proposed as a method of dating ancient wood and such, it was necessary to develop the theory by assuming the production of Carbon 14 in the atmosphere is constant. The carbon 14 is, of course, self-removing, as
it decays. It is produced in the atmosphere by the actions of cosmic rays, which we presume to be incoming in a fairly regular manner. The dating method was not just dreamed up and tried without testing! The first originators of the method tested it against wood taken from pharonic tombs and other known age sources. They found that the assumption of uniformity was a workable assumption, and therefore people began using the method.
Then came tree ring dating. Everybody knows that trees grow a new ring every year, and you can count the years backwards from the date of cutting it down and see how old it is. One can even discern good years from bad years by the width of the ring. Well, guess what. By matching up patterns of good years from bad years across many trees, we can work a chronology backwards for a good 10 thousand years! And this means we have an absolute yearly reference going back.
Sure, sometimes a tree here and there will skip a year and there are such things as double rings once in a great while, but such events are rare and the odd tree here and there with such an anomaly can be corrected for because they don't just check one tree. They check hundreds of trees and they check them all over the world in different climate zones and they keep checking all the time, because they found something out . . .

Cosmic ray conversion of nitrogen to carbon 14 was NOT absolutely constant over the Milena!

So how far did the tree rings reveal they were off? Something like about 10 or 12 percent, that's all, not enough to save young earth believers, indeed, they found that they had to correct the ages they had determined before checking against tree rings in the wrong direction for young earthers - instead, they pushed it further back! And the line was not a straight line of correction, there were WIGGLES in the line, apparently the production of carbon 14 in our atmosphere cycles both up and down a bit over the centuries.

So did this invalidate the older work? For the purpose of our discussion, it did not. It merely represents a fine tuning of the previously sound work.

BUT WAIT - THERE'S MORE!

In Japan, Lake Suigetsu has been extensively investigated because it has annually accumulating material in the lake bottom going back over 40,000 years. The twigs and leaves that accumulated there as well are also dated by the carbon dating method.

Here's a link to one of the scientific reports from such investigations:

http://www.cio.phys.rug.nl/HTML-docs/Verslag/97/PE-04.htm

If any of you will take the time to read this article, you will find that they also count annual layers, only this time it's not tree ring growth, it's sediment accumulating in the bottom of the lake, more or less constantly. How can they tell an annual layer? By the SPRING DIATOMS that come and go with the years.

And they have tens of thousands of layers to work with.

Now I've read some of your posts where, in the past, Helen, you have asserted that the annual layers of this lake could have, perhaps, been actually more frequent than once per year because of WILD STORMS that bring in surges of layers much more rapidly than yearly, especially at the time of the world wide flood.

At the same time those wild storms you propose were assaulting the lake in Japan, without removing the sediments but instead mimicking annual sediments, what do you suppose was happening to the trees as they tried to grow rings? Stressed out trees that are experiencing wild swings of weather are one of the things that

will make a tree SKIP a ring for a year. So if the lake is experiencing extra layers (strangely marked with perfectly even pollen counting, as they form) we would expect trees to react differently, skipping rings where the lake is accumulating layers.

Strangely enough, however, when the scientists investigating the layers in the lake bottom counted them as annual layers (just because of those pesky spring diatoms, you know) and then did carbon 14 dating of the layers (not the mud, but the twigs and leaves trapped in the mud) they found the SAME VARIATIONS in the actual production of carbon 14 that was reported by the TREE RING counters! With all the wiggles in the same places!

Now the scientists think this is stunning confirmation that the entirely separate age determination by the tree ring studies (of which there are many) is on the right track. But for a young earth creationist like yourself, Helen, I don't see how you can possibly explain how two physically distinct mechanisms - tree ring
growth versus lake sediment accumulation - can both come up with the same age and the same carbon dating adjustments down to the details of the wiggles in the curve unless they are both actually measuring the real thing, that is, an earth that is older than 6000 or 10000 years.

More history of radiocarbon dating:
http://www.c14dating.com/int.html

One last point. Let me point out that carbon 14 dating can be projected back 40 to 50 thousand years ago. We CANNOT CHECK tree rings back that far. We can only go back about 10,000 years with tree rings, due to the ice age ending about that time. But tree rings continue to be investigated all over the world and the years they can be used to verify the the carbon dating scheme will be pushed further and further back.
But I submit that with the dates VERIFIED BY ABSOLUTE RING COUNTING (and now, lake sediment counting as well) then we have every reason to accept the longer date ranges for the carbon dating series.

Other radioactive element series, of course, allow us to verify ages backwards for millions and billions of years.

 

[Plain Old Bill]

All of this is very interesting but off topic.

 

[Artimaeus]

Joh 5:45 Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust.
Joh 5:46 For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me.
Joh 5:47 But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?

 

[Deacon]

Regarding creation, at least one of us is wrong…
Once again it comes down to proper interpretational methods, what does the Bible really say about how God created the heavens and the earth.

Thank God that a proper understanding of creation is not necessary for eternal life (for all of us fail to full appreciate HOW God created).

Thank God for Jesus, who gives us eternal life.
His testimony is clear and true.
His testimony has been collaborated by others throughout the ages (John 5:31,32).

Thank God for our risen Savior.
Peace, be still and know that He is God.

Rob

 

[JWI]

Hello everyone. I am a newbee, this is my very first post here, though I have been lurking for some time. Today I decided to join the forum. Looks like there are some spirited debates here.

I am no scholar (one year of college)in theology or science. But I have been interested in the subjects of evolution and the age of the Earth for many years and have done a lot of reading.

I will not address the age of the Earth, but evolution. Those who believe the Earth to be very old tend (but not always) to believe in evolution
as well.

It is good old common sense that tells me evolution is false. If evolution were true, then evolution would be going on today. Afterall, evolution has no cause. It is simply the result of pure chance. If natural selection were true, then this would be continuing today as well.

We see no evidence of evolution around us. If one form of life were evolving into another we should see evidence all around us. If birds are evolving into mammals, then we should see literally thousands of half-bird, half-mammal forms everywhere. We should see birds that are losing their feathers and developing hair or fur. We should see birds giving live birth instead of laying eggs. We should see hundreds of flightless birds like the ostrich and penguin. But even these two examples should be developing arms or legs. Or perhaps fins if they decide to return to the sea as a porpoise.

We should not have one-celled animals in the world. They should have long ago evolved into higher, more complicated forms. Why should many decide to stay in such a primitive state while so many other creatures decide to evolve into higher forms?

The argument is that evolution takes place so slowly that these changes cannot be observed. But I think that is false. We should see many thousands (if not millions) of animals in a halfway state between one form and another. And this is clearly observed not to be true with our own eyes.

When Darwin's theories were first gaining acceptance, the age of the Earth was thought to be about 5 million years according to science. By the beginning of the 20th century this estimate had been changed to about 100 million years. Today science estimates the Earth and universe to be about 13-20 billion years old. The primary reason for these revisions is that incredible time is needed for evolution and other theories like the Big Bang to be viable.

If you do away with the theories of evolution and the Big Bang, there is no reason or want of an old age universe. There are serious scientific challanges to both theories today. I believe both theories will fall soon.

Anyway, so much for my first post. I believe the Earth is young as the Bible strongly implies.

Thanks for having me here.

 

[JackRUS]

Originally posted by Deacon:
Regarding creation, at least one of us is wrong…
Once again it comes down to proper interpretational methods, what does the Bible really say about how God created the heavens and the earth.

Thank God that a proper understanding of creation is not necessary for eternal life (for all of us fail to full appreciate HOW God created).

Thank God for Jesus, who gives us eternal life.
His testimony is clear and true.
His testimony has been collaborated by others throughout the ages (John 5:31,32).

Thank God for our risen Savior.
Peace, be still and know that He is God.

Rob

I beg to differ with your second sentence Deacon. Read 2 Cor. 11:1-4 and see what Paul means about a "different Jesus".

Did Jesus speak and create the heavens, the Earth and its creatures and say that it "was good"? Or did He create a big rock in the sky and sit on His throne and wait about 16 billion years for it to explode somehow and create itself into a universe that would make it's own beings through evolution?

IMHO people that believe in the latter Jesus of evolution who doesn't exist don't know the real Jesus at all. We are not permited to fashion a god from our own imagination and call him the Jesus of Scripture and get away with it. John 10:14

And as I explained previously, since death came first through Adam's sin (precluding any chance for evolution BTW) and he became our federal father in original sin clearing a precedent for Jesus to become our federal Father unto life eternal through His death, burial and Resurrection; That fact makes belief in the true Jesus and true Adam of Scripture essential. Rom. 5:12-15; Cor. 15:21-22.

Genesis can't be thought to be a fairy tale story along the lines of Alice in Wonderland and still be considered saved. It is true and literal as God gave the account to Moses to teach His people.

"Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?" 2 Cor. 13:5

*************************************************

And a hearty hello and welcome to JWI!

[ September 24, 2005, 09:48 PM: Message edited by: JackRUS ]

 

[Petrel]

Originally posted by JWI:

I will not address the age of the Earth, but evolution. . .

I think that your portrayal of evolution is a bit simplistic.

First of all, we are able to see evidence of natural selection currently. We have evidence of trait modification in populations as a result of natural selection, and we have recorded recent speciation for some species of plants and birds. Natural selection is a given, the only possible question is whether it is capable of producing dramatic changes over a long period of time. I more and more think that it is.

You seem to think that if a new species evolves from a current one, then the parent species must cease to exist. This is not true. We might start out with unicellular organisms, and then some of those may become colonial, and then some may specialize to become organisms like jellyfish, and then on to organisms with true tissues and organ systems. However, there is still a niche for the unicellular organisms, so those remain. One could even conceive of "reverse" evolution from a multicellular organisms to unicellular ones if somehow that niche were not filled.

You next state that we should see transitional species--birds bearing live young or growing fins, for example. I think that this definition of a transitional species is flawed. Of course we would not expect birds to be limited to evolving into mammals (that's not even the evolutionary theory, after all). It could be that there is a species of bird evolving into something else not a bird, but we would not know about this because we don't know the end product. Moreover, since every "transitional" species is complete as it is (being fully capable of surviving in its given habitat), there is no reason we should recognize them as being in between one thing and something else.

Interestingly, you demonstrate this blindness to transitional species by not noticing some organisms that could be considered transitional species according to your own definition. There are no birds that have live young, but what about those snakes and fish that are oviviviparous? In those species the eggs hatch internally, sometimes undergo development inside the body, and then are delivered as live young. Why do you not say that these animals are in transition from an egg-laying organism to a live-bearing one? How about marsupials? They are very like mammals in having development in utero and in feeding their young with milk--however, their young are born at a very immature stage and then develop outside the uterus in the pouch. Why don't you think this is a transitional species from a mammal to, well, something else--it's hard to see what the end might be! What about monotremes? They feed their young milk, but lay eggs. Why aren't they transitional species? How about lungfish? Why aren't they in transition from water-living fish to land-living fish? And as far as birds growing fins and becoming aquatic, how about penguins?

Finally, the age of the universe has not been arbitrarily extended from a few thousand to billions. It is calculated to be billions of years old from the astrological evidence that we can see. As I see it, there are three possibilities:

1. The universe looks old and really is old.
2. The universe looks old and is really young, God just made it to look old a few thousand years ago (which seems really dishonest to me. . .)
3. The universe looks old, but that's just because our model is incorrect and it's really young (so far no one has come up with a competing model that explains the evidence compellingly, though).

Interesting stuff!

 

[Helen]

JWI, welcome to Baptist Board! Thank you for your post. You already know by now that I think you are correct in what you are saying. There is a lot more to it, but you will never be on the wrong path believing that God knows how to communicate with us normal lay people through His Holy Word.

God bless you.

 

[Helen]

Petreal, natural selection deletes from the population variability, it does not add to it, which is what evolution needs. Some traits which are already in the population are selected for and those without those traits are dead or sterile or simply not selected for mating. This narrows the field and the result is, finally, something we call endangered species -- species which cannot live outside of a very limited niche. This is a degradation of organisms, not any sort of increase in complexity or abilities.

Yeah, it results in some very dramatic changes over time -- species that are so limited they cannot reproduce outside of a very narrow ecological and mate preference range. Species which are so inbred that negative mutations start cropping up regularly. But those are not the dramatic changes that do evolution any good at all.

Petrel, your idea of progression from one sort of organism to another is simplistic and naive in the extreme. There is NO possibility this has happened! Every mutation results in a loss of specificity, not a gain! (Please note I did not say 'information'!) We have absolutely no evidence of the ablity of ANY single celled organism being capable of becoming something other than itself, let alone something as relatively complicated as a sponge or jellyfish! It is all a series of guesses and ideas from people who refuse to let God 'get a foot in the door...'

As far as not seeing any transitional species, are you really trying to say that if some kind of bird was in the middle of transitioning into some other kind of animal that we wouldn't recognize that something was going on? At some point it would cease to be what we think of as a bird. But even with the ring species, the birds remain birds and frogs remain frogs, etc. There is no evidence of change at all, despite the variations of nearby and farther populations.

Your possibilities of 'transitionals' living today are all known by biologists to be complete in and of themselves and giving no sign of being transitional.

As far as the universe goes, it is not that it looks old. It doesn't. It looks rather young. But because it "MUST" be old, dark matter has been invented, all kinds of weird theories have been invented, and much evidence is ignored. That is not good science.

The long-age evolutionary scenario is full of apologists and supporters trying to stuff selected data into a ready-made theory.

 

[UTEOTW]

"Hello everyone. I am a newbee, this is my very first post here, though I have been lurking for some time. Today I decided to join the forum. Looks like there are some spirited debates here."

Hi! And welcome. You should have already noticed that I disagree with your position. But we do have occasional debate, a lot right now, and it give oyu much opportunity to learn about new things. You might also be interested to know that there is a science forum not listed on the main page where some of these debates ocasionally take place.

http://www.baptistboard.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi/forum/66.html?

"It is good old common sense that tells me evolution is false. If evolution were true, then evolution would be going on today. "

Well it is, but we'll get back to that shortly from something else you said.

In the mean time, let's propose an analogy or two. Evolution has been going on for billions of years. It is a SSSLLLOOOWWW process. Imagine other slow processes that you know of. Stare down at your watch and look intently at the hour hand. Or go outside and look at a shadow. Look really hard. Do you see them moving? No? Well, amke a note of where they are and go look again in an hour. Do you see movement now? The last common ancestor of huamsn and chimps was several million years ago. There has been little relative change since then. You should not expect to see drastic change on the order of a human lifetime.

Let's take a redwood forest. Now you have been told how many thousands of years a redwood lives and a description of its lifecycle. But how do you know? Has anyone ever seen a new redwood tree begin to grow, go completely through maturity and then die? Then how do we know? We know because we can study the processes that we do see and we can look at evidence from the past.

"It is simply the result of pure chance."

Not realy.

The mutations which provide the genetic diversity are for all intents and purposes random. But the selection process is not random.

"We see no evidence of evolution around us. If one form of life were evolving into another we should see evidence all around us. If birds are evolving into mammals, then we should see literally thousands of half-bird, half-mammal forms everywhere."

Part of the problem here is not understanding just what evolution says happens. Birds do not and never did turn into mammals.

But I know what you are getting at. First, remember how slowly things change. The next thing to keep in mind is that whatever long term changes may happen, each individual in the line must be a complete and functional organism. Changes do not happen with a goal in mind, just to make whatever is there better fir for its environment.

So just what would you expect a transitional to look like? I have some ideas for you. What if a bird were to evolve to become a marine animal, like what happened to whales? What kind of intermediates would you expect? How about a flightless bird, with wings and feet modified for use in the water, who does not get around so easily on land but has to come back there at least to lay eggs? Have you even see a penguin?

Some lobe finned fish evolved far in the past into amphibians. But you can still go around today and find fish such as lung fish who may preserve some of those intermediate traits.

Mammals evolved from reptiles. Go take a detailed look at a platypus and you will see a creature just barely a mammal that likely preserves some of the traits of the transitionals between reptiles and mammals.

But while we cannot see the big changes happening about us, we can observe the processes. We can see new mutations that lead to new genes and novel features. We can see things like migration taking place. We can observe gene flow affecting the genetic variability. We can see recombination shuffling the combination of genes from one generation to the next. And so on.

"We should see birds giving live birth instead of laying eggs."

Why? Is life birth better? Now always. Laying eggs may just happen to fit their niche well enough that there is no selective pressure to favor a move towards live birth.

But, you kind find examples of traditionally egg laying groups who have members that have developed some for of live birth. Many sharks, for example, give birth to live pups. So these things do happen.

"We should not have one-celled animals in the world. They should have long ago evolved into higher, more complicated forms. Why should many decide to stay in such a primitive state while so many other creatures decide to evolve into higher forms?"

Higher and lower and human terms. For the organism, they only important thing is to survive and reproduce. If that is happening, they species goes on.

But some single celled organisms have evolved into multicellular. But most have not. They are well adapted to their niche. Most life is single celled. It is a very successful way to live.

"The primary reason for these revisions is that incredible time is needed for evolution and other theories like the Big Bang to be viable. "

No, the primary reasons are better data.

You would be hard pressed to show that the WMAP guys who recently studied the cosmic microwave background and came up with 13.7 billion years as the age of the earth had any pressure to do so because of evolution.

 

[UTEOTW]

"Every mutation results in a loss of specificity, not a gain!"

"Adaptive evolution after gene duplication," Hughes AL, Trends Genetics, 2002 Sep.18(9):433-4.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12175796&dopt=Abstract

A gene, RNASE1, was duplicated such that we had a new gene, RNASE1B. These genes occur in the colobine monkey, douc langur and make pancreatic ribonuclease. Through a change in diet, the conditions within the digestive tract of the monkey were altered. Through selective pressure, the B copy of the gene mutated until it was adapted to digest single stranded bacterial RNA. The original gene still exists to perform its original function. The gene was duplicated. When the copy mutated, then there was a new DNA sequence. The second copy eventually mutated until it performed a new highly specific digestive process.

There are whole journals and books dedicated to discussion of the process which you say cannot occur. For example, Journal of Molecular Evolution.

"Your possibilities of 'transitionals' living today are all known by biologists to be complete in and of themselves and giving no sign of being transitional. "

All transitionals were "complete in and of themselves" when they lived. Else they would not have lived long enough to give rise to whatever came later.

"As far as the universe goes, it is not that it looks old. It doesn't. It looks rather young. But because it "MUST" be old, dark matter has been invented, all kinds of weird theories have been invented, and much evidence is ignored."

Looks pretty old to me...

But dark matter was not "invented" to make old universe theories work. It was theorized because it was observed. Or at least its effects.

There have been many ways in which dark matter's effects have been observed, but one good example is gravitational lensing. Let's even focus on one specific type of lens. In rare cases, the foreground galaxy is symmetric, at least spherically. In this case, it can focus the light from a background object into a circle. At least a dozen such rings, called Einstien rings, are known. The diameter of the ring is proportional to the square root of the mass of the lensing object. This provides a way to calculate to mass of the object that is serving as the lens. When the calculation is done and the visible matter is added up, the mass of the lens is too high by about 5 fold to be explained by the visible matter. Therefore there must be some unseen, or "dark," matter contributing the additional mass. Dark matters effects can also be seen in other types of gravitional lenses, in the rotation rates of galaxies, and in the details of the CMB to name a few other methods.

Most interestingly, the most likely candidates for the dark matter particles are a few of the theorized supersymmetric particles. We have never had particle colliders powerful enough to produce particles of their expected mass. But a new one under construction will be right at the borderline. So it is possible that we may know what the dark matter particles are in a decade or so. In addition, since string theory is supersymmetric, finding these particles would be a big hint that it may be headed in the right direction.

 

[JWI]

Thanks for the warm welcome. I love debating these issues.

I have trouble with transitional forms. A creature halfway between one form and another would be useless and could not survive. A reptile whose legs were neither complete legs or wings could neither walk or fly. It would die off.

Evolution says life started with one-celled creatures. The Bible says the first animal was the largest animal ever, the whale.

Gen 1:20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl [that] may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

Gen 1:21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that [it was] good.

I believe the Bible.

 

[UTEOTW]

"I believe the Bible."

As do we all. But not everyone agrees on the correct interpretation of all scripture. Just look around at all of the various denominations, each with different interpretations of the same scriptures.

"I have trouble with transitional forms. A creature halfway between one form and another would be useless and could not survive. A reptile whose legs were neither complete legs or wings could neither walk or fly. It would die off."

If the form of a given stage was useless, it would not survive. You are correct. So the intermediate stages must have been useful.

The problem is that you are thinking in terms of the end product. A reptiles halfway to becoming a bird was not optimized for flying, he was optimized for how he lived. As it turned out, there would come a descendent who would become better at something that happened to move that species closer to being a bird.

But since you brought it up, let's look at that transition. Take feathers. You can see fossils of dinosaurs with feathers that had no possibility of ever flying. You see some with thin, downy feathers. You see some where these have changed into symmetric feathers with barbs and shafts and all the other parts of non-flight feathers, like what you see on a bird's tail. There is even a dinosaur called microraptor who had complete flight feathers on both its legs and its arms. Alas, its skelton shows that it was not capable of powered flight, but I bet it was a great glider.

Now these early feathers were not useful for flight. So why did htey evolve? That is speculative at this time. The two most likely are that they were for warmth and that they were for display. It is important to remember that these two reasons are not mutually exclusive.

Now, what about those wings. Birds evolved from theropods. They walked on two legs and had two arms. Have you seen Jurassic Park? Think about T-rex. Little short, stubby useless front arms. Now think about velociraptor. It was smaller and its front arms were relatively longer. These smaller theropods could use their arms to grab and hold prey. Now I have read, but I do not have a reference handy, where you can see changes along the way in the arms of the theropods. There are changes that make them better able to grab prey and pull them in.

Now as it turns out, this movement is the same as the powered upstroke in bird flight. So these dinosaurs were under selective pressure to make them more capable for flight. But the selective pressure that led to the modifications were to give them better abilities to catch food. It was only later useful for flight.

Finally, look at the wing of early birds. You will see that they retained the claws for a while. So the half wing / half arm stage had some use for each purpose.

 

[Deacon]

I don’t usually answer back like this, perhaps it was the pepperoni pizza I ate last night.
Regarding the earlier post by JackRUS:

I beg to differ with your second sentence Deacon. Read 2 Cor. 11:1-4 and see what Paul means about a "different Jesus".
Maybe YOU need to read 2 Corinthians 11:1-4 which includes this verse: "But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ." KJV
Don’t complicate the gospel with extraneous baggage like the method of creation.

Did Jesus speak and create the heavens, the Earth and its creatures and say that it "was good"? Or did He create a big rock in the sky and sit on His throne and wait about 16 billion years for it to explode somehow and create itself into a universe that would make it's own beings through evolution?
Key point is that God (the Father, Son and Holy Spirit) created; the timing issue apparently was not important enough to be clearly presented in Scripture.

IMHO people that believe in the latter Jesus of evolution who doesn't exist don't know the real Jesus at all.
I may disagree with them but surely don’t think that they don’t know Jesus.

We are not permited to fashion a god from our own imagination and call him the Jesus of Scripture and get away with it. John 10:14
I agree (but the verse has nothing to do with your statement).

And as I explained previously, since death came first through Adam's sin (precluding any chance for evolution BTW) and he became our federal father in original sin clearing a precedent for Jesus to become our federal Father unto life eternal through His death, burial and Resurrection; That fact makes belief in the true Jesus and true Adam of Scripture essential. Rom. 5:12-15; Cor. 15:21-22.
Genesis can't be thought to be a fairy tale story along the lines of Alice in Wonderland and still be considered saved. It is true and literal as God gave the account to Moses to teach His people.
Have not read any of the posts regarding death before sin??? Have you not understood the argument?
Read the verses you use for support again. Romans 5:12 reads… ”Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, (note to believers in a young earth: be sure to stop reading here) but the verse continues on “…and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned-“

I personally agree with your assessment regarding the federal nature of Adam but have never critically examined the opposing arguments; someday I may find the time.

Old-earth creationists actually have a lot in common ground with young-earth creationists.
Read some of the more recent Systematic Theology texts by prominent theologians.

Baptist scholar Millard Erickson writes: ”Given the assumptions and tenets of this book, the two most viable options are theistic evolution and progressive creationism. Both have been and are being held by committed Bible-believing scholars, and each can assimilate or explain both the biblical and the empirical data.” (p482).

Wayne Grudem writes, “Both “Old-Earth” and “Young-Earth” theories are valid options for Christians who believe in the Bible today.” (p298)

There are some origin theories that are inconsistent with Scripture, among them is the secular theory of Evolution (materialistic evolutionism).

The prominence of literal interpretation began following the Reformation.
I personality would examine a person life carefully before saying they are not “saved” based upon an interpretational method.

"Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?" 2 Cor. 13:5
Good idea, yes WE should.

Rob

 

[El_Guero]

JWI

It is good old common sense that tells me evolution is false. If evolution were true, then evolution would be going on today. Afterall, evolution has no cause. It is simply the result of pure chance. If natural selection were true, then this would be continuing today as well.

Simple logic. Simple creation. GREAT Creator.