by AlmostAtheist 68 Replies latest jw friends
:IMHO, that was totally unessecary to the discusion and condescending on your part.
I agree, the whole point of this thread was to get creationist's to explain their views, no need to trash them when they speak up, even if we don't agree with em. At least he is trying to explain himself.
GBL
Hello Dave,
Good thread. To answer your question,
How does current evolution thinking explain the jump from one species to another?
I'm not an expert, but I am studying the topic. There really are no "jumps" between species. When people talk about "gaps" in the fossil record, they are talking about million-year-long segments where a fossil has not been found for the animal in question.
Secondly, as funkyderek pointed out, fossils are very rare. Here's a quote from talkorigins:
"To be a successful sorter demands a rare combination of attributes: acute observation allied with the anatomical knowledge to recognise the mammalian teeth, even if they are broken or abraded, has to be combined with the enthusiasm and intellectual drive to keep at the boring and soul-destroying task of examining tens of thousands of unwanted fish teeth to eventually pick out the rare mammalian tooth. On an average one mammalian tooth is found per 200 kg of bone-bed." (Kermack, 1984.)
The entire page is worth reading, as it bears directly on this topic. The URL is:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional/part1a.html
That's it for now...Got to get back to work!
SNG
I believe in creation by God but I believe the traditional creation story is a bad reading of a flawed record (ie Genesis). With one thought in mind (we will become godlike and will one day possess the ability to create a genesis project on barren planets) I think it is fairly easy to see how an intelligent being could create life. What is missing from teh creation story is how it was done and guided evolution is just as good a way to do it as any other. What makes the biblical creation for me is that it was a spiritual creation first (everything made and living without being physical) and then a physical creation on the Seventh day - if you don't believe me check out Genesis - there are two stages to creation. What we need God for is not to make the bodies (though he built the DNA code to do it) but to make the souls. As for accidental evolution this is why I cannot believe it happens unguided: 1/ Irreducible complexity - the knee, the eye, the bombadier beetle etc.. 2/ Most complex organisms have longest lifespans (should be least evolved) 3/ Fossil record is complete in time slices - there are huge gaps in the record and no links between the layers. 4/ Thermodynamics suggestes order must degrade into disorder - life works exactly opposite to that law. 5/ Evolution requires extreme environmental pressure to work and the world just isn't pressured enough (IE everything is in absolute harmony right now so evoltion should slow down and almost stop - most of the earths history has been calm and normal - that's why they have to point to asteroids etc to wipe out large numbers of species.) 6/ Mutation is never beneficial - can anyone think of a beneficial human mutation in the last 2000 years of recorded history? Nature has had trillions of chances to evolve a better human in the last 2000 years. 7/ The simplest cell is way too complex to be random - evolution cannot start life its like trying to shake a jigsaw puzzle into place inside its box - theoretically a sound idea until you realise the jigsaw is too big for the box. Th esimplest cell is more complex than a car and you'd never be able to shake together bits of oil , metal and pink fluffy dice together and ever get a car out of it - hang on maybe you could get a trabant hehe
I can sympathise with Funky's frustration about the quality of creationist argumentation.
Every single argument presented by creationists in this thread would not have been presented by them if they had had the common courtesy to go read up on the subject beforehand.
I suppose people could smile sweetly and nod. But if I said that Americans eat babies, people would correct my rank and idiotic misconception. Apparently equivalently erroneous statments about evolution should stand undisputed.
It is all there; the muddled and wrong statements about thermodynamics, the statements parroted on trust that there are huge gaps in the fossil record.
Quite frankly what I see is a white collar bias.
Imagine someone who's knowledge of carpentry consisted of thirty minutes reading a magazine article whilst waiting for a dental check-up, and half a dozen web sites put together by people who themselves were considered unemployable by most carpenters. Imagine them telling ALL the cabinet makers in the world that they had it wrong.
Most people would consider them to be an arrogant no-nothing schmuck.
EVERYBODY respects the blue-collar worker.
You change carpentry to evolutionary biology and suddeny the years of work by the white collar academics are held on an equal level with the statements by people who haven't studied the subject. Anyone who points out they have selected a non-optimal orifice for communication is a bad person.
Yeah, right, okay.
I know why they had such problems with the Space Shuttle. A lack of postal employees working on the design...
Anyway, as usual it isn't a proper discussion about whether some higher power directed evolution or set it going. It's a sectarian 'Christians are right and everyone else is ignorant' discussion.
Yet despite this arrogance it's the evolutionists who get told off.
Yeah, right, okay...
Anyway;
1/ Irreducible complexity - the knee, the eye, the bombadier beetle etc.. There are many example
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/behe.html
2/ Most complex organisms have longest lifespans (should be least evolved)
Wonderful; over evolutionary time-scales this is a meaningless argument.
3/ Fossil record is complete in time slices - there are huge gaps in the record and no links between the layers.
Any understanding of fossilisation would stop someone making this statement. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/mine/part1-3.html
4/ Thermodynamics suggestes order must degrade into disorder - life works exactly opposite to that law.
Any understanding of thermodynamics would stop someone making this statement. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/thermo.html
5/ Evolution requires extreme environmental pressure to work and the world just isn't pressured enough (IE everything is in absolute harmony right now so evoltion should slow down and almost stop - most of the earths history has been calm and normal - that's why they have to point to asteroids etc to wipe out large numbers of species.)
This is a statement, an assertion, an opinion. Any claim that evolution has stopped because 'everything is in absolute harmony right now so evoltion should slow down and almost stop' is pretty obviously whacky. The argument fails to consider advantage of one organism over another in a stable environment.
6/ Mutation is never beneficial - can anyone think of a beneficial human mutation in the last 2000 years of recorded history? Nature has had trillions of chances to evolve a better human in the last 2000 years.
I don't now about the last 2,000 years, but there have been several beneficial human mutations. Latose tolerance, thalacymia, sickle cell trait; those are off the top of my head. Lactose tolerance is so beneficial most Euopeans have it.
7/ The simplest cell is way too complex to be random - evolution cannot start life its like trying to shake a jigsaw puzzle into place inside its box - theoretically a sound idea until you realise the jigsaw is too big for the box. Th esimplest cell is more complex than a car and you'd never be able to shake together bits of oil , metal and pink fluffy dice together and ever get a car out of it - hang on maybe you could get a trabant hehe
I cannot believe anyone is still using this argument http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/abioprob.html
Please people, can we have a serious discussion about creationism? Not a sectarian one hijacked by a small group of people trying to prove their brand of religious belief, or one invoking arguments that are disprovable with a few minutes of effort? But one where we actuially think out of the freaking box for a change?
Most of the primary speciation of complex life happened long ago. There are (according to newest info on Nature.com) over half a million recorded animal species.
A good starting point for speciation is http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB910.html
There you will find some interesting links.
Abbadon - just disagree that's all - you see unlike most people I do actually read all this stuff and you know what it still doesn't add up!
Just to let you know what I think about the talk origins site - I think its full of very clever people talking an awful lot about what other people think (ie they set up so many straw man arguements) - I disagreed with most of the things they said 'creationists' believed. I have read and read on this subject because I'm not a 'blind' believer. What do I know about science - its not all powerful, just because someone uses scientific names they aren't right.
I think that a number of the commentaries here illustrate why creationists are so loathe to try to engage the other side. Already, commentators have questioned our intelligence, our knowledge, etc... It is the old game of attacking the person rather than the message. although I don't claim to be an expert on biology, one thing I can say is that, in my experience, when one needs to take personal digs at those who hold the other view, then one backhandedly acknowledges that their own position is not as strong as one claims.
As long as the materialists insists on that kind of tactic, then honest exchange of views and debate is not possible. What I will remind you is that, in spite of the pressure to follow the elvolution dogma, there are a number of scientists who have come to the conclusion that creation best fits the evidence. I am speaking of people who are well trained in biology and are in a better position to make that conclusion than the average Joe. It has cost them dearly because the evolutionists cannot tolerate the dissent.
I know of one such scientist who went through the experience of his colleagues trying to strip him of his credntials. Another recently made the news because he left the evolutionist camp. His explanation, as I recall, was pretty much the same as Funky said in his rebuttal of me. He said that he had to go where the weight of the evidence led him.
I came across this in Discovery magazine (April 2005; p 38), in an article addressing questions about dinosaurs:
"Fossils are not the only source of clues to the evolution of feathers; bird embryos are as well. A feather begins as a hollow tube. It then produces barbs that hook together loosely. This design can lead to the downy feathers that keep birds warm. In other cases, a feather will produce more hooks that lock the barbs into straight rows, creating the flat surface that birds need to fly.
"In 1999 Richard Prum of Yale University and Alan Brush of the University of Connecticut proposed that these growth patterns reflect how feathers evolved. Paleontologists have now found enough feathered dinosaurs to test their theory, and it is holding up well. The feathered dinosaurs most distantly related to birds had hollow tubes protruding from their skin. More closely related species had a few barbs branching from a central axis. And the feathered dinosaurs that were the closest relatives of birds had the most complex feathers."
Though scientists are not totally sure what purpose the protofeathers of dinosaurs served (mating displays, species recognition, and insulation are possible functions) it does seem clear that the fossil finds are confirming exactly what the evolution model would predict - a gradual increase in feather complexity as certain dinosaurs (dromaeosaurs - midsize bipedal meat eaters) changed over time, becoming more closely related to, and as many paleontologists believe, evolving into the birds we see today.
