The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 1)

AtomicHorror

santing wrote: »

Because jumping to a different kind is like jumping from Shannon to New York. (I rather take the plane)

A poor analogy. The distance between the two is to be covered by millions of individuals over huge spans of time. A relay race from France to China would be a better analogy. Still very much inaccurate though.

wolfsbane

Wicknight said:

Quote:
Originally Posted by wolfsbane
nor have I ever encountered them describing it as macro-evolution. Please provide the references or admit your are misrepresenting them.
Are you kidding me?

Let me get this straight. You are now changing what "macro-evolution" means because you don't like the original definition because that has been demonstrated to take place, and are now saying that all Darwinian evolutionary changes are in fact micro-evolution, which you accept takes place.

Are you freaking kidding me?

So what pray tell is macro-evolution now Wolfsbane?
This is utter nonsense.

I agree, what you say is utter nonsense.

YOU said Creationism once taught there was no species change. I called you on it and you failed to back it up with references. I in fact gave references from as far back as the 1970's to show you are wrong. I now have a scanner and am happy to scan any of these Creationist references to speciation, if you want them.

Anyone here can check the Creationist sites on the subject of marco and micro evolution. They will find it exactly as I said. They are free to google for Creationist organisations that taught species don't change into other species, but they will be disappointed.

Yes, evolutionists and creationists use macro-evolution in different senses, but so do evolutionists:
ConfusionsWays in which the term "macroevolution" is used by scientists. Some are exact in the way they use it, while others are less exact. These usages are not all the same, and this causes some confusion. Why do scientists not agree on the meaning of their terms?

The meaning modern authors give to the terms "macroevolution" and "microevolution" is often confusing, and varies according to what it is they are discussing. This is particularly the case when "large-scale" evolutionary processes are being discussed. For example, R. L. Carroll, in his undergraduate textbook (1997: 10) defines microevolution as "involving phenomena at the level of populations and species" and macroevolution as "evolutionary patterns expressed over millions and hundreds of millions of years". Eldredge says, "Macroevolution, however it is precisely defined, always connotes "large-scale evolutionary change" (1989: vii) and throughout his book speaks of macroevolution as roughly equivalent to the evolution of taxa that are of a higher rank than species, such as genera, orders, families and the like. In his book Evolution, Mark Ridley defines the terms thus (2004: 227):

Macroevolution means evolution on the grand scale, and it is mainly studied in the fossil record. It is contrasted with microevolution, the study of evolution over short time periods, such as that of a human lifetime or less. Microevolution therefore refers to changes in gene frequency within a population .... Macroevolutionary events events are much more likely to take millions of years. Macroevolution refers to things like the trends in horse evolution ... or the origin of major groups, or mass extinctions, or the Cambrian explosion .... Speciation is the traditional dividing line between micro- and macroevolution.

There are many papers published that use the term in this "higher category" way; why is that?

Science is not always consistent in its use of terms; this is the source of much confusion. Sometimes this is carelessness, and sometimes this is because of the way in which terms are developed over time. When biologists and paleontologists talk about macroevolution in the sense of "large-scale" evolution, they are strictly speaking meaning only a part of the phenomena the term covers, but it is the most interesting part for those specialists. That is, they are talking about the patterns of well-above-species-level evolution (Smith 1994)., from the anti-creationist article:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/macroevolution.html

Quote:
Originally Posted by wolfsbane
Species-species change is micro-evolution.
No its not because if it was that would make macro-evolution a meaningless term.

See above.

Quote:
Originally Posted by wolfsbane
Horses, zebras, donkeys - all variations within the Biblical kind. Horses, pigs, monkeys - all from different kinds.
And you know this how Wolfsbane

Please list known "kinds" and how each species fits into them. Please tell me the characteristics that place a zebra in the "Horse kind"

Considering you have been asked this about 10 times already and dodged the question each time, I wait with blue cheeks.

I have admitted we cannot be certain where a kind ends, but we can certainly say that any creature that can breed with another are both of the same kind. A horse and a zebra, for example.
But creationists point out that the kind is larger than one of today’s ‘species’. This is because each of the original kinds was created with a vast amount of information. There was enough variety in the information in the original creatures so their descendants could adapt to a wide variety of environments.

Based on the Biblical criterion for kinds, creationists deduce that as long as two creatures can hybridize with true fertilization, the two creatures are (i.e. descended from) the same kind. 6 Also, if two creatures can hybridize with the same third creature, they are all members of the same kind.7 The hybridization criterion is a valid operational definition, which could in principle enable researchers to list all the kinds. The implication is one-way—hybridization is evidence that they are the same kind, but it does not necessarily follow that if hybridization cannot occur then they are not members of the same kind (failure to hybridize could be due to degenerative mutations). After all, there are couples who can’t have children, and we don’t classify them as a different species, let alone a different kind.

The boundaries of the ‘kind’ do not always correspond to any given man-made classification such as ‘species’, genus, family, etc. But this is not the fault of the term ‘kind’, it is actually due to inconsistencies in the man-made classification system, not the term ‘kind’. That is, several organisms classified as different ‘species’, and even different genera or higher groupings, can produce fertile offspring. This means that they are really the same species that has several varieties, hence a polytypic (many types) species. A number of examples are presented in Ref. 6, and in the article Ligers and wholphins? What next?, including Kekaimalu the wholphin, a fertile hybrid of two different so-called genera.

Loss of information through mutations (copying mistakes), e.g. in proteins recognizing ‘imprinting’ marks, ‘jumping genes’, natural selection, and genetic drift, can sometimes result in different small populations losing such different information that the offspring from crossing different varieties (hybrids) may be sterile, or not survive. Or changes in song or color might result in birds no longer recognizing a mate, so they no longer interbreed. Either way, a new ‘species’ is formed. Thus each created kind may have been the ancestor of several present-day species, from:
http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/3855/#kinds

Quote:
Originally Posted by wolfsbane
As above, a total misrepresentation. All the species change was micro-evolution. Rapid micro-evolution.
Can you please demonstrate where this rapid species change has been witnessed or observed. I mean if it happens so rapidly it should be easily to observe, right?

Sure:
Speedy species surprise
http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/403

Quote:
Originally Posted by wolfsbane
It seems that most of the speciation has already occurred, and we are in a much more fixed biosphere.
So it did happen, but now it is stopped for some unknown reason and cannot be observed. Interesting.

Not stopped totally, just insofar as organisms have properly adapted to their present enviroment and have also lost the genetic range required for further significant adaptation - hence the extinctions we often see as well as the few adaptations.

Please explain again your objection to radio-meteric dating methods ... you know, that they rely on assumptions that observed physics in the present worked the same way in the past.

It's based partly on questioning the assumption of uniform rates of change, but also on assumptions of the amount of parent material. For example, lead in Eden would not have resulted from the decay of uranium.

Quote:
Originally Posted by wolfsbane
That means the pairs of creatures emerging from the Ark had a broader genetic spectrum for speciation to work on than their speciated descendants now have.
LOL

Please define "broader genetic spectrum" if you wouldn't mind. Did they have bigger chromosomes? Were they mutating faster?

Please explain how you know this.

Mutation and natural selection lead to a loss of genetic information, so the original kinds, and all intermediate species, would have more useful information than today's species. But that's just me - see this for a scientist's view:
http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/1554

And wider:
Variation within created kindshttp://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/cfol/ch2-variation.asp
and
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v21/i3/horse.asp

Quote:
Originally Posted by wolfsbane
Likewise, if one believes there is a spiritual dimension, and one says natural forces brought all things into existence, one cannot limit one's explanation to the material world. It must also account for the spiritual dimension.
True, but then most Christians, including theistic evolutionists, don't claim that natural forces brought all things into existence, so that is just a weak straw man Wolfsbane.

I wasn't talking about theistic evolutionists, but about non-theistic evolutionists like yourself. It is you folk who have to account for the spirit.

wolfsbane

Wicknight wrote: »

What does that actually mean?

How does evolution know that it is currently at a kind barrier, and that to mutate the foot or the ears or the eyes etc would cause a species to jump into a different kind grouping, and therefore it doesn't do this?

Each organism has a specificed complexity - is an information bank at work, so to speak. It can be evolved within its resources, shuffling or losing information to give a new variation/species. But it cannot gain new useful information so as to become a new kind of creature. Equine kind remains so, be it horsae or zebra, etc.

IOW, Information is the barrier.

santing

AtomicHorror wrote: »

A poor analogy. The distance between the two is to be covered by millions of individuals over huge spans of time. A relay race from France to China would be a better analogy. Still very much inaccurate though.

I disagree. The gap between kinds is too big and must be done in one leap. Any "intermediate" is like landing half way in the ocean ... very quickly disappearing, and definitely not jumping again.

AtomicHorror

santing wrote: »

I disagree. The gap between kinds is too big and must be done in one leap. Any "intermediate" is like landing half way in the ocean ... very quickly disappearing, and definitely not jumping again.

I'm confused. You suggest that the difference between kinds is defined by the "distance" between them, ie the extent of difference. Yet if an intermediate or many intermediates between kinds were discovered, this distance would be lessened and our two kinds would then in fact be of the same kind. You'd then insist once again that the distance between kinds is too great... etc. Essentially you've defined kinds in a logically circular manner as being something that cannot be bridged.

Explain to me please, in terms of biology, what is the metaphorical "ocean"? Genetic difference? Morphological difference?

At any rate, evolution would not predict that one could jump or walk between currently existing kinds. It predicts that new kinds can evolve from old kinds. That is, that two kinds that are now distant from each other would actually originated from a single kind in the past. If you like, that America and Europe were once the same continent, and split later. The analogy is still bad though, since continents may come together again, whereas convergent evolution is only a superficial phenomenon.

santing

AtomicHorror wrote: »

Explain to me please, in terms of biology, what is the metaphorical "ocean"? Genetic difference? Morphological difference?

I am aware that I haven't read all 100,000 posts here yet, so I may duplicate something that has been discussed 50,000 post before
The two countries would represent valid, stable forms of information held in sufficient complex gens to make a valid life form.
The metaphorical "ocean" is a state where the (combined) gens do not contain enough (relevant) information to produce a valid life form.
Morphological difference was what Darwin looked at. We have to use solve the GEN difference.

Flamed Diving

How would you explain Dolphin/Whale DNA being closer to human kind than to fish kind?

AtomicHorror

santing wrote: »

I am aware that I haven't read all 100,000 posts here yet, so I may duplicate something that has been discussed 50,000 post before
The two countries would represent valid, stable forms of information held in sufficient complex gens to make a valid life form.
The metaphorical "ocean" is a state where the (combined) gens do not contain enough (relevant) information to produce a valid life form.
Morphological difference was what Darwin looked at. We have to use solve the GEN difference.

So, what you're saying is that you cannot evolve between established kinds? Evolution agrees. Except that the word "kind" is meaningless of course. In fact, you cannot so much as evolve from one established species to another. Species divide into new descendant species, but the odds of one of those being an already established species is negligible. The best that evolution predicts is convergence, whereby a new species superficially resembles an existing one. This would extend to kinds, assuming that term were well-defined.

santing

AtomicHorror wrote: »

So, what you're saying is that you cannot evolve between established kinds? Evolution agrees.

So you are almost there.

If you cannot evolve between two established kinds, than you can also not evolve from an established kind into a (still unknown) new kind. In order to demonstrate the process, you must be able to trace it back in history.

AtomicHorror

wolfsbane wrote: »

[
Mutation and natural selection lead to a loss of genetic information, so the original kinds, and all intermediate species, would have more useful information than today's species. But that's just me - see this for a scientist's view:
http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/1554spirit.

There is no evidence for this "loss of information" whatsoever. Completely the opposite in fact. Lenski's 2008 PNAS paper conclusively shows an increase in "information" due to a series of mutations. This direct observation re-confirms what we already know from genetic analysis.

wolfsbane wrote: »

Each organism has a specificed complexity - is an information bank at work, so to speak. It can be evolved within its resources, shuffling or losing information to give a new variation/species. But it cannot gain new useful information so as to become a new kind of creature. Equine kind remains so, be it horsae or zebra, etc.

IOW, Information is the barrier.

But species can gain new genes, extra genes. New information. This has been conclusively demonstrated. We have seen genes that are duplicates within a species, genes which are duplicates that have changed by 10%, 20%, 50% 90%. When we do multiple comparisons including intermediates we can identify genes which have changed entirely from their parent gene.

AtomicHorror

santing wrote: »

So you are almost there.

If you cannot evolve between two established kinds, than you can also not evolve from an established kind into a (still unknown) new kind.

Why not? Evolution does not predict the first one. But there are no barriers to the second.

santing wrote: »

In order to demonstrate the process, you must be able to trace it back in history.

Which we can do using the fossil record, genetic analysis and direct observation in the lab. And have done.

Zombrex

santing wrote: »

Because jumping to a different kind is like jumping from Shannon to New York. (I rather take the plane)

In what way? Evolution is a process of minute changes that accumulate in a species until the species has so many changes that it is distinct from what the species was like thousands of years ago (or in the case of Ark Creationism, decades ago).

So it is like taking a plane trip from Shannon to New York. You travel inch by inch, mile by mile, but at some point you end up in New York.

The question for Wolfsbane is what stops the accumulation of changes at a certain point? What causes the accumulation to simply stop before it changes the life forms over the kind barrier.

santing

AtomicHorror wrote: »

Which we can do using the fossil record, genetic analysis and direct observation in the lab. And have done.

Thanks - you bring us back to the main discussion

using the fossil record, - No
genetic analysis - No
and direct observation in the lab. - No

You have demonstrated the capability to jump from Ireland to a mystical place, covered in clouds called Achil. Achil, however is still part of Ireland.

J C

Mr.Pudding wrote:

"Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can, but does not want to. If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked. If God can abolish evil, and God really wants to do it, why is there evil in the world?"

Mr P, evil is a direct result of the inappropiate exercise of free will, by the spirits of Mankind and fallen angels.
God is neither impotent nor wicked for not removing our free will in order to eliminate evil......He is a long-suffering and patient God who loves every person with a father's love and wishes that everyone should repent and FREELY believe on Jesus Christ to be saved.

AtomicHorror wrote: »

God did it.

........has the Atheist who used to scoff.......begun to pray????!!!!:)

Zombrex

wolfsbane wrote: »

But it cannot gain new useful information so as to become a new kind of creature. Equine kind remains so, be it horsae or zebra, etc.

That can't be true for your system to work, if a horse and a zebra are the same "kind" a Plains Zebra has 32 chromosomes and a donkey has 62. Horses have 64 chromosomes

How did the donkey and horse gain 30 chromosomes from the Zebra?

Or are you saying that the Zebra lost 30 chromosomes, which doesn't make much sense because fossils of zebras have been found before the Flood?

Galvasean

santing wrote: »

Thanks - you bring us back to the main discussion

using the fossil record, - No
genetic analysis - No
and direct observation in the lab. - No

Are avoiding the data on purpose?

santing wrote: »

You have demonstrated the capability to jump from Ireland to a mystical place, covered in clouds called Achil. Achil, however is still part of Ireland.

Your analogies are irrelevant and frankly not adding anything to the debate other than unnecessary confusion.

J C wrote: »

........has the Atheist who used to scoff.......begun to pray????!!!!:)

As predicted there is the quote without the context. Welcome back J C.

AtomicHorror

santing wrote: »

Thanks - you bring us back to the main discussion

using the fossil record, - No
genetic analysis - No
and direct observation in the lab. - No

How about instead of saying "no" to all three, you tell us "why" without using an analogy.

AtomicHorror

J C wrote: »

AtomicHorror:
God did it.

........has the Atheist who used to scoff.......begun to pray????!!!!:)

Good to have you back, doing what you do best. Substituting out-of-context quotes for logical argument.

J C

The Mad Hatter wrote:

"Is not eternal death a happier prospect than eternal life?"

.....yes eternal death would indeed be preferable to an eternity in Hell......but unfortunately we DON'T get to choose between eternal death and life......we only get to choose WHERE we spend eternity......and I would urge everyone to choose Heaven .......by being saved!!!!!

AtomicHorror wrote: »

I hope J C is okay, I don't think I've ever seen him away from his home for so long...

I have been spending my time soaking up some continental sunshine and avoiding the latter-day 'deluge' AKA an Irish 'summer'!!!:)

santing

Gaviscon wrote: »

Are avoiding the data on purpose?

No, just tired of quoting the same evidence all over:
Fossil record - see http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/3001
Genetic analysis - are always prove of "recent" age http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/5688/
Lab expirements - never created anything but a crippled version of the original

Early LAB expirements:

Pro 27:22 ESV Crush a fool in a mortar with a pestle along with crushed grain, yet his folly will not depart from him.

J C

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

As a favour to the creationists on this thread, I will list 'kinds' as they come up. First we have the 'sort-of-looks-like-a-horse' kind, which Wolfsbane mentioned above. This kind includes horses, zebras and donkeys. Probably also zeedonks.

Then there's the 'Rhinocerops' kind, which includes the Rhinoceros and the Triceratops.*

*In answer to any of those who joined the thread more recently, yes. It was J C.

......the 'pennies are starting to drop'......and the 'pips are starting to squeak'!!!!!:pac::):D

robindch

santing wrote: »

No, just tired of quoting the same evidence all over:

Instead of pointing people at creationist texts, why not try summarizing the information instead?

I can't speak for anybody else, but I don't read creationist texts. And debating by supplying links does not produce an enjoyable conversation any more than showing up in a pub and trying to tell jokes by pointing at somebody else who does.

J C

AtomicHorror wrote: »

A stinger is more complex than an extra pair of legs, but might be generated in on the order of 10 mutations, perhaps less. Abdomen terminal growths could come about as a mutation of the terminal segment. Or through duplication of the genitals and further mutation. Indeed I believe I read somewhere that this was identified as the source of the wasp stinger. By this means, the plumbing needed might be duplicated and then modified too. All that is needed is time and sufficient numbers of the organism in question.

......so a stinger.....could arise from a modified set of genitals.....
.....another reason, I guess, for evolutionist women to keep their knickers on......and for evolutionist men to keep their their 'flies' tightly zipped!!!!:eek::)

........on the other hand, Creationist women can relax and confidently look forward to multiple orgasmic convulsions...........rather than being stung to death by their husbands!!!!!!!!!:eek::pac::):D

J C

Wicknight wrote: »

That can't be true for your system to work, if a horse and a zebra are the same "kind" a Plains Zebra has 32 chromosomes and a donkey has 62. Horses have 64 chromosomes

How did the donkey and horse gain 30 chromosomes from the Zebra?

Or are you saying that the Zebra lost 30 chromosomes, which doesn't make much sense because fossils of zebras have been found before the Flood?

.....the 64 Horse chromosomes were probably produced by the tetraploidy of the 32 Zebra chromosomes .....and the 62 Donkey chromosomes were probably produced by the truncation/merger of 2 Horse chromosomes !!!!:pac::):D

AtomicHorror

santing wrote: »

No, just tired of quoting the same evidence all over:
Fossil record - see http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/3001
Genetic analysis - are always prove of "recent" age http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/5688/
Lab expirements - never created anything but a crippled version of the original

The first two are links. Please provide a synthesis of the information rather than asking me to read through someone else's words. You can if needed refer to primary data if you want, ie hard numbers etc. I'll play by those rules if you will. Sound fair?

As to the third point- again some examples would be nice.

J C wrote: »

......so a stinger.....could arise from a modified set of genitals.....
.....another reason, I guess, for evolutionist women to keep their knickers on......and for evolutionist men to keep their their 'flies' tightly zipped!!!!:eek::)

........on the other hand, Creationist women can relax and confidently look forward to multiple orgasmic convulsions...........rather than being stung to death by their husbands!!!!!!!!!:eek::pac::):D

Is this a rebuttal? Comedy does not make a thing untrue.

J C

wrote:

Originally Posted by AtomicHorror
Which we can do using the fossil record, genetic analysis and direct observation in the lab. And have done.

Santing
Thanks - you bring us back to the main discussion

using the fossil record, - No
genetic analysis - No
and direct observation in the lab. - No

.....and in support of Santing's very valid points could I provide the following devastating quote by a leading Evolutionist Paleontologist, Professor Niles Eldridge:-
"No wonder paleontologists shied away from evolution for so long. It never seems to happen. Assiduous collecting up cliff faces yields zigzags, minor oscillations, and the very occasional slight accumulation of change - over millions of years, at a rate too slow to account for all of the prodigious change that has occurred in evolutionary history.
When we do see the introduction of evolutionary novelty, it usually shows up with a bang, and often with no firm evidence that the fossils did not evolve elsewhere!
Evolution cannot forever be going on somewhere else. Yet that's how the fossil record has struck many a forlorn paleontologist looking to learn something about evolution."

.....so according to the materialists the Universe was formed by a Big BANG!!!!
.....and life was produced via a series of Little BANGS!!!!!:eek::D

.......an 'Evolution of the Bangs' so to speak........and the materialists (who place their faith in a series of mindless BANGS)..... scoff at Creation Scientists who can mathematically PROVE and logically DEMONSTRATE that life was actually CREATED by an intelligence of effectively infinite magnitude!!!!:):D

AtomicHorror

J C wrote: »

.....the 64 Horse chromosomes were probably produced by the tetraploidy of the 32 Zebra chromosomes .....and the 62 Donkey chromosomes were probably produced by the truncation/merger of 2 Horse chromosomes !!!!:pac::):D

They probably were indeed. And then what happened? The genes on those chromosomes changed over time to produce new species. They traveled an enormous genetic distance. I wonder could you state, in genetic terms, in say a percentage, how much genetic difference/similarity is required to define the boundary between kinds?

AtomicHorror

J C wrote: »

.....and in support of Santing's very valid points...

Which were no, no and no.

J C wrote: »

...could I provide the following devastating quote by a leading Evolutionist Paleontologist, Professor Niles Eldridge:-
"No wonder paleontologists shied away from evolution for so long. It never seems to happen. Assiduous collecting up cliff faces yields zigzags, minor oscillations, and the very occasional slight accumulation of change - over millions of years, at a rate too slow to account for aal the prodigious change that has occurred in evolutionary history. When we do see the introduction of evolutionary novelty, it usually shows up with a bang, and often with no firm evidence that the fossils did not evolve elsewhere!
Evolution cannot forever be going on somewhere else. Yet that's how the fossil record has struck many a forlorn paleontologist looking to learn something about evolution."

What does this guy's opinion mean? What baring has it on the truth? Where are the numbers? The observations? Where is the confirmation?

J C wrote: »

.......an 'Evolution of the Bangs' so to speak........and they scoff at Creation Scientists who can mathematically and logically PROVE that life was CREATED by an intelligence of infinite magnitude!!!!:):D

But if it is impossible for great complexity to arise from simplicity, then how did the intelligence of infinite magnitude arise? Ah, it must have been designed by an intelligence of infinite magnitude. But if it is impossible for great complexity to arise from simplicity...

AtomicHorror

And with that, goodnight. I'll respond to the emotes and punctuation tomorrow.

Glad to hear you had a good holiday, J C. You really managed to miss the worst of it here.

J C

wrote:

Originally Posted by J C
......so a stinger.....could arise from a modified set of genitals.....
.....another reason, I guess, for evolutionist women to keep their knickers on......and for evolutionist men to keep their their 'flies' tightly zipped!!!!

........on the other hand, Creationist women can relax and confidently look forward to multiple orgasmic convulsions...........rather than being stung to death by their husbands!!!!!!!!!

AtomicHorror
Is this a rebuttal? Comedy does not make a thing untrue.

........so you do seriously believe that a penis could become a deadly STINGER??????!!!:D

......I guess that must add a whole new dimension to the achievement of 'safe sex'.......for an Evolutionist!!!!:D