The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 1)

oeb

robindch wrote: »

But it's an excellent indicator of quality. Or in this case, the lack of it.

Imagine it -- two years, fifty-one weeks in, and our creationist colleagues have yet to produce so much as a single article either in a real journal or by a real scientist, let alone both.

It must be galling to the vanishingly small proportion of creationists who are aware that scientific journals exist, and the even tinier number who have ever opened one.

Don't be silly robindch, if we would just see the light, and accept the bible as an incontrovertible source of scientific evidence then it would all be resolved. It is only 'mainstream science's unfairness and it's persecution of religion Christianity that's holding us back from discovering wonderful scientific theorys like : Where does rain come from? Why, when angels cry of course. And : Why do things fall down when we drop them? Because an invisible uncaring watcher's will forces them too.

Asiaprod

J C wrote:

......are you Ken Ham's sick little brother perhaps????

Mark Ham...ill.......

Bad JC, not funny:eek::rolleyes::mad::mad::mad:
Once more like that and you will be taking a short leave of absence from here:cool:

AtomicHorror

J C wrote: »

The self-repairing/healing aspect of this 'redundancy' was probably automatically switched on due to the trauma surrounding the Fall....
.....the process was probably something akin to, for example, how our skin healing/repair mechanisms are automatically switched when our skin is damaged by physical trauma!!!!:D

Got any science (or scripture) to back up your first statement? The second I take no issue with.

J C wrote: »

.........organic systems were irreducibly complex BOTH before and after the Fall......with massive levels of 'redundancy' built in at Creation to cope with all future 'shocks'......including the Fall.

In that case then, humans were created imperfect. They lacked some much-needed (in the future) redundancies at the moment of creation. The creator built redundancies into some systems and not into others but did so with no regard to their relative importance. The heart is as important as the lungs (and two hearts is no challenge to an omnipotent being). The clotting cascade is as important as the chemokine system (perhaps more so) yet one is multiply redundant and the other has several critical/non-redundant points just waiting for a mutation. And underlying all of this is a brittle, error prone inheritance system (DNA) that according to you cannot confer any advantages but which allows critical systems to fail at random. Unless the creator did not have proper fore-knowledge of the conditions after the fall, the above points constitute serious design flaws.

You did suggest previously that redundancy was lost in some cases due to The Fall, but now you seem to have realised that this is in fact equivalent to admitting that any example of "irreducible complexity" may simply be a previously-redundant system that lost its redundancy by some means. You might also suggest that redundancy might be gained post Fall, but of course this would contravene your claims that mutation can give "no new information".

So you must admit to a fallible Designer, abandon irreducible complexity as evidence of Design, or admit that mutation may confer function.

My, you are in a bind.

MrPudding

AtomicHorror wrote: »

So you must admit to a fallible Designer, abandon irreducible complexity as evidence of Design, or admit that mutation may confer function.

I am going to go ahead and suggest he will do no such thing.

MrP

J C

Wicknight wrote: »

By everything I obviously meant everything inside the uinverse

God and the angels and demons and all other supernatural things that are supposed to exist some where else are undetectable anyway, so they are irrelevant.

The point is that under JC's own definition there is no physical evidence to confirm Biblical creation.

.....dream on........the mistake you are making is that the Fall DIDN'T physically destroy anything......it merely cause sin to enter the World.....and with this SPIRITUAL Event, PHYSICAL disease and death also entered the Universe!!!!
Ro 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
......and there is plenty of DIRECT Evidence for Creation that has survived right down to today.....in fact the whole Universe and all life proclaims itself to have been Created by an omnipotent God!!!!:D

Wicknight wrote:

.....Don't be silly, of course you can.

....touché!!!!!:D

AtomicHorror

MrPudding wrote: »

I am going to go ahead and suggest he will do no such thing.

MrP

No, but the choice of words used to support all three contradictory concepts will be most amusing to read. Orwell's doublethink has nothing on this.

J C

Asiaprod wrote: »

Bad JC, not funny:eek::rolleyes::mad::mad::mad:
Once more like that and you will be taking a short leave of absence from here:cool:

.....there is no need to get on your moral 'high horse' with me.....I have already apologised for my mistaken belief that Mark wasn't using his real name .....but making a pun on Ken Ham!!!!
.....could I point out that NOBODY ELSE seems to use their real names on the thread.......
.....and I have also deleted my remark!!!

.....I have been subjected to far worse un-parliamentary language by participants on this thread......
......this included suggestions that I should commit suicide, advocacy of job discrimination against Creationists and calling me a liar and denial of my status as a scientist......and even a suggestion that all Creationists should have their conventional Scientific Qualifications rescinded.....whlle simultaneously asking me to identify myself......so that presumably my qualifications could be rescinded and/or I could be sacked!!!!!

No moral indignation was forthcoming from ANYBODY on the thread in relation to these matters!!!!!!

...and BTW no apology has been forthcoming from anybody in relation to these matters either!!!!!:(:(:(

AtomicHorror

J C wrote: »

.....stop getting on your moral 'high horse' with me.....I have already apologised for my mistaken belief that Mark wasn't using his real name .....but was taking a swipe at Ken Ham!!!!
.....could I point out that NOBODY ELSE seems to use their real names on the thread.......
.....and I have also deleted my remark!!!

.....I have been subjected to far worse un-parliamentary language by participants on this thread......
......this included suggestions that I should commit suicide, open advocacy of job discrimination against Creationists and calling me a liar and open denial of my status as a scientist......and even a suggestion that all Creationists should have their conventional Scientific Qualifications rescinded.....whlle simultaneously asking me to identify myself......so that presumably my qualifications could be rescinded and/or I could be sacked!!!!!

No moral indignation was forthcoming from ANYBODY on the thread in relation to these VERY SERIOUS matters!!!!!!

...and BTW no apology has been forthcoming from anybody in relation to these matters either!!!!!:(:(:(

You are fully within your rights to question the credentials of anyone on this thread claiming to be a scientist. Similarly to look for more details on the matter (field, qualification, etc.). You can even ask for identity. Of course nobody, including yourself is obliged to answer. These are not insulting questions, though reluctance to answer even the more vague questions is certainly telling. Your fears of persecution may well be founded in reality (though I have never called for any of the measures you describe), so your desire for anonymity is perhaps understandable. But for my part, I went so far as to describe my qualification level and field in the hopes that you might see fit to reciprocate and put us on an equal footing. You've given us nothing. Just assurances that you are a scientist, which we are fully entitled to be sceptical of.

Might I suggest, that if you feel insulted or threatened by a particular post that you do what others have done in response to some of your less helpful writings- report them.

J C

AtomicHorror wrote: »

You are fully within your rights to question the credentials of anyone on this thread claiming to be a scientist. Similarly to look for more details on the matter (field, qualification, etc.). You can even ask for identity. Of course nobody, including yourself is obliged to answer. These are not insulting questions, though reluctance to answer even the more vague questions is certainly telling. Your fears of persecution may well be founded in reality (though I have never called for any of the measures you describe), so your desire for anonymity is perhaps understandable. But for my part, I went so far as to describe my qualification level and field in the hopes that you might see fit to reciprocate and put us on an equal footing. You've given us nothing. Just assurances that you are a scientist, which we are fully entitled to be sceptical of.

Might I suggest, that if you feel insulted or threatened by a particular post that you do what others have done in response to some of your less helpful writings- report them.

....I must say I have found your postings to be fair and temperate.

I am a sinner in need of God's forgiveness and your indulgence.....and I once again apologise to Mark.

...when it comes to those who sin against me.......I don't feel any need to report anybody, as I prefer to talk directly and with love to anybody who challenges me.
Debates can get heated, but at the end of the day we are all united by our common Humanity as we try to understand a vast Universe.....and an even greater God!!!!!:)

.......yours in Christian love JC.

Galvasean

oeb wrote: »

It's also worth mentioning that they share a class too (before JC brings it up), but then again, so do humans and mice.

J C wrote: »

Nautiluses and Ammonites not only share the SAME phylum (Mollusca)......they ALSO share the SAME class (Cephalopoda).......

.....

Zombrex

J C wrote: »

.....dream on........the mistake you are making is that the Fall DIDN'T physically destroy anything

It doesn't have to destroy anything

It simply has to change everything. Which you claimed it did.

Are you now back tracking...?

Zombrex

J C wrote: »

whlle simultaneously asking me to identify myself......so that presumably my qualifications could be rescinded and/or I could be sacked!!!!!

No one has ever asked you to identify yourself :rolleyes:

5uspect

He was asked to name the qualification he holds after his multiple claims at being an expert in a dozen different fields. He was not asked about which institution or year of qualification or anything which could identify him. Many others listed their own qualifications

I asked him to list some papers on evolution (never mind creationism) and point out where exaclty they are wrong. I even linked to several of the main journals on evolution and biology just in case he wasn't familiar with them.

His response was that he "had glanced at them" and no more. For someone who claims to be a scientist he is very reluctant to look at the Literature (the lift blood of science) concerning the subject he derides so vehemently and would rather copy paste from Wikipedia/AiG and make straw man arguments against a theory he clearly does not understand (or at least pretends too).

The reason J C gets so much flack is not because people want to silence him because of his "dangerous" ideas but because of his obvious trolling.

Galvasean

At least he knows plenty about seed dispersal now.

wolfsbane

robindch wrote: »

But it's an excellent indicator of quality. Or in this case, the lack of it.

Imagine it -- two years, fifty-one weeks in, and our creationist colleagues have yet to produce so much as a single article either in a real journal or by a real scientist, let alone both.

It must be galling to the vanishingly small proportion of creationists who are aware that scientific journals exist, and the even tinier number who have ever opened one.

In your self-defining world of delusion, that is. In there anything not of your evolutionary faith is automatically 'not real'. We've posted many scientific articles by real scientists - it's just that we can't get you to open your eyes and take your fingers out of your ears just long enough to objectively assess them.

As I said before: there's the water, but we can't make you drink.

AtomicHorror

wolfsbane wrote: »

In your self-defining world of delusion, that is. In there anything not of your evolutionary faith is automatically 'not real'. We've posted many scientific articles by real scientists - it's just that we can't get you to open your eyes and take your fingers out of your ears just long enough to objectively assess them.

As I said before: there's the water, but we can't make you drink.

We've read your AiG and similar articles. Whilst I can't say much about the geology or cosmology centred ones, the biology centred ones have without exception been poor. Assuming for a moment that they were fully correct in their conclusions, they would be rejected from even low-impact journals merely due to poor the flow of logic, the lack of rigour, the presence of inexplicable unrelated "science" and also simply the clumsy writing style. As it stands, the conclusions themselves have never been supported by the evidence, or even logic, provided.

What we're asking for is literature of the standard we expect from a peer-reviewed journal, even if it is not published in one. You've never, so far as I've seen, provided anything approaching that. Part of the problem, I suspect, is that you are unable to make the distinction between rigorous science and speculation with "sciencey bits" attached. All that would actually take is some effort on your part- you merely need to learn how to read a scientific argument. You've repeatedly claimed that you either cannot or will not go even this far. You're claiming to have given us what we want, but how can you determine that?

We're not ignoring your links Wolfie, we're reading them and telling you they suck. And you've repeatedly admitted to having no means to tell us otherwise.

oeb

wolfsbane wrote: »

In your self-defining world of delusion, that is. In there anything not of your evolutionary faith is automatically 'not real'. We've posted many scientific articles by real scientists - it's just that we can't get you to open your eyes and take your fingers out of your ears just long enough to objectively assess them.

As I said before: there's the water, but we can't make you drink.

Faith: noun - belief that is not based on proof

Evolution does not fall under the term 'faith'. Creationists regularly refer to articles by scientists discussing creationism, how many of these people are evolutionary biologists though? I can study computers at college, and go on to get a phd. That makes me a scientist. Does it guarantee that I know what I am on about when I talk about evolution? Certainly not. I have yet to see one of these articles that does not rely on creative misinterpretation of science (A common example is the claim that 'Evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics') to make a point that is purley exists for advancing the intrests of one or more religious groups.

I am not about to go through the 10,000 odd posts in this thread to find what articles you are refering to, but I can happily ask you to repost them and I am confident that I will be able to show you why they are incorrect.

Just remember, a scientific theory is not the same as a conjecture or an opinion. In science the word theory is used to describe a testable model (relating to nature), in other words it is fact. For example, the study of gravity is described as gravitational theory, but that does not mean that gravity is incorrect. If evolution was a guess, it would not be called a theory, it would be called a hypothesis.

wolfsbane

It's always good to recognise advances in science. So I commend one of us for taking a step nearer the light:

There are examples of non-intelligent design (evolution is a design process).
Wicknight, post 449, Charles Darwin gets apology from Church thread.

This is a big improvement on his previous understanding,
Biological life certainly doesn't look designed. Complex? Certainly. But designed? No.

Now that he agrees with the creationist that life does indeed look designed, he has to ask himself why he insists it is non-intelligent in origin.

Flamed Diving

wolfsbane wrote: »

It's always good to recognise advances in science. So I commend one of us for taking a step nearer the light:

There are examples of non-intelligent design (evolution is a design process).
Wicknight, post 449, Charles Darwin gets apology from Church thread.

This is a big improvement on his previous understanding,
Biological life certainly doesn't look designed. Complex? Certainly. But designed? No.

Now that he agrees with the creationist that life does indeed look designed, he has to ask himself why he insists it is non-intelligent in origin.

Because it begs the question, who designed the designer. Surely the designer must be at least as complex as the designs, was it intelligently designed? Simply put, the god hypothesis answers a question, with another, similar question, and is therefore logically redundant.

oeb

wolfsbane wrote: »

It's always good to recognise advances in science. So I commend one of us for taking a step nearer the light:

There are examples of non-intelligent design (evolution is a design process).
Wicknight, post 449, Charles Darwin gets apology from Church thread.

This is a big improvement on his previous understanding,
Biological life certainly doesn't look designed. Complex? Certainly. But designed? No.

Now that he agrees with the creationist that life does indeed look designed, he has to ask himself why he insists it is non-intelligent in origin.

metaphorically speaking evolution is a design process. Life changes to adapt itself to it's surroundings and it's competition. The successful species live and the others die or in turn change to adapt themselves. That in no way says that there is an external designer process. Evolution is a natural process. If a rock in a stream gets smooth as the water erodes it, has the river designed a rock?

AtomicHorror

wolfsbane wrote: »

It's always good to recognise advances in science. So I commend one of us for taking a step nearer the light:

There are examples of non-intelligent design (evolution is a design process).
Wicknight, post 449, Charles Darwin gets apology from Church thread.

This is a big improvement on his previous understanding,
Biological life certainly doesn't look designed. Complex? Certainly. But designed? No.

Now that he agrees with the creationist that life does indeed look designed, he has to ask himself why he insists it is non-intelligent in origin.

Semantic games Wolfsbane? Does Wicknight use the word "design" in the same sense both times. Is "non-intelligent design" actually design as he meant it in the second instance or as you mean it? Isn't it much more likely that "non-intelligent design" was simply an unintentional contradiction in terms or perhaps even an oxymoron?

Whatever the reason, to pick on those two quotes as meaningful is really weak. It would be trivially easy for us to take some of the creationist comments made of late and pick out quotes which contradict them not just in semantics but in fundamental meaning. Do we wish to conduct the debate in that manner?

Zombrex

wolfsbane wrote: »

This is a big improvement on his previous understanding,
Biological life certainly doesn't look designed. Complex? Certainly. But designed? No.

Groan ... intelligently designed, that was inferred by the context

you are just playing word games now :rolleyes:

evolution is a non-intelligent, non-directed, design process. and guess what? Life on Earth looks like it was designed by a non-intelligent, non-directed, process.

Which explains all the flawed inefficent design on finds in life.

What life doesn't look like it was designed by is an entity that actually knew, intelligently, what it was doing. That is the great paradox of the Intelligent Design movement. It implies that the designer is an idiot. And since most (all) ID proponents are trying to map the designer back to a god, that ends up being unworkable for them.

I actually have no problem with the idea that life on Earth was designed by an idiot who didn't know what he was doing. But I imagine you do ....

wolfsbane

oeb said:

Faith: noun - belief that is not based on proof

Evolution does not fall under the term 'faith'.

Evolution (the molecules to man meaning) has not been proved. It has not been observed, and the attempts to reconstruct its history in the fossil record are no more than a possible interpretation - one with many gaps.

But my point was more that Robin and many others hold to evolution as if it were proven, established fact. They do so in a religious-like manner, refusing to consider arguments to the contrary and ridiculing those scientists who challenge them.

Creationists regularly refer to articles by scientists discussing creationism, how many of these people are evolutionary biologists though? I can study computers at college, and go on to get a phd. That makes me a scientist. Does it guarantee that I know what I am on about when I talk about evolution? Certainly not.

Quite so. But the articles I have linked to are by scientists in relevant fields to the evolution debate - I'm sure you will agree that not just evolutionary biologists can critique that essentials for evolution. For example, scientists with expertise in the fields of geology, genetics, astrophysics.
Here are a few such experts:
Kenneth B. Cumming , Ph.D. and M.A. in biology from Harvard University (1965, 1959), B.S. with honors in chemistry/biology from Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts (1956)
http://www.christiananswers.net/creation/people/cumming-k.html

Maciej Giertych, M.A.(Oxford), Ph.D.(Toronto), D.Sc.(Poznan), head of the Genetics Department of the Polish Academy of Sciences at the Institute of Dendrology in Kornik, Poland.
http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/1702

John Hartnett B.Sc (hons) PhD MAIP
Principal Research Fellow
School of Physics
Frequency Standards & Metrology research group
University of Western Australia
http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/3530

I have yet to see one of these articles that does not rely on creative misinterpretation of science (A common example is the claim that 'Evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics') to make a point that is purley exists for advancing the intrests of one or more religious groups.

I would have thought that ever-increasing complexity and order arising out of the most basic Big Bang matter would be a direct contradiction to the second law of thermodynamics. The idea that earth is an open system is only true for the physics - reversing entropy by irradiating the first self-replicating molecules and all their successors does not seem to me to be a way of producing increasing order and complexity. A return to non-life is much more likely.

I am not about to go through the 10,000 odd posts in this thread to find what articles you are refering to, but I can happily ask you to repost them and I am confident that I will be able to show you why they are incorrect.

That's understandable. Here's a few. The sites have many more.
Snake Hybridization: A Case for Intrabaraminic Diversity
http://www.icr.org/i/pdf/research/ICC08_Snake_Hybrid.pdf

Rapid Changes in Oxygen Isotope Content of Ice Cores Caused by Fractionation and Trajectory Dispersion near the Edge of an Ice Shelf
http://www.icr.org/research/index/researchp_lv_r02/

HELIUM DIFFUSION RATES SUPPORT ACCELERATED NUCLEAR DECAY
http://www.icr.org/i/pdf/research/Helium_ICC_7-22-03.pdf

Just remember, a scientific theory is not the same as a conjecture or an opinion. In science the word theory is used to describe a testable model (relating to nature), in other words it is fact. For example, the study of gravity is described as gravitational theory, but that does not mean that gravity is incorrect. If evolution was a guess, it would not be called a theory, it would be called a hypothesis.

I agree that 'theory' in this context means much more than conjecture. But who gives evolution the status of that type of theory? The scientists who believe it. Can we trust them to be impartial judges of what is an hypothesis and what a theory? Not in an emotive subject like this.

As I said, such evolution has not been observed and interpretations of evidence in support of it are challenged by other experts in the field. That certainly reduces it from being a 'fact'.

wolfsbane

Wicknight wrote: »

Groan ... intelligently designed, that was inferred by the context

you are just playing word games now :rolleyes:

evolution is a non-intelligent, non-directed, design process. and guess what? Life on Earth looks like it was designed by a non-intelligent, non-directed, process.

Which explains all the flawed inefficent design on finds in life.

What life doesn't look like it was designed by is an entity that actually knew, intelligently, what it was doing. That is the great paradox of the Intelligent Design movement. It implies that the designer is an idiot. And since most (all) ID proponents are trying to map the designer back to a god, that ends up being unworkable for them.

I actually have no problem with the idea that life on Earth was designed by an idiot who didn't know what he was doing. But I imagine you do ....

I certainly do. Especially when He has left us an account of how His perfect design was marred by man. Perfection + Sin = Fallen Universe (what we have now).

A much more logical explanation than Big Bang matter + Time = What we have now. Creationists need God to exist for their theory to work. Evolutionists need the Second Law of Thermodynamics not to exist for their's to work. They can't deny its existence, so they just claim it does not apply to living things. Apparently we don't move from a more ordered state to a less ordered one.

Truly a delusional world.

Flamed Diving

wolfsbane wrote: »

I certainly do. Especially when He has left us an account of how His perfect design was marred by man. Perfection + Sin = Fallen Universe (what we have now).

A much more logical explanation than Big Bang matter + Time = What we have now. Creationists need God to exist for their theory to work. Evolutionists need the Second Law of Thermodynamics not to exist for their's to work. They can't deny its existence, so they just claim it does not apply to living things. Apparently we don't move from a more ordered state to a less ordered one.

Truly a delusional world.

Wrong.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/thermo/probability.html

AtomicHorror

wolfsbane wrote: »

A much more logical explanation than Big Bang matter + Time = What we have now. Creationists need God to exist for their theory to work. Evolutionists need the Second Law of Thermodynamics not to exist for their's to work. They can't deny its existence, so they just claim it does not apply to living things. Apparently we don't move from a more ordered state to a less ordered one.

Truly a delusional world.

Rubbish. Life forms accelerate entropy. They're a short cut to disorder in low energy systems. We dig up minerals that would be inaccessible by other means. We churn up soil with our roots (for trees) or our mouths (for worms). We build things from rocks that then decay and collapse due to neglect. We tunnel into mountains. We take the energy of the sun and make it unrecoverable by stages. We slowly turn the world into a disordered mess of matter that can eventually no longer be used. That we do this by creating short-term order, and that we ourselves represent such order, is irrelevant. The notion that life contravenes the second law only works if you put bounds on your system wherever it suits you. Evolution is not in defiance of the second law at all, it is a product of it.

Zombrex

wolfsbane wrote: »

I certainly do. Especially when He has left us an account of how His perfect design was marred by man. Perfection + Sin = Fallen Universe (what we have now).

That is just nonsense.

How does the "Fall" actually change the way biology works, how does it re-design the human jaw or the blow hole of a whale?

You are supposed two intelligent designers, God and "the Fall". God designed things perfectly and then the Fall (what ever that actually was, Adam perhaps) designed to redesign things in a imperfect way.

The Fall was simply Adam disobeying God and God cursing Adam. The Bible says nothing about the universe being redesigned, by God or anyone else.

wolfsbane wrote: »

A much more logical explanation than Big Bang matter + Time = What we have now.

There are two alternatives here

1) Life was designed perfectly by God and then "the Fall" redesigned everything so that they look imperfect, the process of a natural process.

2) Life was designed imperfectly by a natural process from the start.

The second is the logical conclusion. The first requires the introduction of unnecessary and an unobservable/untestable assertion.

As I said to JC, if the Fall designed all life then nothing remains of the original state, and as such it is unobservable. There is no way to demonstrate things were actually like that. Creationists by using the fall as an excuse in fact rule out Biblical Creation as being something that can ever be part of science. Well done :rolleyes:

wolfsbane wrote: »

Creationists need God to exist for their theory to work. Evolutionists need the Second Law of Thermodynamics not to exist for their's to work.

The second law of thermodynamics says that energy will move from an ordered to disorder state in a closed system

The Earth is not a closed system. You may notice that big ball of fire up there in the sky. Careful though, try not to worship it now :rolleyes:

And as AH points out, on a Universe scale life accelerates the move to high entropy.

wolfsbane wrote: »

Truly a delusional world.

Try spending 5 minutes learning about the science you say supports you

wolfsbane

Flamed Diving wrote: »

Because it begs the question, who designed the designer. Surely the designer must be at least as complex as the designs, was it intelligently designed? Simply put, the god hypothesis answers a question, with another, similar question, and is therefore logically redundant.

A self-existence Designer is the answer to that. God by definition is such.

Materialists can't have a self-existent designer, only self-existence matter. So they must either accept that matter can form itself into ever-increasingly ordered and complex forms - or abandon their materialism. That's why they desperately defend evolution.

It's a religious thing.

oeb

wolfsbane wrote: »

oeb said:

Evolution (the molecules to man meaning) has not been proved. It has not been observed, and the attempts to reconstruct its history in the fossil record are no more than a possible interpretation - one with many gaps.

Unless we have billions more years to play with and an isolated ecosystem in which to play with it, it is unlikely that macro evolution in that kind of scale can be directly observed by that reasoning. But evolution can be demonstrated and observed, on a micro and macro scale (Sexually incompatible housefly species have been created via selective breeding). The thing is, while the fossil record certainly has gaps, the steps still indicate that the evolution theory is the correct one. The God hypothesis does not answer any questions without creating new questions that are much the same. If god created us, where did god come from? If the fossil record is as a result of the flood, why is there fossils on mountains? If it's because the water went that high, where did all the water go? Why is 'men were created when a divine being shaped us from dust and blew air up our noses, and women were created from his rib' a reasonable explanation, and us evolving from apes not one? Why do pandas have thumbs? Why are humans and the rest of the great apes so similar? Why do we not find human fossils alongside the dinosaurs?

I know, lets just pretend evolution did not happen and just agree that 'god did it', then when your kid gets a bacterial infection and the bacteria turns out to be an evolved strain that is resistant to antibiotics you can write off his death as being 'the will of god' because clearly, evolution can not happen.

wolfsbane wrote: »

But my point was more that Robin and many others hold to evolution as if it were proven, established fact. They do so in a religious-like manner, refusing to consider arguments to the contrary and ridiculing those scientists who challenge them.

I can not speak for them certainly, but my position is I am always willing to accept new ideas, providing that the evidence fits them. Evolution is a proven established fact, what is a theory is what paths evolution took to get us where we are today. The scientists that challenge them are ridiculed because they refuse to submit their papers relating directly to creationism for peer review. I'm sorry to tell you, but the likes of ICR are not scientific organizations. They are religious organizations with the sole goal of forwarding the intrests of religion.

wolfsbane wrote: »

Quite so. But the articles I have linked to are by scientists in relevant fields to the evolution debate - I'm sure you will agree that not just evolutionary biologists can critique that essentials for evolution. For example, scientists with expertise in the fields of geology, genetics, astrophysics.
Here are a few such experts:
Kenneth B. Cumming , Ph.D. and M.A. in biology from Harvard University (1965, 1959), B.S. with honors in chemistry/biology from Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts (1956)
http://www.christiananswers.net/creation/people/cumming-k.html

Maciej Giertych, M.A.(Oxford), Ph.D.(Toronto), D.Sc.(Poznan), head of the Genetics Department of the Polish Academy of Sciences at the Institute of Dendrology in Kornik, Poland.
http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/1702

John Hartnett B.Sc (hons) PhD MAIP
Principal Research Fellow
School of Physics
Frequency Standards & Metrology research group
University of Western Australia
http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/3530

Have these scientists submitted any of their papers relating directly to the creationist view being scientificially plauseable for peer review? The only places I can find their articles publised are on creationist websites.

wolfsbane wrote: »

I would have thought that ever-increasing complexity and order arising out of the most basic Big Bang matter would be a direct contradiction to the second law of thermodynamics. The idea that earth is an open system is only true for the physics - reversing entropy by irradiating the first self-replicating molecules and all their successors does not seem to me to be a way of producing increasing order and complexity. A return to non-life is much more likely.

Do you contend that the second law is incorrect so? How would the second law forbid evolution but allow repoduction? Repoduction creates a new copy of the parent orginism (An ordered state).

The sun is this systems primary power source. The star will eventually collapse. For all the energy used on earth (for plants to grow, etc) results in a net increase of enthropy in the solar system. The sun provides us with energy, and their is plenty of open space in which the excess energy produced by this system can be dissapated. The smallest completly closed system in the universe, is in fact the universe itself.

Claiming that enthropy is disorder shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what enthropy is. Enthropy is not disorder, enthopy relates the the availabilty of the energy to 'work'. Energy, correctly applied can create order, and the second law does not prohibit this (other examples of order from disorder include things like snowflakes forming without instruction, or a low presure weather system becoming a (spirally orginised) hurricane.

wolfsbane wrote: »

That's understandable. Here's a few. The sites have many more.
Snake Hybridization: A Case for Intrabaraminic Diversity
http://www.icr.org/i/pdf/research/ICC08_Snake_Hybrid.pdf

Rapid Changes in Oxygen Isotope Content of Ice Cores Caused by Fractionation and Trajectory Dispersion near the Edge of an Ice Shelf
http://www.icr.org/research/index/researchp_lv_r02/

HELIUM DIFFUSION RATES SUPPORT ACCELERATED NUCLEAR DECAY
http://www.icr.org/i/pdf/research/Helium_ICC_7-22-03.pdf

Have these papers been submitted for peer review? Have they been published in scientific journals? My understanding of science is unfortuantly not deep enough to poke holes in these. As I have already said, ICR is not a research institute despite the fact that it has the word research in it's name.

wolfsbane wrote: »

I agree that 'theory' in this context means much more than conjecture. But who gives evolution the status of that type of theory? The scientists who believe it. Can we trust them to be impartial judges of what is an hypothesis and what a theory? Not in an emotive subject like this.

Once again, evolution is an scientificially observed fact. This once again relates to a fundamental misunderstanding of what a theory is with regards to science. The theory is the model (How evolution got us where we are today). Emotive or not, the reason the theory of evolution stands up and creationism does not is because evolution answers questions, creationism creates more questions. As I mentioned earlier, creationism does not answer things like (to quote PZ Myers (I think)), why there are no rabbits in the pre-cambrian? Why pandas have thumbs etc.

wolfsbane wrote: »

As I said, such evolution has not been observed and interpretations of evidence in support of it are challenged by other experts in the field. That certainly reduces it from being a 'fact'.

Evolution has been observed, and the only ones who challenge evolution with creationism only do so to further their own goals. It says something that the papers they produce are not submitted for peer review to scientific journals and are instead all (that I know of) self published by the likes of the ICR (who for example have sent a number of expeditions to find the cryptid Mokele-mbembe, the loch-ness monster of the congo. (This is in an effort to prove that not all dinosaurs are extinct as far as I can gather)).

wolfsbane

Flamed Diving wrote: »

Wrong.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/thermo/probability.html

From that article I see no contradiction to my post - they are arguing that radiation is the input that overcomes entropy to allow life to evolve on earth.
Considering the earth as a system, any change that is accompanied by an entropy decrease (and hence going back from higher probability to lower probability) is possible as long as sufficient energy is available. The ultimate source of most of that energy, is of course, the sun.

I said no such outcome would arise.


They further muddy the waters by giving photosynthesis as an example of such a process. Surely they can't have forgotten the sunlight is empowering already existing designed systems? Systems that can handle the radiation in a productive way, unlike any supposedly simple first self-replicating molecules.
In the case of the formation of the complex molecules characteristic of living organisms, creationists raise the point that when living things decay after death, the process of decay takes place with an increase in entropy. They also point out, correctly, that a spontaneous change in a system takes place with a high degree of probability. They fail to realize, however, that probability is relative, and a spontaneous change in a system can be reversed, providing the system interacts with its surroundings in such a manner that the entropy increase in the surroundings is more than enough to reverse the system's original entropy increase.

The application of energy can reverse a spontaneous, thermodynamically "irreversible" reaction. Leaves will spontaneously burn (combine with oxygen) to form water and carbon dioxide. The sun's energy, through the process of photosynthesis, will produce leaves from water vapor and carbon dioxide, and form oxygen.