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The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 1)
Comments
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Yes, for God - their Judge - it would be moral, but not for you and me.
Thus making the morality of the act subject to who is doing it, me or god. Therefore all morality, in act or opinion is subjective.No, they knew it was wrong because God said not to. Their relationship to God would make that evident - they knew Him face to face, knew He was God and they His creatures.
But it was the only thing they had been told not to do, and they had never been told, or seen anything else be told, not to do something, so they had no contrast, they had no knowledge of the divine consequences of doing something god didn't want them to do.No, it comes with a free-will - the ability to choose to obey God or not.
But if that will is uninformed, of what it is to disobey god, what the actual consequences are of doing so, then its not really free, not when it was created by a god who knew they would be tempted by the serpent.Arose from need not mean caused by. My act of kindness in giving a beggar £5.00 might give rise to an on-looker mugging me for my wallet. I did not cause him to rob me, but it arose from the good I was doing.
You are not god, so anything you do is limited by your humanly interpretation of events and lack of omnipotence and omniscience. God on the otherhand, would know what giving events would come to be if he gave that fiver to the beggar, not to mention the events those events would cause , and so on and so on. Anything that arises from a set in circumstances is caused by those circumstances, and it is god that creates all circumstances.You forget the proper authority aspect; what may be right in itself may be wrong for you to do.
You forget that if something is moral due to authority, then its morality is subjective to that authority, thus making morality subjective.
The serpent was Satan, who knew all about evil. [/QUOTE][QUOTEMark Hamill]
What about the serpent? And the fact he had no knowledge of evil, and therefore wouldn't know the possible consequences of doing evil worked against himwolfsbane wrote:There was nothing that forced Adam to sin.
Apologies, my post was worded badly here, the second sentence was refering to Adam, not the serpent.Correct. But altering Adam so he couldn't sin would have been to remove his free-will. And God was not obliged to re-enforce His clear commandment.
And He did tell them the consequences if they sinned.
God only told them they would die (Genesis 2:17), he did not tell them that eating of the fruit would not actually kill him, it would actually open up their eyes to the knowledge of good and evil, but that he would throw a hissy fit, dump them out of the garden of eden and allow them to die a slow and painful death. Maybe if better informed Adam he wouldn't have eaten the fruit. Maybe if Adam knew anything of death (humand death), he would have been more wary of it.
On a side note: when they ate from the tree, they realized they were naked and clothed and hid themselves because they were afraid. Why is it that before they ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil they didn't know that being naked was evil? was god hiding that from them? If it was evil, then it was against gods will, so why did he have them naked? (there's no issue of free will here, before the knew it was evil to be naked, adam and eve had no concept of it being evil to be naked, so they wouldn't have had to make a "free will" to do so, and even if they had, why wasn't that freewill choice punished?)As I said before, circumstances do not make us sin.
Circumstances, as set by an omnipotent and omniscient being, make us do whatever the omnipotent and omniscient being want us to do.God did not touch Adam's free-will. He was left to do as he pleased about God's command.
God, being god, would be aware of every single point of adams existence, and being god, he was able to alter any single aspect of that existence at will. To not do so, would require and active choice by god, he would have to choose to let adam do what he was doing, thus making adams will subject to gods will. This is shown when adam finally does something god doesnt want him to do, and so god comes along and punishes him.God's intervention after the Fall is another matter. It has nothing to do with how He treated Adam before the Fall.
How he treated adam caused the fall, and caused everything that happened afterwards. God, being god, knew exactly what would occur because of the fall, he knew that by punishing adam for doing something that he was tricked into doing, that he (god) would have to sacrifice himself to himself so he could stop punishing everyone for adams "sin", and that he would eventually have to start altering peoples will so they would begin to love him again.As above - circumstances do not make us do anything, must less Adam who had no internal sinful pressures.
As above circumstances set by god... etc. Also you kepp saying adam was sin free, had no internal sinful pressures, well this just means that the sin came from outside of him, that someone made him/ tricked him into sinning it. This either means that the sin was gods fault, because set the circumstances that resulted in adams "sin" or it was the serpents fault, because he tricked adam into sinning. either way, doesnt really look like god is really just in punishing adam for sinning.As I said before, the ultimate outcome is how God wants it, but the sin of man is not His will. He overides man's sin to bring about His chosen end.
But he created mans sin to bring about his chosen middle. You dont seem to get that every aspect of creation is exactly as god wants it, it has to be. God is omnipotent and omniscient, he knows all that occurs and can change it if he pleases. You have already admitted that he has no problem using his omnipotence and omniscience in removing peoples free will to force them to love him when he wants it, so therefore he must also be using his omnipotence and omiscience when he forces allows people to sin.Circumstances do not make us do anything. They affect how we choose only by informing us of alternatives and appealing to our sinful natures. We make the choice.
This is just repetition, my reply is the same:
Circumstances-> set by god
Nature-> set by god
Outcome-> set by god.Certainly, God uses circumstances to direct our hearts. He knows how sinful men love the sinful course; how godly men love to do His will; how suffering will move us this way or that - but every choice is ours. Some resist to the end, others capitulate at the start. Some learn; others are stubborn.
Well of course he knows how people will react, he gives them the natures they are born with (sinful or godly) and then changes them at will fro the outcome he wants. There is no real resisting, or capitualtion, god alters peoples natures and wills to his desire (you already made this clear when he said that he makes people love him).Yes, when He determines something, it will happen.
Yes when god determines something it will happen, but dont forget that god has determined all existence, so therefore he has determined that all will happen.But that does not mean He determines you will sin against your will, nor that He will make you do so by circumstances, against your will. Your sin is your responsiblity. God may permit you to sin freely, or He may prevent you from doing so.
You keep contradicting yourself, you have already said that everyone has a sinful nature, that only those that god chooses will chose to love him, this just shows that god changes peoples nature and wills all the time for whatever outcome he wants, its no obstacle to him.Telling them not to was enough. You are just making excuses for their free choice to sin. Or demanding God remove their free-will.
They had no free will, I've already said that, their choices where subject to gods will allowing them to happen. Besides that,they where completely uninformed of the actual consequences of their "sin", they where told they would die, but there is nothing to show that they, as beings knowing only the perfect existence in eden, would understand what it means to suffer and die, and that the death would actually be a punishment for doing something god din't want them to do, not and actual consequence of eating the fruit, as was implied.God is going to end all sin, but in the meantime He calls all sinners to repentance. When that time of grace ends, the sinners will be stopped. Forever.
But god is only going to end all sin when it suits him, until then he's happy to let it continue, becaus eit suits his purposes. If is didn't, if sin was an obstacle to gods ultimate desired outcome, then he would not allow it to exist.0 -
Well I guess that's the "scientific debate" done for another month...0
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Where did you get that idea? All the creationist dates are reasonably accurate.marco_polo wrote: »Let me rephrase then. There seem to be an unusual property of the creationist universe where only those events that suit a literal interpretation of the bible can be dated accurately.
It is nearly as strange as Quantum Physics.
Some of the dates Ussher used are agreed by all - it is only when we get back to the Exodus that major disagreements occur (as far as I'm aware).0 -
Without links, the Tree is only in your imagination. I can draw a tree to link me intimately with the British throne - if I make the links myself. If an alien found a disjointed human skeleton, he could put it together so that the skull was connected at the end of an elongated coccyx!marco_polo wrote: »The three major domains of life Archaea, Bacteria, and Eukaryote?
My point is that you still end up with single celled ancestors for multicellular life. Still a wee bit of a problem for creationists?
The existance of HGT links mainly complicates the process of untangling of the evolutionary history of the earliest singled celled life forms.
Long story short is that it is not really such great news for you either way. For one there is still a tree shape from ape to chimps and humans.
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....I'll be back!!!!:eek::D:):pac:AtomicHorror wrote: »Well I guess that's the "scientific debate" done for another month...0 -
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Join Date:Posts: 9866
Without links, the Tree is only in your imagination. I can draw a tree to link me intimately with the British throne - if I make the links myself. If an alien found a disjointed human skeleton, he could put it together so that the skull was connected at the end of an elongated coccyx!
From the way this discussion is heading I am getting the impression you don't even understand the difference between vertical and lateral gene transfer? The article you posted was "debunking" HGT was it not? Relevance of above statement to said discussion = Big fat zero.0 -
Join Date:Posts: 9866
Where did you get that idea? All the creationist dates are reasonably accurate.
Some of the dates Ussher used are agreed by all - it is only when we get back to the Exodus that major disagreements occur (as far as I'm aware).
Which dates relevant to the age of the earth are accurate? You guys seem to put great stock in dating that was debunked in the 18th century.
I am wondering is there any creationist criteria for acceptance of the validity of a dating method apart from the fact that it tells you what you want to hear? To get back to the the original point, what basis do you have for rejecting the dating of inconvienent ancient civilizations .0 -
If an alien found a disjointed human skeleton, he could put it together so that the skull was connected at the end of an elongated coccyx!
If he could find no living vertebrates or no intact fossils, he might just do that. But he'd also know that he had no idea if he'd gotten the structure right. In dealing with new fossils, we are not working in a knowledge vacuum.Without links, the Tree is only in your imagination.
Wolfie, you are making hard work of this.
Imagine we find an isolated pool of life forms. They variously have traits A, B, C, D and E. We begin to sample the pool and catalogue it's denizens but we find something odd. If the organisms are entirely unrelated to one another, we should find life forms exhibiting most of the possible combinations of these five traits- and so we should see perhaps 100 different species. But there are only 5 species in the pool. All of the organisms have trait A. Some have trait A alone, others have trait A and B. Others have trait A and C. Never are traits B or C found without A and never are they found together. The most complicated species seem to have three traits each. But we find only two forms: ACD and ACE. Never do we find trait D or E in a species with trait B and indeed we never see them in a species together either. They are exclusively found with the trait AC combination only.
So we have species:
A
AB
AC
ACD
ACE
Which are somehow related thus:
A
|#######|
AB###----AC----
####|#######|
####ACD#####ACE
The traits of these species form a nested tree structure, whether we assume a relationship by descent or not and whether we "draw lines" between them or not. Can you find another way in which these species could be ordered?
Now lets imagine that we find an organism ABFG in our mixture. Does this break the tree? No. There are forms that would falsify the nested tree (such as ABE) but we can't find them which makes us think our tree is sound. ABFG does something else. It suggest that our tree is missing something.
###
A
###|#########|
###AB#####----AC----
###|#####|#######|
###|#####ACD#####ACE
###|
###ABFG
Perhaps F and G simply appeared together, but if the tree holds the existence of ABFG now permits the existence of a hypothetical species ABF, though it does not demand it. It also forbids the existence of combinations such as ACEF. So, out of interest, we go dredging the bottom of the pool to look for remains and fossils. We find fossils of ABF, meaning that the tree survives but must be modified.
######
A
######|###########|
###----AB--#######----AC----
###|#####|######|#######|
###|###---ABF---##ACD#####ACE
###|###|######|
###ABX#ABFX###ABFG
We can still find no living or dead examples of combinations forbidden by the tree, and there are yet more permissible new combinations (X), though we haven't found them.
In the real world, we see the same sort of tree. Naturally it is more complex and the rules are similarly more complex. But the way in which we predicted the existence of ABF above is the same means we use to predict the existence of the many transitional species not found alive today. But, just as failing to find ABF would not have broken our mini tree, failing to find transitional fossils does not falsify the tree of life, though parts of it's structure then become unclear. Ironically enough, finding the likes of Kirk Cameron's Crocoduck (something he suggested evolutionists should find) would falsify the tree of life in the same manner that finding ACDF would falsify the mini-tree. Which says it all for that guys understanding of evolution.
So the tree exists, and not because we drew lines anywhere. For the tree to be real it can only tolerate certain additions, and thus it can be falsified if forbidden trait combinations are found. It is left to us to explain what the existence of this tree means using evidence.0 -
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AH - that was a superb post.0
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AtomicHorror said:
Humour me, please. This is a genuine question, coming from a lack of scientific knowledge:So we have species:
A
AB
AC
ACD
ACE
Which are somehow related thus:
A
|#######|
AB###----AC----
####|#######|
####ACD#####ACE
Why is it not possible for the tree to be thus:
A
AB
AC
ACD
ACE
****l*********l**********l**********l***********l********
----Aa---- ----ABa----
ACa
ACDa
----ACEa
****l
----Aab
and so on?
That is, those with the traits AB, AC, ACD and ACE are not descendants of those with only trait A, but rather contemporaries of them. Aa is descendant of A, and so on.
Obviously, one's sample could all be interrelated, but that is an assumption. They could be a mixture of related organisms and independent organisms. Or as above, all independent 'kinds'.0 -
Humour me, please. This is a genuine question, coming from a lack of scientific knowledge:
Why is it not possible for the tree to be thus:
A
AB
AC
ACD
ACE
****l*********l**********l**********l***********l********
----Aa---- ----ABa----
ACa
ACDa
----ACEa
****l
----Aab
and so on?
Well you can arrange it any way you like if you're going to ignore the trait combinations, you could put them alphabetical order as I did initially or in a circle and call it the circle of life. But if you arrange it by trait combinations, you get a tree. All you've done there is ignore the tree pattern in the distribution of traits itself and arranged the species side by side. Despite the graphical representation, when we look at what species are present in that first layer, it's still quite clear that their traits fall into a nested tree distribution (in this case because I defined them as such). Whether we take the step to arrange them thus and draw the lines doesn't change the existence of the distribution. You can say that we're just drawing lines between the species to form a tree, but that's like saying we're just drawing a bell curve to map the distribution of IQ scores in a population. The distribution is there whether we draw it or not. Do you follow me?That is, those with the traits AB, AC, ACD and ACE are not descendants of those with only trait A, but rather contemporaries of them. Aa is descendant of A, and so on.
Well we're not talking specifically about descent here and the tree alone does not prove that the relationship is by descent. All of those forms could be contemporaries, but that wouldn't negate the fact that their combinations of traits are distributed in a nested tree pattern which we would need to explain.
What the tree does do is seriously undermine the concept of similarity due to design, as we know that the traits of designed objects do not fall into a nested tree distribution. But that's a whole other post full of ASCII art.0 -
The Mad Hatter wrote: »AH - that was a superb post.
It's a little something I'm working on for November!0 -
AtomicHorror wrote: »It's a little something I'm working on for November!
Yeah, but it's one thing to write a thesis on it - quite another to write it in a way that people like me can understand.0 -
The Mad Hatter wrote: »Yeah, but it's one thing to write a thesis on it - quite another to write it in a way that people like me can understand.
Actually, it's for a big fat blog entry for the 150th anniversary of Origin!
My thesis is due much sooner and is about therapeutic viruses and stem cells.0 -
Very nice exposition. You really have a gift for making this stuff accessible and interesting.AtomicHorror wrote: »Perhaps F and G simply appeared together, but if the tree holds the existence of ABFG now permits the existence of a hypothetical species ABF, though it does not demand it. It also forbids the existence of combinations such as ACEF. So, out of interest, we go dredging the bottom of the pool to look for remains and fossils. We find fossils of ABF, meaning that the tree survives but must be modified.
######
A
######|###########|
###----AB--#######----AC----
###|#####|######|#######|
###|###---ABF---##ACD#####ACE
###|###|######|
###ABX#ABFX###ABFG
We can still find no living or dead examples of combinations forbidden by the tree, and there are yet more permissible new combinations (X), though we haven't found them.
Is it obvious why combinations like ACEF are forbidden by this model? Why could a descendant of ACE not acquire trait F? And can the unknown trait X be identical to traits found in another branch, say X=E for instance?0 -
postcynical wrote: »Very nice exposition. You really have a gift for making this stuff accessible and interesting.
Is it obvious why combinations like ACEF are forbidden by this model? Why could a descendant of ACE not acquire trait F?
Well that's down to how new traits emerge. I've simplified here by not specifying if we're talking about single genes or polygenetic traits but it basically works the same for both. Lets say they are all single genes. If we imagine that C arose from a duplication of A followed by a point mutation, what's the probability of that exact same series of events happening again in another individual of species A? Essentially, the emergence of any given new trait is improbable. So the likelihood of seeing it appear identically twice is negligibly small. When you scale that up to polygenetic traits, the probability of seeing a major trait appear independently and identically more than once is as close to zero as makes no difference on the multi billion year time scale.postcynical wrote: »And can the unknown trait X be identical to traits found in another branch, say X=E for instance?
Nope, though it could be a trait that has similarities to E in terms of form and function. In the real world you could take dolphin fins and shark fins as an example. Superficially quite similar and performing the same function, but when you look deeper it becomes clear that this is due to convergence. The same solution to the same problem but from completely different starting points, thus we know they are not the same trait and the tree is preserved.0 -
Nice tree. Now what can science tell us about the roots?:pac:0
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postcynical wrote: »Nice tree. Now what can science tell us about the roots?:pac:
They're a mess! But we'll figure them out. The branches are all very pretty and neat though.0 -
Well that wouldn't happen in nature unless they were pruned...AtomicHorror wrote: »The branches are all very pretty and neat though.0 -
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postcynical wrote: »Well that wouldn't happen in nature unless they were pruned...
Do branches grow back together in nature unless you prune them? That's some wacky trees you got.
There's no pruning, unless you count the afore mentioned general restrictions on HGT and of course the constraints of natural selection.0 -
Did I post this before? -AtomicHorror wrote: »Well you can arrange it any way you like if you're going to ignore the trait combinations, you could put them alphabetical order as I did initially or in a circle and call it the circle of life. But if you arrange it by trait combinations, you get a tree. All you've done there is ignore the tree pattern in the distribution of traits itself and arranged the species side by side. Despite the graphical representation, when we look at what species are present in that first layer, it's still quite clear that their traits fall into a nested tree distribution (in this case because I defined them as such). Whether we take the step to arrange them thus and draw the lines doesn't change the existence of the distribution. You can say that we're just drawing lines between the species to form a tree, but that's like saying we're just drawing a bell curve to map the distribution of IQ scores in a population. The distribution is there whether we draw it or not. Do you follow me?
Well we're not talking specifically about descent here and the tree alone does not prove that the relationship is by descent. All of those forms could be contemporaries, but that wouldn't negate the fact that their combinations of traits are distributed in a nested tree pattern which we would need to explain.
What the tree does do is seriously undermine the concept of similarity due to design, as we know that the traits of designed objects do not fall into a nested tree distribution. But that's a whole other post full of ASCII art.
Is the evolutionary tree turning into a creationist orchard?
http://creation.com/is-the-evolutionary-tree-changing-into-a-creationist-orchard
And this:
Walking whales, nested hierarchies, and chimeras: do they exist?
http://creation.com/walking-whales-nested-hierarchies-and-chimeras-do-they-exist
Cetacean relatives? The chimeric trichotomy
Is it the Artiodactyls or is it the Mesonychians58 that are the closest relatives to the Cetaceans? Until recently, the extinct Order Mesonychia was largely accepted by evolutionists as the sister group of Order Cetacea (Figure 4). A recent analysis59 has demonstrated that the respective dental complexes of mesonychids and cetaceans stand out in uniting the two groups into a clade. This is supported by a variety of other mesonychid-cetacean synapomorphies.60
When the pakicetids were discovered along with a host of other finds,61 the artiodactyls began to displace the mesonychids as the closest known relatives of cetaceans (Figure 5). The ‘double-pulleyed’ astralagus now appears to be an unambiguous component of both the pakicetid and protocetid skeletons. This synapomorphy (shared form) links artiodactyls and cetaceans as sister groups, to the exclusion of mesonychians, which do not possess this kind of specialized heel.11 The three mammalian orders are clearly chimeras. Once again, the evolutionary nested hierarchies have been turned upside down, as chimeric creatures are incompatible with any sort of nested hierarchy, and only create headaches for evolutionists.
The evidence places the evolutionist in a particularly unenviable position. Notions of ‘stratomorphic intermediates’ are of no help to him, as the stratigraphic order of fossils themselves does not show a clear-cut preference for one phylogeny over another.62 So which anatomical traits is he to reckon as phylogenetically informative, and which is he to reject and explain away? Having made his arbitrary decision, he is forced to make another one. Which rationalization is he to invoke—the one which supposes ‘backward evolution’ and character loss (Figure 4, left, and Figure 5, left), or the one which imagines that lookalike complex anatomical structures can independently arise in different lineages (Figure 4, right, and Figure 5, right)? How much more parsimonious to recognize an Intelligent Designer who used the same anatomical modulus in otherwise-different mammalian orders?
Since rationalistic preconceptions won’t, of course, allow the evolutionist to consider the latter possibility, he is forced to stumble along in his imaginations and rationalizations. For some evolutionists,63,64 the secondary ‘de-volution’ of the specialized artiodactyl heel is considered possible (Figure 4, left). Others65 speculate that the ‘double-pulleyed’ heel is homoplasic. According to this thinking, the ‘double-pulleyed’ astralagus must have arisen twice independently (convergently) in artiodactyls and mesonychians (Figure 5, right).
Conversely, if pakicetids are to be accepted as the closest known relatives of cetaceans, as the ruling paradigm dictates, all of the foregoing rationalizations must be placed in reverse. The evolutionist must now contemplate the ‘reverse evolution’ of artiodactyl teeth back towards a less-derived state (Figure 5, left). A recent study11 actually contemplates this evolutionary flip-flop.
Let us, for instance, assign all of the petroleum-burning machines into a kingdom. Of this, the gasoline-burning ones form a subkingdom. The rubber-wheeled vehicles form a phylum. Of this, conventional automobiles are a class. Each type of car (2-door hatchback, 4-door hatchback, 2-door sunroof, etc.) forms a family. Finally, the manufacturer’s designations make up the genus (e.g. Toyota) and species (e.g. Toyota Tercel). Using selected mechanical components, a nested hierarchy can also be inferred from the structures of wheeled vehicles, whether expressed as a character matrix (Table 1), or cladogram (Figure 3).as we know that the traits of designed objects do not fall into a nested tree distribution.0 -
Did I post this before? -
Is the evolutionary tree turning into a creationist orchard?
http://creation.com/is-the-evolutionary-tree-changing-into-a-creationist-orchard
You did. But I'm more interested in what you think about the tree. The creationist orchard is falsified even if you just look at vertebrates. They form a nested tree that reduces to a single node- some original vertebrate species. That falsifies the concept of kinds and the orchard too.And this:
Walking whales, nested hierarchies, and chimeras: do they exist?
http://creation.com/walking-whales-nested-hierarchies-and-chimeras-do-they-exist
I'll look at this soon, but again I'd much rather debate this with you rather than something you're pasting from a website. If you think something in that source refutes me, why don't you explain how?Let us, for instance, assign all of the petroleum-burning machines into a kingdom. Of this, the gasoline-burning ones form a subkingdom. The rubber-wheeled vehicles form a phylum. Of this, conventional automobiles are a class. Each type of car (2-door hatchback, 4-door hatchback, 2-door sunroof, etc.) forms a family. Finally, the manufacturer’s designations make up the genus (e.g. Toyota) and species (e.g. Toyota Tercel). Using selected mechanical components, a nested hierarchy can also be inferred from the structures of wheeled vehicles, whether expressed as a character matrix (Table 1), or cladogram (Figure 3).
This is rubbish- designed objects can be classified certainly but you can't arrange them into nested trees based on their traits unless you ignore some of those traits. You can always find traits which break the tree. The above example only works by failing look at all traits and failing to considering them in combinations. Take a simple example of designed objects:
Traits: Solar panel, house, Car, petrol engine, diesel engine
House = H
Solar panel (standalone) = S
Solar house = SH
Cart (primitive car) = C
Petrol Car = PC
Diesel Car = DC
Solar Car = SC
Arranging by traits:
###
C
####---S----###H
###|########|####|###|#####|###|
###DC#######PC###|###|#####
#################
#######|
##################|#########SH
##################SC
Ugh. This is not a nested tree because the branches grow back together again and there seems to be no common trunk. We can even drop in a hypothetical solar powered camper van which derives from the solar powered house and the car (and/or the solar powered car?) the wonderful SCH.
###
C
####---S----###H
###|########|####|###|#####|###|
###DC#######PC###|###|#####
#################
#######|
##################|#########SH
##################SC########|
##################|#########|
##################
#######################|####
######################SCH
Owch. That's an eyesore, not a tree. I mean, there's a circle in there.
Bring in more traits and more designed objects and this turns into a total mess. Nothing is forbidden in design. You can probably find some limited examples of nested tree hierarchies in designed objects, but in life, it's throughout the entire ecosystem and is traceable to a single node. The only exception is HGT, which is certainly not intelligent intervention or design and which cannot work on polygenetic traits.
The reason why things like solar cars are not analogous to say, dolphins (a vertebrate becoming a finned animal) are that the solar panel used on the car is not designed from scratch nor adapted from some element of the car. It's been lifted and adapted knowingly from an unrelated design (the standalone solar panel). Nothing in the original car has been adapted into a solar panel. However, when we look at the fins of a dolphin, we can see that they're just modified vertebrate limbs complete with vestigial finger and toe bones. They've arisen entirely from the animal itself with no knowledge of the parallel design in fish. Look at the genes involved and you'll find there's no relation either.
As an aside, if the designer of the solar car had decided he'd not look at the standalone solar panel at all, and would design the solar cells for his car entirely from scratch, he would be a very very bad designer indeed. And what if the designer of the cart had said "I'm not going to look at the water wheel for design tips, I'm going to reinvent the wheel from scratch", we'd rightly consider him a fool. So nested hierarchies in design would actually be evidence of blinkered and foolish design.0 -
Join Date:Posts: 9866
Did I post this before? -
Is the evolutionary tree turning into a creationist orchard?
http://creation.com/is-the-evolutionary-tree-changing-into-a-creationist-orchard
And this:
Walking whales, nested hierarchies, and chimeras: do they exist?
http://creation.com/walking-whales-nested-hierarchies-and-chimeras-do-they-exist
Cetacean relatives? The chimeric trichotomy
Is it the Artiodactyls or is it the Mesonychians58 that are the closest relatives to the Cetaceans? Until recently, the extinct Order Mesonychia was largely accepted by evolutionists as the sister group of Order Cetacea (Figure 4). A recent analysis59 has demonstrated that the respective dental complexes of mesonychids and cetaceans stand out in uniting the two groups into a clade. This is supported by a variety of other mesonychid-cetacean synapomorphies.60
When the pakicetids were discovered along with a host of other finds,61 the artiodactyls began to displace the mesonychids as the closest known relatives of cetaceans (Figure 5). The ‘double-pulleyed’ astralagus now appears to be an unambiguous component of both the pakicetid and protocetid skeletons. This synapomorphy (shared form) links artiodactyls and cetaceans as sister groups, to the exclusion of mesonychians, which do not possess this kind of specialized heel.11 The three mammalian orders are clearly chimeras. Once again, the evolutionary nested hierarchies have been turned upside down, as chimeric creatures are incompatible with any sort of nested hierarchy, and only create headaches for evolutionists.
The evidence places the evolutionist in a particularly unenviable position. Notions of ‘stratomorphic intermediates’ are of no help to him, as the stratigraphic order of fossils themselves does not show a clear-cut preference for one phylogeny over another.62 So which anatomical traits is he to reckon as phylogenetically informative, and which is he to reject and explain away? Having made his arbitrary decision, he is forced to make another one. Which rationalization is he to invoke—the one which supposes ‘backward evolution’ and character loss (Figure 4, left, and Figure 5, left), or the one which imagines that lookalike complex anatomical structures can independently arise in different lineages (Figure 4, right, and Figure 5, right)? How much more parsimonious to recognize an Intelligent Designer who used the same anatomical modulus in otherwise-different mammalian orders?
Since rationalistic preconceptions won’t, of course, allow the evolutionist to consider the latter possibility, he is forced to stumble along in his imaginations and rationalizations. For some evolutionists,63,64 the secondary ‘de-volution’ of the specialized artiodactyl heel is considered possible (Figure 4, left). Others65 speculate that the ‘double-pulleyed’ heel is homoplasic. According to this thinking, the ‘double-pulleyed’ astralagus must have arisen twice independently (convergently) in artiodactyls and mesonychians (Figure 5, right).
Conversely, if pakicetids are to be accepted as the closest known relatives of cetaceans, as the ruling paradigm dictates, all of the foregoing rationalizations must be placed in reverse. The evolutionist must now contemplate the ‘reverse evolution’ of artiodactyl teeth back towards a less-derived state (Figure 5, left). A recent study11 actually contemplates this evolutionary flip-flop.
Let us, for instance, assign all of the petroleum-burning machines into a kingdom. Of this, the gasoline-burning ones form a subkingdom. The rubber-wheeled vehicles form a phylum. Of this, conventional automobiles are a class. Each type of car (2-door hatchback, 4-door hatchback, 2-door sunroof, etc.) forms a family. Finally, the manufacturer’s designations make up the genus (e.g. Toyota) and species (e.g. Toyota Tercel). Using selected mechanical components, a nested hierarchy can also be inferred from the structures of wheeled vehicles, whether expressed as a character matrix (Table 1), or cladogram (Figure 3).
This all falls apart on the baseless assertion that the similarity of tooth structures cannot possibly have arose due to convergent evolution.
There is no need to imagine that lookalike complex anatomical structures can independently and do arise in different lineages . There are innumerous documented examples of convergent evolution in Biology, and it is a well established fact.
Since we know that a complex organ like the eye has evolved multiple times, the convergence in tooth shape in two closely related of orders of mammal would be positively trivial by comparison.
This is akin trying to claim that the tree falls apart because insects and humans both have eyes.0 -
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Also wolfsbane could you please explain to me the mechanism whereby the massive genetic change required to generate over 360 species of Dinosaur from roughly 50 different 'kinds' on the ark is feasible over a few thousand years (aig numbers), while precluding the possibility of two related mammal species traversing the comparitively trival amount of genetic space required to arrive at a similar tooth morphology independently?0 -
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Hate to post three times in a row but there is a very interesting article on demonstrating molecular evolution in a test tube here.The RNAs will only replicate if they have catalyzed attachment of themselves to these food molecules. So long as the RNAs have ample food, they will replicate, and as they replicate, they will mutate. Over time, as these mutations accumulate, new forms emerge — some fitter than others.
When Voytek and Joyce pitted the two RNA molecules in a head-to-head competition for a single food source, they found that the molecules that were better adapted to use a particular food won out.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090429140849.htm0 -
marco_polo wrote: »Hate to post three times in a row but there is a very interesting article on demonstrating molecular evolution in a test tube here.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090429140849.htm
Oh nice one. Linked one of Joyce's earlier papers a few months back. Earlier self-replicating RNA work.
Anyway, the research paper abstract (free) for the above article is here:
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/04/29/0903397106.abstract?sid=fb88bb08-e1f6-475c-bfb2-3b934b2cd77d
There's a link to the full text but it's probably blocked unless you're in a university.0 -
Wolfsbane? Would you accept these trees work for features developed by microevolution within "kinds"?0
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Wolfsbane? Would you accept these trees work for features developed by microevolution within "kinds"?
Unfortunately, if you accept the "orchard" model for vertebrates, you have to accept that the subtrees are all also nested into a single tree, which itself is nested into a tree incorporating the eukarya (ie all organisms with a discrete cell nucleus)- it's only outside of that tree that things get a bit less intuitive. Kind of a dilemma for the creationists, that one.0 -
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Just thought I'd clean up the last tree using the code tag to force it in to a monospaced font because it wasn't lining up right on my screen... I hope it's not too presumptuous of me AH...
-----C------- ---S---- H | | | | | | DC PC | | ------ ------ | | SH SC | | | ------------ | SCH0
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