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Author Topic:   YEC Problem with Science Above and Beyond Evolution
jar
Member (Idle past 393 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 106 of 312 (325432)
06-23-2006 4:39 PM
Reply to: Message 100 by Faith
06-23-2006 3:53 PM


Still trying to find out what YEC means
I know you are busy but I would really like to know what YEC means. This question has been asked in
Message 57,
Message 62,
Message 66,
Message 73,
Message 78,
Message 86,
Message 94 and yet again but you still have not answered.
Are these the basic assumptions of YEC?
  • creation 6000 years ago ± 100 years?
  • fall 5990 6010 years ago ± 1 year?
  • flood 4000 years ago ± 10 years?

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

This message is a reply to:
 Message 100 by Faith, posted 06-23-2006 3:53 PM Faith has not replied

PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.3


Message 107 of 312 (325442)
06-23-2006 5:35 PM
Reply to: Message 103 by deerbreh
06-23-2006 4:19 PM


Re: Semantics
More accurately some scientists do argue that there is a distinction between what THEY term macroevolution and microevolution. But their use of the term is not accepted by creationists who prefer to use one of their own sets of definitions - none of which is well enough defined to be of any use to scientists.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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jar
Member (Idle past 393 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 108 of 312 (325446)
06-23-2006 5:58 PM
Reply to: Message 107 by PaulK
06-23-2006 5:35 PM


since no YECs applied ...
or seem willing to discuss the implications of YECism, maybe I can ask you to consider a few key areas where I get confused.
If there was a flood about 4000 years ago, where at most seven of any given kind (except human kind where more than seven were included), and since 4000 years ago all other critters got killed off, would it be reasonable to expect to see a genetic bottleneck in every creature that could be dated to about 4000 years ago?
If we look, and do not see that evidence, is that not enough to refute several key points of genetics, enough to make us throw the whole thing out as falsified?
Would that not mean that
  • the genetic clock is off by several orders of magnitude and species dependant even within kind or
  • the process of genetics is different for every species or
  • we really don't have a clue what is going on geneticly
If only 4000 years ago the total critter population of the earth was reduced to what would fit on a football field, and that from that population came all of the variety and variation that we see today, would that not mean:
  • that macroevolution happens at a rate far faster than any of the mechanisms currently know
  • we should be seeing things like cats birthing lions right now or certainly within the period of recorded history
  • that all we know about microevolution today is wrong.

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

This message is a reply to:
 Message 107 by PaulK, posted 06-23-2006 5:35 PM PaulK has not replied

Replies to this message:
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nator
Member (Idle past 2169 days)
Posts: 12961
From: Ann Arbor
Joined: 12-09-2001


Message 109 of 312 (325456)
06-23-2006 7:07 PM
Reply to: Message 31 by Faith
06-23-2006 1:52 AM


Re: "Workaday science"
quote:
I don't mean to say that it wouldn't make ANY difference, just that it wouldn't bring science to a grinding halt. Facts are facts, data is data. Daily work on that level would continue it seems to me.
Population Genetics would come to a grinding halt.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 31 by Faith, posted 06-23-2006 1:52 AM Faith has not replied

nator
Member (Idle past 2169 days)
Posts: 12961
From: Ann Arbor
Joined: 12-09-2001


Message 110 of 312 (325459)
06-23-2006 7:17 PM
Reply to: Message 52 by Faith
06-23-2006 11:34 AM


Re: "Workaday science"
quote:
I'm not interested in your theories, I'm interested in practical daily science as scientists engage in it.
What makes you think that "practical daily science" doesn't involve working with theory?
Most scientists do work with theory every day, you know. If you are going to design and conduct experiments, then you are, by definition, testing theory.

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 Message 52 by Faith, posted 06-23-2006 11:34 AM Faith has not replied

deerbreh
Member (Idle past 2892 days)
Posts: 882
Joined: 06-22-2005


Message 111 of 312 (325483)
06-23-2006 8:52 PM
Reply to: Message 108 by jar
06-23-2006 5:58 PM


Re: since no YECs applied ...
I don't know about a lion but I have a cat that is a bitch. How is that for macroevolution?

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 Message 108 by jar, posted 06-23-2006 5:58 PM jar has not replied

arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1343 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 112 of 312 (325502)
06-23-2006 10:59 PM
Reply to: Message 92 by Faith
06-23-2006 3:14 PM


Re: Semantics
It's of a piece with the fact that most of the anti-YEC thinking is straw man arguments though.
yes, i'm just trying to explain the source of the problem, and why the arguments are strawmen. we're dealing with different definitions -- so when you say "evolution" we should read it as "common ancestry" and "geologic time" as opposed to what you would term "micro" evolution (the variation of heritble features in a population from one generation to the next).
I would think that this much of YEC thinking would by now be familiar at EvC but it seems to need to be argued out every time.
i was making no attempt to argue that here, and i am aware of the yec standard. i think it's shortsighted, arbitrary, and full of holes. but that's not the topic. i'm just trying to make sure everyone else understands what you mean: common ancestry, geologic time, and maybe cosmology, and NOT the variation of heritble features in a population from one generation to the next.


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 Message 92 by Faith, posted 06-23-2006 3:14 PM Faith has not replied

Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 113 of 312 (325577)
06-24-2006 3:41 AM
Reply to: Message 102 by Quetzal
06-23-2006 4:18 PM


This level of science is YEC-friendly
I'm going to stay away from this thread now because it's become counterproductive for me, but I wanted at least to answer your post since you went to some trouble. Nevertheless you will call this "hand-waving away" (which I take as YOUR hand-waving away), although there is no point in elaborating that I can see, but there is nothing in your post that a YEC would object to. None of it would be eliminated by a YEC frame of reference.
I probably still don't really get the relevance of the fossils though, and YECs certainly don't view fossils as millions of years old, but if varieties of flora or fauna are represented there that give suggestions for current conditions I suppose that's useful.
This may all be a semantic problem along lines that Arach is trying to get it defined, which I continue to think odd considering how many times the same thing has come up here, but that becomes academic anyway if the main point is conveyed: that there is nothing in what you are describing that would be eliminated by a YEC frame of reference. Nothing.
In other words I believe your description of your work is very much exactly the workaday science YECs say is true science that has nothing to do with the ToE to which we object, and the idea that it is in any way dependent on the overall theory of evolution, as background or anything else, is just a semantic or definitional problem from a YEC point of view.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 102 by Quetzal, posted 06-23-2006 4:18 PM Quetzal has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 114 by cavediver, posted 06-24-2006 5:14 AM Faith has not replied
 Message 116 by arachnophilia, posted 06-24-2006 9:43 AM Faith has not replied
 Message 117 by nwr, posted 06-24-2006 10:00 AM Faith has not replied
 Message 123 by Quetzal, posted 06-24-2006 5:08 PM Faith has replied

cavediver
Member (Idle past 3643 days)
Posts: 4129
From: UK
Joined: 06-16-2005


Message 114 of 312 (325586)
06-24-2006 5:14 AM
Reply to: Message 113 by Faith
06-24-2006 3:41 AM


Astronomy / Cosmology is not YEC-friendly
Just before you go, Faith, I would like to make the point that if the YEC paradigm were true, all astrophysicists (other than possibly planetary) and cosmologists would pack up and go home. I gave up being a creationist 22 years ago, not based on being convinced of evolution or geology, but simply because the skies scream out an ancient universe. The only way to reconcile the two is to assume the skies are lying. They may be (as a result of the fall?) but in this case they certainly don't proclaim God's glory...

This message is a reply to:
 Message 113 by Faith, posted 06-24-2006 3:41 AM Faith has not replied

Lithodid-Man
Member (Idle past 2930 days)
Posts: 504
From: Juneau, Alaska, USA
Joined: 03-22-2004


Message 115 of 312 (325597)
06-24-2006 6:36 AM


Macroevolution in my life
I understand what Faith is asking for with “everyday science”. I also understand what she doesn’t see about ToE theory underpinning everything we do in biology. So I will try to provide an example of how evolution, specifically ”macroevolution’ affects my everyday work.
As an aside to my research I maintain a public aquarium that displays sea life endemic to the Gulf of Alaska. We are a very popular attraction to visitors in our town. Especially popular are living examples of species that people are familiar with from restaurants, halibut, salmon, prawns, and the ever-popular Alaskan king crab.
Now king crabs are very difficult to keep. They nearly always die when it comes time to molt. Obviously they molt dozens of times in the wild, so it is problematic that they die when kept in aquaria. Because these are such a valuable commercial species a great deal of research has been put into ways of propagating them to augment natural stocks (which have, in many places, been depleted). Other commercially important crab species, such as Dungeness crab, snow crab, blue crab, and stone crabs do very well in aquaria. They molt successfully without problem.
So the question is, why do king crabs die during molts when other crabs do just fine when in captivity? The answer is that king crabs are not true crabs at all. They are an example of convergent evolution. King crabs are actually highly modified hermit crabs. Hermit crabs have a greatly decalcified exoskeleton. This means that except for the legs, head, and carapace shield the rest of their body is soft. Because of this decalcification they have lost the ability to extract calcium from seawater and have to rely on dietary calcium to make a new exoskeleton. This is most likely analogous to the vitamin C issue in most primates (probably a broken gene that had little consequence in the ancestral population).
So king crabs (about ten commercially important species worldwide) have re-evolved a strongly calcified exoskeleton. With this has become a need for enormous need for dietary calcium during molting. In the wild king crabs literally wipe out sea urchin and sea star populations in their habitat during molting times. To keep them alive in aquaria we feed them as many sea urchins as we can as well as a supplemental diet (suggested by another researcher) of cuttlebone mixed with fish.
What does this have to do with ”macroevolution’? If we accept the baramin concept of kinds, then crabs should be crabs. Hermit crabs should do their thing and true crabs should do theirs. A researcher (or aquaculturist) should be able to apply what he or she knows to crabs and hermit crabs to their maintenance. Recognizing members of the family Lithodidae (we have 24 species in our region) as derived hermit crabs enables me to provide the diet they require rather than treating them like true crabs. I discuused their evolution here: http://EvC Forum: Transitional fossils not proof of evolution? -->EvC Forum: Transitional fossils not proof of evolution?
So in my everyday work understanding the evolutionary history of an organism benifits me. And it is not 'microevolution'. A typical hermit crab and a king crab are by no defintion the same 'kind'. So that is an everyday scientific application of the the ToE.

Doctor Bashir: "Of all the stories you told me, which were true and which weren't?"
Elim Garak: "My dear Doctor, they're all true"
Doctor Bashir: "Even the lies?"
Elim Garak: "Especially the lies"

Replies to this message:
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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1343 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 116 of 312 (325622)
06-24-2006 9:43 AM
Reply to: Message 113 by Faith
06-24-2006 3:41 AM


question
I probably still don't really get the relevance of the fossils though, and YECs certainly don't view fossils as millions of years old, but if varieties of flora or fauna are represented there that give suggestions for current conditions I suppose that's useful.
i have a question about the yec view of fossils. as i think is obvious, yec'ism seems to be highly skeptical of paleontology in general, often claiming that reconstructions are made up wholesale, or from too little actual fossil. this sort of claim tends to circulate regarding creatures that are "transitional" between two forms -- pakicetus, tiktaalik, archaeopteryx, etc.
so the question is, suppose we have two completely separate kinds, assumed by yecs to be unrelated by definition. suppose also that their parts are homologous (not a made up condition. for instance, our arms are homologous to whale flippers, and i think you agree that we're not whales). let's go beyond homology for a second, and say that many more obvious similarities can be drawn. would it be valid to use similar kind "a" to help reconstruct missing parts of kind "b" even if the two are unrelated?
would studying the patterns of homology (a premise that, btw, would lead us to "macro" evolution, but let's ignore that for now) help us to determine what sort of missing parts an animal had, and about what shape and size they'd be? ie: if kind "a" looks like a compromise between kind "b" and kind "c", is it still valid to use information from kinds "b" and "c" to reconstruct the rest, in a half-way between manner, without the evolutionary aspect?
in other words, is "looks like" evolution enough? or does every reconstruction ever done become suspect?
Edited by arachnophilia, : typo, fins for flippers


This message is a reply to:
 Message 113 by Faith, posted 06-24-2006 3:41 AM Faith has not replied

nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 117 of 312 (325628)
06-24-2006 10:00 AM
Reply to: Message 113 by Faith
06-24-2006 3:41 AM


Re: This level of science is YEC-friendly
I'm going to stay away from this thread now because it's become counterproductive for me, but I wanted at least to answer your post since you went to some trouble. Nevertheless you will call this "hand-waving away" (which I take as YOUR hand-waving away), although there is no point in elaborating that I can see, but there is nothing in your post that a YEC would object to. None of it would be eliminated by a YEC frame of reference.
I think you have a serious misunderstanding of science.
Science is not "pick up a fact here, a fact there, and put them on display at the museum of science." Scientists are very highly motivated people. They do their science because they are driven to it by their motivations, by their curiosity to find out what they can about nature.
If you impose a YEC frame of reference on scientists, then most of them will either abandon science completely, or they will migrate to somewhere else where they can continue to do what they are driven to do. The YEC frame of reference undermines what drives scientists. It denies the very possibility of science.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 113 by Faith, posted 06-24-2006 3:41 AM Faith has not replied

Jazzns
Member (Idle past 3911 days)
Posts: 2657
From: A Better America
Joined: 07-23-2004


Message 118 of 312 (325672)
06-24-2006 1:08 PM
Reply to: Message 49 by Faith
06-23-2006 11:21 AM


Re: "Workaday science"
I hate to be another "pile on" but there is something that I really have to point out.
How is this argument of yours any different than simple's, "the world was totally different in just the right way to make all these things work just like creation science says it should have" ?
I see a number of problems with this kind of thinking. First off it has absolutly no support other than you incredulity. That alone is enough to dismiss it. Science operates on what we know and can know. There is no way for science to ever test if a supernatural entity changed the rules mid-stream. We can ALWAYS say, "well things were just different back then." It is an unfalsifiable, unrealistic, and unproductive position to take.
The other problems I can see are more practical.
If the rate of decay changed then it must have changed differently for each different radioactive element so that when the rate changed to their current state that all of the correlating "ages" would line up.
The energy released by radioactive decay would have to change to deal with 4.5 GA worth of decay happening in a few thousand years.
Friction would have to change or be selectivly eliminated to account for the flood. The continents skittering around the globe, the earth turning itself inside out, we can see the effects of just a "mild" tweaking of topography on places like Io and the result is complete and utter chaos where no life could survive. Also in the same vein of friction, the cosmic dust that falls from space would similarly fry the earth if air resistance isn't radically altered.
Meteor impacts across 4.5 GA would all happen in a few thousand years so somehow the way energy is disperssed from colliding objects will have to change. If not, once again the earth is fried. Nevermind all of these things happening at once.
The laws of superposition/crosscutting/etc DO HAVE TO CHANGE even though Faith merely claims it does not. If the flood is to account for any major portion of the geologic column then is currently NO KNOW mechanism for the reverse sorting of material, unconformities, disconformities, erosional surfaces, inclusions, metamorphism, faulting, etc. Laws of gravity probably have to change to accomidate this. Big things fall sometimes faster sometimes slower than small things. It really is kind of chaotic what has to change in order for the flood to create the geologic record "naturally".
Something would have to happen to the Moon to get it to a) not be molten b) be in the position it is in. I suppose there could be some kind of flood mechanism for this. Why not, everything was different right?
I am sure there are many other kinds of things that would have to be different in the past to make YECism work. But I guess if you just take the position that it "had to be different because the Bible is literally true. Except by literal I mean my interpretation of it that ISN'T ACTUALLY literal at all", that really anything goes. Atoms freaking out, gravity flip flopping, frictionless universe, WHATEVER. Anything to make the creation story and the flood a natural event so that YECism can be considered...
...valid.
All I have to say to that is. *ROFLMAO*
Edited by Jazzns, : No reason given.

Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 49 by Faith, posted 06-23-2006 11:21 AM Faith has not replied

DrJones*
Member
Posts: 2284
From: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Joined: 08-19-2004
Member Rating: 6.8


Message 119 of 312 (325683)
06-24-2006 1:31 PM
Reply to: Message 115 by Lithodid-Man
06-24-2006 6:36 AM


Re: Macroevolution in my life
A typical hermit crab and a king crab are by no defintion the same 'kind'
Nice post but Faith will just hand wave it away. She's never been able to define "kind" and so will claim that you're wrong, that king and hermit crabs are the same "kind" (I imagine her logic will be along the lines of: They're both called crabs, how different can they be?) and that what you said was "macroevolution" was really "microevolution".
Edited by DrJones*, : added a sentence

Just a monkey in a long line of kings.
If "elitist" just means "not the dumbest motherfucker in the room", I'll be an elitist!
*not an actual doctor

This message is a reply to:
 Message 115 by Lithodid-Man, posted 06-24-2006 6:36 AM Lithodid-Man has not replied

Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 120 of 312 (325703)
06-24-2006 2:04 PM
Reply to: Message 115 by Lithodid-Man
06-24-2006 6:36 AM


Re: Macroevolution in my life
Thank you for getting what I'm after and giving a good example of workaday science in action. Yes, just the sort of thing I was looking for.
I see no macroevolution in your story at all.
Why do you assume what a YEC would say a Kind is? Haven't we repeatedly said there is no way yet to know for sure what the original Kinds were? We aren't idiots. If there are significant differences YEC scientists are intelligent enough to take them into account. {Edit: It is also likely from a creationist point of view that there was a lot more built-in genetic diversity in the original Kinds to make possible all kinds of variations one might be tempted down the road to identify as a different Kind although it is just a variation on the original. {Edit 2: I'd also point out that there is no need -- or way -- to know the ancestry of the Alaskan king crab. Its ancestry has zip to do with the practical task of taking care of its pecular problems of survival in captivity that I can see -- you simply have to accommodate to what you know to be its nutritional needs and its ancestry is purely academic. If its similarities to the hermit crab give a clue to its nutritional needs, that's practical science right there, and there's no need to hypothesize about convergent evolution in its past.}
Thank you very much for your post.
And to cavediver: Thanks for yours also, and I already listed astronomy as one of the areas of science YECs have a problem with -- but astronomy is taught by creationists -- I guess I'll have to find out how it's taught. Physical anthropology and paleontology are also problem areas -- obvious in this case.
But I believe so far my claim that daily science is no problem for YECs is holding up just fine.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 115 by Lithodid-Man, posted 06-24-2006 6:36 AM Lithodid-Man has not replied

Replies to this message:
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