Help in teaching 11-12 Year olds (RE (Religious Education) in the UK)

no i dont.

chemical compounds do not produce life.

no, living things contain chemicals, but chemicals to not produce living things.

the reproductive ability is not contingent on chemicals alone but on existing life. An organism can die and still contain all the chemicals that it had while it was alive...but those chemicals do not keep it alive nor do they work to bring the dead to life.

Hi Peg! I've been reading your argument about breeds and hybridization and enjoying it a lot. We know that pairs of what are called different species of animals can interbreed and produce hybrids. As, for example, lions and tigers; horses and donkeys; sheep and goats; finches and uhm, other finches?

The normal creationist argument is that these aren't really different species or "kinds", they are just very different breeds of the same kind. That is, even though sheep and goats are very different varieties of creature, they do have a common descent, say from something on the ark for example. Whereas other things, like apes and men for example, are definitely not related, as proven by the fact that they cannot interbreed. That there is, as you have argued, an internal law or species barrier which prevents it, and which they cannot possibly breed past.

So what I got to thinking was, a nice proof that this argument was wrong would be an animal A who could interbreed with animal B, and an animal C who could also interbreed with animal B, even though animal A could not possibly interbreed with animal C. Assuming evolution was right, we ought to have gobs of these kind of situations, right?

Here's a test for you. Go out into the street, have a good look around, nice surroundings eh? Now, take a single step. Take another good look around, not much has changed. Now, take another step,and another, and another.... After 1 million steps, have your surroundings not changed completely? And only by taking small steps!

Here's one of my favourites:

quote:

---

He notes that "despite the efforts of breeders," the winning times of thoroughbreds in the English classic horse races "have not fallen substantially over the past fifty years"

---

i did look up some sites about these sorts of hybrids and found it quite intersting.
One site did say that in the wild, lions and tigers would not normally breed though...this only happens because man interferes with them. Also, the offspring are infertile so it kind of backs up the point i made about the species barrier...they can only go so far.

to be honest, i havent read a great deal about ring species. What is known about the genetics of the various ring species?

that is pure speculation

No one had been around long enough to see an entirely new species develop. Everything we have today is the same as it was millions of years ago.

perhaps the evidence you have has been fitted into the existing theory.

with all the billions of people who have ever lived on this earth, we still all look the same. We have not changed our physical form, we still have 1 head on our sholders and 2 legs beneath our torso and 2 arms with 10 fingers on each hand.

show me where we have changed dramatically? (and dont show me an ape)

We do also see both of those things that were in your quote, and you going "LA, LA, LA!" with your fingers in your ears doesn't change that. Just because you have an insane creationist understanding of the concept of what 'becomes a new species' actually means doesn't mean that what it actually means in evolutionary terms, two supopulations from an originally interbreeding population becoming reprodcutively isolated (post-mating for a strong biological species concept), doesn't happen.

So all the people with polydactyly and syndactyly simply don't exist? Plus way to once again present the idiotic creationist strawman version of what evolution should look like?

No, that's not an ape, and yes, that is our ancestor. Now, tell me we haven't changed from that?

No. Evolution is so fiercely contested by creationists mainly because it turns "THE creation story" into allegory. Most of the rest of the bible can still be taken at face value, even in light of the facts of evolution, provided you view it as no more than a history book.

But wait! THE creation story can still be *true* if you don't actually thk A&E were actual humans, but just the first lifeforms.

No it cannot.

The majority of the Bible is false.

The Bible is not a history book.

Jesus would have looked very much like any other male Israelite at the time, that's why Judas had to identify Him with a kiss.

He would not be blue eyes or white and certainly not have long hair.

(psst: That was a rhetorical question.)

no it can't. The bible is the communication from the one who created the man and woman in his image, and all the animals 'according to their kinds'

he does not say that the put molecular life on the earth and allowed it time to evolve. He says he created each kind of animal and finally created the human man and woman as separate creations.

This is exactly why christians contest evolution.

Jesus christ spoke about A&E as real people. They are even listed in his geneolgy...so if they are not real, then nor is Jesus.

Not all christians think that. The reason why some might is because most christians dont study their own religion. They should know that he was not a caucasian because caucasian people are decended from Noahs son Japheth who was the progenitor of the Aryan or Indo-European (Indo-Germanic) branch of the human family. The son Shem gave the line of Jews/Cannanites/Assyrians/Aramaeans etc.

It is pretty funny though to see a picture of Jesus with blonde hair...makes me cringe lol

I know about speciation...there was a discussion on it here recently where I pointed out that the Golapogas finches were said to have developed into new species...but the facts are that the finch's are still finch's

Each 'kind' of animal has the genetic potential for great variety, thats why there are more then 400 different breeds of dogs. You might call it speciation, but the reality is that they are all still dogs.

so a skull with a thick brow means a different species?

Im sure you could still find some people with very thick brows

Why can't Jesus' genealogy be fictional?