The Common Ancestor?

JBR writes: So I guess I will pose this question to everyone. Since special creation also predicts that many organisms would share similar features, what evidence is there for common ancestory that does not rely on the similarity argument? In other words, since both schools of thought predict similarity among many organisms, then similarity can not be used to prove one above the other. So what evidence is there for common ancestory that does NOT depend on the similarities in the phenotype or genetic information?

Special creation doesn't predict anything at all - it just says that God created everything as we see it today 6,000 years ago. There's no prediction about things being similar or otherwise. God could have made animals with wheels and three legs and plants with pink chlorophyl if he'd wanted to.

As we can't know the mind of god, we can't make any prediction about what he might or might not have done.

JBR writes: But of course He could. Without a doubt. However if He wanted His creations to function at (what He saw as) the best possible potential then don't you think it would be more logical that He created things with better designing? For example have you considered what an animal with "wheels" would forfeit? Wheels are very difficult to design in a way so they can self repair. While attached legs that only hinge back and forth can more easily be fed nutrients necessary for repair. That is only one, but I am sure there are many design reasons for preferring legs to wheels. The same could probably be said for your other suggestions. The story says that when He finished His work that He looked at all His designs and said they were "good."

It's been pointed out many times that if god did create the animals and plants as we see them today, he is a really awful designer, not a 'good' one. He also did it in a way that makes it look exactly as if they had evolved in a haphazard way.

But whatever you think, special creation makes absolutely no predictions about phenotypes, it just simply and baldly says, 'God did it.'

JBR writes: You have your opinion and I have mine. I guess we'll leave it at that

Except that it's not my opinion. It's science's explanation supported by the evidence versus your opinion.

Edited by Admin, : Fix quote.

JBR writes: Regarding the last common ancestor premise and creation, don't you agree that what you personally believe about what creationists predict or don't predict is only your opininon? Your claim is that creation doesn't predict that the "last common ancestor" premise, could also be the result of a common creator. That is your opinion isn't it? I have been involved in the debate for almost nine years now and all the creationists I have ever spoken with and most of the creationist websites I have veiwed do explain the similarities this way.

Creationists do not explain anything, they simply assert that god made things the way they are. That is not an explanation, it's a belief - or if you prefer - an opinion.

Science offers an explanation supported by evidence.

Handily, as well as providing evidence for its own position, it also disproves the creationist position by also pointing out the problems with it - dates, bad design, nested hierarchy, lack of floods, lack of genetic bottlenecks caused by floods and so on.

It's game over I'm afraid - all that's left are those that are not interested in facts.

JBR writes: This is a similarity argument. Creationists claim that this is merely a result of a common creator.

The creator could also have make people quite different from all other creation, because we are apparently special and made in his image. But he didn't, he made us look exactly like we evolved over millions of years from ape ancestors.

Can you explain why he would do that?

foreveryoung writes: It is our spiritual qualities that are a special creation. Our morphology is not anything special except for the amount of brain size that is not tied up in regular biological functions. It is the large amount of brain free to think abstractly that God used to create our "soul". By soul, I mean the ability to be spiritual. He did not guide evolution to arrive at our condition; instead, he finally found a species that would be capable of interfacing with a "soul" after about 700 million years of multi-cellular evolution.

Well sure, once believers accept that the earth is 4bn years old and that evolution is how we got here, (ie,the bible stories are myths), then the injection of a fictional soul into a critter that has evolved intelligence is the obvious next move by theologians determined to protect their beliefs.

But there is absolutely no evidence for this soul is there? It's just as fictional as the Adam and Eve stories.

foreveryoung writes: My point is that just because something is a myth does not make it untrue. It is just a truthful story that uses literary devices to make a point

I'm afraid that if something is a myth, then it is just a story and is untrue. There was no flood, there was no Adam, there was no snake, there was no 7 day creation and so on.

So, given that the core stories are, well just stories, why should we believe anything about other mythological things such as souls and our ability to communicate with an imaginary being?

There is no such thing as a soul - you know this as a simple fact. What you are describing is simply your mind trying to understand the world and clinging to myth as an explanation for the things you do not yet understand.

foreveryoung writes: How do you know there was no adam?

Apart from there being absolutely no evidence for Adam except in the stories that you now call myths you mean?

Well, we know that H. Sapiens evolved over hundreds of thousands of years from ape-like ancestors. Homo was not formed out of clay in an act of creation, so there was obviously no Adam.

The global flood you now also accept as bunkum but you're still trying to reconcile your new knowledge with the old. You'll soon work out that none of it works and that the only rational conclusion is agnostic. Most people at that point seem to remain vaguely deistic, some of us throw the whole thing out.

Good luck on your journey.

foreveryoung writes: So, you know that something doesn't exist if the only evidence for it is written down in a text?

That's too convoluted for me.
We know that things are true when we can test them. If the only evidence for something is that it's written down in a book that we both accept is myth, then we can reasonably assume that it isn't true. There is no other rational way to look at it.

Like I said, myth does not mean a book of fairytales made out of whole cloth. There is truth behind it.

And today, you'll pick some things from the bible as false that last year you argued were true. And next year you'll pick a new set. Faith will pick all of it as true and a catholic will pick something else.

The point here us that the bible is discredited, it's an unreliable source. It isn't god's word - which is it's only point - it's a bunch of myths and stories, some of which are nice, helpful analogies, some are horrific and amoral.

Dunno whether this helps but here's something I wrote a while ago to try to explain the chimp/human diversion

http://www.evcforum.net/dm.php?control=msg&t=15949