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Author Topic:   Dissecting the Evolutionist Approach to Explanation and Persuation
Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 241 of 255 (293958)
03-10-2006 11:38 AM
Reply to: Message 237 by robinrohan
03-10-2006 10:44 AM


Re: molecular?
You seem to have a whole lot of unspoken assumptions rolled up in there with the phrase 'special creation ocurred'.
There seems no more reason why special creation should allow for the conservation of non-morphologically relevant genes or even non-functional genes than why it should allow for god to put some interesting structures which resemble living organisms into particular geological strata in particular patterns.
You may argue that it is more parsimonious and certainly I would agree that a God who only steps in to kick start abiogenesis might be considered more parsimonious than one who hand crafted every species on the planet and carefully placed them at particular intervals in time and space to make patterns which appear to detail an evolutionary history of nature. But once you have made the giant leap against parsimony of bringing in a supernatural creator it seems penny ante to de-bar him from any particular activity because it would violate Occam's razor even further than one already has.
If special creation occurred, there would be no transitional fossils, for there would have been no evolution.
You are assuming here that transitional fossils could only result from evolution, this is clearly not true if you bring god into the picture. If you allow special creation there is nothing barring the special creation of organisms, or even the direct creation of fossils, which resemble transitional states between other fossils/ organisms.
TTFN,
WK

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ramoss
Member (Idle past 602 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 08-11-2004


Message 242 of 255 (293960)
03-10-2006 11:42 AM
Reply to: Message 237 by robinrohan
03-10-2006 10:44 AM


Re: molecular?
There appears to be numerous of transitional species.
Are you then saying that 'specical creation' is falsified?

This message is a reply to:
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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1434 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 243 of 255 (293961)
03-10-2006 11:42 AM
Reply to: Message 239 by crashfrog
03-10-2006 11:36 AM


Re: molecular?
The point that you seem to keep ignoring is that what is reasonable to us is no indication of what is reasonable to God. He might very well have done something completely unreasonable to us. That's what it means to be "ineffable."
Apparently many here have some such idea but believers don't have this idea. God is reasonable and the Bible has spelled out his character well enough that someone who knows it well can say what he would and wouldn't do. "ineffable" and "mysterious" don't mean whimsical or arbitary, simply that he is far above us. But what he has told us of his character in his revelation is completely trustworthy.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 239 by crashfrog, posted 03-10-2006 11:36 AM crashfrog has replied

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crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1457 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 244 of 255 (293969)
03-10-2006 11:56 AM
Reply to: Message 243 by Faith
03-10-2006 11:42 AM


Re: molecular?
God is reasonable and the Bible has spelled out his character well enough that someone who knows it well can say what he would and wouldn't do. "ineffable" and "mysterious" don't mean whimsical or arbitary, simply that he is far above us.
You don't think God could have a perfectly good reason to do something that appears whimiscal or arbitrary to us?

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AdminWounded
Inactive Member


Message 245 of 255 (293979)
03-10-2006 12:13 PM


Topic Derailment
There are currently at least 2 disussions ongoing here which are only tangentially connected to the OP, I'm sure there are more appropriate threads where they could be going on. Could discussions of the relative merits of molecular and fossil evidence and the mysterious ways god moves be confined to more relevant threads.
TTFN,
AW

nator
Member (Idle past 2160 days)
Posts: 12961
From: Ann Arbor
Joined: 12-09-2001


Message 246 of 255 (294295)
03-11-2006 2:08 PM
Reply to: Message 219 by Faith
03-09-2006 2:10 PM


Re: How the fossils got there
quote:
What creationists Frog? You mean those back before Darwin? No current creationist has such a belief that I have ever seen and this is a sad case of misrepresentation that obfuscates the argument.
The argument that "God put the fossils in the ground to test our faith" has been extremely common and around a long time after Darwin's ideas began to be accepted, and has only in past decades really fallen out of favor.

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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1395 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 247 of 255 (294482)
03-12-2006 11:18 AM
Reply to: Message 233 by purpledawn
03-10-2006 9:29 AM


Re: Seeking Evolution's 2LOT
Can you speculate what the creationist rebuttal would be to the evolutionist paragraph above?
Sure I can speculate, I can even theorize (based on previous discussions), but I don't think I can accurately predict the response.
Or they are satisfied with the evolutionist answer and don't need to look further. Remember, I'm thinking of nonscience people and not necessarily fundamentalists.
True, so the question becomes "how do you interest the non-science types in the question of (how do marine fossils get on mountaintops) tectonics?" And, to the unbiased non-science people, both answers may seem reasonable at this point.
Tectonics can easily be looked up and is generally easy to understand, IMO. Getting into the species, sorting, sediment, etc. takes more explanation and could be more confusing than not, ...
The problem here is that you are then only addressing half of the Creationist "answer" -- why the fossils are on top of the mountain. What is left out is that the marine fossils just show that the sediment environment was marine when the {soon to become fossils} were deposited, that only certain environments produce such fossils, but that there were many such environments at all times in the earths past. What significantly distinguishes one such deposit from another are (1) age of the deposit and (2) species in the fossils.
There is not "a" layer of marine fossils, but many disconnected (in time and space) plates of fossils in many places -- plates that are still topologically discernable as layers (though many have been warped or sliced by tectonics, they have not been {disturbed\jumbled\mixed} across layers) within their geological columns.
The concept that all such fossils were made at the same time is not a "parsimonious answer" (as it requires a massive amount of coincidence of action), and it is at odds with the evidence: you can have two marine deposits in the same relatively close (geological) area, one from over 65 million years ago and one from less than 65 million years ago. They were not made (under water) at the same time. Not only are they composed of different species, but they are also separated by the iridium layer (meteor, ended age of dinosaurs) as a time marker.
Another aspect of this argument is that the fossils in question (marine fossils recognizable to the average layman) are mostly coastal environment marine fossils: sea shells and corals and such only grow in thick abundance in relatively shallow coastal areas and are mostly absent from the deep ocean bottom (except around deep sea mounts). This is a fairly narrow band around all the continents.
A sudden shift of position from deep ocean bottom to mountaintop would not produce those "recognizable to the average layman" marine fossils, but just another (boring) layer of sedimentary rock.
To get those fossils into a layer they must have grown (over several lifetimes) in a relatively shallow coastal environment. In those coastal bands.
To get those coastal band deposits to cover an area wider than the band there needs to be a mechanism that shifts the band under the growing population, one that acts slow enough that the growing process continues unabated, with enough life cycles to deposit recognizable layers.
Consider a document printer at work: the print head is the coastal environment, the letters (etc) printed are the coastal marine fossils and the paper is the tectonic plate, moving up (in this case) over time (in small discrete increments). Sometimes there are bigger shifts (paragraphs, page ends, earthquakes) that leave blank areas, but the only way to get letters on the document is to stay long enough in the coastal environment to print the letters: below the print head there are no printed letters.

.
.
.
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.
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.
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When the printer exit jams and the paper crumples up in the tray you get fossils on mountaintops -- shallow coastal marine species fossils.
Thus species and their ages are as critical to the Evolutionist "answer" as plate tectonics, and they show that the Creationist "answer" just doesn’t provide the time and the space for such fossils to form.
The Evolutionist "answer" not only solves the problem of the shells, it invalidates the Creationist "answer" -- a critical element.
Having evidence for a {position\concept\belief} is not the sole criteria for it's relative validity (there is plenty of "evidence" that the sun revolves around a flat earth), but the absence or existence of contra-indicative evidence.
While the absence of contra-indicative evidence does not prove a {theory\hypothesis\concept}, it's existence does invalidate the {theory\hypothesis\concept} in question.
Enjoy.
This message has been edited by RAZD, 03*12*2006 11:30 AM

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robinrohan
Inactive Member


Message 248 of 255 (294483)
03-12-2006 11:22 AM
Reply to: Message 242 by ramoss
03-10-2006 11:42 AM


Re: molecular?
Are you then saying that 'specical creation' is falsified?
Yes. If fossils are real, there is no God.

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Replies to this message:
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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1434 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 249 of 255 (294582)
03-12-2006 4:25 PM
Reply to: Message 248 by robinrohan
03-12-2006 11:22 AM


Re: molecular?
Yes. If fossils are real, there is no God.
If fossils are REAL, there is no God?????
Please explain.
They are surely real.
They prove the Flood.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 248 by robinrohan, posted 03-12-2006 11:22 AM robinrohan has replied

Replies to this message:
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 Message 255 by robinrohan, posted 03-12-2006 5:03 PM Faith has not replied

Parasomnium
Member
Posts: 2224
Joined: 07-15-2003


Message 250 of 255 (294587)
03-12-2006 4:39 PM
Reply to: Message 249 by Faith
03-12-2006 4:25 PM


Fossils prove the flood?
Faith writes:
They are surely real.
They prove the Flood.
How can a billion-year-old fossil prove a flood that presumably took place some five or six thousand years ago? Don't you accept the dating of fossils?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 249 by Faith, posted 03-12-2006 4:25 PM Faith has replied

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1434 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 251 of 255 (294588)
03-12-2006 4:40 PM
Reply to: Message 250 by Parasomnium
03-12-2006 4:39 PM


Re: Fossils prove the flood?
Of course I don't accept the dating of fossils. I'm a YEC. Ta DA! Hello Parasomnium. YOu haven't been around for a while.
This message has been edited by Faith, 03-12-2006 04:41 PM

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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Parasomnium
Member
Posts: 2224
Joined: 07-15-2003


Message 252 of 255 (294591)
03-12-2006 4:48 PM
Reply to: Message 251 by Faith
03-12-2006 4:40 PM


Re: Fossils prove the flood?
Faith writes:
Of course I don't accept the dating of fossils. I'm a YEC. Ta da. Hello Parasomnium.
Hello Faith. Ta da, I know you are a YEC. It's just that this is a science forum and I was wondering how you would explain away, in a scientifically plausible way, the correspondence between the diverse methods of dating fossils.
YOu haven't been around for a while.
I have been skiing in the Swiss Alps last week, and before that I've kept a low profile for a while.

"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." - Charles Darwin.
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This message is a reply to:
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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1434 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 253 of 255 (294594)
03-12-2006 4:54 PM
Reply to: Message 252 by Parasomnium
03-12-2006 4:48 PM


Re: Fossils prove the flood?
Yes, well I do tend to blunder into science forums from time to time, such as to ask RR what on earth he means by fossils being REAL of all things, and how that could possibly disprove God. I assume he must mean something like the usual explanation of fossils disproves God, but he said "real" so I'm waiting for the answer.
I'd explain it "away" on the Divine Authority of the Bible, Parasomnium, and maybe get myself kicked off the science thread.

This message is a reply to:
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AdminModulous
Administrator
Posts: 897
Joined: 03-02-2006


Message 254 of 255 (294597)
03-12-2006 4:59 PM


Topic drift is looking pretty terminal
OP writes:
The purpose of this thread is to examine what is wrong with typical evolutionist approaches to explaining their position, and I'd start off by raising the issue of evidence
It was closed temporarily Message 222 so that people could focus on the real topic theme. I'm closing this again in a few minutes, it's still all over the place after AdminWounded stepped in in Message 245. Perhaps it can be opened up later if any interest in the topic theme comes up again.

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robinrohan
Inactive Member


Message 255 of 255 (294600)
03-12-2006 5:03 PM
Reply to: Message 249 by Faith
03-12-2006 4:25 PM


Re: molecular?
If fossils are REAL, there is no God?????
I meant real in the sense of being true transitionals--ie, proof of evolution.

This message is a reply to:
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