WELCOME! A place where iron can sharpen iron, where spiritual milk and strong meat may be shared and received by all, where scripture can be expounded, where truth and love may be seen by the world.
To post: email totw@truthonthewb.org from your email address and ask for the password. It will be changed from time-to-time as need arises. Thank you for posting here. God bless.
Well, Julian, feel assured that you found a FORMER atheist, with an open mind 
( 
). I did all of these studies and ran it by a lot of scientists before coming to my conclusions. But, I was a stubborn little kid of 17 or so too, 30 years ago.
Mike
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Replying to:
What, those eyes that evolved?...lol.
Seems to me that my optimism that I would find an atheist with an open mind was a false one, oh well.
Julian.
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Replying to:
the last three statements have been handled to a degree in the above, however, it is obvious from even a casual reading, much less an involved study, that the two accounts are not "individual accounts". Each brings out important points the other does not. This is how Scripture is organized. And that last statement was shown false (or most probably false anyway) early in the argument.
Ontologically, cosmologically, logically, and even in many cases empirically, we can see the creator, unless we close our eyes really tight...
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Replying to:
Let me just reword number ten as it is not a true argument either: 10. Embryos have features that creation explains well.
Taken individually there may not seem much evidence, but taken as a whole with the vast amount of scientific backing, it seems that Creation is the inevitable and forgone conclusion that a rational person would have to make seeing the evidence is overwhelmingly for creation.
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Replying to:
see number 1
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Replying to:
see number 5
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Replying to:
7. Microevolution certainly occurs. Macro has the same mechanisms.
Macro has greater problems. In micro, the EYE is ALREADY intact and is a total operating and functional organ, replete with all the organs it is associated with in harmony with it too, and offers only a slight change in the working mechanism. Macro, assumes the creation of the eye, along with the specialized lens and muscles to adjust the lens, and the iris and the cones and rods and the vitreous fluid, and the special optic nerves, and the brain that can now flip the image right side up and etc, ad nauseum. ALL happening simutaneously. This is science grasping at straws.
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Replying to:
6. Genetics explains how characteristics are passed on.
Yes, but not how they are altered. The vast majority of mutations are not passed on, and the ones that are, are normally only passed on further down the line. The vast majority "revert to type", or become sterile.
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Replying to:
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Replying to:
5. Different species in similar environments would evolve to be like each other. Australian animals do this.
Foul! The last sentence is illegal as a proof or piece of evidence as it assumes a conclusion. However, to use the same form of reasoning, Creation explains this better. An intelligence WOULD place differently adapted animals in their own environments, but the cold laws of physics may not necessarily be so accommodating.
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Replying to:
4. Vestigial limbs and organs. Evolution can explain this phenomenon beautifully.
This is a very dogmatic point of view. Sure, if we could see the progression (flow) that should and would exist right now, we could surmise that this was indeed a valid and viable solution to "not having to believe in a creator".
But we do not. So, what is a vestigial limb or organ? One that has no APPARENT use or functionality. Like, um, the tonsils were once considered useless and when a little irritated, doctors removed them by the scores. But ignorance of a fact, does not infer another fact. We now know that they are definitely a factor in our immune system, but many a child had their immune system crippled, before we bothered to look for a use.
We have to remember, an argument from ignorance is NO argument at all. Sorry.
With all due respect...
Mike
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Replying to:
A VERY BRIEF SUMMARY
Some of the evidence for evolution:
1. Simpler fossils in the older rocks, more complex in older, and fossils develop in time order.
2. You would expect major changes in the environment to produce large scale extinctions. Fossil record confirms.
3. All mammals, for example, have the same basic bodily structure [bones and organs] but adapted to their environmental niche. Evolution explains.
4. Vestigial limbs and organs. Evolution can explain this phenomenon beautifully.
5. Different species in similar environments would evolve to be like each other. Australian animals do this.
6. Genetics explains how characteristics are passed on.
7. Microevolution certainly occurs. Macro has the same mechanisms.
8. The same species on different islands would evolve to fit the circumstances on the particular island. Exactly what Darwin found when he studied finches on the Galapagos Islands.
9. The are sequences of fossils that follow on from one another as you would expect. There are even 'links' between one species and another - but not very many see below.
10. Embryos have features that evolution explains well.
{One objection is that there are few 'link' fossils. The answer is that few animals produce fossils and, if speciation is a rapid process then there would be few such transitional animals anyway}
Problems with Creationism
1. Two accounts in Genesis.
2. Contradicts other scientific theories too. For example the moon and sun are made at the same time and before the stars.
3. Does not explain extinctions, vestigial limbs, why all mammals have same bone structure etc.
Summary
Any of the points above might be defended to some extent by Creationists BUT when you consider ALL the above together, an impartial person would have to conclude that the evidence for evolution is overwhelming.
Which is what 99.9% of scientists HAVE concluded and most Christians too -these latter taking Genesis to contain religious not scientific truths. To suggest that all these scientists are wrong/deluded/in Satan's power {ditto the Christians}or whatever is grossly implausible.
Best wishes
Laurie
They a) are not all impartial, I am concerned you put so much trust in this. b)I do understand the theory, you can also if you do the research (as you have been doing). c) how can they declare that the 'evidence' overwhelmingly supports a theory that has not be proven for over 100 years, and in fact has had more problems as scientific discovery moves forward.
It concerns me Laurie that I now wonder how much effort you are putting in to your studies. If you want to get into this properly, I will match you step by step, but now I find your initial enthusiasm is tainted by believeing the 'popular' trends. You are doing exactly what you accuse creationists of doing (and many of them do). No good just repeating what you think the experts know, give us some of these evidences, and I for one will look into them.(I doubt you will find what you think is out there)
Bring on some of these experts, or at least do the research and quote me unhappy? (LOL, that pun you will understand being a Brit).
Best regards, Julian.
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Replying to:
Why do scientist trained to evaluate evidence impartially and who, unlike you and me actually understand the theory, declare that the evidence overwhelmingly supports the theory. How come they have all made this gigantic mistake?
Laurie
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Replying to:
Let me just reword number ten as it is not a true argument either: 10. Embryos have features that creation explains well.
Taken individually there may not seem much evidence, but taken as a whole with the vast amount of scientific backing, it seems that Creation is the inevitable and forgone conclusion that a rational person would have to make seeing the evidence is overwhelmingly for creation.
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Replying to:
see number 1
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Replying to:
see number 5
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Replying to:
7. Microevolution certainly occurs. Macro has the same mechanisms.
Macro has greater problems. In micro, the EYE is ALREADY intact and is a total operating and functional organ, replete with all the organs it is associated with in harmony with it too, and offers only a slight change in the working mechanism. Macro, assumes the creation of the eye, along with the specialized lens and muscles to adjust the lens, and the iris and the cones and rods and the vitreous fluid, and the special optic nerves, and the brain that can now flip the image right side up and etc, ad nauseum. ALL happening simutaneously. This is science grasping at straws.
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Replying to:
6. Genetics explains how characteristics are passed on.
Yes, but not how they are altered. The vast majority of mutations are not passed on, and the ones that are, are normally only passed on further down the line. The vast majority "revert to type", or become sterile.
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Replying to:
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Replying to:
5. Different species in similar environments would evolve to be like each other. Australian animals do this.
Foul! The last sentence is illegal as a proof or piece of evidence as it assumes a conclusion. However, to use the same form of reasoning, Creation explains this better. An intelligence WOULD place differently adapted animals in their own environments, but the cold laws of physics may not necessarily be so accommodating.
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Replying to:
4. Vestigial limbs and organs. Evolution can explain this phenomenon beautifully.
This is a very dogmatic point of view. Sure, if we could see the progression (flow) that should and would exist right now, we could surmise that this was indeed a valid and viable solution to "not having to believe in a creator".
But we do not. So, what is a vestigial limb or organ? One that has no APPARENT use or functionality. Like, um, the tonsils were once considered useless and when a little irritated, doctors removed them by the scores. But ignorance of a fact, does not infer another fact. We now know that they are definitely a factor in our immune system, but many a child had their immune system crippled, before we bothered to look for a use.
We have to remember, an argument from ignorance is NO argument at all. Sorry.
With all due respect...
Mike
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Replying to:
A VERY BRIEF SUMMARY
Some of the evidence for evolution:
1. Simpler fossils in the older rocks, more complex in older, and fossils develop in time order.
2. You would expect major changes in the environment to produce large scale extinctions. Fossil record confirms.
3. All mammals, for example, have the same basic bodily structure [bones and organs] but adapted to their environmental niche. Evolution explains.
4. Vestigial limbs and organs. Evolution can explain this phenomenon beautifully.
5. Different species in similar environments would evolve to be like each other. Australian animals do this.
6. Genetics explains how characteristics are passed on.
7. Microevolution certainly occurs. Macro has the same mechanisms.
8. The same species on different islands would evolve to fit the circumstances on the particular island. Exactly what Darwin found when he studied finches on the Galapagos Islands.
9. The are sequences of fossils that follow on from one another as you would expect. There are even 'links' between one species and another - but not very many see below.
10. Embryos have features that evolution explains well.
{One objection is that there are few 'link' fossils. The answer is that few animals produce fossils and, if speciation is a rapid process then there would be few such transitional animals anyway}
Problems with Creationism
1. Two accounts in Genesis.
2. Contradicts other scientific theories too. For example the moon and sun are made at the same time and before the stars.
3. Does not explain extinctions, vestigial limbs, why all mammals have same bone structure etc.
Summary
Any of the points above might be defended to some extent by Creationists BUT when you consider ALL the above together, an impartial person would have to conclude that the evidence for evolution is overwhelming.
Which is what 99.9% of scientists HAVE concluded and most Christians too -these latter taking Genesis to contain religious not scientific truths. To suggest that all these scientists are wrong/deluded/in Satan's power {ditto the Christians}or whatever is grossly implausible.
Best wishes
Laurie
Evidence please that ALL the scientist's supporting evolution are 'not impartial'.
The rest I have answered in detail on your BIBLEBANTER forum.
In a nutshell, for those not reading my comments there, I have not the ability or the time to get a degree in biology which would be the minimum required to evaluate the evidence.
Best wishes
Laurie
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Replying to:
They a) are not all impartial, I am concerned you put so much trust in this. b)I do understand the theory, you can also if you do the research (as you have been doing). c) how can they declare that the 'evidence' overwhelmingly supports a theory that has not be proven for over 100 years, and in fact has had more problems as scientific discovery moves forward.
It concerns me Laurie that I now wonder how much effort you are putting in to your studies. If you want to get into this properly, I will match you step by step, but now I find your initial enthusiasm is tainted by believeing the 'popular' trends. You are doing exactly what you accuse creationists of doing (and many of them do). No good just repeating what you think the experts know, give us some of these evidences, and I for one will look into them.(I doubt you will find what you think is out there)
Bring on some of these experts, or at least do the research and quote me unhappy? (LOL, that pun you will understand being a Brit).
Best regards, Julian.
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Replying to:
Why do scientist trained to evaluate evidence impartially and who, unlike you and me actually understand the theory, declare that the evidence overwhelmingly supports the theory. How come they have all made this gigantic mistake?
Laurie
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Replying to:
Let me just reword number ten as it is not a true argument either: 10. Embryos have features that creation explains well.
Taken individually there may not seem much evidence, but taken as a whole with the vast amount of scientific backing, it seems that Creation is the inevitable and forgone conclusion that a rational person would have to make seeing the evidence is overwhelmingly for creation.
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Replying to:
see number 1
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Replying to:
see number 5
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Replying to:
7. Microevolution certainly occurs. Macro has the same mechanisms.
Macro has greater problems. In micro, the EYE is ALREADY intact and is a total operating and functional organ, replete with all the organs it is associated with in harmony with it too, and offers only a slight change in the working mechanism. Macro, assumes the creation of the eye, along with the specialized lens and muscles to adjust the lens, and the iris and the cones and rods and the vitreous fluid, and the special optic nerves, and the brain that can now flip the image right side up and etc, ad nauseum. ALL happening simutaneously. This is science grasping at straws.
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
6. Genetics explains how characteristics are passed on.
Yes, but not how they are altered. The vast majority of mutations are not passed on, and the ones that are, are normally only passed on further down the line. The vast majority "revert to type", or become sterile.
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Replying to:
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Replying to:
5. Different species in similar environments would evolve to be like each other. Australian animals do this.
Foul! The last sentence is illegal as a proof or piece of evidence as it assumes a conclusion. However, to use the same form of reasoning, Creation explains this better. An intelligence WOULD place differently adapted animals in their own environments, but the cold laws of physics may not necessarily be so accommodating.
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
4. Vestigial limbs and organs. Evolution can explain this phenomenon beautifully.
This is a very dogmatic point of view. Sure, if we could see the progression (flow) that should and would exist right now, we could surmise that this was indeed a valid and viable solution to "not having to believe in a creator".
But we do not. So, what is a vestigial limb or organ? One that has no APPARENT use or functionality. Like, um, the tonsils were once considered useless and when a little irritated, doctors removed them by the scores. But ignorance of a fact, does not infer another fact. We now know that they are definitely a factor in our immune system, but many a child had their immune system crippled, before we bothered to look for a use.
We have to remember, an argument from ignorance is NO argument at all. Sorry.
With all due respect...
Mike
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
A VERY BRIEF SUMMARY
Some of the evidence for evolution:
1. Simpler fossils in the older rocks, more complex in older, and fossils develop in time order.
2. You would expect major changes in the environment to produce large scale extinctions. Fossil record confirms.
3. All mammals, for example, have the same basic bodily structure [bones and organs] but adapted to their environmental niche. Evolution explains.
4. Vestigial limbs and organs. Evolution can explain this phenomenon beautifully.
5. Different species in similar environments would evolve to be like each other. Australian animals do this.
6. Genetics explains how characteristics are passed on.
7. Microevolution certainly occurs. Macro has the same mechanisms.
8. The same species on different islands would evolve to fit the circumstances on the particular island. Exactly what Darwin found when he studied finches on the Galapagos Islands.
9. The are sequences of fossils that follow on from one another as you would expect. There are even 'links' between one species and another - but not very many see below.
10. Embryos have features that evolution explains well.
{One objection is that there are few 'link' fossils. The answer is that few animals produce fossils and, if speciation is a rapid process then there would be few such transitional animals anyway}
Problems with Creationism
1. Two accounts in Genesis.
2. Contradicts other scientific theories too. For example the moon and sun are made at the same time and before the stars.
3. Does not explain extinctions, vestigial limbs, why all mammals have same bone structure etc.
Summary
Any of the points above might be defended to some extent by Creationists BUT when you consider ALL the above together, an impartial person would have to conclude that the evidence for evolution is overwhelming.
Which is what 99.9% of scientists HAVE concluded and most Christians too -these latter taking Genesis to contain religious not scientific truths. To suggest that all these scientists are wrong/deluded/in Satan's power {ditto the Christians}or whatever is grossly implausible.
Best wishes
Laurie
Email: mgt.harris@btinternet.com
Not all biologists, and other scientists agree that evolution is fact. Some violently oppose what they call a violation of logical and scientific reasoning.
A start
some biology for you
And there is much more.
Mike
Mike
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Replying to:
Evidence please that ALL the scientist's supporting evolution are 'not impartial'.
The rest I have answered in detail on your BIBLEBANTER forum.
In a nutshell, for those not reading my comments there, I have not the ability or the time to get a degree in biology which would be the minimum required to evaluate the evidence.
Best wishes
Laurie
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Replying to:
They a) are not all impartial, I am concerned you put so much trust in this. b)I do understand the theory, you can also if you do the research (as you have been doing). c) how can they declare that the 'evidence' overwhelmingly supports a theory that has not be proven for over 100 years, and in fact has had more problems as scientific discovery moves forward.
It concerns me Laurie that I now wonder how much effort you are putting in to your studies. If you want to get into this properly, I will match you step by step, but now I find your initial enthusiasm is tainted by believeing the 'popular' trends. You are doing exactly what you accuse creationists of doing (and many of them do). No good just repeating what you think the experts know, give us some of these evidences, and I for one will look into them.(I doubt you will find what you think is out there)
Bring on some of these experts, or at least do the research and quote me unhappy? (LOL, that pun you will understand being a Brit).
Best regards, Julian.
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Replying to:
Why do scientist trained to evaluate evidence impartially and who, unlike you and me actually understand the theory, declare that the evidence overwhelmingly supports the theory. How come they have all made this gigantic mistake?
Laurie
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Replying to:
Let me just reword number ten as it is not a true argument either: 10. Embryos have features that creation explains well.
Taken individually there may not seem much evidence, but taken as a whole with the vast amount of scientific backing, it seems that Creation is the inevitable and forgone conclusion that a rational person would have to make seeing the evidence is overwhelmingly for creation.
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
see number 1
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Replying to:
see number 5
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Replying to:
7. Microevolution certainly occurs. Macro has the same mechanisms.
Macro has greater problems. In micro, the EYE is ALREADY intact and is a total operating and functional organ, replete with all the organs it is associated with in harmony with it too, and offers only a slight change in the working mechanism. Macro, assumes the creation of the eye, along with the specialized lens and muscles to adjust the lens, and the iris and the cones and rods and the vitreous fluid, and the special optic nerves, and the brain that can now flip the image right side up and etc, ad nauseum. ALL happening simutaneously. This is science grasping at straws.
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
6. Genetics explains how characteristics are passed on.
Yes, but not how they are altered. The vast majority of mutations are not passed on, and the ones that are, are normally only passed on further down the line. The vast majority "revert to type", or become sterile.
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
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Replying to:
5. Different species in similar environments would evolve to be like each other. Australian animals do this.
Foul! The last sentence is illegal as a proof or piece of evidence as it assumes a conclusion. However, to use the same form of reasoning, Creation explains this better. An intelligence WOULD place differently adapted animals in their own environments, but the cold laws of physics may not necessarily be so accommodating.
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
4. Vestigial limbs and organs. Evolution can explain this phenomenon beautifully.
This is a very dogmatic point of view. Sure, if we could see the progression (flow) that should and would exist right now, we could surmise that this was indeed a valid and viable solution to "not having to believe in a creator".
But we do not. So, what is a vestigial limb or organ? One that has no APPARENT use or functionality. Like, um, the tonsils were once considered useless and when a little irritated, doctors removed them by the scores. But ignorance of a fact, does not infer another fact. We now know that they are definitely a factor in our immune system, but many a child had their immune system crippled, before we bothered to look for a use.
We have to remember, an argument from ignorance is NO argument at all. Sorry.
With all due respect...
Mike
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
A VERY BRIEF SUMMARY
Some of the evidence for evolution:
1. Simpler fossils in the older rocks, more complex in older, and fossils develop in time order.
2. You would expect major changes in the environment to produce large scale extinctions. Fossil record confirms.
3. All mammals, for example, have the same basic bodily structure [bones and organs] but adapted to their environmental niche. Evolution explains.
4. Vestigial limbs and organs. Evolution can explain this phenomenon beautifully.
5. Different species in similar environments would evolve to be like each other. Australian animals do this.
6. Genetics explains how characteristics are passed on.
7. Microevolution certainly occurs. Macro has the same mechanisms.
8. The same species on different islands would evolve to fit the circumstances on the particular island. Exactly what Darwin found when he studied finches on the Galapagos Islands.
9. The are sequences of fossils that follow on from one another as you would expect. There are even 'links' between one species and another - but not very many see below.
10. Embryos have features that evolution explains well.
{One objection is that there are few 'link' fossils. The answer is that few animals produce fossils and, if speciation is a rapid process then there would be few such transitional animals anyway}
Problems with Creationism
1. Two accounts in Genesis.
2. Contradicts other scientific theories too. For example the moon and sun are made at the same time and before the stars.
3. Does not explain extinctions, vestigial limbs, why all mammals have same bone structure etc.
Summary
Any of the points above might be defended to some extent by Creationists BUT when you consider ALL the above together, an impartial person would have to conclude that the evidence for evolution is overwhelming.
Which is what 99.9% of scientists HAVE concluded and most Christians too -these latter taking Genesis to contain religious not scientific truths. To suggest that all these scientists are wrong/deluded/in Satan's power {ditto the Christians}or whatever is grossly implausible.
Best wishes
Laurie
accept evolution. I am not going to get into a discussion about whether it is 98% or 99%!!!
Also most of those that disagree are Bible Christians who have already decided that the Bible contradicts evolution.
You are a brave [or foolhardy] man to go with the majority - or you have considerable confidence in your biological ability.
Laurie
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Replying to:
Not all biologists, and other scientists agree that evolution is fact. Some violently oppose what they call a violation of logical and scientific reasoning.
A start
some biology for you
And there is much more.
Mike
Mike
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Replying to:
Evidence please that ALL the scientist's supporting evolution are 'not impartial'.
The rest I have answered in detail on your BIBLEBANTER forum.
In a nutshell, for those not reading my comments there, I have not the ability or the time to get a degree in biology which would be the minimum required to evaluate the evidence.
Best wishes
Laurie
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
They a) are not all impartial, I am concerned you put so much trust in this. b)I do understand the theory, you can also if you do the research (as you have been doing). c) how can they declare that the 'evidence' overwhelmingly supports a theory that has not be proven for over 100 years, and in fact has had more problems as scientific discovery moves forward.
It concerns me Laurie that I now wonder how much effort you are putting in to your studies. If you want to get into this properly, I will match you step by step, but now I find your initial enthusiasm is tainted by believeing the 'popular' trends. You are doing exactly what you accuse creationists of doing (and many of them do). No good just repeating what you think the experts know, give us some of these evidences, and I for one will look into them.(I doubt you will find what you think is out there)
Bring on some of these experts, or at least do the research and quote me unhappy? (LOL, that pun you will understand being a Brit).
Best regards, Julian.
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
Why do scientist trained to evaluate evidence impartially and who, unlike you and me actually understand the theory, declare that the evidence overwhelmingly supports the theory. How come they have all made this gigantic mistake?
Laurie
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
Let me just reword number ten as it is not a true argument either: 10. Embryos have features that creation explains well.
Taken individually there may not seem much evidence, but taken as a whole with the vast amount of scientific backing, it seems that Creation is the inevitable and forgone conclusion that a rational person would have to make seeing the evidence is overwhelmingly for creation.
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
see number 1
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
see number 5
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
7. Microevolution certainly occurs. Macro has the same mechanisms.
Macro has greater problems. In micro, the EYE is ALREADY intact and is a total operating and functional organ, replete with all the organs it is associated with in harmony with it too, and offers only a slight change in the working mechanism. Macro, assumes the creation of the eye, along with the specialized lens and muscles to adjust the lens, and the iris and the cones and rods and the vitreous fluid, and the special optic nerves, and the brain that can now flip the image right side up and etc, ad nauseum. ALL happening simutaneously. This is science grasping at straws.
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
6. Genetics explains how characteristics are passed on.
Yes, but not how they are altered. The vast majority of mutations are not passed on, and the ones that are, are normally only passed on further down the line. The vast majority "revert to type", or become sterile.
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
5. Different species in similar environments would evolve to be like each other. Australian animals do this.
Foul! The last sentence is illegal as a proof or piece of evidence as it assumes a conclusion. However, to use the same form of reasoning, Creation explains this better. An intelligence WOULD place differently adapted animals in their own environments, but the cold laws of physics may not necessarily be so accommodating.
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
4. Vestigial limbs and organs. Evolution can explain this phenomenon beautifully.
This is a very dogmatic point of view. Sure, if we could see the progression (flow) that should and would exist right now, we could surmise that this was indeed a valid and viable solution to "not having to believe in a creator".
But we do not. So, what is a vestigial limb or organ? One that has no APPARENT use or functionality. Like, um, the tonsils were once considered useless and when a little irritated, doctors removed them by the scores. But ignorance of a fact, does not infer another fact. We now know that they are definitely a factor in our immune system, but many a child had their immune system crippled, before we bothered to look for a use.
We have to remember, an argument from ignorance is NO argument at all. Sorry.
With all due respect...
Mike
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
A VERY BRIEF SUMMARY
Some of the evidence for evolution:
1. Simpler fossils in the older rocks, more complex in older, and fossils develop in time order.
2. You would expect major changes in the environment to produce large scale extinctions. Fossil record confirms.
3. All mammals, for example, have the same basic bodily structure [bones and organs] but adapted to their environmental niche. Evolution explains.
4. Vestigial limbs and organs. Evolution can explain this phenomenon beautifully.
5. Different species in similar environments would evolve to be like each other. Australian animals do this.
6. Genetics explains how characteristics are passed on.
7. Microevolution certainly occurs. Macro has the same mechanisms.
8. The same species on different islands would evolve to fit the circumstances on the particular island. Exactly what Darwin found when he studied finches on the Galapagos Islands.
9. The are sequences of fossils that follow on from one another as you would expect. There are even 'links' between one species and another - but not very many see below.
10. Embryos have features that evolution explains well.
{One objection is that there are few 'link' fossils. The answer is that few animals produce fossils and, if speciation is a rapid process then there would be few such transitional animals anyway}
Problems with Creationism
1. Two accounts in Genesis.
2. Contradicts other scientific theories too. For example the moon and sun are made at the same time and before the stars.
3. Does not explain extinctions, vestigial limbs, why all mammals have same bone structure etc.
Summary
Any of the points above might be defended to some extent by Creationists BUT when you consider ALL the above together, an impartial person would have to conclude that the evidence for evolution is overwhelming.
Which is what 99.9% of scientists HAVE concluded and most Christians too -these latter taking Genesis to contain religious not scientific truths. To suggest that all these scientists are wrong/deluded/in Satan's power {ditto the Christians}or whatever is grossly implausible.
Best wishes
Laurie
Email: mgt.harris@btinternet.com
Well, when most "scientists" agreed on one thing or another, and someone discovered them wrong (which happens less and less to be sure) we have a "eureka" experience. Slowly all the minds locked into believing that the earth is flat, realize it is not. But, it normally takes a long time to make the conversion happen (in the case above, over 1,000 years).
I have little "ability" as you mean it. I do seem to have a gift of grasping things I read rather quickly (and also in seeing the "if all A are blue and all B are yellow, then all A will eventually become B's" arguments for what they are). I think you might find the list of books I have read amusing; maybe I should list them *LOL*; nah, that would be bragging, and I am not that kind of guy.
I just have the information available, and I see a different "logistical horizon" then many. The newest event horizon is coming very soon.
And one more thing, as the one link I gave earlier says (it references another's comment), I am definitely not in the majority. I have had my share of being called a heretic, too.
Mike
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Replying to:
accept evolution. I am not going to get into a discussion about whether it is 98% or 99%!!!
Also most of those that disagree are Bible Christians who have already decided that the Bible contradicts evolution.
You are a brave [or foolhardy] man to go with the majority - or you have considerable confidence in your biological ability.
Laurie
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Replying to:
Not all biologists, and other scientists agree that evolution is fact. Some violently oppose what they call a violation of logical and scientific reasoning.
A start
some biology for you
And there is much more.
Mike
Mike
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Replying to:
Evidence please that ALL the scientist's supporting evolution are 'not impartial'.
The rest I have answered in detail on your BIBLEBANTER forum.
In a nutshell, for those not reading my comments there, I have not the ability or the time to get a degree in biology which would be the minimum required to evaluate the evidence.
Best wishes
Laurie
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Replying to:
They a) are not all impartial, I am concerned you put so much trust in this. b)I do understand the theory, you can also if you do the research (as you have been doing). c) how can they declare that the 'evidence' overwhelmingly supports a theory that has not be proven for over 100 years, and in fact has had more problems as scientific discovery moves forward.
It concerns me Laurie that I now wonder how much effort you are putting in to your studies. If you want to get into this properly, I will match you step by step, but now I find your initial enthusiasm is tainted by believeing the 'popular' trends. You are doing exactly what you accuse creationists of doing (and many of them do). No good just repeating what you think the experts know, give us some of these evidences, and I for one will look into them.(I doubt you will find what you think is out there)
Bring on some of these experts, or at least do the research and quote me unhappy? (LOL, that pun you will understand being a Brit).
Best regards, Julian.
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Replying to:
Why do scientist trained to evaluate evidence impartially and who, unlike you and me actually understand the theory, declare that the evidence overwhelmingly supports the theory. How come they have all made this gigantic mistake?
Laurie
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Replying to:
Let me just reword number ten as it is not a true argument either: 10. Embryos have features that creation explains well.
Taken individually there may not seem much evidence, but taken as a whole with the vast amount of scientific backing, it seems that Creation is the inevitable and forgone conclusion that a rational person would have to make seeing the evidence is overwhelmingly for creation.
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Replying to:
see number 1
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Replying to:
see number 5
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Replying to:
7. Microevolution certainly occurs. Macro has the same mechanisms.
Macro has greater problems. In micro, the EYE is ALREADY intact and is a total operating and functional organ, replete with all the organs it is associated with in harmony with it too, and offers only a slight change in the working mechanism. Macro, assumes the creation of the eye, along with the specialized lens and muscles to adjust the lens, and the iris and the cones and rods and the vitreous fluid, and the special optic nerves, and the brain that can now flip the image right side up and etc, ad nauseum. ALL happening simutaneously. This is science grasping at straws.
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Replying to:
6. Genetics explains how characteristics are passed on.
Yes, but not how they are altered. The vast majority of mutations are not passed on, and the ones that are, are normally only passed on further down the line. The vast majority "revert to type", or become sterile.
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Replying to:
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Replying to:
5. Different species in similar environments would evolve to be like each other. Australian animals do this.
Foul! The last sentence is illegal as a proof or piece of evidence as it assumes a conclusion. However, to use the same form of reasoning, Creation explains this better. An intelligence WOULD place differently adapted animals in their own environments, but the cold laws of physics may not necessarily be so accommodating.
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Replying to:
4. Vestigial limbs and organs. Evolution can explain this phenomenon beautifully.
This is a very dogmatic point of view. Sure, if we could see the progression (flow) that should and would exist right now, we could surmise that this was indeed a valid and viable solution to "not having to believe in a creator".
But we do not. So, what is a vestigial limb or organ? One that has no APPARENT use or functionality. Like, um, the tonsils were once considered useless and when a little irritated, doctors removed them by the scores. But ignorance of a fact, does not infer another fact. We now know that they are definitely a factor in our immune system, but many a child had their immune system crippled, before we bothered to look for a use.
We have to remember, an argument from ignorance is NO argument at all. Sorry.
With all due respect...
Mike
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Replying to:
A VERY BRIEF SUMMARY
Some of the evidence for evolution:
1. Simpler fossils in the older rocks, more complex in older, and fossils develop in time order.
2. You would expect major changes in the environment to produce large scale extinctions. Fossil record confirms.
3. All mammals, for example, have the same basic bodily structure [bones and organs] but adapted to their environmental niche. Evolution explains.
4. Vestigial limbs and organs. Evolution can explain this phenomenon beautifully.
5. Different species in similar environments would evolve to be like each other. Australian animals do this.
6. Genetics explains how characteristics are passed on.
7. Microevolution certainly occurs. Macro has the same mechanisms.
8. The same species on different islands would evolve to fit the circumstances on the particular island. Exactly what Darwin found when he studied finches on the Galapagos Islands.
9. The are sequences of fossils that follow on from one another as you would expect. There are even 'links' between one species and another - but not very many see below.
10. Embryos have features that evolution explains well.
{One objection is that there are few 'link' fossils. The answer is that few animals produce fossils and, if speciation is a rapid process then there would be few such transitional animals anyway}
Problems with Creationism
1. Two accounts in Genesis.
2. Contradicts other scientific theories too. For example the moon and sun are made at the same time and before the stars.
3. Does not explain extinctions, vestigial limbs, why all mammals have same bone structure etc.
Summary
Any of the points above might be defended to some extent by Creationists BUT when you consider ALL the above together, an impartial person would have to conclude that the evidence for evolution is overwhelming.
Which is what 99.9% of scientists HAVE concluded and most Christians too -these latter taking Genesis to contain religious not scientific truths. To suggest that all these scientists are wrong/deluded/in Satan's power {ditto the Christians}or whatever is grossly implausible.
Best wishes
Laurie
is that 'most scientists' MAY be wrong not that they ARE wrong or are LIKELY to be wrong or PROBABLY wrong.
The mere possibility that the majority of experts are wrong is no reason to reject their judgement. [You would not do this re your doctor or motor mechanic so why do it here]
So I go with the vast majority of scientists.
Laurie
PS Once again you do not explain WHY they have all not seen what is so obvious to you.
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Replying to:
Well, when most "scientists" agreed on one thing or another, and someone discovered them wrong (which happens less and less to be sure) we have a "eureka" experience. Slowly all the minds locked into believing that the earth is flat, realize it is not. But, it normally takes a long time to make the conversion happen (in the case above, over 1,000 years).
I have little "ability" as you mean it. I do seem to have a gift of grasping things I read rather quickly (and also in seeing the "if all A are blue and all B are yellow, then all A will eventually become B's" arguments for what they are). I think you might find the list of books I have read amusing; maybe I should list them *LOL*; nah, that would be bragging, and I am not that kind of guy.
I just have the information available, and I see a different "logistical horizon" then many. The newest event horizon is coming very soon.
And one more thing, as the one link I gave earlier says (it references another's comment), I am definitely not in the majority. I have had my share of being called a heretic, too.
Mike
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Replying to:
accept evolution. I am not going to get into a discussion about whether it is 98% or 99%!!!
Also most of those that disagree are Bible Christians who have already decided that the Bible contradicts evolution.
You are a brave [or foolhardy] man to go with the majority - or you have considerable confidence in your biological ability.
Laurie
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
Not all biologists, and other scientists agree that evolution is fact. Some violently oppose what they call a violation of logical and scientific reasoning.
A start
some biology for you
And there is much more.
Mike
Mike
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Replying to:
Evidence please that ALL the scientist's supporting evolution are 'not impartial'.
The rest I have answered in detail on your BIBLEBANTER forum.
In a nutshell, for those not reading my comments there, I have not the ability or the time to get a degree in biology which would be the minimum required to evaluate the evidence.
Best wishes
Laurie
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Replying to:
They a) are not all impartial, I am concerned you put so much trust in this. b)I do understand the theory, you can also if you do the research (as you have been doing). c) how can they declare that the 'evidence' overwhelmingly supports a theory that has not be proven for over 100 years, and in fact has had more problems as scientific discovery moves forward.
It concerns me Laurie that I now wonder how much effort you are putting in to your studies. If you want to get into this properly, I will match you step by step, but now I find your initial enthusiasm is tainted by believeing the 'popular' trends. You are doing exactly what you accuse creationists of doing (and many of them do). No good just repeating what you think the experts know, give us some of these evidences, and I for one will look into them.(I doubt you will find what you think is out there)
Bring on some of these experts, or at least do the research and quote me unhappy? (LOL, that pun you will understand being a Brit).
Best regards, Julian.
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Replying to:
Why do scientist trained to evaluate evidence impartially and who, unlike you and me actually understand the theory, declare that the evidence overwhelmingly supports the theory. How come they have all made this gigantic mistake?
Laurie
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Replying to:
Let me just reword number ten as it is not a true argument either: 10. Embryos have features that creation explains well.
Taken individually there may not seem much evidence, but taken as a whole with the vast amount of scientific backing, it seems that Creation is the inevitable and forgone conclusion that a rational person would have to make seeing the evidence is overwhelmingly for creation.
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Replying to:
see number 1
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Replying to:
see number 5
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Replying to:
7. Microevolution certainly occurs. Macro has the same mechanisms.
Macro has greater problems. In micro, the EYE is ALREADY intact and is a total operating and functional organ, replete with all the organs it is associated with in harmony with it too, and offers only a slight change in the working mechanism. Macro, assumes the creation of the eye, along with the specialized lens and muscles to adjust the lens, and the iris and the cones and rods and the vitreous fluid, and the special optic nerves, and the brain that can now flip the image right side up and etc, ad nauseum. ALL happening simutaneously. This is science grasping at straws.
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
6. Genetics explains how characteristics are passed on.
Yes, but not how they are altered. The vast majority of mutations are not passed on, and the ones that are, are normally only passed on further down the line. The vast majority "revert to type", or become sterile.
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
5. Different species in similar environments would evolve to be like each other. Australian animals do this.
Foul! The last sentence is illegal as a proof or piece of evidence as it assumes a conclusion. However, to use the same form of reasoning, Creation explains this better. An intelligence WOULD place differently adapted animals in their own environments, but the cold laws of physics may not necessarily be so accommodating.
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
4. Vestigial limbs and organs. Evolution can explain this phenomenon beautifully.
This is a very dogmatic point of view. Sure, if we could see the progression (flow) that should and would exist right now, we could surmise that this was indeed a valid and viable solution to "not having to believe in a creator".
But we do not. So, what is a vestigial limb or organ? One that has no APPARENT use or functionality. Like, um, the tonsils were once considered useless and when a little irritated, doctors removed them by the scores. But ignorance of a fact, does not infer another fact. We now know that they are definitely a factor in our immune system, but many a child had their immune system crippled, before we bothered to look for a use.
We have to remember, an argument from ignorance is NO argument at all. Sorry.
With all due respect...
Mike
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
A VERY BRIEF SUMMARY
Some of the evidence for evolution:
1. Simpler fossils in the older rocks, more complex in older, and fossils develop in time order.
2. You would expect major changes in the environment to produce large scale extinctions. Fossil record confirms.
3. All mammals, for example, have the same basic bodily structure [bones and organs] but adapted to their environmental niche. Evolution explains.
4. Vestigial limbs and organs. Evolution can explain this phenomenon beautifully.
5. Different species in similar environments would evolve to be like each other. Australian animals do this.
6. Genetics explains how characteristics are passed on.
7. Microevolution certainly occurs. Macro has the same mechanisms.
8. The same species on different islands would evolve to fit the circumstances on the particular island. Exactly what Darwin found when he studied finches on the Galapagos Islands.
9. The are sequences of fossils that follow on from one another as you would expect. There are even 'links' between one species and another - but not very many see below.
10. Embryos have features that evolution explains well.
{One objection is that there are few 'link' fossils. The answer is that few animals produce fossils and, if speciation is a rapid process then there would be few such transitional animals anyway}
Problems with Creationism
1. Two accounts in Genesis.
2. Contradicts other scientific theories too. For example the moon and sun are made at the same time and before the stars.
3. Does not explain extinctions, vestigial limbs, why all mammals have same bone structure etc.
Summary
Any of the points above might be defended to some extent by Creationists BUT when you consider ALL the above together, an impartial person would have to conclude that the evidence for evolution is overwhelming.
Which is what 99.9% of scientists HAVE concluded and most Christians too -these latter taking Genesis to contain religious not scientific truths. To suggest that all these scientists are wrong/deluded/in Satan's power {ditto the Christians}or whatever is grossly implausible.
Best wishes
Laurie
Email: mgt.harris@btinternet.com
I certainly did not mean to indicate that "because someone COULD be wrong that they ARE wrong" 
, I was adding this to the mounds of physical, cosmological, logical, genomal, chemical, philosophical, psychological, and archeological evidences I have personally seen (as stated by those that Believe in evolution; in their own books) that can be interpreted in a broader sense and more in accordance with Ockham's razor .
>>>
[You would not do this re your doctor or motor mechanic so why do it here]
>>>
I would not do this to my doctor? On more than one occasion, I have found the MD incorrect in his "off the cuff" diagnosis. The Phd. meant nothing apparently. This, I have found with most of the doctors I have had the displeasure to be acquainted with. Only my proctologist seems to know what he is doing (and we need not go there).
And, I studied enough books on mechanics also, so that those that profess being auto mechanics could not fool me (as they thought they could on many occasions; some, if not many of them are professional thieves, too)
Why haven't they "all seen what is so obvious to me, and the professors I mention"? Why wasn't it obvious that PolyWater, and the rest of the list I gave earlier "incorrect" to those "professionals" that promoted their worth? You will have to tell me. I am not a certified "professional" so, although I have been exposed to the ideas of polywater, and other "magic" I tend to work inside the laws of physics to explain what has, to many, become the magic bullet of excuse for any need to be responsible, "it just happened. The dirt just started living" (I am over simplifying, I know; but there are many scientists that do not like "abiogenesis" as an explanation to "first cause" concerning life). I am sorry. I have found too many times that the majority tends to follow inaccurate ideas for centuries at a time. These that claim to be "unbiased" as brought out in a recent article in "The Scientist", "know" they can not be totally "unbiased"; and to say such means one is even more biased then one that can at least admit to the problem of being human.
Mike
Two posts ago you said "I" was in a majority (this threw me a little) and so I assumed you meant "majority of Christians" and so my response (my last post) of that I was not in that majority, might not have made sense. I am not in the minority either (some Christian Scientist do make some unfounded claims) and am referred to, as I mentioned, a heretic because I see conventional science proving the very same things that they try to, but in another arena. My use of heuristic, as well as already discovered evidences should not make my observations any less palatable. I know of a few (one that lives near me, in fact) atheists that are very intrigued by my point of view.
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Replying to:
is that 'most scientists' MAY be wrong not that they ARE wrong or are LIKELY to be wrong or PROBABLY wrong.
The mere possibility that the majority of experts are wrong is no reason to reject their judgement. [You would not do this re your doctor or motor mechanic so why do it here]
So I go with the vast majority of scientists.
Laurie
PS Once again you do not explain WHY they have all not seen what is so obvious to you.
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Replying to:
Well, when most "scientists" agreed on one thing or another, and someone discovered them wrong (which happens less and less to be sure) we have a "eureka" experience. Slowly all the minds locked into believing that the earth is flat, realize it is not. But, it normally takes a long time to make the conversion happen (in the case above, over 1,000 years).
I have little "ability" as you mean it. I do seem to have a gift of grasping things I read rather quickly (and also in seeing the "if all A are blue and all B are yellow, then all A will eventually become B's" arguments for what they are). I think you might find the list of books I have read amusing; maybe I should list them *LOL*; nah, that would be bragging, and I am not that kind of guy.
I just have the information available, and I see a different "logistical horizon" then many. The newest event horizon is coming very soon.
And one more thing, as the one link I gave earlier says (it references another's comment), I am definitely not in the majority. I have had my share of being called a heretic, too.
Mike
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Replying to:
accept evolution. I am not going to get into a discussion about whether it is 98% or 99%!!!
Also most of those that disagree are Bible Christians who have already decided that the Bible contradicts evolution.
You are a brave [or foolhardy] man to go with the majority - or you have considerable confidence in your biological ability.
Laurie
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
Not all biologists, and other scientists agree that evolution is fact. Some violently oppose what they call a violation of logical and scientific reasoning.
A start
some biology for you
And there is much more.
Mike
Mike
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Replying to:
Evidence please that ALL the scientist's supporting evolution are 'not impartial'.
The rest I have answered in detail on your BIBLEBANTER forum.
In a nutshell, for those not reading my comments there, I have not the ability or the time to get a degree in biology which would be the minimum required to evaluate the evidence.
Best wishes
Laurie
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
They a) are not all impartial, I am concerned you put so much trust in this. b)I do understand the theory, you can also if you do the research (as you have been doing). c) how can they declare that the 'evidence' overwhelmingly supports a theory that has not be proven for over 100 years, and in fact has had more problems as scientific discovery moves forward.
It concerns me Laurie that I now wonder how much effort you are putting in to your studies. If you want to get into this properly, I will match you step by step, but now I find your initial enthusiasm is tainted by believeing the 'popular' trends. You are doing exactly what you accuse creationists of doing (and many of them do). No good just repeating what you think the experts know, give us some of these evidences, and I for one will look into them.(I doubt you will find what you think is out there)
Bring on some of these experts, or at least do the research and quote me unhappy? (LOL, that pun you will understand being a Brit).
Best regards, Julian.
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Replying to:
Why do scientist trained to evaluate evidence impartially and who, unlike you and me actually understand the theory, declare that the evidence overwhelmingly supports the theory. How come they have all made this gigantic mistake?
Laurie
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Replying to:
Let me just reword number ten as it is not a true argument either: 10. Embryos have features that creation explains well.
Taken individually there may not seem much evidence, but taken as a whole with the vast amount of scientific backing, it seems that Creation is the inevitable and forgone conclusion that a rational person would have to make seeing the evidence is overwhelmingly for creation.
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Replying to:
see number 1
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Replying to:
see number 5
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Replying to:
7. Microevolution certainly occurs. Macro has the same mechanisms.
Macro has greater problems. In micro, the EYE is ALREADY intact and is a total operating and functional organ, replete with all the organs it is associated with in harmony with it too, and offers only a slight change in the working mechanism. Macro, assumes the creation of the eye, along with the specialized lens and muscles to adjust the lens, and the iris and the cones and rods and the vitreous fluid, and the special optic nerves, and the brain that can now flip the image right side up and etc, ad nauseum. ALL happening simutaneously. This is science grasping at straws.
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Replying to:
6. Genetics explains how characteristics are passed on.
Yes, but not how they are altered. The vast majority of mutations are not passed on, and the ones that are, are normally only passed on further down the line. The vast majority "revert to type", or become sterile.
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Replying to:
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Replying to:
5. Different species in similar environments would evolve to be like each other. Australian animals do this.
Foul! The last sentence is illegal as a proof or piece of evidence as it assumes a conclusion. However, to use the same form of reasoning, Creation explains this better. An intelligence WOULD place differently adapted animals in their own environments, but the cold laws of physics may not necessarily be so accommodating.
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
4. Vestigial limbs and organs. Evolution can explain this phenomenon beautifully.
This is a very dogmatic point of view. Sure, if we could see the progression (flow) that should and would exist right now, we could surmise that this was indeed a valid and viable solution to "not having to believe in a creator".
But we do not. So, what is a vestigial limb or organ? One that has no APPARENT use or functionality. Like, um, the tonsils were once considered useless and when a little irritated, doctors removed them by the scores. But ignorance of a fact, does not infer another fact. We now know that they are definitely a factor in our immune system, but many a child had their immune system crippled, before we bothered to look for a use.
We have to remember, an argument from ignorance is NO argument at all. Sorry.
With all due respect...
Mike
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
A VERY BRIEF SUMMARY
Some of the evidence for evolution:
1. Simpler fossils in the older rocks, more complex in older, and fossils develop in time order.
2. You would expect major changes in the environment to produce large scale extinctions. Fossil record confirms.
3. All mammals, for example, have the same basic bodily structure [bones and organs] but adapted to their environmental niche. Evolution explains.
4. Vestigial limbs and organs. Evolution can explain this phenomenon beautifully.
5. Different species in similar environments would evolve to be like each other. Australian animals do this.
6. Genetics explains how characteristics are passed on.
7. Microevolution certainly occurs. Macro has the same mechanisms.
8. The same species on different islands would evolve to fit the circumstances on the particular island. Exactly what Darwin found when he studied finches on the Galapagos Islands.
9. The are sequences of fossils that follow on from one another as you would expect. There are even 'links' between one species and another - but not very many see below.
10. Embryos have features that evolution explains well.
{One objection is that there are few 'link' fossils. The answer is that few animals produce fossils and, if speciation is a rapid process then there would be few such transitional animals anyway}
Problems with Creationism
1. Two accounts in Genesis.
2. Contradicts other scientific theories too. For example the moon and sun are made at the same time and before the stars.
3. Does not explain extinctions, vestigial limbs, why all mammals have same bone structure etc.
Summary
Any of the points above might be defended to some extent by Creationists BUT when you consider ALL the above together, an impartial person would have to conclude that the evidence for evolution is overwhelming.
Which is what 99.9% of scientists HAVE concluded and most Christians too -these latter taking Genesis to contain religious not scientific truths. To suggest that all these scientists are wrong/deluded/in Satan's power {ditto the Christians}or whatever is grossly implausible.
Best wishes
Laurie
Yet this is the very problem, how can you evolve an eye? You can't, ask a scientist to explain how this could be so, they cannot. Also, I would ask you to look at examples like the bombadeir beetle, how could such a system evolve? You try to figure that one out!
Best regards, Julian.
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Replying to:
There is no assumption that the eye evolved all in one go. It would have happened slowly.
Laurie
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Replying to:
7. Microevolution certainly occurs. Macro has the same mechanisms.
Macro has greater problems. In micro, the EYE is ALREADY intact and is a total operating and functional organ, replete with all the organs it is associated with in harmony with it too, and offers only a slight change in the working mechanism. Macro, assumes the creation of the eye, along with the specialized lens and muscles to adjust the lens, and the iris and the cones and rods and the vitreous fluid, and the special optic nerves, and the brain that can now flip the image right side up and etc, ad nauseum. ALL happening simutaneously. This is science grasping at straws.
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
6. Genetics explains how characteristics are passed on.
Yes, but not how they are altered. The vast majority of mutations are not passed on, and the ones that are, are normally only passed on further down the line. The vast majority "revert to type", or become sterile.
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
5. Different species in similar environments would evolve to be like each other. Australian animals do this.
Foul! The last sentence is illegal as a proof or piece of evidence as it assumes a conclusion. However, to use the same form of reasoning, Creation explains this better. An intelligence WOULD place differently adapted animals in their own environments, but the cold laws of physics may not necessarily be so accommodating.
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
4. Vestigial limbs and organs. Evolution can explain this phenomenon beautifully.
This is a very dogmatic point of view. Sure, if we could see the progression (flow) that should and would exist right now, we could surmise that this was indeed a valid and viable solution to "not having to believe in a creator".
But we do not. So, what is a vestigial limb or organ? One that has no APPARENT use or functionality. Like, um, the tonsils were once considered useless and when a little irritated, doctors removed them by the scores. But ignorance of a fact, does not infer another fact. We now know that they are definitely a factor in our immune system, but many a child had their immune system crippled, before we bothered to look for a use.
We have to remember, an argument from ignorance is NO argument at all. Sorry.
With all due respect...
Mike
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
A VERY BRIEF SUMMARY
Some of the evidence for evolution:
1. Simpler fossils in the older rocks, more complex in older, and fossils develop in time order.
2. You would expect major changes in the environment to produce large scale extinctions. Fossil record confirms.
3. All mammals, for example, have the same basic bodily structure [bones and organs] but adapted to their environmental niche. Evolution explains.
4. Vestigial limbs and organs. Evolution can explain this phenomenon beautifully.
5. Different species in similar environments would evolve to be like each other. Australian animals do this.
6. Genetics explains how characteristics are passed on.
7. Microevolution certainly occurs. Macro has the same mechanisms.
8. The same species on different islands would evolve to fit the circumstances on the particular island. Exactly what Darwin found when he studied finches on the Galapagos Islands.
9. The are sequences of fossils that follow on from one another as you would expect. There are even 'links' between one species and another - but not very many see below.
10. Embryos have features that evolution explains well.
{One objection is that there are few 'link' fossils. The answer is that few animals produce fossils and, if speciation is a rapid process then there would be few such transitional animals anyway}
Problems with Creationism
1. Two accounts in Genesis.
2. Contradicts other scientific theories too. For example the moon and sun are made at the same time and before the stars.
3. Does not explain extinctions, vestigial limbs, why all mammals have same bone structure etc.
Summary
Any of the points above might be defended to some extent by Creationists BUT when you consider ALL the above together, an impartial person would have to conclude that the evidence for evolution is overwhelming.
Which is what 99.9% of scientists HAVE concluded and most Christians too -these latter taking Genesis to contain religious not scientific truths. To suggest that all these scientists are wrong/deluded/in Satan's power {ditto the Christians}or whatever is grossly implausible.
Best wishes
Laurie
You assert that you cannot evolve an eye whereas scientists are sure you can. Who will I believe? You know my answer!!!
All the best,
Laurie
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Replying to:
Yet this is the very problem, how can you evolve an eye? You can't, ask a scientist to explain how this could be so, they cannot. Also, I would ask you to look at examples like the bombadeir beetle, how could such a system evolve? You try to figure that one out!
Best regards, Julian.
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Replying to:
There is no assumption that the eye evolved all in one go. It would have happened slowly.
Laurie
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Replying to:
7. Microevolution certainly occurs. Macro has the same mechanisms.
Macro has greater problems. In micro, the EYE is ALREADY intact and is a total operating and functional organ, replete with all the organs it is associated with in harmony with it too, and offers only a slight change in the working mechanism. Macro, assumes the creation of the eye, along with the specialized lens and muscles to adjust the lens, and the iris and the cones and rods and the vitreous fluid, and the special optic nerves, and the brain that can now flip the image right side up and etc, ad nauseum. ALL happening simutaneously. This is science grasping at straws.
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Replying to:
6. Genetics explains how characteristics are passed on.
Yes, but not how they are altered. The vast majority of mutations are not passed on, and the ones that are, are normally only passed on further down the line. The vast majority "revert to type", or become sterile.
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Replying to:
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Replying to:
5. Different species in similar environments would evolve to be like each other. Australian animals do this.
Foul! The last sentence is illegal as a proof or piece of evidence as it assumes a conclusion. However, to use the same form of reasoning, Creation explains this better. An intelligence WOULD place differently adapted animals in their own environments, but the cold laws of physics may not necessarily be so accommodating.
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Replying to:
4. Vestigial limbs and organs. Evolution can explain this phenomenon beautifully.
This is a very dogmatic point of view. Sure, if we could see the progression (flow) that should and would exist right now, we could surmise that this was indeed a valid and viable solution to "not having to believe in a creator".
But we do not. So, what is a vestigial limb or organ? One that has no APPARENT use or functionality. Like, um, the tonsils were once considered useless and when a little irritated, doctors removed them by the scores. But ignorance of a fact, does not infer another fact. We now know that they are definitely a factor in our immune system, but many a child had their immune system crippled, before we bothered to look for a use.
We have to remember, an argument from ignorance is NO argument at all. Sorry.
With all due respect...
Mike
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Replying to:
A VERY BRIEF SUMMARY
Some of the evidence for evolution:
1. Simpler fossils in the older rocks, more complex in older, and fossils develop in time order.
2. You would expect major changes in the environment to produce large scale extinctions. Fossil record confirms.
3. All mammals, for example, have the same basic bodily structure [bones and organs] but adapted to their environmental niche. Evolution explains.
4. Vestigial limbs and organs. Evolution can explain this phenomenon beautifully.
5. Different species in similar environments would evolve to be like each other. Australian animals do this.
6. Genetics explains how characteristics are passed on.
7. Microevolution certainly occurs. Macro has the same mechanisms.
8. The same species on different islands would evolve to fit the circumstances on the particular island. Exactly what Darwin found when he studied finches on the Galapagos Islands.
9. The are sequences of fossils that follow on from one another as you would expect. There are even 'links' between one species and another - but not very many see below.
10. Embryos have features that evolution explains well.
{One objection is that there are few 'link' fossils. The answer is that few animals produce fossils and, if speciation is a rapid process then there would be few such transitional animals anyway}
Problems with Creationism
1. Two accounts in Genesis.
2. Contradicts other scientific theories too. For example the moon and sun are made at the same time and before the stars.
3. Does not explain extinctions, vestigial limbs, why all mammals have same bone structure etc.
Summary
Any of the points above might be defended to some extent by Creationists BUT when you consider ALL the above together, an impartial person would have to conclude that the evidence for evolution is overwhelming.
Which is what 99.9% of scientists HAVE concluded and most Christians too -these latter taking Genesis to contain religious not scientific truths. To suggest that all these scientists are wrong/deluded/in Satan's power {ditto the Christians}or whatever is grossly implausible.
Best wishes
Laurie
Email: mgt.harris@btinternet.com
The Biologist I have referred to, Professor Behe, and several others assert we can NOT evolve an eye.
Mike
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Replying to:
You assert that you cannot evolve an eye whereas scientists are sure you can. Who will I believe? You know my answer!!!
All the best,
Laurie
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
Yet this is the very problem, how can you evolve an eye? You can't, ask a scientist to explain how this could be so, they cannot. Also, I would ask you to look at examples like the bombadeir beetle, how could such a system evolve? You try to figure that one out!
Best regards, Julian.
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
There is no assumption that the eye evolved all in one go. It would have happened slowly.
Laurie
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
7. Microevolution certainly occurs. Macro has the same mechanisms.
Macro has greater problems. In micro, the EYE is ALREADY intact and is a total operating and functional organ, replete with all the organs it is associated with in harmony with it too, and offers only a slight change in the working mechanism. Macro, assumes the creation of the eye, along with the specialized lens and muscles to adjust the lens, and the iris and the cones and rods and the vitreous fluid, and the special optic nerves, and the brain that can now flip the image right side up and etc, ad nauseum. ALL happening simutaneously. This is science grasping at straws.
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
6. Genetics explains how characteristics are passed on.
Yes, but not how they are altered. The vast majority of mutations are not passed on, and the ones that are, are normally only passed on further down the line. The vast majority "revert to type", or become sterile.
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
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Replying to:
5. Different species in similar environments would evolve to be like each other. Australian animals do this.
Foul! The last sentence is illegal as a proof or piece of evidence as it assumes a conclusion. However, to use the same form of reasoning, Creation explains this better. An intelligence WOULD place differently adapted animals in their own environments, but the cold laws of physics may not necessarily be so accommodating.
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
4. Vestigial limbs and organs. Evolution can explain this phenomenon beautifully.
This is a very dogmatic point of view. Sure, if we could see the progression (flow) that should and would exist right now, we could surmise that this was indeed a valid and viable solution to "not having to believe in a creator".
But we do not. So, what is a vestigial limb or organ? One that has no APPARENT use or functionality. Like, um, the tonsils were once considered useless and when a little irritated, doctors removed them by the scores. But ignorance of a fact, does not infer another fact. We now know that they are definitely a factor in our immune system, but many a child had their immune system crippled, before we bothered to look for a use.
We have to remember, an argument from ignorance is NO argument at all. Sorry.
With all due respect...
Mike
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
A VERY BRIEF SUMMARY
Some of the evidence for evolution:
1. Simpler fossils in the older rocks, more complex in older, and fossils develop in time order.
2. You would expect major changes in the environment to produce large scale extinctions. Fossil record confirms.
3. All mammals, for example, have the same basic bodily structure [bones and organs] but adapted to their environmental niche. Evolution explains.
4. Vestigial limbs and organs. Evolution can explain this phenomenon beautifully.
5. Different species in similar environments would evolve to be like each other. Australian animals do this.
6. Genetics explains how characteristics are passed on.
7. Microevolution certainly occurs. Macro has the same mechanisms.
8. The same species on different islands would evolve to fit the circumstances on the particular island. Exactly what Darwin found when he studied finches on the Galapagos Islands.
9. The are sequences of fossils that follow on from one another as you would expect. There are even 'links' between one species and another - but not very many see below.
10. Embryos have features that evolution explains well.
{One objection is that there are few 'link' fossils. The answer is that few animals produce fossils and, if speciation is a rapid process then there would be few such transitional animals anyway}
Problems with Creationism
1. Two accounts in Genesis.
2. Contradicts other scientific theories too. For example the moon and sun are made at the same time and before the stars.
3. Does not explain extinctions, vestigial limbs, why all mammals have same bone structure etc.
Summary
Any of the points above might be defended to some extent by Creationists BUT when you consider ALL the above together, an impartial person would have to conclude that the evidence for evolution is overwhelming.
Which is what 99.9% of scientists HAVE concluded and most Christians too -these latter taking Genesis to contain religious not scientific truths. To suggest that all these scientists are wrong/deluded/in Satan's power {ditto the Christians}or whatever is grossly implausible.
Best wishes
Laurie
The (A)"normal" species (meaning something mutated better)? or the (B) Original unmutated species? I opt for 'B'.
So, your definition of a species is simply an altered animal?
Nelson 
has written, "The 'species problem' is perennial (Howard, 198
, and speciation remains as much a black box as ever (Jackson, 198 . If we examine these problems we find a spectrum of solutions: some writers claim that everything, or everything important, is known; others claim that nothing, or nothing important, is known (Hull, 198 . I claim that the problems are insoluble, for they stem from a false assumption: that there is an empirical difference between species and the taxa such that species evolve through speciation of other species.... Evolution of taxa is not a phenomenon confined to the species level except in neodarwinian theory, which in this respect is simply false."
One would think that surely by now scientists would have agreed on the definition of this fundamental term in systematics--species. In truth, while most biologists would quickly offer their preferred definition when asked, each could also be unsettled by challenging their response with an alternate interpretation. What is the underlying problem in this uncertainty? I believe it lies in the presuppositions of the various writers.
In this first of a series of Impact articles, the term "species" will be examined to demonstrate the wide diversity of definitions. No attempt will be made to give detailed explanations of the concepts involved in the following definitions at this time. In forthcoming articles the terms of "speciation" and "specialization" will be reviewed. It is expected that a comparison of evolution and creation thinking on these terms will lead to a sharp separation of perspective on the "species problem."
Species Concepts
Let us start with Aristotle and work our way forward to a creationist, to speculate on the rationale for the various definitions. Goerke 
states. "The earliest scientific classification of objects in nature was made by Aristotle in the fourth century B.C., and the principles he established retained their authority well into the sixteenth century and even into the seventeenth. "He divided plants into trees, bushes, and herbs, and animals into those with and those without circulatory systems (very generally vertebrates and invertebrates). Mayr 
adds, "Typological thinking...according to this concept the vast observed variability of the world has no more reality than the shadows of an object on a cave wall, as Plato puts it in his allegory. Fixed, unchangeable 'ideas' underlying the observed variability are the only things that are permanent and real.... The concepts of unchanging essences and of complete discontinuities between every eidos (type) and all others make genuine evolutionary thinking well-nigh impossible."
"Linnaeus did a great service to taxonomy when he invented a definite terminology for the systematic categories and showed that they could be arranged in a graded hierarchy: species, genus, family, order, and class. . . he adhered always to an essentially static and morphological species concept." 
Thus, Linnaeus, about 1735, believed that species was a term for an objective and highly separate group of organisms; as a creationist he wanted to delineate the Genesis "kinds" in his systematics. Members of the group did vary, but by and large, the history of the group (lineage) showed a consistency of traits since the type was formed.
Darwin's 
interpretation of species in 1859 was simply practical: "I look at the term species as one arbitrarily given for the sake of convenience to a set of individuals closely resembling each other..it does not essentially differ from the term variety which is given to less distinct and more fluctuating forms." To him a species was any group of organisms that competent naturalists said was a species. All organisms were seen as part of a continuum from some single primeval entity.
The next major different concept in the term species was introduced around 1940 by Dobzhansky and Mayr: It was the biological species concept. For a long time this thinking has saturated much of the evolutionary literature. Mayr 
presents his definition: "A biological species definition, based on the criteria of crossability or reproductive isolation, has theoretically fewer flaws than any other...Species are groups of actually or potentially interbreeding natural populations, which are reproductively isolated from other such groups." Obviously, this is a much more concrete interpretation of species for evolutionary considerations than Darwin's, and more dynamic than that of Linnaeus. However, this concept does not lend itself to understanding the process of speciation.
Thus, Templeton 
reviewed the problems associated with various "biological species concepts" and introduced his cohesion concept, "that defines a species as the most inclusive group of organisms having the potential for genetic and/or demographic exchangeability. This concept borrows from all three biological species concepts. Unlike the isolation and recognition concepts, it is applicable to the entire continuum of reproductive systems observed in the organic world. Unlike the evolutionary concept, it identifies specific mechanisms that drive the evolutionary process of speciation." There are other concepts 
, 
that have been put forward that could be developed, but let's go on to a different line of thought from the three phylogenetic examples used above.
Hennig, [10] as a cladist, views biological diversity with a different goal in mind than the phylogeneticist. ". . Within a hierarchical system, each group formation relates to a 'beginner' which is linked in 'one-many relations' with all of the members of that group and only those. In morphological systems, the 'beginner' which belongs to each group is a formal idealistic standard (Archetype) whose connections with the other members of the group are likewise purely formal and idealistic. But, in the phylogenetic system, the 'beginner' to which each group formation relates is a real reproductive community which has at some time in the past really existed as the ancestral species of the group in question, independently of the mind which conceives it, and which is linked by genealogical connections with the other members of the group and only with these." The cladist definition of species is similar to that of Mayr, above--the reproductive communities that occur in nature. However, due to the unique methodology of morphological resemblance systematics, different principles of classification are employed above and below the specific level. Cladism is essentially typological.
As a final example, I would now like to review a creationist concept of species. ReMine [11] has recently put forward an alternate systematic methodology to the prevalent phylogenetic systems. He calls it "discontinuity systematics." In the scheme, he explains that "species" was merely the Latin word for "kind." For various reasons, he coins terms related to the synthetic Hebrew word "baramin" to apply to working definitions of this innovative system. Frank Marsh [12] originally combined the Hebrew root words bare ("create") and min ("kind") into the term "baramin." Although there is no direct statement to this effect, the term "holobaramin," or its subset "monobaramin," might include or in some instances be synonymous with species. Yet the emphasis is upon experimentally circumscribing the continuities and locating the real gaps or discontinuities in nature. Empirical research on delineating holobaramins is just starting.
Summary
With tongue in cheek, I originally entitled this article, "On the Origin of 'Species'." to play on the history of the term species as a concept. Most of the systematic literature would certainly deal with phylogenetic definitions of the taxonomic class--species. Nevertheless, there are some uses, both old and new, that refer to species typologically. Granted, most typological cladists would never associate with a creationist perspective, for they are thorough-going evolutionists, even if they do not agree with Darwinian or even neodarwinian extrapolations. The following table might represent a partial summary of representative methods involving the species concert.
Concept's Author Systematic Methodology Species Taxon Synonym
Aristotle
Linnaeus
Darwin
Mayr
Templeton
Hennig
ReMine typology
typology
phylogeny
phylogeny
phylogeny
typology
typology essences
kinds
variants
isolates
exchangeables
clades
holobaramins
Biosystematic uses of the term 'species' mentioned in this article, except possibly in cladistics, appear to imply real reproductive communities of organisms, when they deal with non-fossil species. It can be seen that the definition of species, which started out essentially as a morphological term, has taken on a functional or operational meaning. Underlying this dynamic component are presuppositions related to variance--limited or unlimited. In the next article of this particular series, the evidence for speciation be discussed.
REFERENCES
G. Nelson, Species and Taxa: Systematics and Evolution, in D. Otte and J.A. Endler, Speciation and its Consequences (Sunderland, Massachusetts), Sinauer, 1989) pp. 73,74.
H. Goerke, Linnaeus (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973), p. 90.
E. Mayr, Animal Species and Evolution (Cambridge, Massachusetts, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1979), p. 9.
E. Mayr, Systematics and the Origin of Species (New York, Columbia University Press, 1944), p. 102.
C. Darwin, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life (New York, Avenel Books, 1970), p. 108.
E. Mayr, 1944, op cit. p. 120.
A.R. Templeton, The Meaning of Species and Speciation: A Genetic Perspective, in D. Otte and J.A. Endler, Speciation and its Consequences (Sunderland, Massachusetts, Sinauer, 1989), p. 25.
J. Cracraff, Speciation and its Ontology. The Empirical Consequences of Alternative Species Concepts for Understanding Patterns and Processes of Differentiation, in D. Otte and J.A. Endler, Speciation and its Consequences (Sunderland, Massachusetts, Sinauer, 1989), pp. 28-59.
A.G. Kluge, "Species as Historical Individuals," Biology and Philosophy 5 (1990): 417-431.
[10] W. Hennig, Phylogenetic Systematics, in T. Duncan and T.F. Stuessy, Cladistic Theory and Methodology (New York, Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1985), p. 14.
[11] W.J. ReMine, "Discontinuity Systematics: A New Methodology of Biosystematics Relevant to the Creation Model," Ms. presented at The Second International Conference on Creationism, 1990, held at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on July 29-August 4, 1990.
[12] F.L. March, Fundamental Biology (Lincoln, Nebraska, Marsh Publication, 1941), p. 100.
Mike
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Replying to:
Those mutations that are no good [the vast majority] die out quickly. Why? The 'normal' species beats them. The very few that are better quickly take over from the 'normal' species and a new species is produced.
Simple!
Laurie
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Replying to:
unfortunately, I see the trend working in the opposite direction. With my reading on "biological orientation" I found many references to "more and more destructive" forms of genetic material being produced, so much so, that if not interrupted, will move us into an entropic slush pile of sorts.
Mike
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Replying to:
in the millions of years available to evolution there is time for that small minority that are viable and lead to speciation.
Laurie
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Replying to:
6. Genetics explains how characteristics are passed on.
Yes, but not how they are altered. The vast majority of mutations are not passed on, and the ones that are, are normally only passed on further down the line. The vast majority "revert to type", or become sterile.
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
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Replying to:
5. Different species in similar environments would evolve to be like each other. Australian animals do this.
Foul! The last sentence is illegal as a proof or piece of evidence as it assumes a conclusion. However, to use the same form of reasoning, Creation explains this better. An intelligence WOULD place differently adapted animals in their own environments, but the cold laws of physics may not necessarily be so accommodating.
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
4. Vestigial limbs and organs. Evolution can explain this phenomenon beautifully.
This is a very dogmatic point of view. Sure, if we could see the progression (flow) that should and would exist right now, we could surmise that this was indeed a valid and viable solution to "not having to believe in a creator".
But we do not. So, what is a vestigial limb or organ? One that has no APPARENT use or functionality. Like, um, the tonsils were once considered useless and when a little irritated, doctors removed them by the scores. But ignorance of a fact, does not infer another fact. We now know that they are definitely a factor in our immune system, but many a child had their immune system crippled, before we bothered to look for a use.
We have to remember, an argument from ignorance is NO argument at all. Sorry.
With all due respect...
Mike
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
A VERY BRIEF SUMMARY
Some of the evidence for evolution:
1. Simpler fossils in the older rocks, more complex in older, and fossils develop in time order.
2. You would expect major changes in the environment to produce large scale extinctions. Fossil record confirms.
3. All mammals, for example, have the same basic bodily structure [bones and organs] but adapted to their environmental niche. Evolution explains.
4. Vestigial limbs and organs. Evolution can explain this phenomenon beautifully.
5. Different species in similar environments would evolve to be like each other. Australian animals do this.
6. Genetics explains how characteristics are passed on.
7. Microevolution certainly occurs. Macro has the same mechanisms.
8. The same species on different islands would evolve to fit the circumstances on the particular island. Exactly what Darwin found when he studied finches on the Galapagos Islands.
9. The are sequences of fossils that follow on from one another as you would expect. There are even 'links' between one species and another - but not very many see below.
10. Embryos have features that evolution explains well.
{One objection is that there are few 'link' fossils. The answer is that few animals produce fossils and, if speciation is a rapid process then there would be few such transitional animals anyway}
Problems with Creationism
1. Two accounts in Genesis.
2. Contradicts other scientific theories too. For example the moon and sun are made at the same time and before the stars.
3. Does not explain extinctions, vestigial limbs, why all mammals have same bone structure etc.
Summary
Any of the points above might be defended to some extent by Creationists BUT when you consider ALL the above together, an impartial person would have to conclude that the evidence for evolution is overwhelming.
Which is what 99.9% of scientists HAVE concluded and most Christians too -these latter taking Genesis to contain religious not scientific truths. To suggest that all these scientists are wrong/deluded/in Satan's power {ditto the Christians}or whatever is grossly implausible.
Best wishes
Laurie
3. All mammals, for example, have the same basic bodily structure [bones and organs] but adapted to their environmental niche. Evolution explains.
But again, if mammals came from "something lower than itself" we have the problem of why so much "dissimilarity". However, a "creator" explains this beautifully...
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Replying to:
2. You would expect major changes in the environment to produce large scale extinctions. Fossil record confirms.
So, if evironmental changes destroy the balance and all the lessor animals die of, there should be no lessor animals at all, in fact none to carry on the process of evolution. Unlike point #1; this would show us that nothing should exist that is alive.
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Replying to:
1. Simpler fossils in the older rocks, more complex in older, and fossils develop in time order.
If evolution states that things went from simple to complex, AND if it states that as things "improved" the lessor animals became extinct, as I have heard argued THEN, humans, supposedly the most advanced SHOULD be the ONLY animal to exist, all the lessor ones having already become extinct from natural selection.
Mike
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Replying to:
A VERY BRIEF SUMMARY
Some of the evidence for evolution:
1. Simpler fossils in the older rocks, more complex in older, and fossils develop in time order.
2. You would expect major changes in the environment to produce large scale extinctions. Fossil record confirms.
3. All mammals, for example, have the same basic bodily structure [bones and organs] but adapted to their environmental niche. Evolution explains.
4. Vestigial limbs and organs. Evolution can explain this phenomenon beautifully.
5. Different species in similar environments would evolve to be like each other. Australian animals do this.
6. Genetics explains how characteristics are passed on.
7. Microevolution certainly occurs. Macro has the same mechanisms.
8. The same species on different islands would evolve to fit the circumstances on the particular island. Exactly what Darwin found when he studied finches on the Galapagos Islands.
9. The are sequences of fossils that follow on from one another as you would expect. There are even 'links' between one species and another - but not very many see below.
10. Embryos have features that evolution explains well.
{One objection is that there are few 'link' fossils. The answer is that few animals produce fossils and, if speciation is a rapid process then there would be few such transitional animals anyway}
Problems with Creationism
1. Two accounts in Genesis.
2. Contradicts other scientific theories too. For example the moon and sun are made at the same time and before the stars.
3. Does not explain extinctions, vestigial limbs, why all mammals have same bone structure etc.
Summary
Any of the points above might be defended to some extent by Creationists BUT when you consider ALL the above together, an impartial person would have to conclude that the evidence for evolution is overwhelming.
Which is what 99.9% of scientists HAVE concluded and most Christians too -these latter taking Genesis to contain religious not scientific truths. To suggest that all these scientists are wrong/deluded/in Satan's power {ditto the Christians}or whatever is grossly implausible.
Best wishes
Laurie
Why does the fact that the mammals all came from something lower than themselves create a problem here? I just do not understand your logic? Nor do I follow what you mean by 'lower' in this context.
Best wishes
Laurie
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Replying to:
3. All mammals, for example, have the same basic bodily structure [bones and organs] but adapted to their environmental niche. Evolution explains.
But again, if mammals came from "something lower than itself" we have the problem of why so much "dissimilarity". However, a "creator" explains this beautifully...
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
2. You would expect major changes in the environment to produce large scale extinctions. Fossil record confirms.
So, if evironmental changes destroy the balance and all the lessor animals die of, there should be no lessor animals at all, in fact none to carry on the process of evolution. Unlike point #1; this would show us that nothing should exist that is alive.
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
1. Simpler fossils in the older rocks, more complex in older, and fossils develop in time order.
If evolution states that things went from simple to complex, AND if it states that as things "improved" the lessor animals became extinct, as I have heard argued THEN, humans, supposedly the most advanced SHOULD be the ONLY animal to exist, all the lessor ones having already become extinct from natural selection.
Mike
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
A VERY BRIEF SUMMARY
Some of the evidence for evolution:
1. Simpler fossils in the older rocks, more complex in older, and fossils develop in time order.
2. You would expect major changes in the environment to produce large scale extinctions. Fossil record confirms.
3. All mammals, for example, have the same basic bodily structure [bones and organs] but adapted to their environmental niche. Evolution explains.
4. Vestigial limbs and organs. Evolution can explain this phenomenon beautifully.
5. Different species in similar environments would evolve to be like each other. Australian animals do this.
6. Genetics explains how characteristics are passed on.
7. Microevolution certainly occurs. Macro has the same mechanisms.
8. The same species on different islands would evolve to fit the circumstances on the particular island. Exactly what Darwin found when he studied finches on the Galapagos Islands.
9. The are sequences of fossils that follow on from one another as you would expect. There are even 'links' between one species and another - but not very many see below.
10. Embryos have features that evolution explains well.
{One objection is that there are few 'link' fossils. The answer is that few animals produce fossils and, if speciation is a rapid process then there would be few such transitional animals anyway}
Problems with Creationism
1. Two accounts in Genesis.
2. Contradicts other scientific theories too. For example the moon and sun are made at the same time and before the stars.
3. Does not explain extinctions, vestigial limbs, why all mammals have same bone structure etc.
Summary
Any of the points above might be defended to some extent by Creationists BUT when you consider ALL the above together, an impartial person would have to conclude that the evidence for evolution is overwhelming.
Which is what 99.9% of scientists HAVE concluded and most Christians too -these latter taking Genesis to contain religious not scientific truths. To suggest that all these scientists are wrong/deluded/in Satan's power {ditto the Christians}or whatever is grossly implausible.
Best wishes
Laurie
Email: mgt.harris@btinternet.com
The point you made is: animals come from lower forms which become less viable and so also become extinct (mentioned in another thread). Either we have a continuous flow of ALL intermediates (because they do NOT become less viable) or we have only man living on the planet. Since evolution depends on something becoming "better", we have a small problem. Survival of the fittest is inaccurate. There are "traits" which are self defeating, and indeed genocidically inclined, that are being inherited and more prevalent. (if you want specifics, I can look up a few) So, maybe we are going backwards now?
Mike
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Replying to:
Why does the fact that the mammals all came from something lower than themselves create a problem here? I just do not understand your logic? Nor do I follow what you mean by 'lower' in this context.
Best wishes
Laurie
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Replying to:
3. All mammals, for example, have the same basic bodily structure [bones and organs] but adapted to their environmental niche. Evolution explains.
But again, if mammals came from "something lower than itself" we have the problem of why so much "dissimilarity". However, a "creator" explains this beautifully...
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Replying to:
2. You would expect major changes in the environment to produce large scale extinctions. Fossil record confirms.
So, if evironmental changes destroy the balance and all the lessor animals die of, there should be no lessor animals at all, in fact none to carry on the process of evolution. Unlike point #1; this would show us that nothing should exist that is alive.
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Replying to:
1. Simpler fossils in the older rocks, more complex in older, and fossils develop in time order.
If evolution states that things went from simple to complex, AND if it states that as things "improved" the lessor animals became extinct, as I have heard argued THEN, humans, supposedly the most advanced SHOULD be the ONLY animal to exist, all the lessor ones having already become extinct from natural selection.
Mike
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Replying to:
A VERY BRIEF SUMMARY
Some of the evidence for evolution:
1. Simpler fossils in the older rocks, more complex in older, and fossils develop in time order.
2. You would expect major changes in the environment to produce large scale extinctions. Fossil record confirms.
3. All mammals, for example, have the same basic bodily structure [bones and organs] but adapted to their environmental niche. Evolution explains.
4. Vestigial limbs and organs. Evolution can explain this phenomenon beautifully.
5. Different species in similar environments would evolve to be like each other. Australian animals do this.
6. Genetics explains how characteristics are passed on.
7. Microevolution certainly occurs. Macro has the same mechanisms.
8. The same species on different islands would evolve to fit the circumstances on the particular island. Exactly what Darwin found when he studied finches on the Galapagos Islands.
9. The are sequences of fossils that follow on from one another as you would expect. There are even 'links' between one species and another - but not very many see below.
10. Embryos have features that evolution explains well.
{One objection is that there are few 'link' fossils. The answer is that few animals produce fossils and, if speciation is a rapid process then there would be few such transitional animals anyway}
Problems with Creationism
1. Two accounts in Genesis.
2. Contradicts other scientific theories too. For example the moon and sun are made at the same time and before the stars.
3. Does not explain extinctions, vestigial limbs, why all mammals have same bone structure etc.
Summary
Any of the points above might be defended to some extent by Creationists BUT when you consider ALL the above together, an impartial person would have to conclude that the evidence for evolution is overwhelming.
Which is what 99.9% of scientists HAVE concluded and most Christians too -these latter taking Genesis to contain religious not scientific truths. To suggest that all these scientists are wrong/deluded/in Satan's power {ditto the Christians}or whatever is grossly implausible.
Best wishes
Laurie
Sorry. Do not follow the 'either or' in the second sentence. You are going to have to spell it out for me.
Or how the 'better' point follows on.
Silly me.
Laurie
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Replying to:
The point you made is: animals come from lower forms which become less viable and so also become extinct (mentioned in another thread). Either we have a continuous flow of ALL intermediates (because they do NOT become less viable) or we have only man living on the planet. Since evolution depends on something becoming "better", we have a small problem. Survival of the fittest is inaccurate. There are "traits" which are self defeating, and indeed genocidically inclined, that are being inherited and more prevalent. (if you want specifics, I can look up a few) So, maybe we are going backwards now?
Mike
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
Why does the fact that the mammals all came from something lower than themselves create a problem here? I just do not understand your logic? Nor do I follow what you mean by 'lower' in this context.
Best wishes
Laurie
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
3. All mammals, for example, have the same basic bodily structure [bones and organs] but adapted to their environmental niche. Evolution explains.
But again, if mammals came from "something lower than itself" we have the problem of why so much "dissimilarity". However, a "creator" explains this beautifully...
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
2. You would expect major changes in the environment to produce large scale extinctions. Fossil record confirms.
So, if evironmental changes destroy the balance and all the lessor animals die of, there should be no lessor animals at all, in fact none to carry on the process of evolution. Unlike point #1; this would show us that nothing should exist that is alive.
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
1. Simpler fossils in the older rocks, more complex in older, and fossils develop in time order.
If evolution states that things went from simple to complex, AND if it states that as things "improved" the lessor animals became extinct, as I have heard argued THEN, humans, supposedly the most advanced SHOULD be the ONLY animal to exist, all the lessor ones having already become extinct from natural selection.
Mike
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
A VERY BRIEF SUMMARY
Some of the evidence for evolution:
1. Simpler fossils in the older rocks, more complex in older, and fossils develop in time order.
2. You would expect major changes in the environment to produce large scale extinctions. Fossil record confirms.
3. All mammals, for example, have the same basic bodily structure [bones and organs] but adapted to their environmental niche. Evolution explains.
4. Vestigial limbs and organs. Evolution can explain this phenomenon beautifully.
5. Different species in similar environments would evolve to be like each other. Australian animals do this.
6. Genetics explains how characteristics are passed on.
7. Microevolution certainly occurs. Macro has the same mechanisms.
8. The same species on different islands would evolve to fit the circumstances on the particular island. Exactly what Darwin found when he studied finches on the Galapagos Islands.
9. The are sequences of fossils that follow on from one another as you would expect. There are even 'links' between one species and another - but not very many see below.
10. Embryos have features that evolution explains well.
{One objection is that there are few 'link' fossils. The answer is that few animals produce fossils and, if speciation is a rapid process then there would be few such transitional animals anyway}
Problems with Creationism
1. Two accounts in Genesis.
2. Contradicts other scientific theories too. For example the moon and sun are made at the same time and before the stars.
3. Does not explain extinctions, vestigial limbs, why all mammals have same bone structure etc.
Summary
Any of the points above might be defended to some extent by Creationists BUT when you consider ALL the above together, an impartial person would have to conclude that the evidence for evolution is overwhelming.
Which is what 99.9% of scientists HAVE concluded and most Christians too -these latter taking Genesis to contain religious not scientific truths. To suggest that all these scientists are wrong/deluded/in Satan's power {ditto the Christians}or whatever is grossly implausible.
Best wishes
Laurie
Email: mgt.harris@btinternet.com
ok, I thought one of them should have been simpler , anyway, my problem is two fold, I get some evolutionists saying "simple to complex" and others denying this. So, an argument on this point is hard to pin down.
Thanks. Mike
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Replying to:
Hi Mike,
should say more complex in the YOUNGER ...
sorry
Laurie
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Replying to:
Actually, I am trying to understand your statement:
Simpler fossils in the older rocks, more complex in older, and fossils develop in time order.
Which seems self contradictory.
BUT, time order is not accurate (at least, this is the argument that the Evolutionists in the Biology forum gave me) as evidence for multiple starts and no "single line" biologically were the very things thrown at me by the biologists themselves. I realize this line could quickly get into genetics and quite possibly neuroanatomy, and etc. as evidence of a lack of time order in the lines.
Mike
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Replying to:
Each animal defeats the other animals in the same environmental niche. There are thousands of such niches.
Forgive me for being blunt but how can you criticise evolution when you fail to understand it in such a blatent way?
Best wishes
Laurie
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
1. Simpler fossils in the older rocks, more complex in older, and fossils develop in time order.
If evolution states that things went from simple to complex, AND if it states that as things "improved" the lessor animals became extinct, as I have heard argued THEN, humans, supposedly the most advanced SHOULD be the ONLY animal to exist, all the lessor ones having already become extinct from natural selection.
Mike
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
A VERY BRIEF SUMMARY
Some of the evidence for evolution:
1. Simpler fossils in the older rocks, more complex in older, and fossils develop in time order.
2. You would expect major changes in the environment to produce large scale extinctions. Fossil record confirms.
3. All mammals, for example, have the same basic bodily structure [bones and organs] but adapted to their environmental niche. Evolution explains.
4. Vestigial limbs and organs. Evolution can explain this phenomenon beautifully.
5. Different species in similar environments would evolve to be like each other. Australian animals do this.
6. Genetics explains how characteristics are passed on.
7. Microevolution certainly occurs. Macro has the same mechanisms.
8. The same species on different islands would evolve to fit the circumstances on the particular island. Exactly what Darwin found when he studied finches on the Galapagos Islands.
9. The are sequences of fossils that follow on from one another as you would expect. There are even 'links' between one species and another - but not very many see below.
10. Embryos have features that evolution explains well.
{One objection is that there are few 'link' fossils. The answer is that few animals produce fossils and, if speciation is a rapid process then there would be few such transitional animals anyway}
Problems with Creationism
1. Two accounts in Genesis.
2. Contradicts other scientific theories too. For example the moon and sun are made at the same time and before the stars.
3. Does not explain extinctions, vestigial limbs, why all mammals have same bone structure etc.
Summary
Any of the points above might be defended to some extent by Creationists BUT when you consider ALL the above together, an impartial person would have to conclude that the evidence for evolution is overwhelming.
Which is what 99.9% of scientists HAVE concluded and most Christians too -these latter taking Genesis to contain religious not scientific truths. To suggest that all these scientists are wrong/deluded/in Satan's power {ditto the Christians}or whatever is grossly implausible.
Best wishes
Laurie