John317 asked a series of questions in
http://clubadventist.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/80874/page/0/fpart/3
that are somewhat off topic for that thread's new direction, so I have started a different thread



Not considering all the possible ways the halos could be made

His stuff is well discussed on the Internet and in journals already



No, because once the monkeys make a mistake, it is no longer Shakespeare.

Evolution differs in that it involves (a) mutation, (b) selection, and (c) more than one acceptable outcome.



How many shell fish would have to die? How long would that take? Why do we see structure in the species of fossils in the White Cliffs? If this happened in 2000 years from the Fall to the Flood, why aren't we seeing similar deposits laid down in the 4000 years since the Flood? These and others questions need to be answered by any proposed short-age explanation.



Which animals today copulate? No-one has proposed that homo-sapiens ever did it any other way.

Google "origin of sexual reproduction" - you will get lots of hits



Look up the history of cats and dogs, and see how far we have managed to change their shapes and sizes.

Look at the range of body shapes and sizes for humans.

Look up how the genetic material controls bone length.

The silly argument about "if the short necked ones couldn't reach the food, how could the baby long necked ones?" is answered simply "they didn't, they died, the short necked adults also died, and only the long necked ones survived the famine to reproduce after it was over"



Google is your friend. There has been a lot of work done of the evolution of the eye, and you will be amazed how many variations on eyes there are today



Same answer



Cell evolution is indeed an area that is unclear. Research continues.

It doesn't matter for the debate about short-age creation v long-age evolution because the geological record shows the development of the more complex life-forms in a way that is incompatible with a literal reading of Genesis.

God may well have had a big hand in the creation of the earliest cellular life forms. This is what the Intelligent Design school actually teaches. Not creationism, but that God did the early cells and then guided the evolutionary processes.



This one is easy for the evolutionists. The basic body shape, including nipples, are basically encoded on the non-gender-specific parts of the DNA hence both male and females get them.



Life, like death, is not easy to define. There are things that are hard to decide if they are alive. So, the answer is simple. There is no rule that says life can only come from life.




He did not show the general case. He showed that some specific rapid changes do not happen.



Such information is widely and easily available on the internet and at every large bookshop.

/Bevin

Two posts attacking the poster deleted. Discuss the issues or don't post, gentlemen.

So, God is able to do the starting bits, but not finish the job???????????

If we fail to take God's word in Genesis LITERALLY, then can we trust a God like that? He couldn't finish the job in one go. He just did the little bits and left the rest to who?

If we don't believe in the Genesis 6-day creation, then what is the 7th day Sabbath all about?

If we can't trust the Bible to tell us the truth about the Creation week, then we can't trust it to tell us the truth about the Flood (which is what so-called scientists do)

And -- if we have to discount the Genesis story, then we have to discount most of the Bible because of the many references to the Genesis creation. We can't believe what Jesus said, because He obviously believed the Genesis story -- and He believed in Noah and the flood!

And if we take all of that out of the Bible, what have we got left?

If God could not create the world in the way it is described in Genesis, then (if we believe what Revelation tells us about the New Earth) how long is it going to take God to re-create this world? Or are we going to be kept locked up in the New Jerusalem for millions of years while the New Earth evolves?
Or, if it took millions of years for God to get it right first time round, are evolutionists implying that He has learned from the first creation, and will get it right second time around?

I am just asking for some sensible answers on this. They are questions that should be easy for Intelligent Design believers to answer.

Beryl

Have you read his book? I am studying it now and it seems to me that he does an excellent job of looking at all the possible ways the the halos could have been made. He's a very good scientist-- at least he was known to be a very reputable scientist until it was determined that his experiments conflict with evolutionary theory and tend to support creationist theory.

He says that he invited many scientists, including Carl Sagan, to come to his lectures and ask him questions or present their evidence, but none ever accepted the offer.

In his book, Gentry answers all the objections raised. For instance, see pages 299 to 303 where Gentry responds in detail to the criticisms of Dalrymple on the very points you refer to.

Please be more specific about what invalidates his views. I know that they are discussed on the Internet, but since you apparently do not accept his experiments and conclusions as valid, I would like to know specifically why you believe that Gentry's investigations are invalid.





What we are talking about, seriously, is the mathematical odds of evolution's taking place and producing the world as we see it, purely by chance. If we were to put all the information about the earth into a computer and ask what the odds are that life is the result of pure chance, what do you suppose the answer would be?

"The probability for a single molecule of high dissymmetry to be formed by the action of chance and normal thermic agitation remains practically nil...Life itself is not even in question but merely one of the substances which constitute living beings. Now, one molecule is of no use. Hundreds of millions of identical ones are necessary..." (Human Destiny, Lecomte du Nouy, p. 34.) A French math professor, Charles-Eugene Guye, found that it would have taken about 10 to the power of 243 billions of years (or 1 followed by 243 zeros) to form one such molecule. Others have made similar mathematical calculations and all of them show that the chance of life occurring spontaneously is extremely unlikely.

If this is completely off the mark and if you are aware of any mathematical calculations showing it is in fact likely, or somewhat likely, that life occurred spontaneously and by chance, I would like to know about it.





It would depend on what our assumptions are: that is, whether we are assumping that uniformitarianism is true or that there was a world-wide Noachian Flood as the Bible describes it. If the Bible's description is true, then it is obvious that the conditions existing before and during the flood would be quite different from anything we've seen since that time, so we would be wrong both about when the fish died and our assumption that we should be see such deposits laid down after the flood.

I think one of the main problems keeping evolutionists from being able to see the truth about such matters is their belief in uniformitarianism. The Bible completely contradicts this theory at 2 Peter 3: 3-6, and in fact the Bible even predicted that the time would come when people would claim that there was no flood and that everything continues the same as it has always been.

There is no proof that uniformitarianism is true and therefore it is a mere assumption on the part of evolutionists, an assumption which they choose to make in contradition to the clear word of God. I think that is something every thinking person needs to be aware of when they begin to consider these issues. I'm sure you would agree.





My question has to do with the evidence in the fossil record of how humans and other mammals got their sexual reproduction systems. There is no evidence about this, is there? In other words, all the fossils show that suddenly all the mammals appeared with their very complex sexual organs, with no transitional forms leading to an ancestor which reproduced in some other manner. As far as I know, no such transitional forms have ever been discovered, and that's in spite of diligent scientists looking at billions of fossils over the last 170 years or so. It seems incredible to me that this should be the case-- that they would not be able to find even a single such fossil-- if in fact the there was any transition at all. Yet for evolution to have taken place, there simply must be transitional forms, wouldn't you agree? But where are they? (I'm talking now about transitional forms that show how else humans reproduced while their sexual organs were evolving during all of those millions of years.)

Just in case you don't understand what I mean, I'm referring to the fact that the sexual reproduction systems of the male and female are very complex and would apparently need millions of years to evolve, yet no changes in them is found among the various life-forms in the fossils.

These systems are of absolutely no use until they are fully developed. It's difficult for me to conceive, imaginatively speaking, of a partially evolved sexual organ or reproductive system producing progeny. Therefore I believe it is only reasonable to expect that the fossils would show some evidence that humans and other animals reproduced in some way different from the way they, and we, reproduce at the present time. Or do you have proof that all the mammals, say, always had sex organs exactly as they do today? And if that it is the case, how on earth did that happen?

Please let me know if my question is confusing and I will try to make it plainer.







Of course you will admit that those are only small, even insignificant, changes, and certainly not the kinds of changes that had to have happened if evolution is to be a valid explanation of the multitude of forms that have lived on the earth in the past or that live now. In fact, that is not evolution at all in the sense that we mean when we say evolution accounts for all the life-forms in the world today. For that to be the case, there had to have been major changes, as between phylum, and as far as I know, no evidence for that sort of change has ever been discovered or proven.

That brings up a good question: Where is the fossil evidence that cats and dogs are related or have a common ancestor. Indeed, where is the fossil evidence of any transition, say, from the dog to any ancestor at all? Don't the fossils show that the dog has always been a dog and the cat always a cat? In other words, that there is no transitional life-forms between the major kinds of animals? Also, isn't the case the same in terms of plant life also-- that there is no transition shown in the fossils between any major kinds of trees or plants? Don't all the fossils show animals and plants that fall easily into recognizable catagories that we have for living animals today?




Yes, that's true, but as in the previous case involving the history of the cats and the dogs, if we don't find the transitional forms, giving proof of the relationship between them and of some common ancestor, it does no good to notice merely shapes and sizes of animals all belonging to the same species or subspecies. That is nothing. What is necessary, if ever evolution is to become more than mere theory, is to prove relationships based on the fossil record. For instance, since evolutionists claim that the ancestor of man once lived in the ocean, it would be helpful if we could discover the transition from fin to feet. It goes without saying that this would have to be based not on imaginary reconstructions from bone fragments but on actual fossils or perhaps, if we get really lucky, on complete skeletons.

I just now happened upon a page in a biology textbook depicting one such transition that is supposed to show how a fish became a basic amphibian type. The only problem is that while one of the animals is clearly a fish, the other is clearly of the same kind as an aligator or crocodile. Again, what is wanted here is an animal that is not so obviously in one or the other catagory-- in other words, an animal that shows clear vestige of a fin ancestry, which the ichthyostegid amphibian does not.





The question, as far as evolution is concerned, is how did this genetic material, i.e. the extremely complex DNA and RNA, evolve in the first place? And is there anything more than theory to back it up?

It seems more reasonable to believe that it such genetic material was planned by a mind. After all, this genetic material is far more complex than a watch or a computer, isn't it?




No, that is not my argument. My argument is far from silly, I'm afraid.

Have you ever observed how long the adult giraffe's neck is? I'm sure you have. Now my question is, how many giraffe's with shorter necks have they found in the fossils or anywhere else? None that we know of, right? All the giraffe's that we've got proof of have the same neck length, and I find that mighty peculiar considering all the billions of fossils we've searched and all the years we've been looking. Do you suppose maybe the reason nobody has found one with a shorter neck is that those kind never existed?

I have read that the giraffe's heart has to pump so many gallons of blood up that long, huge neck from its heart to its head that when it puts its head down to drink, it would die from the tremendous pressure except for an almost unbelievably complex mechanism that prevents brain damage. Now, how does evolution explain the existence of this very complex mechanism and the way the giraffe managed to evolve over millions of years without leaving a single trace of a transitional form in the fossil record?




Google is your friend. There has been a lot of work done of the evolution of the eye, and you will be amazed how many variations on eyes there are today [/quote]

Again, I'm speaking of how the human eye evolved, not how some minor changes have occurred. We know that the gene pool allows for certain changes, but that hardly accounts for the eye's existence in the first place.

Have you ever read what Darwin says in his book, The Origin of Species, about the human eye? He says it is so amazing that when he thinks of it, it almost makes him give up his ideas about human beings evolving. The thing is, our understanding of the human eye and brain makes us see that these things are more complex, not less so. Therefore, my question is, how do you personally understand the human eye began its evolution, and again, do you have any hard proof for your theory, i.e., in the fossil record?



Same answer [/quote]

But the same answer doesn't answer this question any more than it did about the giraffe or the eye. I am asking not about small changes within the same species or subspecies, but about major changes that are the only kind of changes that must have occurred if evolution ever produced life on this planet, which I assume is your argument.





Can you think of any life form that does not have a cell? A very complex cell, too, since we know today that there is really no such thing as a simple cell, because truly all cells are quite complex. Some are only relatively simpler than others, but indeed all of them are complex, and it is difficult for me to imagine how they came into existence by pure chance and then eventually turned into a whale or elephant or a human.

I just find it takes far less faith to believe that God made things than to believe it all occurred by chance and that we all evolved over billions of years into what we are today-- thinkings individuals cogitating over our existence and having a burning desire for righteousness and moral purity; praying; wanting to live eternally, etc.

I agree with Thomas H. Huxley, the famous evolutionist, who acknowledge that, "...'creation,' in the ordinary sense of the word is perfectly conceivable. I find no difficulty in conceiving that, at some former period, this universe was not in existence, and that it made its appearance in six days (or instananeously, if that is preferred), in consequence of the volition of some pre-existing Being. Then, as now, the so-called a priori arguments against Theism, and given a Deity, against the possibility of creative acts, appeared to me to be devoid of reasonable foundation." (Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley, Vol. II, L. Huxley, ed., p. 439).

Now if even Darwin's friend and defender could say he found it easy conceive of God creating the world and that all arguments against it seemed to him at times to be without reasonable foundation, then it certainly can't be too unreasonable for us to agree with him on that point.





But if you consider the facts as we know them, and then logically arrive at models of what creation and evolution predict we would find in the fossil record, you will find that the fossil record agrees much more with the creation model than with what the evolution model predicts. For instance, the creation model predicts that we would find sudden appareeance in great variety of highly complex forms, and that is exactly what we find in the fossil record. On the other hand, the evolution model predicts gradual changes of simplest forms into more and more complex forms and transitional series linking all catagories with no systematic gaps. Yet that is not what we find at all.





But think about God's using evolution to bring about man's creation. What are the implications for a) sin and morality, b) for the Bible doctrine of the Fall, c) for God's love for his creatures, and d) for the dependability of the Bible, which clearly contradicts evolutionary theory with its belief in uniformitarianism.

I remember some time back you mentioned that evolution does not really require so much suffering, violence, and killing, etc. But that flies in the face of everything I've ready by the foremost evolutionists. Darwin's frequent use of expressions such as "the battle of life", "the struggle of life," "the survival of the fittest," belie your idea that evolution does not require very much suffering and violence. All you have to do is read widely in literature-- such as Neitzsche, Marx, and Jack London-- to know that everyone understands it far differently than you do on the score of those thing's relationship to evolutionary theory.

Believing that God allowed humanity to fall into sin and suffering is far different than believing that God determined that the only way man could exist was through the mechanism of violence, struggle, killing, and death.





Well, that's not exactly what I had in mind. I am really asking how the very complex code exists to begin with. What evidence do you have that it just happened that way?






Well, let's make it really simple. Let's start with the single cell, because of course every living thing has a cell. Do you know of one that doesn't?

So, then, can a cell develop from non-living material? Has anyone ever been able to make it happen or has anyone ever observed it happening? If not, how can we be certain it ever did happen? And isn't it true therefore that you accept it on faith?








No, I have a number of science text books, even those teaching evolution, that clearly say Pasteur's experiments proved that spontaneous gereration is an impossibility. Modern Biology (p. 205), a standard high school text book, defines spontaneous generation as the belief that "living organisms could arrive from nonliving matter" and Pasteur's experiment made this belief "die a sudden death." And you say Pasteur merely "showed some specific rapid changes do not happen"? Not according to science text books, and not according to what I was taught in public school biology classes. Yet without the belief in spontaneous generation, mechanistic evolution doesn't even get off the ground. Without it, it is dead in the water.





Bevin, thanks for the interesting dialogue on this very important subject. I know there is information available on the Internet and you may be assured I will take advantage of it. I asked you these questions because I remember you said you've studied it and know it well. So I wanted your personal opinions on it. I think it would be great to get with someone like you and discuss these things but this will have to do for now anyhow.

I plan on spending about a year studying this subject at the library and interviewing various people until I can resolve questions in my own mind about creationism and evolution.

There is no real difference here between 'the left is rest to who?' being asked of the evolving world, and the world after creation week.

In both cases the answer is "the world largely follows the physical laws God has established, except when He decides to step in".



The Bible says very little / nothing about this. At the end of a thousand years (or is that 360 thousand, given it is a prophetic period?) the earth is destroyed and recreated - but the Bible doesn't say much about how.



I don't know of any evolutionists who think of this in terms of 'getting it right'. They just think in terms of 'the rocks show us...'

/Bevin

Gentry's material - you have two choices. (a) learn enough physics and geology to understand the complex arguments for yourself, or (b) accept that Gentry's stuff has been examined and found not-conclusive by experts in the area. I am not an expert, I have read the material from both sides, and have chosen (b) with a dabbling of (a). I don't have the time to do full justice to (a).

The calculations for the chemicals are simply wrong, because they do not factor in the repetitions involved in the mutate/select model, nor do they factor in the range of possible outcomes.

Let me give you a simple model.


I toss ten coins. There is 1 chance in 1024 I will get 10 heads. It will take about 500 tosses to get 10 heads, sometimes 1, sometimes 10000, but average around 500.

If, however, I am allowed to retoss all the tails but keep the heads, it won't take many tosses to get all heads. It will only take about 5-10 tosses.

If, in addition, any answer with at least 5 heads is good enough, I'll only take one or two throws.

If, at the end of it, someone looks at my specific pattern of heads and tails in the coins in front of me, they will conclude that I had 1:1024 of getting that pattern and it would take 500 throws - they are wrong because they did not factor in mutation and selection and acceptable alternatives.




You want to hypothesise that before the Flood shell-fish lived and died at a far faster rate than today? What rate would it have to be to create the Cliffs? Do a back-of-the-envelope calculation.



Humans apparently evolved from apes which evolved from earlier mammals which probably all used the same copulatory mechanisms we do.

Penises are NOT restricted to mammals. See, for instance, http://www.americanarachnology.org/JoA_Congress/JoA_v30_n2/arac-30-02-425.pdf




Not true - for instance look up the fossil history of whales. We now have a pretty good set going from land to shore to ocean-dwelling.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/09/0919_walkingwhale.html Scientists have found fossil skeletons of two new species of primitive whales with well-developed limbs, fingers, and toes—supporting genetic evidence that hippos are the closest modern land-dwelling relatives to the giants of the sea



No-one claims the fossil record is complete.




Darwin was writing in the 1800's. We have a lot more examples and understanding since then. In particular we are now much more aware of the range of existing light-sensitive organs.

It is simply not true that you need all of a modern eye to be useful.



A "cell" is a membrane around liquid and some solids.

There are much simpler constructs that reproduce. Whether you think they are 'alive' is a personal opinion, because 'life' is not easily defined.



Actually, no, that is NOT what we find. What we find is many rocks that date to periods millions of years apart, with life forms coming and going. What we find is the oldest forms are not as complex as the modern forms - they have much the same reproductive mechanisms but they have not evolved many of the animal characteristics we see in the world around us today, etc.



That is not what evolution predicts. That would require a high rate of fossil-creation/preservation/discovery and gradual changes - whereas we know that the former is low, the later is can be quite high, and that a lot of changes to not get recorded by fossilisation. Again I refer you to how far dogs have come in the last 3000 years - and yet how good is the fossil record at capturing the transition from wolf to poodle?



The similarities and differences of the DNA sequences of the various animals / plants / etc.



Do you know what Spontaneous Generation actually was thought to be? It was the concept that dead meat TURNS INTO flies. It was from before people understood that flies laid eggs that turned into maggots that turned into flies.



Good plan - read widely, and think about it from both a scientific and a psychological perspective. Try to understand people and their motivations as well as the science.

God bless - it has been a rough road for me, and yet a fascinating one.

/Bevin

John 317; I must say I enjoyed reading your post. I appreciate the time and effort that went into your post. I could never spent that much time on this subject. I know that we should all probably take time to study this subject more. I've always accepted the bibles account of Creation, based on Faith, not any evdence's one way or the other. I've also never been able to accept that we evolved from anything, evidence or no evidence, christian or not christian, sda or not sda. Your post has made me proud to be a Christian and believe in Creation.

pkrause

Darwin gave some possible explanations in his book Orgins of The Species in regard to the eye. Modern evolutions don't have any new explanations that are much different.

One last thing about spending a year reading...

The exact cellular level details, and how what organs or body shapes can evolve, is the most technically challenging area - and the area where the science (e.g. DNA sequencing) is only just beginning to really take off.

The areas of geology and archaeology are easier to understand, and provide more direct evidence on the age of the earth.

The creationist cellular stuff is trying to argue "it can/can't happen" - whereas the geology and archaeology provides the direct evidence that something did happen and therefore poses the question that the cellular stuff is trying to answer.

/Bevin

I don't see geology as creating much of a challenge for creationists except for the order of the fossil record. However the fossil record creates major issues for evolution too so it isn't as if the fossil record favors one side more than the other. The fossil record really tells us that we don't know exactly how things happened.

That is true, it doesn't give us the details. The Bible has already told us how the world was created the first time around (in 6 literal days), and so it is taken for granted that once again "by the word of God" it will be a literal creation within the same period of time. You cannot have evolution and the bible together -- they don't mix.

Beryl

There are many facts that interrelate.

(a) The patterns of rock formation, deformation, and erosion
(b) The fossils we find in those rocks
(c) Continental drift
(d) Volcanos and volcanic rocks
(e) Meteorites
(f) Glacial transportation
(g) Radioactive materials
(h) Pressure/temperature issues
(i) Magnetic data
...

It isn't just fossils

/Bevin

Of all those issues, fossils is the only one that presents a concern for creationists. The issue there is why the order is the way it is. Creationists have plausable explanations for the other issues. And as I noted before, the fossils create their own set of concerns for evolutionists.

Meteorites have nothing to do with fossils, but...
http://www.antarcticconnection.com/antarctic/science/meteorites.shtml
http://geology.cwru.edu/~ansmet/

thermoluminescence is worth researching
Google it

Obsidian hydration dating is completely different again
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsidian_hydration_dating

/Bevin

Here are just some of the questions to which evolutionists don't know the answers, beyond unsupported theory:

They have to say, "We really don't know how living organisms came from non-living material, because biogenesis is the cornerstone of modern biology;" "We really don't know for sure what the conditions were like when life first arose on earth;" "We really don't know whether or how coacervates and micropheres, two early organic compounds, crossed over into the living world;" "We don't know how eukaryotes evolved;" "We really don't know for sure if prokaryotes were the first organisms on earth;" "We really do not know how the earth formed and what its early history was;" "We really do not know how the main elements of life-- carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen-- could have formed simple organic compounds important to life;" "We honestly don't know for certain if the ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12 in the atmosphere has been constant over time;" "We don't know what the ancestor of the horse was;" "We don't know why no living organisms were preserved in the precambrian fossils;" ""We don't know why the bat suddenly appears in the fossil record without any evidence of its having an ancestor;" "We don't know why there are no transitional forms known for the most prolific group of animals, the rodents, which first appear in the late Palocene period;" "We don't know why the fossil record supplies us with no transitional forms between any of the major groups or kinds;" "We don't know for sure if our theories of homologous structures, vestigal organs, biochemistry, and embryological development really show the evolutionary relationships between different species of organisms."

Here is a quote from a biology textbook about how life arose on this earth according to evolutionary theory:

"About 5 billion years ago, life arose on earth, generated from non-living matter. Such spontaneous generation could not occur on earth today...The unique circumstances under which life spontaneously arose are no longer present on earth."

HOW DO THEY KNOW? Answer: THEY DON'T. It is obvious the evolutionists' belief requires faith. It contradicts one of the most solid truths of modern science: life only comes from life; it never has been observed or known to come from nonliving matter.

Even though many lab experiments have been conducted in order to synthesize a living cell, none have been successful. How life was formed on the surface of the earth remains, for evolutionists, a mere theory.

Except that it isnt. Too many abberations have been discovered, to the point of significantly debunking the long-age myth. Been through some of that on another thread.

It just seems to me from my reading that Gentry was not given a fair shake by people who had reason to oppose Gentry's experiments because they contradict basic tenets of evolutionary theory. Gentry provides documentary evidence of this in his book. I'm not certain that Gentry is right in his theory, but it does look like he could be, or at the very least that his experiments are worthy of being taken much more seriously than they have been. In any case, I do know that there were/are lots of people who obviously did not want his experiments to be completed or his conclusions to become accepted. That is made clear in the transcripts of the trial as well as in the correspondence with various organizations and scientists. If these scientists thought that Gentry's ideas were so easy to prove wrong, why didn't they present their evidence and their arguments at Gentry's lectures, when he asked them to question him in public in order to see if his ideas would stand up under the closest scrutiny?



I don't know why mention is made of "the factoring in of mutation and selection and acceptable alternatives," because what we are dealing with is the calculation of the probability of the appearance, by chance alone, of certain essential elements of life, certain large molecules, proteins for instance. Therefore, so far as I'm concerned, we aren't focusing in on the probability of everything evolving exactly as it has, since that would entail an even far greater improbability than the formation of a single molecule of high dissymmetry of, say, 0.9. At any rate, that was the basis of Guye's calculations.

The main question is whether you believe that the theory of probability would indicate that the chance of life arising out of non-life is (a) nil, (b) highly unlikely, (c) likely, or (d) highly likely. I believe myself that it would be virtually impossible. However, I've read that Julien Huxley, a famous evolutionist, believed that anything can eventually happen by chance, if only given enough time. He even said that if given enough time-- millions of years-- a group of monkeys could sit down at their typewriters and inevitably at some time during that long period produce the Encyclopedia Brittanica word for word and in exact order. I don't have as much faith in time as Huxley did. No matter how much time you multiply 0 x something, you will always get 0. To me, 0 is what people are trying to multiply when they attempt to get life from nonliving matter.







I freely admit that I don't know how to explain the shell-fish and the Cliffs. It seems to me that neither creationists nor evolutionists have a good explanation.

But I would be interested to know if you believe in the flood that the Bible describes in Genesis and refers to in Matthew 24:37 and again in 2 Peter 2:5 and 3:6?

I think that assuming there was a flood such as the Bible describes, it makes sense that a great deal of animal life died both on land and in the water. But whether those that died included this number of shell-fish and whether it would explain the Cliffs, I am not at all sure. It's one of the subjects I plan to research and for which I want to see if I can find a plausible explanation.







Yes, you are right, of course. I did not mean to imply that penises are restricted to mammals. I am only asking about their evolution, assuming for the moment that they did evolve. How did it happen that both the male and the female reproductive systems evolved when we lack all evidence of such evolution in the fossils? Doesn't it seem a little strange that we have no evidence in the fossil record of any transition from non-sexual to sexual reproduction? After all, the evolution of the sexual reproductive system must have taken millions of years, yet where are the transitional life-forms that reproduced in some other way prior to "the ones which probably all used the same copulatory mechanisms we do"? Again, the male and female reproductive systems are extremely complex and could not have simply occurred overnight fully developed but must have evolved over millions and millions of years. It is hard to imagine how those life-forms were reproducing while they were evolving their present sexual organs. How are we to conceive that this could have happened?





I notice that they are called whales, albeit primitive ones. That is somewhat like the four-toed horse, being called a transition to something else, but what that something else was no one knows. The same with this so-called "primitive whale." It is, after all, a whale. A whale is a whale is a whale. Why then conclude that it is related to the hippo? In order for that to be proved, we would need a transitional form leading from the hippo to the whale-- a transitional form that is neither hippo nor whale. Has any such ever been discovered? I mean an animal that does not fit neatly into one of the recognizable catagories?





Yes, that is exactly what Darwin complained of back in the 1840s and 50s. He said in Origin of Species that he fully expected that the fossil record, when more thoroughly examined, would eventually reveal many transitional forms. However, these have still not been discovered, despite the fact that scientists have been looking diligently for them for over 170 years. I should think they would have been found by now if they ever did exist. It just seems strange to me that out of all the billions and billions of fossils, not a single instance can be singled out as having proven to be an indisputable, clear transition from one major group, or phylum, to another. There are, I know, lots of examples of imaginary transitions, such as an artist's concept of what one might have looked like, for instance the various so-called transitions from lower forms of life to human beings, etc.






I don't doubt that what you say here is true, but what I have reference to is the eye's extreme complexity and how highly unlikely it seems that it would have evolved by pure chance. Darwin could not possibly have understood the human eye's true complexity, yet it seemed complex enough even in his relative ignorance concerning the eye's design that it made him feel as if he was proposing an absurdity to consider natural selection as the way in which the eye came into existence. How much more daunting it would certainly then seem to him if he were more knowledgeable of the human eye today.

You are, of course, correct to observe that we do not need all of a modern eye in order for it to be useful. In fact, Darwin discusses this very thing in Chapter VI, "Difficulties With the Theory." The problem is that I cannot conceive of either the fully developed human eye or the eagle eye coming about because of mutations or by pure chance. It is not a question of how much of the eye is necessary for perfect vision, or, as you say, "to be useful." It is a question, rather, of how the complete human eye came into existence by pure chance and without any evidence, as far as human beings are concerned, of its ever having been less than the fully developed, useful eye of today.

Do we, in any case, have firm evidence from the fossil record or from ancient skulls that humans or direct ancestors of humans ever had anything except two fully developed eyes? There is no evidence, is there, that the eye evolved by slow mutations? If not, it seems useless to discuss the idea that we don't need all of the modern eye in order for it to be useful.






I apologize for editing the last part of your responses, but tomorrow I'll be back to complete my answers to them the best that I can. Thank you.

It is quite true creationists can't explain everything about the fossil record. Yet they are not in the situation that evolutionists are when faced with the fact that out of billions and billions of fossils, and out of the many thousands of different kinds of animals, evolutionists cannot produce a single example of an indisputable, clear transition between one major group and another. For instance, not a single indisputable, multicellular fossil has ever been found in precambrian rocks. Where are the single cell ancestors of the complex life forms? As another instance, there is no documented evidence from the fossil record that vertebrates were derived from invertebrates. It is an assumption made, and one for which there is no proof.

Just two quick comments, at the risk of being considered an apologist for evolution. I assume that you are interested (including in the context of creationism evangelism) in strengthening the logic and clarity of your points?

The 'monkeys typing Shakespeare' example is flawed because it is teleological: we already know what the complete and correct typed works of Shakespeare would look like. The monkeys, whether they knew it or not, would be working toward a specific and definite end goal in such an experiment. Evolution, as it is understand by virtually all evolutionists, is not teleological, it has no predetermined end point. Rather, it is the on-going process of adapting to changes in the evironment. We are already starting to see siginificant adaptations to climate change, for example, but climate change is a continuous phenomenon on this planet, so we will continue to see change. In the same way, arguments about the probability of creating this exact universe through evolutionary processes are often flawed because they are teleological; they assume that this exact universe was the goal.

Second point is that bevin's example about the coins was aimed at introducing the principle of selection. Your points (John317) have been phrased in terms of the *random* chance combinations of molecules, but the whole point of evolutionary theory is that its process are *not* random, but are selected for in terms of survival. There are suggested possible mechanisms for the development of simple amino acids both in solution and on clay matrices, in ways that would 'select' for certain types. Simple amino acids can build proteins, and proteins cells. What is a virus - life or non-life?

Anyway, I'm not arguing a position here, I'm trying to 'sharpen steel' by moving beyond misunderstandings of evolution to discuss substantive issues.

Beryl said: " The Bible has already told us how the world was created the first time around (in 6 literal days), and so it is taken for granted that once again "by the word of God" it will be a literal creation within the same period of time. You cannot have evolution and the bible together -- they don't mix."


olger said "Amen"

I just found an excellent starting point for learning about this issue.

http://www.asa3.org/aSA/resources/Wiens.html

His list of further sites includes

Resources On the Web:

Virtual Dating--a very helpful educational course on half-lives and radioactive decay was put together by Gary Novak at California State University in Los Angeles. This site has several interactive web "workbooks" to help the reader understand various concepts involved with radiometricdating.

http://vcourseware5.calstatela.edu/VirtualDating

Reasons to Believe--a Christian ministry supporting the old-Earth viewpoint. Dr. Hugh Ross, the founder and head of the ministry, holds a PhD in Astronomy. The ministry supports an accurate interpretation of the Bible while also supportive of science as a tool to study God's creation.

http://www.reasons.org

American Scientific Affiliation (ASA)--an umbrella organization of Christians in many different areas of the sciences. Most of the members hold an old-Earth view, though membership is open to anyone supporting their positional statement. This website has numerous resources on theology and Bible-science issues.

http://www.asa3.org

Affiliation of Christian Geologists (ACG)--an organization of Geologists who are Christians. The ACG is affiliated with the ASA (above).

http://www.wheaton.edu/acg

Lord I Believe--a site maintained by Hill Roberts, a self-professed conservative Christian and a Physicist. There is a wealth of information, including presentations on the interpretation of Genesis chapters 1-3, a resource list of apologetics ministries, etc.

http://LordIBelieve.org

A review of Phillip Henry Gosse's Omphalos: An Attempt to Untie the Geological Knot, in which fiat creation with the appearance of age is suggested. Reviewed by Rev. John W. Burgeson.

http://www.burgy.50megs.com/omphalos.htm

Origins--this site is devoted mainly to evidences for intelligent design in nature.

http://www.origins.com

Talk Origins--an archive dedicated to creation-evolution issues. Originally created by Chris Stassen, this site is supported by the National Center For Science Education.

http://www.talkorigins.org

A Radiometric Dating Resource List--a very comprehensive resource list for radiometric dating, maintained by Tim Thompson of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It includes separate resource sections on the reliability of radiometric dating, introductory articles, advanced articles, radiocarbon dating, etc.

http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/8851/radiometric.html

C-14 Dating--The radiocarbon laboratories at Oxford (England) and Waikato (New Zealand) Universities jointly operate this website which gives very comprehensive information on radiocarbon dating. Portions of it were written specifically for use by K-12 students, so it is easy to understand. The site contains explanations on measurements, applications, calibration, publications, and other areas.

http://www.c14dating.com

Cornell University Geology 656 Lecture Notes--A large number of pdf files of geology lecture notes are available on the web. These are university-level lecture notes describing radiometric dating and related topics.

page 29.

http://www.geo.cornell.edu/geology/classes/Geo656/656notes98.html