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Genetic Distances 1




Similarities between different forms of life can now be measured with sophisticated genetic techniques.

Proteins. “Genetic distances can be calculated by taking a specific protein and examining the sequence of its components. The fewer changes needed to convert a protein of one organism into the corresponding protein of another organism, supposedly the closer their relationship. These studies seriously contradict the theory of evolution (a).

An early computer-based study of cytochrome c, a protein used in energy production, compared 47 different forms of life. This study found many contradictions with evolution based on this one protein. For example, according to evolution, the rattlesnake should have been most closely related to other reptiles. Instead, of these 47 forms (all that were sequenced at that time), the one most similar to the rattlesnake was man (b). Since this study, experts have discovered hundreds of similar contradictions (c).

a. Dr. Colin Patterson—Senior Principal Scientific Officer in the Palaeontology Department at the British Museum (Natural History)—gave a talk on 5 November 1981 to leading evolutionists at the American Museum of Natural History. He compared the amino acid sequences in several proteins of different animals. The relationships of these animals, according to evolutionary theory, have been taught in classrooms for decades. Patterson explained to a stunned audience that this new information contradicts the theory of evolution. In his words, “The theory makes a prediction; we’ve tested it, and the prediction is falsified precisely. Although he acknowledged that scientific falsification is never absolute, he admitted “evolution was a faith, he was “duped into taking evolutionism as revealed truth in some way, and “evolution not only conveys no knowledge but seems somehow to convey anti-knowledge, apparent knowledge which is harmful to systematics . “Prominent British Scientist Challenges Evolution Theory, Audio Tape Transcription and Summary by Luther D. Sunderland, personal communication. For other statements from Patterson’s presentation see: Tom Bethell, “Agnostic Evolutionists, Harper’s Magazine, February 1985, pp. 49–61.

“... it seems disconcerting that many exceptions exist to the orderly progression of species as determined by molecular homologies ... Christian Schwabe, “On the Validity of Molecular Evolution, Trends in Biochemical Sciences, July 1986, p. 280.

“It appears that the neo-darwinian hypothesis is insufficient to explain some of the observations that were not available at the time the paradigm took shape¦.One might ask why the neo-darwinian paradigm does not weaken or disappear if it is at odds with critical factual information. The reasons are not necessarily scientific ones but rather may be rooted in human nature. Ibid., p. 282.

“Evolutionary trees constructed by studying biological molecules often don’t resemble those drawn up from morphology. Trisha Gura, “Bones, Molecules ... or Both? Nature, Vol. 406, 20 July 2000, p. 230.

b. Robert Bayne Brown, Abstracts: 31st International Science and Engineering Fair (Washington D.C.: Science Service, 1980), p. 113.

Ginny Gray, “Student Project ‘Rattles’ Science Fair Judges, Issues and Answers, December 1980, p. 3.

While the rattlesnake’s cytochrome c was most similar to man’s, man’s cytochrome c was most similar to that of the rhesus monkey. (If this seems like a contradiction, consider that City B could be the closest city to City A, but City C might be the closest city to City B.)

c. “As morphologists with high hopes of molecular systematics, we end this survey with our hopes dampened. Congruence between molecular phylogenies is as elusive as it is in morphology and as it is between molecules and morphology. Colin Patterson et al., p. 179.

[From “In the Beginning by Walt Brown]

No doubt all that 'evidence' sourced is, as usual, from fanatical ministry or another.

I seriously can't believe that anyone can believe in all this superstitious garbage, despite the overwhelming physical evidence. First of all there are claims that DNA as a blueprint for life doesn't exist, and now we're being told that the (hard) evidence provided by DNA is false. True, there is much we don't understand about DNA, but bear in mind we are still only in the first generation of its initial discovery. Just because we don't fully understand something doesn't mean we deny its existence when it's there in plain sight for everyone to see.

Time & time again I have even offered you a compromise. Although I do not believe now, nor have I ever believed, nor am I ever likely to believe in a God. Can you not even accept that 'God' may have created the primordial slime, from which all life descended & evolved from, all as part of his 'Divine Plan'?

Personally I have my doubts you really believe in any of this nonsense at all & that you are merely trolling. Come to that, perhaps you are one of these AI machines, which would make sense - after all, 99% of your input is just data which has been copied & pasted from a very limited database. No personality. No individual thought. Just a programmed drone.

FourPart;1459016 wrote:

Time & time again I have even offered you a compromise. Although I do not believe now, nor have I ever believed, nor am I ever likely to believe in a God. Can you not even accept that 'God' may have created the primordial slime, from which all life descended & evolved from, all as part of his 'Divine Plan'?


My information about the nature of God comes from His Bible for which there is overwhelming evidence for its accuracy. Therefor I cannot accept the proposition that He may have created the primordial slime, from which all life descended & evolved from, as part of his Divine Plan. Evolution teaches origins from a natural mindless source. God reveals He is the source of everything and everyone. The two teachings are incompatible.

Here is the overwhelming evidence for the accuracy of the Bible:



Bible Accuracy

1. Archaeology has confirmed the historical accuracy of the Bible:

The Rocks Cry Out

In what ways have the discoveries of archaeology verified the reliability of the Bible? • ChristianAnswers.Net

Archaeology and the Bible Archaeology and the Bible • ChristianAnswers.Net

2. The Bible is not a science book, yet is scientifically accurate:

Scientific Facts in The Bible

Science Confirms the Bible - RationalWiki

SCIENTIFIC PROOF OF THE BIBLE

Eternal Productions - 101 Scientific Facts and Foreknowledge

Science and the Bible

3. The Bible is filled with hundreds of accurately fulfilled prophecies:

http://www.100prophecies.com/

101 End Times Bible Prophecy

About Bible Prophecy

Bible Prophecies Fulfilled

Reasons To Believe : Fulfilled Prophecy: Evidence for the Reliability of the Bible

Bible Prophecy

No other book, religious or secular, comes close to those requirements.

FourPart;1459016 wrote: No doubt all that 'evidence' sourced is, as usual, from fanatical ministry or another.
See what I mean?

FourPart;1459030 wrote: See what I mean?


Hasn't "science" disproved evolution yet? I'm just waiting for it to be over.

recovering conservative;1459041 wrote: Hasn't "science" disproved evolution yet? I'm just waiting for it to be over.


No, this thread is on a permanent loop. Pahu is going to replay the loop untill someone sees the light. Best get a flask. This could be a long wait

recovering conservative;1459041 wrote: Hasn't "science" disproved evolution yet? I'm just waiting for it to be over.


Snowfire;1459045 wrote: No, this thread is on a permanent loop. Pahu is going to replay the loop untill someone sees the light. Best get a flask. This could be a long wait


Yeah. We're still waiting on the actual science.

Thanks guys! One thing that the pattern of 'debate' shows me from the pages I have scanned through, is that the active membership of FG is likely somewhat older than many discussion forums that focus on politics, religion etc..

It's a matter of maturity to some degree, that what seems like a secular majority here (I'm not sure what the breakdown would be on spiritual or metaphysical beliefs) just can't get wound up enough to get into the kind of angry, vitriolic debate that this guy would likely prefer. I know that if I was 18 or still young, I would have been mocking and flaming someone coming on with these old, retreated ideas....but, I just can't be bothered anymore! There's just too much other crazy stuff happening in the world to put on my Richard Dawkins hat.

Snowfire;1459045 wrote: No, this thread is on a permanent loop. Pahu is going to replay the loop untill someone sees the light. Best get a flask. This could be a long wait
Which goes to support my theory that Pahu is actually one of these computer programs set up by AI whizzkids to see if they can develop one where humans can't identify as being a computer. It was in the news recently that it's actually been done now.

The thing is the the 2 things that computers do best is to perpetually repeat things.

& retrieve data from the limits of their own database, but without being able to form an opinion of their own.

The eventual answer to all this just HAS to be 42.

Genetic Distances 2




DNA and RNA. Comparisons can be made between the genetic material of different organisms. The list of organisms that have had all their genes sequenced and entered in databases, such as “GenBank, is doubling each year. Computer comparisons of each gene with all other genes in the database show too many unrelated genes. (d). Therefore, an evolutionary relationship between genes is highly unlikely. Furthermore, there is no trace at the molecular level for the traditional evolutionary series: simple sea life, fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals (e). Each category of organism appears to be almost equally isolated (f).

(d). Gregory J. Brewer, “The Imminent Death of Darwinism and the Rise of Intelligent Design, ICR Impact, No. 341, November 2001, pp. 1–4.

Field, pp. 748–753.

(e). Denton, p. 285.

(f). “The really significant finding that comes to light from comparing the proteins’ amino acid sequences is that it is impossible to arrange them in any sort of evolutionary series. Ibid. p. 289.

“Thousands of different sequences, protein and nucleic acid, have now been compared in hundreds of different species but never has any sequence been found to be in any sense the lineal descendant or ancestor of any other sequence. Ibid. pp. 289–290.

“Each class at a molecular level is unique, isolated and unlinked by intermediates. Thus molecules, like fossils, have failed to provide the elusive intermediates so long sought by evolutionary biology. Ibid. p. 290.

“There is little doubt that if this molecular evidence had been available one century ago it would have been seized upon with devastating effect by the opponents of evolution theory like Agassiz and Owen, and the idea of organic evolution might never have been accepted. Ibid. pp. 290–291.

“In terms of their biochemistry, none of the species deemed ‘intermediate’, ‘ancestral’ or ‘primitive’ by generations of evolutionary biologists, and alluded to as evidence of sequence in nature, show any sign of their supposed intermediate status. Ibid., p. 293.

[From “In the Beginning by Walt Brown]

As usual, a mere copying & pasting from fanatic looneytune Religious sites. Nothing original there.

Come on - you must be capable of coming up with SOMETHING original NOT from biased Religious non-sources who claim to be 'Scientists'.

The whole point of Science is to question everything & seek truth & evidence to support it one way or the other. The whole point of 'Religious Science' (which is a contradiction in terms) is to ignore everything they don't want to believe in & flatly deny the existence of hard evidence.

All 'evidence' obtained from such sources simply prove that you are merely grabbing at straws in a desperate attempt to escape the truth of reality. The religious calim that because Science cannot disprove the existence of a God by default proves His existence holds no water whatsoever. In the same way, Science has not been able to disprove the existence of fairies at the bottom of the garden. Can you? No, you can't. Therefore I claim that because you can't disprove it, that there ARE fairies at the bottom of my garden.

Incidentally, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes & Father of modern day Forensic Science was also convinced in fairies at the bottom of his garden.

The Coming of the Fairies, by Arthur Conan Doyle Index

FourPart;1459542 wrote: As usual, a mere copying & pasting from fanatic looneytune Religious sites. Nothing original there.


I only really tried once to engage in debate on this thread, when I was going to start into the problem of junk DNA, by introducing the problem of explaining endogenous retroviral gene codes, that are spliced in to human and all animal genomes...and most important how comparisons of similar ERV codes match up with the predicted branchings off into different and distinct species. Of all of the Junk DNA problems for creationism, explaining ERV's is the one they are most likely to dodge and try to change topics.

recovering conservative;1459548 wrote: I only really tried once to engage in debate on this thread, when I was going to start into the problem of junk DNA, by introducing the problem of explaining endogenous retroviral gene codes, that are spliced in to human and all animal genomes...and most important how comparisons of similar ERV codes match up with the predicted branchings off into different and distinct species. Of all of the Junk DNA problems for creationism, explaining ERV's is the one they are most likely to dodge and try to change topics.
No, they won't dodge them - they'll just deny they exist & insist it is wrongly interpreted evidence.

FourPart;1459586 wrote: No, they won't dodge them - they'll just deny they exist & insist it is wrongly interpreted evidence.


I figured that, and that of course is why this sort of thread string is a waste of time to look at. I have come across a few creationists, back when I was actually motivated for these kinds of debates, who do engage in debate and try to convince others they have the evidence on their side. Pahu seems to be one of the typical fundamentalist acolytes, who broadcast/not discuss their points, and expect that somehow these great revelations from answersingenesis will convince others!

When I first got into forum discussions (at a now defunct political discussion forum), the toughest creationist was a retired aerospace engineer....and what honestly could be a more formidable creationist - someone smart enough to have worked in an advanced field of engineering, with lots of time on his hands! He is now deceased, and used the screen name "Reasoned Faith" during his time...a clear tipoff that he was a big fan of William Lane Craig also! It could be frustrating and infuriating at times trying to deal with him, because, although he was a young-earth creationist, he was smart enough not to advance arguments from that YEC perspective. Instead, he would post numerous threads arguing from "intelligent design" theory - getting deep into the weeds on "information theory's" - advanced systems of mathematics that are created to try to explain the workings of complex systems.

This was an area of study that was obviously in the wheelhouse of a retired engineer; and not something that someone with a high school education could develop a good level of understanding on. And that's why the main sham artists designing their own information theories (the Discovery Institute) rely heavily on creating their own mathematical systems to "prove" irreducible complexities in nature. To the outsider, it's all gibberish; which is why a handful of math bloggers online (Mark Chu-Carroll of Good Math/Bad Math was one who even took the time to answer some questions I had on the subject) got into the creation debates with Discovery because of their misuse of mathematics that was beyond the level of understanding of average people.

What I noticed after awhile, was that the advanced, highly technical creationists like Discovery and my old friend - R.F...who aside from creationist blather seemed to be a nice guy....was that they never, ever, show any interest in educating their audience about the fine points of their "evidence." This was a sore point I had with RF - why are you just using this math to claim irreducible complexities in your posts? Why aren't you willing to teach anything about the information theory created by Discovery, and how it works? All he would say was "you have to buy the books and learn about information theory yourself." which was obviously ridiculous, because how many average, middle age people have the time or the ability to learn it? If I was capable of being a mathematician, I already would have been an engineer myself!

So, when the I.D./creationist sites are compared with real science education sites like "the Panda's Thumb", "Talkorigins" or the Berkely University online education site, I find the exact opposite approach. They are willing to show the reader what goes into the cake, and subjects like how fossil evidence is read and compared with genetic and genomic evidence, plus how geologic evidence applies with dating rock layers and how they are formed etc. - all of these topics and issues are carefully laid out for the public to learn at whatever level they are capable/or have the time for. They could just barrage the reader with tons of complex math, but their method is to educate/not to overwhelm the reader, like the creationists do over and over again!

Old Reasoned Faith comes to mind whenever I come across science articles of late on how intelligence and knowledge makes conservatives more difficult to convince of new evidence, rather than easier to convince. Someone who is liberal and openminded to new ideas, will weigh the evidence and accept or reject the new findings dispassionately, while the conservative will use his intellect and acquired knowledge to work even harder to build on to an already implausible set of beliefs.

recovering conservative;1459609 wrote: Old Reasoned Faith comes to mind whenever I come across science articles of late on how intelligence and knowledge makes conservatives more difficult to convince of new evidence, rather than easier to convince. Someone who is liberal and openminded to new ideas, will weigh the evidence and accept or reject the new findings dispassionately, while the conservative will use his intellect and acquired knowledge to work even harder to build on to an already implausible set of beliefs.
Which is the difference between Blind Faith & Absolute Science. Science questions theories & works to prove or disprove them, one way or the other, with no preconceptions. Blind Faith refuses to acknowledge factual evidence & when it gets too overwhelming they make claims that the evidence has been faked or misinterpreted.

According to the ages of generations, the Heavens, Earth and Adam & Eve were created less than 6000 years BC, yet it is common knowledge that in order to in order for organic life to fossilise take Millions of years. Some of the extremist Creationists will even claim that there is no such thing as fossilisation, which they cruise their way in their massive 2 miles to the gallon limos. Just what do they think the fuel is?

FourPart;1459630 wrote: Blind Faith refuses to acknowledge factual evidence & when it gets too overwhelming they make claims that the evidence has been faked or misinterpreted.


A perfect description of evolution.

According to the ages of generations, the Heavens, Earth and Adam & Eve were created less than 6000 years BC, yet it is common knowledge that in order to in order for organic life to fossilise take Millions of years.


That "common knowledge" is wrong. Fossilization has been observed to occur in less than an year:

Fossils rarely form today, because dead plants and animals decay before they are buried in enough sediments to preserve their shapes. We certainly do not observe fossils forming in layered strata that can be traced over thousands of square miles. How, then, did so many fossils form? Animals and plants were trapped and buried in sediments that were quickly cemented to form the fossil record. Fossils of sea life are found on every major mountain range.

Rapid Burial

Fossils all over the world show evidence of rapid burial. Many fossils, such as fossilized jellyfish,a show by the details of their soft, fleshy portionsb that they were buried rapidly, before they could decay. (Normally, dead animals and plants quickly decompose.) The presence of fossilized remains of many other animals, buried in mass graves and lying in twisted and contorted positions, suggests violent and rapid burials over large areas. These observations, plus the occurrence of compressed fossils and fossils that cut across two or more layers of sedimentary rock, are strong evidence that the sediments encasing these fossils were deposited rapidly—not over hundreds of millions of years. Furthermore, almost all sediments that formed today’s rocks were sorted by water. The worldwide fossil record is, therefore, evidence of rapid death and burial of animal and plant life by a worldwide, catastrophic flood. The fossil record is not evidence of slow change.



Figure 7: Fossil of Fish Swallowing Fish. Burial and fossilization must have been quite rapid to have preserved a fish in the act of swallowing another fish. Thousands of such fossils have been found.



Figure 8: Fish in Long Fish. In the belly of the above 14-foot-long fish is a smaller fish, presumably the big fish’s breakfast. Because digestion is rapid, fossilization must have been even more so.



Figure 9: Fish in Curved Fish. The curved back shows that this fish died under stress.



Figure 10: Dragonfly Wing. This delicate, 1 1/2-foot-long wing must have been buried rapidly and evenly to preserve its details. Imagine the size of the entire dragonfly!

In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood - 21. Rapid Burial

FourPart;1459630 wrote: Which is the difference between Blind Faith & Absolute Science. Science questions theories & works to prove or disprove them, one way or the other, with no preconceptions.
I would qualify that as 'the scientific method' rather than 'science,' since scientific theories and research can be tampered with for all sorts of purposes. The confidence we have that scientific research is accurate and reliable, is being severely tested in recent times as more and more science research funding moves from government-sponsored to private corporate-sponsored sources. When drug companies "test" the safety and reliability of new drugs in the U.S., they are allowed to spike any and all tests that don't provide the results they want, and filter out the tests that lead to their pre-established goals...if that doesn't sound warning bells, I don't know what does!

The same thing happens with climate change research, as a small coterie of science mercenaries working out of the military and corporate-sponsored Huntsville campus of the state university of Alabama, received generous funding to set up their own climate research unit to create contrarian research to the established consensus views of climatologists around the world.

When it comes to the teaching of evolution - there is money in being an accredited scientist willing to spout off creationist nonsense (Discovery Institute), but it pales in comparison to what energy corporations are willing to pay to finance a broad disinformation campaign to support complacency and denial among the public!

When it comes to the issue of faith vs. science; as much as creationists try to deny it, they betray their own lack of faith in their ideologies every single time they get excited about changes in thinking of some evolutionary theorists - especially regarding highly technical and still poorly understood areas like genes and genomic research. If they had faith/they wouldn't be so invested in trying to discredit and disprove science!

Most religious adherents want to keep a foot in both worlds (which I suppose is a good thing). They don't want to be totally reliant on their faith...they want to see something they can claim gives them reasons to believe in God, or justifies their particular religious creed. But, those sensible people, who want to believe that we live in a universe that has a cause...and has a role for the individual to play in the grand scheme of things, would rather find workaround strategies to incorporate strong scientific evidence with their religious beliefs, than to have to live as completely ignorant and hostile to the realm of new discovery. Well, we all know people who are so simple and stupid that they could care less, and have no curiosity about anything outside of their own immediate wants and needs, but that sure as hell isn't a trend that should be encouraged! Which is why...as tolerant as I am about a lot of strange and bizarre metaphysical beliefs that float around, I draw a sharp line where it comes to the deliberate promotion of ignorance and stupidity!

Pahu;1459687 wrote:

That "common knowledge" is wrong. Fossilization has been observed to occur in less than an year:

Fossils rarely form today, because dead plants and animals decay before they are buried in enough sediments to preserve their shapes. We certainly do not observe fossils forming in layered strata that can be traced over thousands of square miles. How, then, did so many fossils form? Animals and plants were trapped and buried in sediments that were quickly cemented to form the fossil record. Fossils of sea life are found on every major mountain range.

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Agreed, there are different methods of fossilisation (such as, for instance, those at Pompeii), the majority is formed by sedimentation over millions of years.

The reason that fossilisation occurs rather than decay is simply down to the presence of oxygen and/or water (e.g. Dessication is also a form of fossilisation, as with the Egyptian Mummies etc). If the remains of organisms become sealed in an oxygen free environment, then the bacteria that would otherwise cause them to decay cannot survive either.

Agreed, there is the case of Rapid Burial, but this changes nothing of the process. When there is a rift in the ocean floor, as with an earthquake / seaquake(?), the sea bed falls & is immediately sealed by other debris. This may also happen through other geological events, such as volcanic activity suddenly releasing massive amounts of heat, instantly frying / boiling the life forms into an oxygen free environment. Once again the fossilisation process begins.

As for marine fossils having been found on the tops of mountains. Absolutely agreed. In fact this is PROOF of it taking millions of years. If you look into how mountains are formed, they are not caused by erosion, as you may initially think, but they are constantly growing, caused by the continual geological motion of the earth around it. Take a sheet of paper & push the opposite ends together. The centre point of the paper will rise. If you push the diagonal corners in a parallel manner, a different form of 'mountain' will arise. The paper is, of course, the earth as the plates continue to move.

This is not just some wild theory, as mountains have been measured precisely, using laser technology & have been recorded as growing by about a centimeter or 2 every year. Not much, maybe, but over a few million years....

Bearing this in mind, it makes perfect sense for there to be marine fossils at the top of the mountains. How could there not be? They were, after all, once part of the ocean floor.

On these points we are basically in agreement on the facts. The difference is that I follow the explanation of demonstrable evidence. You continue to accredit it to some superstition that has no credibility whatsoever.

Furthermore, you continue to cite the raving of all the other Religious Whackos as your supposed evidence. This is total non-evidence as it is based on uninformed opinion & is, therefore, totally inadmissible & should be treated with the contempt it deserves.

recovering conservative;1459697 wrote:

When it comes to the teaching of evolution - there is money in being an accredited scientist willing to spout off creationist nonsense (Discovery Institute).

When it comes to the issue of faith vs. science; as much as creationists try to deny it, they betray their own lack of faith in their ideologies every single time they get excited about changes in thinking of some evolutionary theorists - especially regarding highly technical and still poorly understood areas like genes and genomic research. If they had faith/they wouldn't be so invested in trying to discredit and disprove science!


Evolution: The Anti-science

Some evolutionists have argued that science isn’t possible without evolution. They teach that science and technology actually require the principles of molecules-to-man evolution in order to work. They claim that those who hold to a biblical creation worldview are in danger of not being able to understand science! 1, 2, 3

Critical thinkers will realize that these kinds of arguments are quite ironic because evolution is actually contrary to the principles of science. That is, if evolution were true, the concept of science would not make sense. Science actually requires a biblical creation framework in order to be possible. Here’s why:

The Preconditions of Science

Science presupposes that the universe is logical and orderly and that it obeys mathematical laws that are consistent over time and space. Even though conditions in different regions of space and eras of time are quite diverse, there is nonetheless an underlying uniformity.4

Because there is such regularity in the universe, there are many instances where scientists are able to make successful predictions about the future. For example, astronomers can successfully compute the positions of the planets, moons, and asteroids far into the future. Without uniformity in nature, such predictions would be impossible, and science could not exist. The problem for evolutionism is that such regularity only makes sense in a biblical creation worldview.

Science Requires a Biblical Worldview

The biblical creationist expects there to be order in the universe because God made all things (John 1:3) and has imposed order on the universe. Since the Bible teaches that God upholds all things by His power (Hebrews 1:3), the creationist expects that the universe would function in a logical, orderly, law-like fashion.5 Furthermore, God is consistent6 and omnipresent.7 Thus, the creationist expects that all regions of the universe will obey the same laws, even in regions where the physical conditions are quite different. The entire field of astronomy requires this important biblical principle.

Moreover, God is beyond time (2 Peter 3:8) and has chosen to uphold the universe in a consistent fashion throughout time for our benefit. So, even though conditions in the past may be quite different than those in the present and future, the way God upholds the universe (what we would call the “laws of nature) will not arbitrarily change.8 God has told us that there are certain things we can count on to be true in the future—the seasons, the diurnal cycle, and so on (Genesis 8:22). Therefore, under a given set of conditions, the consistent Christian has the right to expect a given outcome because he or she relies upon the Lord to uphold the universe in a consistent way.

These Christian principles are absolutely essential to science. When we perform a controlled experiment using the same preset starting conditions, we expect to get the same result every time. The “future reflects the past in this sense. Scientists are able to make predictions only because there is uniformity as a result of God’s sovereign and consistent power. Scientific experimentation would be pointless without uniformity; we would get a different result every time we performed an identical experiment, destroying the very possibility of scientific knowledge.

Can an Evolutionist Do Science?

Since science requires the biblical principle of uniformity (as well as a number of other biblical creation principles), it is rather amazing that one could be a scientist and also an evolutionist. And yet, there are scientists that profess to believe in evolution. How is this possible?

The answer is that evolutionists are able to do science only because they are inconsistent. They accept biblical principles such as uniformity, while simultaneously denying the Bible from which those principles are derived. Such inconsistency is common in secular thinking; secular scientists claim that the universe is not designed, but they do science as if the universe is designed and upheld by God in a uniform way. Evolutionists can do science only if they rely on biblical creation assumptions (such as uniformity) that are contrary to their professed belief in evolution.9

How Would an Evolutionist Respond?

The consistent Christian can use past experience as a guide for what is likely to happen in the future because God has promised us that (in certain ways) the future will reflect the past (Genesis 8:22). But how can those who reject Genesis explain why there should be uniformity of nature? How might an evolutionist respond if asked, “Why will the future reflect the past?

One of the most common responses is: “Well, it always has. So, I expect it always will. But this is circular reasoning. I’ll grant that in the past there has been uniformity.10 But how do I know that in the future there will be uniformity—unless I already assumed that the future reflects the past (i.e. uniformity)? Whenever we use past experience as a basis for what is likely to happen in the future, we are assuming uniformity. So, when an evolutionist says that he believes there will be uniformity in the future since there has been uniformity in the past, he’s trying to justify uniformity by simply assuming uniformity—a circular argument.

An evolutionist might argue that the nature of matter is such that it behaves in a regular fashion;11 in other words, uniformity is just a property of the universe. This answer also fails. First, it doesn’t really answer the question. Perhaps uniformity is one aspect of the universe, but the question is why? What would be the basis for such a property in an evolutionary worldview? Second, we might ask how an evolutionist could possibly know that uniformity is a property of the universe. At best, he or she can only say that the universe—in the past—seems to have had some uniformity.12 But how do we know that will continue into the future unless we already knew about uniformity some other way? Many things in this universe change; how do we know that the laws of nature will not?

Some evolutionists might try a more pragmatic response: “Well, I can’t really explain why. But uniformity seems to work, so we use it. This answer also fails for two reasons. First, we can only argue that uniformity seems to have worked in the past; there’s no guarantee it will continue to work in the future unless you already have a reason to assume uniformity (which only the Christian does). Yet, evolutionists do assume that uniformity will be true in the future. Second, the answer admits that uniformity is without justification in the evolutionary worldview—which is exactly the point. No one is denying that there is uniformity in nature; the point is that only a biblical creation worldview can make sense of it. Evolutionists can only do science if they are inconsistent: that is, if they assume biblical creationist concepts while denying biblical creation.

[continue]

Evolution: The Anti-science

[continued]

Theistic Evolution Won’t Save the Day



Some evolutionists might argue that they can account for uniformity just as the Christian does—by appealing to a god who upholds the universe in a law-like fashion.13 But rather than believing in Genesis creation, they believe that this god created over millions of years of evolution. However, theistic evolution will not resolve the problem. A theistic evolutionist does not believe that Genesis is literally true. But if Genesis is not literally true, then there is no reason to believe that Genesis 8:22 is literally true. This verse is where God promises that we can count on a certain degree of uniformity in the future. Without biblical creation, the rational basis for uniformity is lost.

It’s not just any god that is required in order to make sense of uniformity; it is the Christian God as revealed in the Bible. Only a God who is beyond time, consistent, faithful, all powerful, omnipresent, and who has revealed Himself to mankind can guarantee that there will be uniformity throughout space and time. Therefore, only biblical creationists can account for the uniformity in nature.

Evolution Is Irrational

In fact, if evolution were true, there wouldn’t be any rational reason to believe it! If life is the result of evolution, then it means that an evolutionist’s brain is simply the outworking of millions of years of random-chance processes. The brain would simply be a collection of chemical reactions that have been preserved because they had some sort of survival value in the past. If evolution were true, then all the evolutionist’s thoughts are merely the necessary result of chemistry acting over time. Therefore, an evolutionist must think and say that “evolution is true not for rational reasons, but as a necessary consequence of blind chemistry.

Scholarly analysis presupposes that the human mind is not just chemistry. Rationality presupposes that we have the freedom to consciously consider the various options and choose the best. Evolutionism undermines the preconditions necessary for rational thought, thereby destroying the very possibility of knowledge and science.

Conclusions

Evolution is anti-science and anti-knowledge. If evolution were true, science would not be possible because there would be no reason to accept the uniformity of nature upon which all science and technology depend. Nor would there be any reason to think that rational analysis would be possible since the thoughts of our mind would be nothing more than the inevitable result of mindless chemical reactions. Evolutionists are able to do science and gain knowledge only because they are inconsistent; professing to believe in evolution, while accepting the principles of biblical creation.

Footnotes

Theodosius Dobzhansky wrote, “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution. This was also the title of his 1973 essay first published in the American Biology Teacher, Vol. 35, p. 125–129. Back

The National Academy of Sciences issued a book called Science, Evolution, and Creationism which stated that evolution is a “critical foundation of the biomedical and life sciences . . . and that evolutionary concepts “are fundamental to a high-quality science education. (See The Creation/Evolution Battle Resumes.) Back

The National Academy of Sciences also published a document called “Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science (1998) with a similar theme. In the preface (p. viii) the authors indicate that biological evolution is “the most important concept in modern biology, a concept essential to understanding key aspects of living things. They chose to publish the document in part “because of the importance of evolution as a central concept in understanding our planet. Back

Uniformity should not be confused with “uniformitarianism. Uniformity simply insists that the laws of nature are consistent and do not arbitrarily change with time or space, though specific conditions and processes may change. Uniformitarianism is the (unbiblical) belief that present processes are the same as past processes; it asserts a consistency of conditions and rates over time and is summed up in the phrase, “The present is the key to the past. Back

The “ordinances of heaven and earth are specifically mentioned in Jeremiah 33:25. Back

1 Samuel 15:29; Numbers 23:19 Back

Psalm 139:7–8 Back

Granted, God can use unusual and extraordinary means on occasion to accomplish an extraordinary purpose—what we might call a “miracle. But these are (by definition) exceptional; natural law could be defined as the ordinary way that God upholds the universe and accomplishes His will. Back

Why would someone who professes to believe in evolution also accept creation-based concepts? Although they may deny it, evolutionists are also made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26–27). In their heart-of-hearts, they know the biblical God (Romans 1:19–20), but they have deceived themselves (James 1:22–24). They have forgotten that the principles of science come from the Christian worldview. Back

In granting this assumption, I’m actually being very generous to the evolutionist. I could have been very thorough and asked, “How do we really know that even in the past nature has been uniform? One might argue that we remember that the past was uniform. But since the memory portions of our brain require that the laws of chemistry and physics are constant over time, you would have to assume that the past is uniform in order to argue that we correctly remember that the past is uniform! Any non-Christian response would be necessarily circular. Back

The atheist Dr. Gordon Stein used essentially this response in the famous 1985 debate with Christian philosopher Dr. Greg Bahnsen on the existence of God. Back

Again, I’m being generous here. Even this response is begging the question, since the evolutionist would have to assume uniformity in the past in order to argue that his memories of the past are accurate. Back

A “day-age creationist might also try to use this argument. But it also fails for the same reason. Day-age creationists do not believe that Genesis really means what it says (that God literally created in six ordinary days). So, how could we trust that Genesis 8:22 really means what it says? And if Genesis 8:22 does not mean what it says, then there is no reason to believe in uniformity. Therefore, the day-age creationist has the same problem as the evolutionist. Neither can account for science and technology within his own worldview. Back

http://www.answersingenesis.org/article ... ti-science

FourPart;1459700 wrote: Agreed, there are different methods of fossilisation (such as, for instance, those at Pompeii), the majority is formed by sedimentation over millions of years.


Most of the fossils were formed during the Flood about 4000 years ago. None were formed before that time.

As for marine fossils having been found on the tops of mountains. Absolutely agreed. In fact this is PROOF of it taking millions of years.


The mountain ranges were formed during and after the Flood in a matter of weeks.

Many of the Earth’s Previously Unexplained Features Can Be Explained by a Cataclysmic Flood.

The origin of each of the following is a subject of controversy within the earth sciences. Each has many aspects inconsistent with standard explanations. Yet, all appear to be consequences of a sudden and unrepeatable event—a cataclysmic flood whose waters erupted from interconnected, worldwide subterranean chambers with an energy release exceeding the explosion of 1,800 trillion hydrogen bombs. Consequences of this event included the rapid formation of the features listed below. The mechanisms involved are well understood.

102. The Grand Canyon and Other Canyons

103. Mid-Oceanic Ridge

104. Earth’s Major Components

105. Ocean Trenches, Earthquakes, and the Ring of Fire

106. Magnetic Variations on the Ocean Floor

107. Submarine Canyons

108. Coal and Oil

109. Methane Hydrates

110. Ice Age

111. Frozen Mammoths

112. Major Mountain Ranges

113. Overthrusts

114. Volcanoes and Lava

115. Geothermal Heat

116. Strata and Layered Fossils

117. Limestone

118. Metamorphic Rock

119. Plateaus

120. The Moho and Black Smokers

121. Salt Domes

122. Jigsaw Fit of the Continents

123. Changing Axis Tilt

124. Comets

125. Asteroids, Meteoroids, and Trans-Neptunian Objects

126. Earth’s Radioactivity

For details on the above, see pages 109–405.

In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood - Many of the Earth’s Previously Unexplained Features Can Be Explained by a Cataclysmic Flood.

Haven't you got it yet? Your sources lack any credibility at all as they are all extremely biased interpretations of a single book, based on thousands of years of word of mouth, folk tales, superstition & mistranslations. The Bible is not 'evidence' of anything other than how gullible some idiots can be. No wonder it refers to the faithful as sheep.

To claim that all evolution is reliant on Man is not only the peak of arrogance, it's laughable, as we are the product of evolution ourselves.

Newton had difficulty in proving the existence of Gravity. While he tried to explain how it was related to mass, the Christian 'Scientists' claimed that something would fall because God decreed it so.

When you can come up with some demonstrable evidence from somewhere OTHER than religious based sources, then you are simply continuing to prove the case against your claim.

Darwin made scientific history with his "The Origin Of Species". It was a ground breaking piece of observation which, on the whole is still accepted as being correct. Yes, there have been sections which have been shown to have been misinterpretations, but that is the nature of science - to leave an open mind. If this wasn't the case, then there wouldn't have been any further investigation, as everything in his book would have been taken as Absolute. For all his brilliance, Darwin was still human & therefore still subject to error - as were those who wrote the Bible. The difference is that Science ACCEPTS the errors , and strives to amend them. Religion does not.

FourPart;1459811 wrote: Haven't you got it yet? Your sources lack any credibility at all as they are all extremely biased interpretations of a single book, based on thousands of years of word of mouth, folk tales, superstition & mistranslations. The Bible is not 'evidence' of anything other than how gullible some idiots can be. No wonder it refers to the faithful as sheep.


Bible Accuracy

1. Archaeology confirms the historical accuracy of the Bible:

The Rocks Cry Out

In what ways have the discoveries of archaeology verified the reliability of the Bible? • ChristianAnswers.Net

Archaeology and the Bible Archaeology and the Bible • ChristianAnswers.Net

2. The Bible is not a science book, yet is scientifically accurate:

Scientific Facts in The Bible

Science Confirms the Bible - RationalWiki

SCIENTIFIC PROOF OF THE BIBLE

Eternal Productions - 101 Scientific Facts and Foreknowledge

Science and the Bible

3. The Bible is filled with hundreds of accurately fulfilled prophecies:

100prophecies.org

101 End Times Bible Prophecy

About Bible Prophecy

Bible Prophecies Fulfilled

Reasons To Believe : Fulfilled Prophecy: Evidence for the Reliability of the Bible

Bible Prophecy

No other book, religious or secular, comes close to those requirements.

To claim that all evolution is reliant on Man is not only the peak of arrogance, it's laughable, as we are the product of evolution ourselves.


Since science has disproved evolution, that statement is false.

When you can come up with some demonstrable evidence from somewhere OTHER than religious based sources, then you are simply continuing to prove the case against your claim.


Truth is true regardless of the source.

FourPart;1459811 wrote:

Darwin made scientific history with his "The Origin Of Species". It was a ground breaking piece of observation which, on the whole is still accepted as being correct. Yes, there have been sections which have been shown to have been misinterpretations, but that is the nature of science - to leave an open mind. If this wasn't the case, then there wouldn't have been any further investigation, as everything in his book would have been taken as Absolute. For all his brilliance, Darwin was still human & therefore still subject to error - as were those who wrote the Bible. The difference is that Science ACCEPTS the errors , and strives to amend them. Religion does not.


Darwin’s Doubts

Asa Gray, a famous Harvard botany professor, who became a leading theistic evolutionist, wrote to Darwin expressing doubt that natural processes could explain the formation of complex organs, such as the eye. Darwin expressed a similar concern in his return letter of February 1860:

"The eye to this day gives me a cold shudder, but when I think of the fine known gradations [Darwin believed possible if millions of years of evolution were available], my reason tells me I ought to conquer the cold shudder." Charles Darwin, The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Vol. 2, editor Francis Darwin (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1899), pp. 66–67.

And yet, Darwin admitted that:

"To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree." Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, p. 175.

Darwin then speculated on how the eye might have evolved. However, no evidence was given. Later, he explained how his theory could be falsified:

"If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down." Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, p. 179.

[continue]

Darwin’s Doubts

[continued]

“When we descend to details, we cannot prove that a single species has changed; nor can we prove that the supposed changes are beneficial, which is the groundwork of the theory [of evolution]. Charles Darwin, The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Vol. 1, p. 210.

“But, as by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them imbedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth? Darwin, The Origin of Species, p. 163.

“... the number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed [must] truly be enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely-graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory [of evolution]. Ibid., p. 323.

Darwin then explained that he thought that these gaps existed because of the “imperfection of the geologic record. Early Darwinians expected the gaps would be filled as fossil exploration continued. Most paleontologists now agree that this expectation has not been fulfilled.

“There is another and allied difficulty, which is much more serious. I allude to the manner in which species belonging to several of the main divisions of the animal kingdom suddenly appear in the lowest known fossiliferous rocks. Darwin, The Origin of Species, p. 348.

[continue]

Darwin’s Doubts

[continued]

“The abrupt manner in which whole groups of species suddenly appear in certain formations, has been urged by several palaeontologists—for instance, by Agassiz, Pictet, and Sedgwick—as a fatal objection to the belief in the transmutation of species. If numerous species, belonging to the same genera or families, have really started into life at once, the fact would be fatal to the theory of evolution through natural selection. Ibid., p. 344.

“To the question why we do not find rich fossiliferous deposits belonging to these assumed earliest periods prior to the Cambrian system, I can give no satisfactory answer. Ibid., p. 350.

[continue]

Darwin’s Doubts

[continued]

“The case at present must remain inexplicable, and may be truly urged as a valid argument against the views here entertained. Ibid., p. 351.

“But then arises the doubt, can the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe, been developed from a mind as low as that possessed by the lowest animals, be trusted when it draws such grand conclusions? I cannot pretend to throw the least light on such abstruse problems. Charles Darwin, The Life and Letters, Vol. 1, p. 313.

The first set of quotes can be disregarded because, as I have previously stated, they come an extremely biased source, lacking in any credibility.

The quotes from Darwin's journal, if anything, add to his credibility as a scientist. He has observed this amazingly new concept, which totally goes against thousands of years of dogmatic brainwashing & still finds the whole thing difficult to grasp.

He asks why fossilised evidence is not to be found beneath the earth's crust - well it is. Oil, for instance is made up of fossilised remains far below the earth's crust.

As a scientist, rather than making up fairy tales to fill in the gaps, he is honest about his own ignorance & admits to not knowing the answers. No-one could expect otherwise. You can't go from the initial realisation of a situation to a state of all-seeing, all-knowing overnight. The learning process takes 100s of years & is only attained by questioning the validity of previously held beliefs which have no foundation, other than word of mouth.

"To be wise, a person has to understand that there is more to be known than any one man can ever grasp. Knowing that you are ignorant is the first step to wisdom" (Socrates ?)

If there were a God who had created Man with the ability to think & to learn, then to adhere to the Bible as the be all & end all of all truth & wisdom would be an insult to that God & a denial to use the gifts He had given.

FourPart;1459912 wrote:

He asks why fossilised evidence is not to be found beneath the earth's crust - well it is. Oil, for instance is made up of fossilised remains far below the earth's crust.


He is talking about the missing transitional fossils, which are yet to be found.

If there were a God who had created Man with the ability to think & to learn, then to adhere to the Bible as the be all & end all of all truth & wisdom would be an insult to that God & a denial to use the gifts He had given.


Bible Accuracy

1. Archaeology confirms the historical accuracy of the Bible:

The Rocks Cry Out

In what ways have the discoveries of archaeology verified the reliability of the Bible? • ChristianAnswers.Net

Archaeology and the Bible Archaeology and the Bible • ChristianAnswers.Net

2. The Bible is not a science book, yet is scientifically accurate:

Scientific Facts in The Bible

Science Confirms the Bible - RationalWiki

SCIENTIFIC PROOF OF THE BIBLE

Eternal Productions - 101 Scientific Facts and Foreknowledge

Science and the Bible

3. The Bible is filled with hundreds of accurately fulfilled prophecies:

100prophecies.org

101 End Times Bible Prophecy

About Bible Prophecy

Bible Prophecies Fulfilled

Reasons To Believe : Fulfilled Prophecy: Evidence for the Reliability of the Bible

Bible Prophecy

No other book, religious or secular, comes close to those requirements.

Repeating yourself does not make what you say any more true.

And the Bible does not deny the possibility of Evolution.

He is talking about the missing transitional fossils, which are yet to be found.
YET, being the operative word. Even now we are still finding new fossil species. For example, only a couple of months ago an entirely new one was found, said to be the biggest ever, by far (BBC News - 'Biggest dinosaur ever' discovered), You might ask, how come something this big previously went undiscovered, considering the time that Dinosaurs roamed the earth. Mammals have only existed on this planet for a fraction of that time, and Mankind as a tiny fraction of that - although, if you go by the 'accuracy' of the Bible, either the Dinosaurs never existed (as Adam & Eve came first), or they have always existed at the same time as Man, yet there is no mention of them in the Bible. So are we to believe, by your logic, that these massive beasts who we have undeniable evidence of, never existed?

The point is, if something that big, from that great a timespan has previously gone undiscovered, is it really any surprise that expected results from a microscopic timespan have YET to be found. Not only is the timespan that they will be found from so microscopic, but the timespan that we've been looking for them is even moreso. It is almost a certainty that there is life to be found on other worlds - even intelligent life, but just because we have not yet discovered it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Someone places a golden needle randomly somewhere on earth (or sea) & you are given the task to find it. Does the fact that you haven't found it mean that it doesn't exist?

As for Biblical Prophecies - ALL Prophecies are absolute hooey & have no more relevance than the Horoscopes found in any cheap tabloid. They work from the information being vague, at best, and then 'interpretting' them to suit the purpose. Practically ever (non) event can be taken & spun to make it appear that it is the outcome of a Biblical Prophecy - although are you also one of those who faithfully believe in the readings of 'Madame Zara' in "The Daily Bollocks" as well? What about all these cults who have performed mass suicides based on the "Certainty Of The 2nd Coming", when everything is said to be consumed in the Great Rapture. They believed that the Prophecies had foretold all this to the precise moment - but, surprise, surprise, nothing happened. I wonder why...

LarsMac;1459959 wrote: Repeating yourself does not make what you say any more true.

And the Bible does not deny the possibility of Evolution.


Where does the Bible suggest that possibility?

FourPart;1459961 wrote: YET, being the operative word. Even now we are still finding new fossil species. For example, only a couple of months ago an entirely new one was found, said to be the biggest ever, by far (BBC News - 'Biggest dinosaur ever' discovered), You might ask, how come something this big previously went undiscovered, considering the time that Dinosaurs roamed the earth. Mammals have only existed on this planet for a fraction of that time, and Mankind as a tiny fraction of that - although, if you go by the 'accuracy' of the Bible, either the Dinosaurs never existed (as Adam & Eve came first), or they have always existed at the same time as Man, yet there is no mention of them in the Bible. So are we to believe, by your logic, that these massive beasts who we have undeniable evidence of, never existed?


You will find evidence that man and dinosaurs lived together here: Welcome to 6000years.org | Amazing Bible Discoveries | Proof the Bible is True

As for Biblical Prophecies - ALL Prophecies are absolute hooey & have no more relevance than the Horoscopes found in any cheap tabloid.


That is a false assertion probably based on your own false preconcepions rather than actually examining the hundreds of accurately fulfilled Bible prophecies.

Long time waiting, but here we go again for another ride!

Pahu;1459808 wrote: Evolution: The Anti-science

Some evolutionists have argued that science isn’t possible without evolution.
Yeah, good thing it's just a "few" scientists...right?

Don't think nobody notices how creationists use frame-shifting rhetoric to try to set the tone at an emotional level for their audience.

They teach that science and technology actually require the principles of molecules-to-man evolution in order to work.
And like global warming denial, American Exceptionalism, Christian Founding Fathers, individual constitutional right to bear arms, pure capitalism is a meritocracy....and so many other right wing myths that are recycled constantly and ineffectively dealt with by corporate and liberal media, a fake debate is set up first by misrepresenting the other side's positions on the issue!

The creationist argument is a case in point, because here you begin where every other creationist starts - a false representation of evolutionary theory beginning with abiogenesis (the study of how life begins....or may have begun).

A legitimate critique of the Modern Synthesis that is generally agreed upon by the vast consensus of scientists who are in one field of life sciences, would start at the long period when Earth was a microbial world (over 2 billion years) with archaea...branching off into more complex procaryote and eukaryote bacteria...which after a very long time, lead to more complex and less resilient multicellular organisms, after temperatures and oxygen levels had stabilized into a world that could support complex life.

I've read a few things about work done by researchers in abiogenesis of life; and what's most notable is first - how poorly funded and small this research is...much of it appears to be tenured chemists and biologists working on their own time...even paying for some of the equipment and lab time they need to conduct their research. It has only become of interest to corporate sponsors in recent years, when they saw profit opportunities in "creating" new living organisms...which should send a chill down everyone's spine....moving on....

Creationists obviously focus on the rise of the first self-replicating, self-contained bacteria as an irreducible complexity that violates evolutionary theory....and as already noted, it has NOTHING to do with biological evolution! Researchers are divided on what the conditions were like in the very early Hadean Era of Earth - except that the geologic evidence here and on the Moon, indicates that it was a time of near constant bombardment from all of the junk that was still coalescing in orbits of our solar system.

So, the surface would have taken much longer to cool because of the heat released from heavy impacts. This leads some to believe that life began underground first, rather than in organic "soup"-like lakes rich in organic molecules needed to form amino acid chains, imagined by other researchers.

Also, researchers specializing in viruses, note that the paleologic evidence is that viruses have been with self-contained bacteria and later organisms right from the beginning...and may have played essential...though still unknown roles in swapping in and out proteins.

All we are sure of is that the first life began very early in Earth's history; because the oldest rock layers known on this planet - in the Western Australia Desert, contain microfossils of archaea that lived 3.7 billion years ago...likely not very long after the Earth's surface was cool enough to allow water to exist in liquid form and land masses to cool down. Like I said before, from the fossil record, making the first life (which may have destroyed competitors with different protein chains) was relatively easy; while the next stage in development of life took billions of years to get started...the development of soft-shelled and then hard-shelled complex life forms. But, that's not where most creationists go looking for their divine hand to begin working.

They claim that those who hold to a biblical creation worldview are in danger of not being able to understand science! 1, 2, 3
And "they" are right! If religious beliefs are used as a rigid yardstick for scientific and historical facts, then all forms of science and historical research have to be tossed out the window by the believer! Worth noting that even the most rigid fundamentalists will budge an inch when absolutely necessary! Creationists are willing to interpret all of the 'flat earth' verses in the Bible implying that the Earth is a flat...either square or circular table with a vaulted heavenly ceiling (the firmament) above it, and a hot hell below... all as allegories. Yahweh holding the Sun still in the sky so that Joshua can complete a slaughter on a battlefield before sunset doesn't work so well in accepted laws of mechanics. The Devil taking Jesus up to a high mountain to tempt him by presenting all of the cities and kingdoms of the Earth...likewise can only be allegorical with a round planet earth...and we could go on, but at some point centuries ago, Church authorities threw in the towel and got out of the cosmology business. And they were not challenging evolutionary theory either! Not until the so called Scopes Monkey Trial did the religious authorities rear up on their hind legs and revolt against the overwhelming scientific case presented to them in the fossil record. The Church of England opposed Darwin and the teaching of evolution only up to the point where they lost the scientific case and gave up. But, with Scopes and later generations of phony science created to support a 6000 year old universe and individual creations of life, did we end up with animatronic displays of cavemen riding dinosaurs!



Critical thinkers will realize that these kinds of arguments are quite ironic because evolution is actually contrary to the principles of science.
Unsubstantiated claim!

That is, if evolution were true, the concept of science would not make sense. Science actually requires a biblical creation framework in order to be possible.
A collection of books written between 1700 and 2500 years ago have the "true" science. One would think that no other religion that existed or exists today, had ever tried to explain the world and the meaning of life to their people!

Here’s why:

The Preconditions of Science

Science presupposes that the universe is logical and orderly and that it obeys mathematical laws that are consistent over time and space. Even though conditions in different regions of space and eras of time are quite diverse, there is nonetheless an underlying uniformity.4
There are some voices in the realm of theoretical physics who are questioning the long-held belief that the forces are...or at least have been fixed since the beginning of our universe...so the Universe may not be as uniform as we imagine it! We do know that if it was perfectly symmetrical and expanding uniformly, we wouldn't be here to talk about it! Because there wouldn't have been the "imperfections" - uneven distributions of matter and energy that led to the formation of stars and galaxies etc.. The Universe Is Not Expanding Uniformly

Worth noting here that the only a few years back, there were creationists trying to advance a theory that the space-time constant (as measured by the speed of light) is declining or slowing down. It was advanced using some of the earliest...and no doubt less accurate measurements of light which showed it as much higher than 186,000 miles per second, in the past. And so, they used the two measurements showing a decline and applying them back 6000 years to get a 13.7 billion lightyear radius universe to fit there 6000 year rule. So, creationists are more than willing to toss any and all physical laws if they can find another way to get to their desired conclusions!

I just want to note that, for some reason, you did not bother to respond to my earlier post on ERV's (endogenous retroviruses), which I mentioned because one statistically improbable fact from comparing ERV's in related animal genomes (including humans), are the ERV's who's insertions match up with related animal species, and also line up with the expected results that had been accumulated from comparing fossil analysis of these groups.

Redundant pseudogenes in the genome - so called junk DNA, provide the most convincing evidence for evolution from common origins. A Christian who is a real scientist like Francis Collins, has stated many times that even if there were no fossil records, the evidence of common origins from genomic comparisons would still be overwhelming for any creationist theory to account for.

This simple graph containing some of the ERV insertions common among primates, shows a few of the ERV insertions that are carried in common in our family group:



The only complete articles I found on ERV's at the answersingenesis site was this article yammering on about possible benefits of human ERV's (HERV's). Nothing about those common insertion points in the genomes.

Pahu;1459979 wrote: Where does the Bible suggest that possibility?


I did not say that the Bible suggests anything. I said that the Bible does not deny the possibility.

People will see pictures in clouds. This does not mean they exist. People used to think the stars in the sky that made the constellations were actually the Gods & creatures they imagined the pictures to be. I guarantee you that I could take a snapshot of any cloud formation and draw lines around certain areas to make images of whatever I wanted to appear.

As for the picture of a Dinosaur footprint - that type of footprint also happens to be reminiscent of an Ostrich.

Needless to say, it was as I suspected - the denial of the existence of dinosaurs on the timescale established & accepted by 99.999% of the world's scientific communities - denied only by a few religious cranks who even the Government Conspiracy Theorists look down on as being unhinged.

I would totally agree, though, with the assertation that science would not be possible without evolution. This much is self evident as without evolution having progressed to the state of self awareness there would be no state of conscious thinking to understand the concept of evolution.

Of course, we are still evolving. The fact that most of us have evolved from the lower intelligence life forms that still deny the existence of true science to the primitive species known as Homo-Religicus-Ridiculous. However, as time progresses this is another species to be added to the extinct list.

By the way, your sig is a bit backwards.

I would offer the following rewrite:

Science is speculation based upon evidence.

LarsMac;1459995 wrote: I did not say that the Bible suggests anything. I said that the Bible does not deny the possibility [of evolution].


Actually it does. From the beginning and throughout the Bible we are told that God created everything and everyone. Doesn't that rule out evolution that teaches the source of everything is natural, mindless forces?

Pahu;1460004 wrote: Actually it does. From the beginning and throughout the Bible we are told that God created everything and everyone. Doesn't that rule out evolution that teaches the source of everything is natural, mindless forces?


No, it does not.

To start with Evolution does not teach.

As said before, "evolution" is simply a word for and observed phenomenon, which scientists have been working to explain for a few centuries.

Your attempts at demonizing the concept are illogical.

FourPart;1459996 wrote:

Needless to say, it was as I suspected - the denial of the existence of dinosaurs on the timescale established & accepted by 99.999% of the world's scientific communities - denied only by a few religious cranks who even the Government Conspiracy Theorists look down on as being unhinged.


And yet there is proof man and dinosaurs lived together: Welcome to 6000years.org | Amazing Bible Discoveries | Proof the Bible is True

I would totally agree, though, with the assertation that science would not be possible without evolution. This much is self evident as without evolution having progressed to the state of self awareness there would be no state of conscious thinking to understand the concept of evolution.


Although Darwinists often talk about the central importance of “evolution in gaining a basic understanding of the natural world, my research reveals that in the daily work of both scientific education and scientific research, evolution is rarely mentioned (or even a concern). This has been my experience as a research associate involved in cancer research in the department of experimental pathology at the Medical University of Ohio and as a college professor in the life and behavioral sciences for over 30 years. As Conrad E. Johanson, Ph.D. (Professor of Clinical Neurosciences and Physiology and Director of Neurosurgery Research at Brown Medical School in Rhode Island) noted, in the world of science research on a day-to-day basis, scientists

"rarely deal directly with macroevolutionary theory, be it biological or physical. For example, in my 25 years of neuroscience teaching and research I have only VERY rarely had to deal with natural selection, origins, macroevolution, etc. My professional work in science stems from rigorous training in biology, chemistry, physics, and math, not from world views about evolution. I suspect that such is the case for most scientists in academia, industry, and elsewhere" (2003, p. 1).

Many scientists are aware of the fact that Darwinism is largely ignored in science instruction. One good example provided by Dawkins involved an after lunch discussion with the teachers. He concluded that almost every teacher

"confided that, much as they would like to, they didn’t dare to do justice to evolution in their classes. This was not because of intimidation by fundamentalist parents (which would have been the reason in parts of America). It was simply because of the A-level syllabus. Evolution gets only a tiny mention, and then only at the end of the A-level course. This is preposterous, for, as one of the teachers said to me, quoting the great Russian American biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky ..., 'Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution’" (2003, p. 58).

This statement is ideologically not factual. Biology makes perfect sense without ever mentioning Darwinism. Likewise Shanks’ (2004 p. 228) claim that “evolutionary biology is the veritable glue that holds all the disparate branches of biological inquiry together and gives common focus to their collective endeavors could hardly be true if it is not even covered in most science course work. Shanks argument that if you take away evolution “the biological sciences would degenerate into an incoherent collection of rudderless ships is irresponsible because evolution is often not in either course work or textbooks. The problem is, as recounted in The Harvard Crimson:

"Although the postmodern era questions everything else—the possibility of knowledge, basic morality and reality itself—critical discussion of Darwin is taboo. While evolutionary biologists test Darwin’s hypothesis in every experiment they conduct, the basic premise of evolution remains a scientific Holy of Holies, despite our absurd skepticism in other areas. Oxford zoologist Richard Dawkins writes: 'It is absolutely safe to say that, if you meet somebody who does not believe in evolution, that person is either ignorant, stupid, or insane.' Biologists continue to recite the worn credo, 'the central, unifying principle of biology is the theory of evolution.' But where would physics be if Einstein had been forced to chant, 'the central unifying principle of physics is Newtonian theory,' until he could not see beyond its limitations?" (Halvorson, 2003, p. 4).

My conclusion also agrees with Wells, who also concluded the claim

"that 'nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution' is demonstrably false. A person can be a first-rate biologist without being a Darwinist. In fact, a person who rejects Dobzhansky’s claim can be a better biologist than one who accepts it uncritically. The distinctive feature and greatest virtue of natural science, we are told, is its reliance on evidence. Someone who starts with a preconceived idea and distorts the evidence to fit it is doing the exact opposite of science. Yet this is precisely what Dobzhansky’s maxim encourages people to do" (Wells, 2000, p. 247).

http://www.trueorigin.org/biologymyth.asp

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Pahu;1460004 wrote: Actually it does. From the beginning and throughout the Bible we are told that God created everything and everyone. Doesn't that rule out evolution that teaches the source of everything is natural, mindless forces?
Not at all. As with everything you've said thus far, it's all open to interpretation & misinterpretations.

You are working on a preconception that 'God' created everything as a completed article. Full Stop!!

If you take the assumption that 'God' created the Primordial Slime, from which all evolved, then that could also be interpreted that He created everything & everyone.

How long was it before Mankind learned to Read & Write? The first book of the Bible is Genesis, supposedly the First Book of Moses, who even if you take the years of the Generations didn't arrive until a few thousand years later, yet this was the description & transcription of everything that was said & done in the meantime, of who said what to who, etc.

Even these days when a witness is called to give evidence in court from just a month or 2 ago, it is often kicked out as being unreliable due to memories having become clouded. And that's just a month or 2. How can you ever hope to quantify 1000s of years.

The Bible is not 'evidence' of anything other than to justify the words of P.C. Barnham - "There's a Sucker Born Every Minute".

[continued]

The Validity of Thought

If life is the result of natural processes or chance, then so is thought. Your thoughts—including what you are thinking now—would ultimately be a consequence of a long series of irrational causes. Therefore, your thoughts would have no validity, including the thought that life is a result of chance or natural processes.a By destroying the validity of ideas, evolution undercuts even the idea of evolution. “Science itself makes no sense if the scientific mind is itself no more than the product of irrational material forces.b

A related subject is the flexibility and redundancy of the human brain, which evolution or natural selection would not produce. For example, every year brain surgeons successfully remove up to half of a person’s brain. The remaining half gradually takes over functions of the removed half. Also, brain functions are often regained after portions of the brain are accidently destroyed. Had humans evolved, such accidents would have been fatal before these amazing capabilities developed. Darwin was puzzled by the phenomenal capability of the brain.c

[continue]

The Validity of Thought

[continued]

Thoughts are not physical, although they use physical things, such as the brain, oxygen, electrons, and sensory inputs. The mind thinks, but the brain, like a powerful computer, can’t really “think. Nor can any physical substance. Albert Einstein put his finger on this profound issue:

I am convinced that ... the concepts which arise in our thought and in our linguistic expressions are all—when viewed logically—the free creations of thought which cannot inductively be gained from sense experiences. ... we have the habit of combining certain concepts and conceptual relations (propositions) so definitely with certain sense experiences that we do not become conscious of the gulf—logically unbridgeable—which separates the world of sensory experiences from the world of concepts and propositions.d

C. S. Lewis put it in another way:

If minds are wholly dependent on brains, and brains on biochemistry, and biochemistry (in the long run) on the meaningless flux of the atoms, I cannot understand how the thought of those minds should have any more significance than the sound of the wind in the trees.e

So Who or what provided humans (and to a much lesser extent animals) with the ability and freedom to think? It certainly wasn’t dead matter, chance, evolution, or time.

In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood - 42.** The Validity of Thought

Your logic of thought being irrational would also especially hold true for you. At we, the realists have rationalities that we can see & touch to validate our thoughts. You just have a self (Man) made book, charting millenia of irrationalities which you try to pass of as 'evidence'

Lawyer: So you claim that you are God's gift to women?

Accused: That's right.

Lawyer: And you have evidence of this?

Accused: Of course.

Lawyer: And what is this evidence?

Accused: This book here.

Lawyer: And what is this book.

Accused: It's all about me, and how I'm God's gift to women.

Lawyer: Ah, I see. And who wrote this book?

Accused: Why, I did of course. That's how I know it to be true.

Lawyer: Oh, of course. Hard evidence. How can I possibly argue with that?

Genetic Distances 3




Humans vs. Chimpanzees. Evolutionists say that the chimpanzee is the closest living relative to humans. For two decades (1984–2004), evolutionists and the media claimed that human DNA is about 99% similar to chimpanzee DNA. These statements had little scientific justification, because they were made before anyone had completed the sequencing of human DNA and long before the sequencing of chimpanzee DNA had begun.

Chimpanzee and human DNA have now been completely sequenced and compared. The overall differences, which are far greater and more complicated than evolutionists suspected (g), include about “thirty-five million single-nucleotide changes, five million insertions or deletions, and various chromosomal rearrangements (h). Although only 4% of human and chimpanzee DNA differ, those critical differences amount to a vast chasm.

Moreover, differences between the male portion of the human and chimpanzee sex chromosome are huge! More than 30% of those sequences, in either the human or the chimpanzee, do not match the other at all, and those that do, contain massive rearrangements (i). The genetic differences are comparable to those between the nonsex chromosomes in chickens and humans (j). Also, humans shuffle male and female DNA to their offspring in different ways than chimpanzees (k).

Finally, evolutionary trees, based on the outward appearance of organisms, can now be compared with the organisms’ genetic information. They conflict in major ways (l).

g. After sequencing just the first chimpanzee chromosome, surprises were apparent.

“Surprisingly, though, nearly 68,000 stretches of DNA do differ to some degree between the two species¦Extra sections of about 300 nucleotides showed up primarily in the human chromosome¦Extra sections of other sizes—some as long as 54,000 nucleotides—appear in both species. Bruce Bower, “Chimp DNA Yields Complex Surprises, Science News, Vol. 165, 12 June 2004, p. 382.

“Indeed, 83% of the 231 coding sequences, including functionally important genes, show differences [even] at the amino acid sequence level¦.the biological consequences due to the genetic differences are much more complicated than previously speculated. H. Watanabe et al., “DNA Sequence and Comparative Analysis of Chimpanzee Chromosome 22, Nature, Vol. 429, 27 May 2004, pp. 382, 387.

h. Tarjei S. Mikkelsen et al., “Initial Sequence of the Chimpanzee Genome and Comparison with the Human Genome, Nature, Vol. 437, 1 September 2005, p. 69.

i. “Surprisingly, however, >30% of chimpanzee MSY [male-specific portion of the Y chromosome] sequence has no homologous, alignable counterpart in the human MSY, and vice versa. ... Moreover, the MSY sequences retained in both lineages have been extraordinarily subject to rearrangement... Jennifer F. Hughes et al., “Chimpanzee and Human Y Chromosomes Are Remarkably Divergent in Structure and Gene Content, Nature, Vol. 463, 28 January 2010, p. 537.

j. “... the difference in MSY gene content in chimpanzee and human is more comparable to the difference in autosomal gene content in chicken and human, at 310 million years of separation. Ibid. p. 538.

k. “Studying human and Western chimpanzees, we found no hotspot sharing between the two species, Adam Auton et al., “A fine-Scale Chimpanzee Genetic Map from Population Sequencing, Science, Vol. 336, 13 April 2012, p. 196.

“Chimpanzees’ shuffling pattern is similar to that seen in some previously studied organisms, while the human pattern is unusual... Gil McVean, as quoted by Tina Hesman Saey, “Going Ape Offers Better Family Tree, Science News, Vol. 181, 21 April 2012, p. 16.

l. “Instead, the comparisons [using DNA] have yielded many versions of the tree of life that differ from the rRNA tree and conflict with each other as well. Elizabeth Pennisi, “Is It Time to Uproot the Tree of Life? Science, Vol. 284, 21 May 1999, p. 1305.

“We are left with a conundrum. [Evolutionary trees based on bodily characteristics (morphology) differ from trees based on genetics.] Jonathan B. Losos et al., “Who Speaks with a Forked Tongue? Science, Vol. 338, 14 December 2012, p. 1429.

[From “In the Beginning by Walt Brown]

Pahu;1460078 wrote: [center][From “In the Beginning by Walt Brown]
An independent, unbiased source? Of course not. It's just another of your loony Creationist sites. As I've said before, sites such as these are disqualified, as they operate in reverse to the methods of science, while continuing to call it 'science'.

You can post as many links as you like to Creationist sites, but they have less than no validity here .They operate on a preconcept that everything is as they have been brainwashed into believing, an then when evidence proves the contrary they deny the existence of the evidence or accuse it of having been false or otherwise faked. When asked to provide evidence to prove their God exists or that Divine Creation exists, they simply reply that it has to, because this is the way they've always been told it is, and that there is nothing to disprove it. This is the eternal loop. They say there is nothing to disprove it, but when faced with the evidence, it's back to square 1 of denial.

It's like when I say that there are flying fluffy pink bunnies in the middle of the Amazonian Rain Forests, you might ask how I know, and I say because I said so, and you can't do anything to prove otherwise. In other words, although you may not be able to prove the absence of something, you can certainly prove the existence of it, but even if I were to produce one of these fluffy pink bunnies, you would still claim that it was faked, despite the evidence of your own eyes.

Quoting scientists out of context to try and prove your point is NOT science.

Still waiting for the science, bud.

Although Erich von Daniken was widely exposed as being a bit of a charlatan, but he did come up with quite a few interesting theories, also based on Biblical quotations, which clearly described such things as Helicopters. The point being is that although this concept may appear unbelieveable, by using exactly the same hearsay 'evidence' you can reach a totally different conclusion.

FourPart;1460113 wrote: An independent, unbiased source? Of course not. It's just another of your loony Creationist sites. As I've said before, sites such as these are disqualified, as they operate in reverse to the methods of science, while continuing to call it 'science'.

You can post as many links as you like to Creationist sites, but they have less than no validity here .They operate on a preconcept that everything is as they have been brainwashed into believing, an then when evidence proves the contrary they deny the existence of the evidence or accuse it of having been false or otherwise faked. When asked to provide evidence to prove their God exists or that Divine Creation exists, they simply reply that it has to, because this is the way they've always been told it is, and that there is nothing to disprove it. This is the eternal loop. They say there is nothing to disprove it, but when faced with the evidence, it's back to square 1 of denial.

It's like when I say that there are flying fluffy pink bunnies in the middle of the Amazonian Rain Forests, you might ask how I know, and I say because I said so, and you can't do anything to prove otherwise. In other words, although you may not be able to prove the absence of something, you can certainly prove the existence of it, but even if I were to produce one of these fluffy pink bunnies, you would still claim that it was faked, despite the evidence of your own eyes.


Your response is filled with erroneous assertions. For example; "When asked to provide evidence to prove their God exists or that Divine Creation exists, they simply reply that it has to, because this is the way they've always been told it is, and that there is nothing to disprove it." Here are the facts:



Science Proves God

When we set out to explain why and how something happens, we must use the evidence, facts and experience available to us if we are to arrive at a logical conclusion. Using available evidence, experience, facts, observation and experimentation, we know that the universe had a beginning and that before that beginning there was no universe and therefore there was nothing. We know this because of the Law of Causality (for every cause there is an effect and for every effect there is a cause). Based on this law, we can use the following logic:

1. The universe exists.

2. The universe had a beginning.

3. Before the beginning of the universe, there was no universe.

4. Since there was no universe, there was nothing.

5. Since the universe does exist, it came from nothing.

6. Something does not come from nothing by any natural cause.

7. Therefore the cause of the universe is supernatural.

8. Life exists.

9. Life always comes from pre-existing life of the same kind (the Law of Biogenesis).

10. Life cannot come from nonliving matter by any natural cause.

11. Since life does exist, the cause of life is supernatural.

Many people with a naturalistic worldview assume everything can be explained by natural causes. From the beginning, they reject the possibility of a supernatural cause. Because of this they are left with no scientifically valid answers to the question of how the universe could come from nothing, which is impossible by any natural cause of which we are aware. Many answers have been proposed that go beyond the realm of known evidence, experience, facts, observation and experimentation and therefore enter the realm of fiction.

The same logic applies to life. Using available evidence, experience, facts, observation and experimentation, we know that life only comes from pre-existing life of the same kind.

“Spontaneous generation (the emergence of life from nonliving matter) has never been observed. All observations have shown that life comes only from life. This has been observed so consistently it is called the Law of Biogenesis. Evolution conflicts with this scientific law by claiming that life came from nonliving matter through natural processes. [From In the Beginning by Walt Brown]

Life never comes from non-living matter by any natural cause of which we are aware.

Now that we have seen proof that God exists, using logic based on known evidence, experience, facts, observation and experimentation, we need to see if He has revealed Himself to us. In the Holy Bible there are hundreds of prophecies given by God who is speaking in the first person. In both Bible and secular history we find that those prophecies have been accurately fulfilled. No other writing on earth comes close to doing this! Only God can accurately reveal the future, ergo, He is the author of the Holy Bible. Within the pages of the Holy Bible He reveals His nature, our nature, His relationship to us, our need for salvation and His plan of salvation for us.

The reason the universe and life cannot come from nothing by any natural cause, but can come from a supernatural cause is because God is the self-existent creator of everything and everyone. He is not subject to His creation. He created it and sustains it. It is a mistake to judge God by human standards and human perspectives. God reveals that He is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent.

If you are interested in more detailed proof, read, “Evidence that Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell.

[From Reincarnation in the Bible? ]Reincarnation in the Bible? by Dan Carlton | 9781491811009 | Paperback | Barnes & Noble