Posted on 11/29/2004 6:52:41 AM PST by PatrickHenry
"I AM" means He is self-existant. He is complete. Nothing can be added or taken away.
I always think "I AM all that there needs to be". When you get to know Him, you begin to realize that He is fulfillment.
Because if you can't demonstrate that claims that evolution does not make are true, then evolution must be false.
" And the idea that a space alien just snapped her fingers and there were creatures is not speculation?"
No, they are both equally conjecture.
"I think it's a lot more believable that species evolved over time, given the fossil record at hand."
Only if you make certain theological assumptions about how God would have designed things.
" Yes, there are holes in the record. Just like there are holes in the evidence on what happened on 9/11."
And, just like all aspects of history, history is nnot provable scientifically.
"Whether God was involved, in either case, is outside the realm of science."
Historical claims are always outside the realm of science.
You might mention the reason for gigantism among ancient insects had to do with a slightly higher amount of oxygen in the atmosphere; proof positive that environments change.
I'm satisfied with dictionary definitions if it's all right with you. So far as I know there are separate entries for both "ape" and "human", and there always have been. Throughout observed and recorded history the traits of each have been easily distinguished, and the similarities also apparent. Each has remained its own kind.
Based on such simple observations I can heartily predict that apes will never develop the capacity to build or fly an airplane, let alone fabricate and put into writing a conditional sentence. Furthermore I can say so with much more certainty and credibility than I could ever say "I have an ancestral connection to apes" based on millions of years of unobserved, unrecorded evidence.
Meanwhile, if you have definitions for "ape" and human" that are more worthy of common acceptance than those offered in the average English dictionary, then please feel free to knock yourself out. But don't expect the rest of the world to follow your lead.
"Your evidence for this is that in the relative blink of an eye that we've been watching, we haven't seen an enormous change in a single species."
Actually it's that we _can_ breed significant changes (even as far as speciation), but that there are limits.
"There are rare cases of members of different species producing viable offspring (lions and tigers, for instance), but that just goes to show that mother nature is far more intricate and fascinating than our boring classification system would like her to be."
That's what I said.
"It most certainly isn't. Sitting here for a few million years would provide the proof necessary to discount or finally accept the ToE. I've got some spare time, but not that much."
Exactly true. Evolution _requires_ a lot of proof which we don't have. Saying that because we can't gather the necessary proof, we don't need to is rediculous.
"It allows for anything under the sun. In fact, Creationism inherently explains each and every possible scenario, regardless of how bizarre or how unexpected it may be, with the words, "that's how God wanted it"."
The same is true for evolution. It accomodates fast changes, slow changes, changes which increase complexity, changes which reduce complexity, changes which help, changes which harm. It's impossible to come up with a scenario that would truly falsify evolution, because no matter what you come up with, evolutionists will say, "that's shows how amazing evolution is".
"Not at all - Darwin never said that breeding couldn't bring about the same kinds of changes as the normal evolutionary process."
Here's what Darwin said: "With species in a state of nature, it can hardly be maintained that the law [of compensation] is of universal application." The law of compensation is the observed fact that breeding holds limits. Darwin argued that a "state of nature" could break the law of compensation that breeders have been unable to cross.
Also remember that Darwin allowed for an initial species, or even _several_ initial species to be present for which natural selection to work on. If several, while not several thousand, or several million? The doctrine of special creation is not that God created every species that is extant today, but that He created "kinds" which are the ancestors of modern species. As mentioned by many others, the origin of life is not of particular concern to evolution, so the only disagreement appears to be of the question "are there limits to change?" Neither party has observed the past to know whether change has limits, so both are really pure speculation from a scientific standpoint. Science has not observed boundless change, and the fossil record does not support universal gradualism.
This is a straw man. I said nothing like that.
I do, however, contend that falsification of a minor particular of evolutionary theory would in no way alter your adherence to its central tenets. That you believe it is possible for the whole thing to occur on another planet with different base components proves your test of falsifiability is disingenuous.
So then, ID and creationism really are one and the same thing, despite all the protests to the contrary? By the way, I know of no way to test the healthiness of fossil samples. It seems to me all are equally healthy, ie. dead.
That's right. What's true is important. Remember that Nebraska Man, Piltdown Man, Archeoraptor, Brontosaurus, etc. were all plausible to evos.
Atomic theory and the curvature of space time, ie quantum mechanics and general relativity, are also not science by this standard. I think you've got the wrong standard for science. In order to be science, an idea must make predictions of observations that, up until the present time, have not been made. These predictions must be such that, if they are not borne out by observation, the idea will be abandoned. The theory that the earth is very old carries certain consequences. Among these are the expected concentrations of various radioactive isotopes, the appearance and composition of rock layers, and the geological structure of various features on the surface of the earth. There are predictions that can be made from this model in all of these areas. Many of these predictions have been confirmed by observations. Does this constitute proof of the old earth theory? Absolutely not, but then again there is no scientific theory that is ever proven. All theories, as I mentioned above, generate predictions as to what will be observed. It is always possible that some observation will be made in the future that will render a theory false. This applies to ALL theories in science. Now, please enlighten me as to which observations would render a belief in God and the creation story as given in Genesis invalid. (Hint: There aren't any such observations)
And since I didn't say they were the same thing, or address what the differences/similarities were, you apparently did not read my post very well.
Depends on what you mean by impacted. In terms of sheer numbers of people, the winner has to be Buddha.
Your post implied that theories become laws. That never happens.
Sure it can. There should not be a completely random pattern of mutations in organisms if mutation and natural selection is the mechanism of speciation. If mutation and natural selection is the mechanism, you would expect to see the same mutations in different species. If you observed completely different mutations in different species, then mutation and natural selection is falsified. (Note the converse is not true, ie. if you observe the same mutations in different species it is not necessarily the case that mutation and natural selection must be true. It does lend support to that model, however.)
So what you are saying is that natural selection is happening. The fact that different variants of a species are not equally capable of surviving and reproducing is the very essence of natural selection. Also, to assume that over time dogs could NOT evolve past their species boundary is also an assumption with no basis in the observable world. It depends on what you assume the species boundary to be. For example, is it within the species boundary of certain bacteria to be able to survive in the presence of chemical compounds that kill most bacteria? I think, considering that there's no clear and distinct way to differentiate species of organisms that reproduce asexually, you'd have a hard time making an objective determination of the species boundaries of bacteria in the first place.
My post did no such thing. You read into it something that wasn't there.
Sound familiar?
I am still amazed at the level of scientific ignorance despite the attempts of many here to educate people. Once again (it's been written many times in this and other threads, but apparently you haven't read it.) theories do not become laws. Theories are an endpoint of science. They are explanations of observed phenomena. Laws are an expression of an observed regularity. (Example: Law of gravity gives the force between two objects, theory of gravity explains why there is a force and why the force is what it is) Both theories and laws are supported by a variety of observations. While you are correct that theories are unproven, so are laws, hypotheses, and any other statement made in science. Science simply does not deal with proof. Science does deal with statements that make predictions. If these predictions hold true, it lends weight to the theory, law, etc. If the predictions are found to be false, the idea is rejected.
So if a dog breeder can't do something, it is impossible in principle? I never knew of an omnipotent dog breeder.
So if bacteria can reproduce many, many times every minute, and it still takes one billion years, wouldn't it take several trillion years for an organism that reproduces only once every few years?
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