Posted on 01/11/2003 9:53:34 PM PST by DWar
I don't believe that abortion is the *right* thing to do either, but Dan raises an interesting point. If the only thing these aborted souls have lost is time on the paradise we call Planet Earth, what have they really lost? Pain and suffering, war, poverty, sickness, divorce, etc., etc.???
Ideally, yes. Unfortunately, it seldom rises to that level. I've debated this issue with far too many creationists who didn't have the slightest idea what the facts were, but by gosh, they *knew* I was wrong anyway, and probably a pawn of the devil as well.
The facts themselves are not in dipute.
Surely you jest. Creationists very frequently dispute the facts when they raise uncomfortable questions about their position. For a recent example, see post #301:
"Totally false. There is no such evidence at all. Before one can make such a claim one has to show that even one single mutation has created greater complexity in any organism. There is no such proof."And on the flipside, creationists often make wild claims as if they were fact, like the ICR pamphlet that for several years claimed, "The billions of fossils found are all of highly complex forms of life." This is not only wrong, it is blatantly contrary to the known facts.
The assumption of the evolutionary biologist, that homology implies common ancestory, most certainly is.
By itself, certainly, homology can only *imply* common ancestry, and reasonable people can disagree about some particular homologies. Conversely, it would take an *unreasonable* person to disagree about more clear-cut homologies.
*However*, when coupled with evidence from DNA and other molecular analysis in their various forms, fossil features, present and past geographic distribution, stratigraphic distribution, intermediate forms, ontogeny and developmental biology, genetic change rates, and so on -- when all these divergent lines of evidence converge to the same answers, one has to be dogmatically stubborn to avoid admitting the obvious.
In your treatise, you have made salient points regarding the anatomy and physiology of certain shark species, points that are not in dispute. You can thank the hard work of many scientists over many years for that summary. However, it is a great leap to suggest that isolated similarities between a vast array of disparate animals can be hand selected as if from a buffet, in hopes of reconstructing an orderly transition from one organ system to another, even less one species to another.
All well and good, but that's not what I was doing.
What I was doing -- and I believe I was quite clear on this -- was demonstrating that gore3000's "can't get there from here" claim falls flat since there *are* plausible gradualistic "baby steps" from his "before" picture to his "after" picture, and not only are they simply arguably plausible, the intermediate steps demonstrably ACTUALLY WORK because they *do* work in various species.
The fact that the mammalian range of placental types (and the lack thereof) shows the sort of gradation one would expect from an evolutionary sequence was just icing on the cake and offerred as food for further thought. In order to "prove" the sequence further types of evidence would be necessary, including DNA analysis, fossil intermediaries, etc. etc. But since you bring it up, I'll mention that all the evidence to date strongly supports the obvious -- that mammals evolved their present-day placentas from ancestors which did not have them.
So, herein lies the issue: homology need not imply common origin. If it did, one might assume that botanical phloem, complete with specialized cells with seive function and companion cells were more primative versions of fenestrated vascular endothelium supported by pericytes. An absurd notion to be sure,
Homology "need not" imply common origin, sure. But it's a confirming piece of evidence when combined with dozens of other independent lines of evidence.
And so far I'm not aware of a single homology which clearly *violates* a presumed common ancestry. (Note the use of the word "clearly" in that last sentence -- things which merely appear similar but have fundamental differences, like your example above, don't count.)
but no less so than the cladistic hierarchy of binary fission to hammerhead yolk-sac placenta to platapus pouch to human placenta to astronaut. Regards.
I quite clearly indicated that hammerhead placentas were derived independently from mammalian placentas (and marsupial placentas idependently from mammalian placentas as well), so take your straw man elsewhere.
It's also quite clear that the fundamentally *different* nature of the hammerhead/marsupial/mammalian placentas preclude them from being mistaken for being homologous, so again your cautionary tale misses its mark. If you meant to throw doubt on *valid* examples of homology, and the evidence they provide for common descent, you have failed and appear to be acting disingenuously.
‘I am the truth. . ..’(John 14:6)
"For most of time, men and women have assumed that the truth was there to be found out. This began to change in the 19th century and the change gathered pace in the 20th. As people began to question the existence of God, it became obvious to some, that the existence of truth requires the existence of God. With God dismissed, it became impossible to conceive of truth in any absolute sense. This has resulted in the humiliation of truth. Truth is now whatever you would like it to be."
"Truth's demise has filtered down through the great centers of learning, the arts, and on into streets and homes. Everything is possible with truth gone. Everything is permissible. Musicians make music that doesn't sound musical. Painters paint pictures that are incomprehensible to normal folk. Playwrights write plays that are nonsense, and architects design buildings that no one can understand. All this is put forward as legitimate, but what does it all mean?"
"No matter how much... popular culture---is encouraged to believe in the relativity of truth, no one can build a decent life on such a notion."
"Inevitably proponents of freedom from God, and from absolute truth, are obliged to reach outside of their own system, and borrow something from theism in order to make their lives work. The person who believes that everything is valid, will soon find that he is condemned to meaninglessness. Christ is a standing offer of escape from such a hell as this To believe that truth is like Christ, is salvation indeed."
All my life I've been in awe of the female breast because I knew it was irreducibly complex and therefore intelligently designed. You have taken away the one thing I cared about, believed in, was certain of, depended upon. Now I am set adrift in your devil's world of eeee-vo-lou-shun.
</flaming idiot mode>
To: PatrickHenry Hey Patrick, when are you ever going to say something regarding the issues instead of insulting opponents? 100 posted on 01/12/2003 5:06 PM CST by gore3000 [ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 82 | View Replies |
The yolk-sac (Figs. 22 and 23) is situated on the ventral aspect of the embryo; it is lined by entoderm, outside of which is a layer of mesoderm. It is filled with fluid, the vitelline fluid, which possibly may be utilized for the nourishment of the embryo during the earlier stages of its existence. Blood is conveyed to the wall of the sac by the primitive aortæ, and after circulating through a wide-meshed capillary plexus, is returned by the vitelline veins to the tubular heart of the embryo. This constitutes the vitelline circulation, and by means of it nutritive material is absorbed from the yolk-sac and conveyed to the embryo. At the end of the fourth week the yolk-sac presents the appearance of a small pear-shaped vesicle (umbilical vesicle) opening into the digestive tube by a long narrow tube, the vitelline duct. The vesicle can be seen in the after-birth as a small, somewhat oval-shaped body whose diameter varies from 1 mm. to 5 mm.; it is situated between the amnion and the chorion and may lie on or at a varying distance from the placenta. As a rule the duct undergoes complete obliteration during the seventh week, but in about three per cent. of cases its proximal part persists as a diverticulum from the small intestine...
Furthermore, more recent studies indicate that the yolk-sac in humans is vital for the survival of the embryo, Early Human Nutrition:
Early human nutrition and chorionic villous vascularization. Babette A.M. Lisman, M.D., Niek Exalto, M.D., Ph.D.
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Spaarne Ziekenhuis Haarlem and Division of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Academisch Medisch Centrum, Amsterdam
ABSTRACT
The yolk sac plays an active and important role in embryonic nutrition and organogenesis, and therefore can not be considered a vestigial organ. Since the last decade the functional significance of the placental circulation during the first trimester is discussed because of an absent maternal intervillous circulation during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. The development of the embryo takes place in an oxygen poor environment and the yolk sac turned out to be important for the intercession of embryonic nutrition during the developmental period. Furthermore, the human yolk sac is the main source of numerous proteins and its biosynthetic activity plays an important role in haematopoiesis. Experiments on animals have demonstrated that the yolk sac can be damaged by various substances resulting in embryonic malformations. Ultrasonic studies examining the secondary yolk sac size do not appear to be a sensitive predictor of embryonic integrity and pregnancy outcome. Apart from implantation and organogenesis the development of the placenta tales place during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy but will not be functional until thereafter. The development of the chorionic villous vascular system in first trimester pregnancies is characterized by maturation of luminized vessels from primitive hemangioblastic cords and margination to a situation of peripherally located vessels. Normal chorionic villous vascularization is essential for the undisturbed development of pregnancy. Deficient vasculogenesis may play a role in pathological pregnancy. More clinical studies in this field should be performed to investigate chorionic villous vascularization in complicated pregnancy and its consequences.
From your post: In the human, the "yolk sac" appears only after fertilization adn during embriologic development. It remains a fluid filled sac only briefy before rapidly becoming the primary source of fetal blood cells and vascular conduit.
In view of the above abstract, your contentions that the human yolk-sac is only superficially similar to avian yolk-sacs, and appears only "briefly" before morphing into a structure that becomes "the primary source of fetal blood cells and vascular conduit" is incorrect. According to this research, the yolk-sac is vitally important for the survival of the embryo until the placenta is fully functional after the first 12-weeks of pregnancy.
That's why evolution is classified as either theistic or atheistic. Most of the evo defenders on FR are of the atheistic type. Aric2000 claimis his own messiah will appear in the next 4 years so he must fall into the theistic camp. Junior claims to be theistic but sometimes I wonder.
Whether theistic or atheistic, the theory of evolution has been flawed from the beginning and continues to be fatally flawed in all its mutated forms. The presuppositions necessary for the theory as taught in our schools are impossible for a reasonable person to believe. Perhaps this is why only half of public school students believe it. The presuppositions are those of the materialist worldview, the most basic of which is "matter and its motion are all there is." This presupposition rules out the existence of God.
Yet it is absurd at face value:
Matter exists but its origin is ignored.
Matter moves but there was no first motion.
Do you understand the absurdity?
If a materialist says, Matter and its motion are all there is," he has just limited the origin of the matter to matter itself. He has also made the Prime Mover matter itself. Of course matter cannot be self-creating. Self creation is a logical absurdity since something must exist before it can create itself.
The motion of matter is the other problem for the materialist. We all learned in junior high about inertia; that mass in motion tends to stay in motion and that mass at rest tends to stay at rest. What set the first matter in motion? "The Big Bang" is not an answer. What caused the Big Bang, what made it explode? We know from science that things don't explode by themselves. There has to be a set of contributing circumstances all of which require motion.
So that's the long answer for why we find the majority of evos to prefer atheism. I do find it rather amazing (perhaps amusing too) how they will rail against what they think is an absurd theism yet will embrace absurd physics.
Hmm. I don't suppose you could show us a placenta that demonstrates the transition from "non-deciduate" to "deciduate" qualities, could you? And then, could you please explain the mechanism that drove this change?
Hmmm. Looks like a giant "leap of faith" to me, and a leap backwards from common sense at that.
Cold callous comments like the above greatly grieve my spirit. We just adopted two boys who were the third and fourth children of the same woman. The biological mother of our boys lost all four of her kids because of some poor life choices.
The boys were 7 months old and 5 years old and living completely separate lives one day, yet both became available to us within hours of each other nearly two years ago through events that baffled the agency. The boys bring us great joy in our lives and now we're looking to adopt a girl.
If they were aborted (very possible due to the biological mothers history) what would they have lost? They would have lost their entire lives. We would have lost the joy of knowing, raising and home schooling the boys.
My 6-year-old in the first grade is reading at the third-fourth grade level. He has memorized over 50 Bible verses and a few poems by Robert Frost and others. He has a life. He has parents that love him deeply. He has family and friends. He knows God.
Before he turned two last September, our baby knew all but 2 letters of the alphabet and their sounds, had a vocabulary of over 500 words, could put complex sentences together and count to 14.
Both boys amaze everyone who meets them. What would they have lost? Their lives. Their entire lives and the world would have missed out on two very special boys who just may come up with a cure for a disease that might be taking your own life someday.
Yes, those comments are chilling. They are chilling because it illustrates a self-centered and shallow understanding of reality. From where is the authority derived to judge the worth of a human life? Could not one of us, using the same basis of authority, judge PW's life not worth living? The lack of absolutes in the evolutionist's world allow us to do that. How fortunate for them that absolutes actually exist though they deny them!
Facetious? Um, no. She was referring to Dan Day's comment:
Why not then say, "abortion is no big deal, the little guys are just sent to Jesus sooner, hallelujah".Callous is a nice word to describe the taking of an innocent life that could some day save your own.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.