2. Is this a position agreed upon by other self-proclaimed "creationists?"
3. When you state creationists believe in a dynamic living world that we expect... to be more dynamic than evolutionists expect what are you trying to say? Are you saying:
a. That rapid changes in the morphology of living beings cannot be explained by genetic mutations, even though we can compare the genes of the rapidly evolving morpheme and demonstrate quite conclusively that the morphological changes can be related to genetic changes.
b. Or that environment is irrelevant to the determination of which forms are more likely to survive and which are less likely to survive?
c. That "evolutionists" deny that morphological changes happen at the rate that they are observed to happen by "more careful" scientists, i.e. that sloppy and biased "evolutionists" deny the existence of altered morphologies that are observed, recorded and documented by "more careful" "creationist" scientists.
4. Do you hold with many of your fellow creationists that radiometric dating is flawed and unscientific? In other words, do you disbelieve that the decay rate / half-life, etc. of C14, etc. is a random variable not subject to repeatable observation by different scientists ind different places using different methods of detection?
Your screed is one admirably long diversion from the point at hand. I have three questions for you? 1. Do you, as a self-proclaimed fully paid up card carrying "creationaist" believe in genetic mutation and natural selection as the explanation of the differentiation of the species or do you not?
A: It is part of the explanation. Obviously mutations are happening, and obviously they have an impact on speciation. How much is a somewhat open question. My expectation/prediction is that ongoing scientific investigation will show that natural selection plays only a minor role, and that most species differentiation is based on the outworking of pre-programmed genetic adaptation algorithms (epigenetics, Wood's Altruistic Genetic Elements hypothesis and so forth), designed into the genome of each living kind to cope with a dynamic environment.
2. Is this a position agreed upon by other self-proclaimed "creationists?"
Sure. I'm speaking here of published scientists and informed creationists, not the average-Joe-on-the street. Just as I see many average-Joe evolutionists say silly things about evolution, and it would be unfair to take their words as an accurate reflection of evolutionism.
3. When you state creationists believe in a dynamic living world that we expect... to be more dynamic than evolutionists expect what are you trying to say? Are you saying:
a. That rapid changes in the morphology of living beings cannot be explained by genetic mutations, even though we can compare the genes of the rapidly evolving morpheme and demonstrate quite conclusively that the morphological changes can be related to genetic changes.
b. Or that environment is irrelevant to the determination of which forms are more likely to survive and which are less likely to survive?
c. That "evolutionists" deny that morphological changes happen at the rate that they are observed to happen by "more careful" scientists, i.e. that sloppy and biased "evolutionists" deny the existence of altered morphologies that are observed, recorded and documented by "more careful" "creationist" scientists.
There are a couple things wrapped up in my comment about the expectation for rapid change in the creation model vs. evolutionary models.
First, evolutionary models require a low rate of mutations because it is plainly evident that most mutations are harmful. A high rate of mutations leads to 'error catastrophe' - the swamping of natural selection by the continual accrual of harmful mutations faster than natural selection can weed them out.
The Cornell university geneticist John Sanford has documented how overwhelmingly bad the case now is on this count in the book Genetic Entropy. It turns out that each average human germ cell has hundreds of harmful mutations compared to their parents, whereas a rate of even one such mutation per generation would be a solid proof against evolution. We are degenerating rapidly, because even if any given person has an occasional beneficial mutation they are also carrying hundreds of new harmful mutations right along with it.
A second issue is the pace of change observed in the biological realm. The Genesis account speaks of 'ravens' and 'doves' as 'kinds' if you read it plainly. Today they are diversified into about 500 species between them. Other evidence points to similar diversification within a timeframe of a few thousand years. This is much faster than in evolutionary models. Thus we expect to find evidence for organisms to have, or have had (if the process has played itself out as we surmise) the ability to rapidly change at the phyletic and perhaps at the genomic level via transpositional changes due to pre-designed genetic algorithms triggered by environmental stimuli.
4. Do you hold with many of your fellow creationists that radiometric dating is flawed and unscientific? In other words, do you disbelieve that the decay rate / half-life, etc. of C14, etc. is a random variable not subject to repeatable observation by different scientists ind different places using different methods of detection?
I don't know any creationist that believes radioisotope decay is a 'random variable.' (As an incidental aside, I would assert that *all* historical interpretations of data are 'unscientific' - that is, not directly testable by repeated experiment. "Water boils at 100 degrees C at 1 atmosphere" is a testable scientific hypothesis; "Bob boiled water last Tuesday" is not. It is a historical claim that will not be proved by dragging Bob into a lab at a later date and testing water boiling with him. A different intellectual toolkit than 'science' is required to evaluate such claims.)
Regarding radioisotope data, we do believe we now hold the stronger and more parsimonious explanation of the full range of data. Keep in mind that the passage of time is only one factor in explaining a particular distribution of parent/daughter isotopes in any given sample. Old-earth scientists regularly cite an array of other factors themselves in explaining radioisotope profiles. Scientists (not 'creationists') have measured alterations (up to 10^14 rate change) in the decay rate of some isotopes under exotic conditions and this has been published in secular literature. It is unclear how relevant these particular exotic conditions are to earth history, but they do establish the basic potential for variation, contrary the presumptive dogma that undergirded radiometric datings' reputation.
I'm going to type my fingers off if I try to cover the whole subject of radioisotope dating, so let me just refer readers to one selection of articles on this subject. I encourage everyone to read both sides of the issue with an open mind.