Creation Museum Sparks Evolution Debate

RedNova ^ | 22 May 2005 | Staff

[AntiGuv]

Well, to go off on a bit of a tangent, this latest fad of attempting to undermine evolution by painting Charles Darwin as a racist has led me to lose what little respect I had for creationists. The argument is such a total and obvious fallacy on several levels that I can only conclude anyone who advances it is either a wretched dissembler or a mental juvenile. I'm probably offending someone right now, but so be it!

[From many - one.]

I do see scientists saying things like..."check this link..it shows evidence for the hamburgeraceae diverging from the snackfudaceae ancestral forms more thant 10KYA when the earliest student mammals acquired running shoes"

The response ususally includes "Thanks"

It tends to pass unnoticed because the information is more important that the position.

I hereby give permission and approval to anyone who posted such a response to one of my comments to post it here. I know it's happened. Off to work now.

[js1138]

We on the evo side do actually argue points and correct each other on minor issues. We tend to agree on the major stuff.

Just for the record, here's some "major stuff"

1. Age of the universe: >12 billion years
2. Age of the earth: approximately 4.5 billion years
3. Time since first life on earth: >3.2 billion years
4. All known life on earth descended from a common ancestral population.
5. Primary process of change from common ancestry: stochastic variation and natural selection.
6. Lines of evidence:
   • Radiometric dating
   • Cosmological dating
   • Geologic column
   • Fossil record embedded in geologic column
   • Molecular biology/DNA derived lineage
   • Observation of mutation processes
   • Observation of selection
   • Observation of ring species
   • Observation of geographical distribution of varieties.
   • Observation of selective breeding
   • Observation of "Malthusian" overproduction of offspring.
   • Failure, after a century and a half of looking, to demonstrate any evidence of a correlation between mutation and selective advantage.

[PatrickHenry]

Rarely do I see someone within the Evo ping list smack down another evo supporter.

I've done it openly in threads, but only in rare, egregious cases. It's usually done by freepmail. And it's done quite a bit, actually. I've never, however, seen a creationist criticized for posting fraudulent quotes, or other clearly discredited arguments. Some will repetitively post the same material. They even get praise from their fellow creationists for refusing to back down. Nothing even remotely comparable to that happens on the evolution side.

[Doctor Stochastic]

There have been mistakes made by evo posters; I have corrected some, (and I have been corrected.) Corrections are always directed at the mistake, not the poster. If a poster persists in making the same mistake repeatedly, perhaps as many as 1^720 times, repeated corrections often obtain.

[ColoCdn]

Since I'm a relative noob at FR compared to you, I'm curious about a few of the more obscure references to Bozo filtering, furniture-chewing and the such.

Doesn't sound any more wild-n-woolly now than it was then.

[Junior]

Bugs are proof one doesn't need brains to survive and reproduce.

[AntiGuv]

Then again, I am definitely generalizing, and as soon as I adapt to the latest tactic, I'll get over it! =)

[Junior]

Pornography threads are where you see what people believe that human beings have a right to control their own lives and what people believe, like liberals, that government should be used to prevent people from doing something they deem reprehensible.

[dread78645]

XenuDidit place mark

[DannyTN]

Your objection is noted. I was responding to a question about why people take differences of opinion "personally" and began by stating that I could not present the evolutionist side.

The speculation that I did present for the evolutionist to take things "personally" would only be attributable to the atheist evolutionist and not the theistic evolutionist. I failed to make that distinction. I apologize.

[ColoCdn]

That's good news, then. I, also, have utilized FREEPmail to head off potentially disastrous lines of argumentation. I suppose it goes on wherever you have people who actually care about each other in the group.

Our lack of mutual civility usually results from not being able to see inside the other group, and as a result, we don't offer them the benefit of the doubt.

I have several brothers who are a variety of shades of atheist/agnostic/evolutionary/deists/whatever, but that doesn't affect my love them or my admiration for their achievements in life.

It's a different world on the threads, though. I will stand for my belief in God, and His creation, 'til the day I die, but I find no reason to demonize my opponents (although that doesn't mean I won't take advantage of the opportunity to make them think a little harder about what they say).

If there were some way to create a category called "Reasonable, Non-Inflammatory, Christ-like, Non-condescending, Investigation of Scientific Discoveries, Spiritual Truths, and How They Pertain to the Theology of a Creative God or Not", I'd be a happy camper.

[ColoCdn]

I agree. I'm inflexible about my ability to adapt, too.

[Chiapet]

"The speculation that I did present for the evolutionist to take things "personally" would only be attributable to the atheist evolutionist and not the theistic evolutionist."

What about deistic evolutionists? :)

[ColoCdn]

"Bugs are proof one doesn't need brains to survive and reproduce."

You wouldn't be one who refers to Liberals as "cock-a-roaches" now, would you?

[stremba]

Apology accepted. Thank you.

[Michael_Michaelangelo]

What is the info from this guy and what grade textbook is it in?

Take your pick!

1992 Craniofacial Evidence for theOrigin of Modern Humans in China.Yearbook of PhysicalAnthropology 35:243–298. Protsch, Reiner

Protsch, R. 1975. "The absolute dating of Upper Pleistocene sub-Saharan fossil hominids and their place in human evolution." In Journal of Human Evolution, vol. 4, pp. 297-322.

Bada, Jeffrey L. and Reiner Protsch. 1973. Racemization reaction of aspartic acid and its use in dating fossil bones. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 70:1331-1334.

Bada, Jeffrey L., Reiner Protsch, and Roy A. Schroeder. 1973. The racemization reaction of isoleucine used as a paleotemperature indicator. Nature 241:394-395.

Protsch, Reiner R. R. Catalog of fossil hominids of North America. New York, G. Fischer, 1978. 86 p. E71.P76 Includes bibliographical references

Bada, JL, Schroeder, R, Protsch, R, & Berger, R 1974. Concordance of collagen-based radiocarbon and aspartic acid racemization ages. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 71:914-917.

Berger, R. and R. Protsch, 1989. UCLA Radiocarbon Dates XI. Radiology. Vol.31, No. 1. pp. 55-67.

MacNeish, R.S., R. Berger, and R. Protsch (1970) Megafauna and Man from Ayacucho, Highland Peru. Science 168:975-977.

Protsch R. R. R., 1981. Die archäologischen und anthropologischen Ergebnisse der Kolh-Larsen-Expeditionen in Nord-Tanzania 1933-1939. Band 4, 3., Tübinger Monographien zur Urgeschichte. Universität Tübingen, Tübingen.

Reiner Protsch, "The Age and Stratigraphic Position of Olduvai Hominid I," Journal of Human Evolution, Vol. 3 (1974), pp: 379--385.

Berger, R., Protsch, R.R., Reynolds, R., Rozaire, C., and Sackett, J.R. (1971) New radiocarbon dates based on bone collagen of California paleoindians. Contributions of the University of California Archaeological Research Facility 12:43-49.

[Junior]

Naw. Cockroaches are tough little critters capable of taking care of themselves, no matter what the universe tosses their way. Doesn't sound much like liberals, does it?

[ColoCdn]

LOL!

[Liberal Classic]

I wrote:
The Hebrew Bible (and Christian Bible, too) does not speak to scientific issues.

To which you replied:
These writings shed light on acts of God, without which science cannot exist, let alone an orderly universe complete with human intelligence to observe and communicate about it.

Be this as it may, the language of the bronze age Hebrews is not sufficiently technical for modern scientific purposes. The Hebrew scriptures in question do not contain detail about how the Creator implemented creation. Instead, they are mostly concerned with morality, consciousness, and the human soul -- things science is ill equipped to deal with.