Posted on 09/26/2005 5:44:09 AM PDT by DARCPRYNCE
Charles Darwin, the 19th century geologist who wrote the treatise 'The Origin of Species, by means of Natural Selection' defined evolution as "descent with modification". Darwin hypothesized that all forms of life descended from a common ancestor, branching out over time into various unique life forms, due primarily to a process called natural selection.
However, the fossil record shows that all of the major animal groups (phyla) appeared fully formed about 540 million years ago, and virtually no transitional life forms have been discovered which suggest that they evolved from earlier forms. This sudden eruption of multiple, complex organisms is often referred to as the Cambrian Explosion, and even Darwin knew about the lack of evidence in the fossil record to support his theory a century and a half ago.
(Excerpt) Read more at chronwatch.com ...
So many errors, so little time...
Evolution means and individual can look forward to eternity in the tar pits of time, all your happy memories will be in the rearview mirror, and nothingness awaits your eventual arrival.
You are yet again mistaken. Evolutionary biology makes no statement about the possible nature of an afterlife.
Don't quite your day job.
Teaching evolution as a scientific theory is fine as long as they also make the kids understand the scientific fact that science can't explain the origin of things like atoms.
There is nothing silly about it at all. Sexual reproduction evolved long before mammals evolved. The ancestors of mammals already reproduced sexually. There are no mammals that reproduce assexually.
>>I don't see the problem with different organs evolving in parallel. What would stop eyes evolving at the same time as the heart?)))
The organism would choke and die while trying on contact lenses. Continually silly...
First of all the basic heart could evolve before eyes even exist (and many organisms have no heart). Second, once the basic heart is in place there is nothing stopping the eyes evolving while the heart is also evolving. At no point would the organism choke and die.
Evos claim that speciation occurs in the wild. If speciation occurs by accident, it ought to be able to be duplicated on purpose.
What do you mean by on purpose? All you can do is sit and wait. You can't speed up the process.
As for time, domesticated animals have been bred to specfication for thousands of years on separate continents. That is, a laboratory of significant history. You'd think, under ideal conditions, that at least one accident would have happened.
No because first there is no reason to think domestication is ideal conditions for speciation, and second why is thousands of years sufficient time? What calculation have you based that on? Why not hundreds of years, or tens of thousands of years? The dog and wolf split over ten thousand years ago for example.
Not enough time, eh? Well, that's the stock answer. Billions and billions of years and it'll happen.
If the rate of speciation were as high as 1 new species per dozen species per 3000 years then that would imply over 100 new species worldwide per year. The fossil record does not bear this out, and neither does recorded history. So such a rate is obviously far too high.
Wait a second!
These creationists are admitting that the major animal groups appeared "540 million years ago."
I thought they insisted the world is only 6,000 years old.
While I'm no adherent of ID, I delight in the dependable way that they provoke the evos, and make them behave like inquisitionals with a recalcitrant heretic...patronize away.
There are scientists attempting this in many places. A couple of years back a scientist at the U of Chicago named Wu claimed to have created a new species of fruit fly. "Speciation Occurs!" claimed the headline. It was discussed here on FR. And, reading the headline, I believed it for a moment. Why not? The scientist in question used microsurgical techniques to try and alter the DNA enough to bring about a fly that satisfied the criteria of a unique new species.
Put aside he notion that it's really kind of "cheating" to duplicate speciation by tampering with the basic programming through a kind of "intelligent design" by lab scientists.
It turned out, there was no fly at all. There were only "expectations" of a new species. Since then, I google up Wu and fruit flies to see if his expectations have ever borne fruit. (flies). None yet.
If long centuries of breeding livestock in geographic isolation for particular types--which is about the only long-term laboratory that we can look to--can't bring about a duplication of this process, it would seem that the humble fruit fly might have provided the experience. It's been used to study genetics (in labs all over the world) for more than two centuries, and is far less complex than a bird or mammal.
That evolution provides a good working theory for categorizing and analyizing is indisputable, and that's as far as the theory goes. There are a lot of paradigms that are useful and ultimately limited. In linguistics, understanding a sentence structure does not mean that you can *generate* a sentence, but that is an arcanity that may not signify...
None of those idiots (Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot)had any idea of evolution. Stalin thought genes and DNA didn't exist as per his pet "peasant scientist" Lysenko. Hardly a Scientific outlook.
Hitler was self described as a Catholic, and he sold the Holocaust to the German people (Catholic and Lutheran) as revenge for the killing of Christ.
The mind boggles.
I'd settle for influencing them to remember 'i' before 'e' except after 'c'.
Once they learn that, they're on the path to correct orthography and perdition. BWHAHAHA!
Where do you think the 1000 species of fruit fly on earth came from?
This seems to be a balanced appraisal.
What I find significant is that, knowing that most scholars consider parts of the text you quoted to be a later interpolation, you posted it 'as is' to bolster your argument. I'm constantly being lectured by Christians about how, without their belief system, morality would be impossible, and then they do things that in my field would immediately get them a reputation for shady dealing, if not actual fraud.
Ah, the old creationist catch-22.
Creationist: evolution isn't a scientific theory because you can't duplicate it in a lab
Scientist: Yes I can. Here, let me show you!
Creationist. That isn't evolution, it's ID, because it didn't happen naturally.
Ah, the old creationist catch-22.
Creationist: evolution isn't a scientific theory because you can't duplicate it in a lab
Scientist: Yes I can. Here, let me show you!
Creationist. That isn't evolution, it's ID, because it didn't happen naturally.<<
No fair Perfessor, you were using logic and reason. Scientists haven't used them in decades...you said so!
Ready to apologize?
DK
Here is an interesting and imposing bit of research on Josephus.
http://members.aol.com/FLJOSEPHUS/testimonium.htm
Its conclusion is that Josephus and the writer of Luke used the same source, now lost.
I don't understand why more Christians can't just view science as the means by which god works his wonders, rather than as something to shield their children from.
This may count for evidence in religious circles. But 2000-year old hearsay accounts from mostly biased, untrained observers doesn't cut it in scientific research.
Why not leave science to science's role, and the bible to the bible's role. Trying to use the bible as a science book just doesn't work.
I'd be interested in how this all relates to the Q source, which with Mark is supposed to be the source for Matthew and Luke.
It has the virtue of simplicity.
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