Posted on 04/16/2006 11:29:43 AM PDT by JCEccles
Recently I highlighted how the coverage of Tiktaalik revealed the fascinating phenomenon that only after discovering a new "missing link" will evolutionists acknowledge the previously paltry state of fossil evidence for evolution. This behavior is again witnessed in coverage of the discovery of Australopithecus anamensis fossils in Ethiopia. The media has also exaggerated and overblown claims that this evidence supports "human evolution."
The latest "missing link" is actually comprised of a few tooth and bone fragments of Au. anamensis, an ape-like species that lived a little over 4 million years ago. Incredibly, claims of "intermediacy" are based upon 2-3 fragmented canines of "intermediate" size and shape. This has now led to grand claims in the media of finding a "missing link." Because some bone fragments from Ardipithecus ramidus and Australopithecus afarensus were also found in the area, MSNBC highlighted these finds on a front-page article calling this "the most complete chain of human evolution so far." Media coverage of this find thus follows an identical pattern to that of Tiktaalik: incredibly overblown claims of a "transitional fossil" follow stark admissions of how previously bleak the evidence was for evolution. Moreover, claims that this find enlightens "human evolution" are misleading, as these fossils come from ape-like species that long-predate the appearance of our genus Homo, and thought to be far removed from the origin of "humans."
(Excerpt) Read more at evolutionnews.org ...
Is it I our your self who is believing lies. I put my money on you.
The "Festival of Incoherence" has commenced.....
The "Festival of Incoherence" has commenced.....
pretty much sums it up.
Personally, I would say a God who can execute a gigantic plan over billions of years is much more powerful than a God who has to click his heels three times and have it all come together relatively instantaneously. I always wonder why Creationists think there is such a limit to His power.
You don't find it plausible that, when explaining to people who didn't quite have the same understanding of science as we currently do, God might have told an analagous story, instead of laying it all out exactly how He did it?
Besides, on the first "day", there was only light separated from darkness. How would one go about measuring the 24-hour period there, since there was no Earth at that point?
Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the heavens, and the other elements of the world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and the moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to be certain from reason and experience. Now it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and they hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make confident assertions [quoting 1Ti. 1:7].St. Augustine, The Literal Meaning of Genesis, 1:42-43.
Oh, man; my "Unintentional Irony Meter" just got toasted....
4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created. When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens - 5 and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground, 6 but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground - 7 the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
[biblegateway.com]
Astronomy is no more observable than evolution. There are no observations that prove that Betelgeuse will ever supernova, no proof that the sun will ever be big enough to vaporize the earth, and nothing but a "theory" for how far away the stars are or how fast they are moving.
Since you believe that creation is only 6000 years old, you don't believe that the stars are billions of years old, do you?
Does it really matter that human beings appeared more than 100,000 years ago instead of 6,000? We are what we are now, no more likely to change physically than the alligator.
Christians are not against science.
Of course not. You, however, are against science.
Chemical reactions are real, biology is real, physics is real, ECT, all observable and testable. Evolution is not real, not observable and testable.
This is where you're wrong. Evolution is real, observable, and testable. This argument may have held sway with layman as recently as ten years ago, but it shouldn't any longer. Today this claim has been totally invalidated by the study of comparative genomics. Using modern DNA sequencing technology, it is possible to sequence genomes in much less time than it used to take. Mammalian genomes used to take years, now they take months. The time it takes to sequence bacterial genomes is now measured in hours. This means that we can view evolution in action in simple organisms, such as bacteria, in near real time. In this way, evolution has moved from the theoretical to the emprircal.
We can directly measure the occurances and frequencies of certain patterns of genes as they change in populations of organisms over time. This is the very definition of evolution. Just as a geologist can look at a riverbank and measure erosion, a molecular biologist can look at a genome and measure evolution. A geologist may make predictions that given a certain amount of rain, a certain amount of riverbank will be washed away. Likewise, a biologist may make predictions that given a certain number of generations, a certain genetic marker may have spread through a certain percent of a population. Using stratigraphy, a geology may estimate where a river once flowed long ago. By comparing genetic markers in different organisms, a biologist may estimate how long ago a common ancester may have lived. Adaption and variation are part of evolutionary theory just as erosion and subduction are part of plate tectonic theory. Like geology, evolutionary theory has practical applications in science and engineering. Micropaleontology, or the study of ancient microscopic fossils, is an important part of modern oil exploration. Paleontology rests firmly upon evolutionary theory. If the theory of evolution is a lie, then so is physics, astronomy, biology, and geology. One cannot escape the fact that evolutionary theory is an integral part of science.
You proselytize your religious belief...
No, I am not proselytizing. You are spreading falsehoods about science and scientists. I feel compelled to respond to your omissions, distortions, and insults.
You're wrong another way, too. Christians are not against science. Evolutionary theory is science. Therefore, Christians are not against evolutionary theory. You are painting a false choice, an either/or question that one stands either with evolution or with the Lord. This is the classic fallacy of the excluded middle. There are more Christians and Jews who accept evolutionary theory as science than those who don't.
Here's an excerpt from an essay by someone named Francis Collins. Dr. Collins is a biochemist who works for the National Institiute of Heath, and is the director of the national Human Genome Project. He's also a devout man who has this to say about the conflict between faith and science:
Why is the conflict then perceived to be so severe? Science and Christianity do not have a pretty history. Certainly conflicts tend to arise when science tries to comment on the supernatural -- usually to say it does not exist -- or when Christians attempt to read the Bible as a science textbook. Here I find it useful to recall that this is not a new debate, and I often refer back to the wisdom of St. Augustine. Augustine in 400 AD had no reason to be apologetic about Genesis, because Darwin had not come along. Augustine was blessed with the ability to look at Gen. 1:1 without having to fit it into some sort of scientific discovery of the day. Yet, if you read Augustin's interpretation of Gen. 1:1, it is a lot like mine. In fact, Augustine makes the point how dangerous it is for us to take the Bible and try to turn it into a science text. He wrote:
These are very strong and effective words. But the past century has not been a good one in terms of the polarization between the more evangelical wing of the church and the scientific community. We seem to be engaged in contentious, destructive, and wholly unnecessary debate about evolution and creation. From my perspective as a scientist working on the genome, the evidence in favor of evolution is overwhelming.
What are the arguments in favor of evolution? Let me quickly describe two arguments. (1) The fossil record. Macroevolution has growing and compelling evidence to support it. Elephants, turtles, whales, birds often have been cited as species where transitional species have not been identified. That is no longer true. We have gained more in the fossil record in the last ten years than in almost the entire previous history of science. (2) The DNA evidence for evolution. I mentioned the ancient repeats we share with mice in the same location showing no conceivable evidence of function, diverging at a constant rate just as predicted by neutral evolution. One could only conclude that this is compelling evidence of a common ancestor or else that God has placed these functionless DNA fossils in the genome of all living organisms in order to test our faith. I do not find that second alternative very credible. After all God is the greatest scientist. Would he play this kind of game?
Arguments against macroevolution, based on so-called gaps in the fossil records, are also profoundly weakened by the much more detailed and digital information revealed from the study of genomes. Outside of a time machine, Darwin could hardly have imagined a more powerful data set than comparative genomics to confirm his theory.
So what are the objections then to evolution? Well, obviously, the major objection in many Christians' minds is that it is not consistent with Genesis. I find Gen. 1:1-2:4 powerful, but admittedly complex and at times difficult to understand with its seemingly two different versions of the creation of humans. Problematically, a literal translation of Gen. 1:1-2:4 brings one in direct conflict with the fundamental conclusions of geology, cosmology, and biology.
Professor Darrel Falk has recently pointed out that one should not take the view that young-earth creationism is simply tinkering around the edges of science. If the tenets of young earth creationism were true, basically all of the sciences of geology, cosmology, and biology would utterly collapse. It would be the same as saying 2 plus 2 is actually 5. The tragedy of young-earth creationism is that it takes a relatively recent and extreme view of Genesis, applies to it an unjustified scientific gloss, and then asks sincere and well-meaning seekers to swallow this whole, despite the massive discordance with decades of scientific evidence from multiple disciplines. Is it any wonder that many sadly turn away from faith concluding that they cannot believe in a God who asks for an abandonment of logic and reason? Again from Augustine:
Again, written over 1600 years ago but right on target today!
That is precisely the problem with astronomy. Most of the theories cannot be observed because they rely on observations that would take millions of years. Are there really gas giants around Vega? The evidence suggests there is, but we can't see the planet(s) unless we go there, and that would take millions of years with current technology. Will Betelgeuse explode? Maybe, and it may have already exploded, but it could also take thousands or millions of years for us to find out for sure. None of these theories are observable.
That doesn't stop me from believing them, but the fact is the evidence for these theories is actually less than the evidence that the earth is billions of years old and evolution creates new species out of old species.
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