"You Creationists are Not Qualified to Discuss Such Matters!"

http://www.apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=9&article=4546 ^ | 2012 Apologetics Press, Inc. All rights reserved. | Jeff Miller, Ph.D.

[kimtom]

"..A common quibble laid at the feet of the creationist is that he/she is not qualified to speak about scientific matters relating to the creation/evolution controversy..."

[Don Corleone]

For those who believe in God no explanation is necessary.

For those who do not believe in God no explanation is possible.

[allmendream]

Well then, sorry for your perception of contempt then. It is hard to discern tone - and by focusing on that you seemed to be trying to evade my legitimate questions about the subject at hand.

Can you define micro and macro evolution?

What mechanism would stop micro changes from accumulating into macro changes?

Would you say the difference between a mouse and a rat is a micro change or a macro change?

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

It's called argumentum ad verecundiam, "appeal to authority", a potential form of logical fallacy. It's not necessarily a logical fallacy, courts accept expert testimony all the time. If I get medical advice from my doctor and from my sister-in-law, I tend to trust my doctor more. If I discover that my doctor is taking Hawaiian vacations paid for by the company making the medication he is prescribing, I might reconsider.

If some crackpot mathematics professor from Pisa tells me that the sun and the stars in the heavenly vault stand still, and the earth whirls around the poles while circling the sun, against the opinion of my own senses and that of the best astrologers and contrary to Holy Scripture, I might not be inclined to accept his view.

[DManA]

I detect a kind of desperation and even a lack of faith among Creationists. They seem to believe if you don’t interpret Genesis literally then the whole fabric of Christianity will unravel.

I’m not personally invested one way or the other. I just think the question is way out on the periphery of Faith matters. Creationists seem to believe it’s the core.

[allmendream]

“The truth of our faith becomes a matter of ridicule among the infidels if any Catholic, not gifted with the necessary scientific learning, presents as dogma what scientific scrutiny shows to be false.”

Thomas Aquinas

[sickoflibs]

Creationists are no better than those statements themselves.

They spend 24-7 donations complaining about missing links all while refusing to discuss and defend their own real opposing beliefs, that Noah gathered up all the Kinds including ants on a boat ~ 10K years ago and avoided a world wide flood. That only Kinds that exist today were on Noah’s boat. They wont debate that.

Evolutionists cant prove what happened millions of years ago they can just come up with ideas and test them(like a game almost) and some falsely claim its fact, but Creationists dont even do that.

What happened to scam #2 =ID ??

[allmendream]

Yes, an authority on a subject has to convince based upon an explanation of the evidence not “because I am an authority”.

If a well regarded historian says something is the most likely explanation based upon documents A, B and C - he is not making an argument from authority - he IS an authority - but he is making an argument based upon the evidence.

Those without any expertise who want to hold a contrary view DESPITE the evidence are likely to make the fallacious argument that he is simply making an argument from authority. But they are wrong to do so.

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

So you don't accept micro evolution?

"Microevolution" is an ambiguous term.

I'm using the word "microevolution" in terms of speciation.

Does the fossil evidence demonstrate microevolution, in this sense, or stasis in species?

If you won't answer this simple question directly, I'm through playing. I don't waste my time with dogmatic "empiricists" anymore.

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

He was brilliant, wasn't he?

Or is this all you've read on some evolution blog?

[GraceG]

Government “Intelligent Social Designers” need to shut up about how much they seem to think we need welfare and other Government NON-Intelligent design programs like Social Security, Welfare, Food Stamps, etc etc.....

I thought all the libs beleive in Darwinism, but they beleive in “Intelligent Design” when the government is doing it with people’s lives....

[allmendream]

Mostly stasis, but some gradual change can be discerned in some instances.

So your view is that every single species fit on the Ark? How did the marsupials almost all end up in Australia?

Can you answer my questions?

[kimtom]

I disagree, they do.

For the sake of realism, imagine waiting at a railroad crossing while ten freight trains, each pulling 52 boxcars, move slowly by, one after another. That is how much space was available in the Ark, for its capacity was equivalent to 520 modern railroad stock cars. A barge of such gigantic size, with its thousands of built-in compartments (Gen. 6:14) would have been sufficiently large to carry two of every species of air-breathing animal in the world today (and doubtless the tendency toward taxonomic splitting has produced more “species” than can be justified in terms of Genesis “kinds”) on only half of its available deck space. The remaining space would have been occupied by Noah’s family, five additional representatives of each of the comparatively few kinds of animals acceptable for sacrifice, two each of the kinds that have become extinct since the Flood, and food for them all

-Whitcomb

[Boogieman]

“Many creationists believe that every present day species descended from those few “kinds” that could fit on a boat of known dimensions a few thousand years ago.”

No, that’s not even an accurate statement of the beliefs of young earth, biblical literalist creationists. So, maybe you aught to obtain a rudimentary knowledge of their beliefs before you take it upon yourself to define them for others?

[MrB]

Food for a year would have been considerable, but still workable with that amount of space.

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

Mostly stasis, but some gradual change can be discerned in some instances.

So can you at least understand why skeptics of speciation via microevolution do not take kindly to being labeled as ignorant?

So your view is that every single species fit on the Ark? How did the marsupials almost all end up in Australia?

Why do evolutionists always have to create straw men or false dichotomies?

My answer is "I don't know," and "I don't know." I don't know the science well enough to say. And I don't really care very much. God got us here however He got us here.

This does not mean, however, that speciation via microevolution is true. This is not a dichotomy. My analysis of the evidence is similar to yours. It doesn't seem to.

[allmendream]

Well then go ahead. Here is your opportunity to discuss a matter you are fully qualified to discuss.

Here I went with what answers in genesis says - a rather mainstream creationist source.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/really-a-flood-and-ark

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

I think the entire global warming festush is little more than a misplaced trust in the authority of computer models, argumentum ad computatrum.

[kimtom]

okay, but you can supply me with evidence (proof)of macro evolution.

“Theory of Evolution (often referred to as microevolution). This is the kind of evolution to which practically all people subscribe, and over which there is no controversy. It suggests that limited change, within narrow limits, occurs throughout all living things. I know of no one who would deny this point. Creationists agree to its factuality, as do atheistic evolutionists. Years ago (to list just three examples), Brangus cattle, Cockapoo dogs, and 1,000+ varieties of roses did not exist. But today they do. Why? Simply stated, it is because evolution has occurred......

Dr. Kerkut identified, defined, and discussed what he termed the General Theory of Evolution (often referred to as macroevolution). He stated: “On the other hand, there is the theory that all the living forms in the world have arisen from a single source which itself came from an inorganic form. This theory can be called the ‘General Theory of Evolution’...” (1960, p. 157). This is what is referred to commonly as organic evolution, atheistic evolution, or simply “evolution.” Through the years, numerous investigators have offered various definitions of evolution....”

Dr Thompson

[sickoflibs]

RE :”For the sake of realism, imagine waiting at a railroad crossing while ten freight trains, each pulling 52 boxcars, move slowly by, one after another. That is how much space was available in the Ark, for its capacity was equivalent to 520 modern railroad stock cars. A barge of such gigantic size, with its thousands of built-in compartments (Gen. 6:14) would have been sufficiently large to carry two of every species of air-breathing animal in the world today (and doubtless the tendency toward taxonomic splitting has produced more “species” than can be justified in terms of Genesis “kinds”) on only half of its available deck space. The remaining space would have been occupied by Noah’s family, five additional representatives of each of the comparatively few kinds of animals acceptable for sacrifice, two each of the kinds that have become extinct since the Flood, and food for them all”

That's not an argument, that's Sunday school Bible lesson to the kids. That is all a statement that is intended for.
The first red flag is the word ‘imagine’, just like John Lennon's Marxist song of same name.

Thanks for illustrating my point. Creationism is a bunch of rock throwers living in the most fragile glass house repeating 'don't look over HERE, look THERE instead keep looking there '

Creations 'arguing' reminds me of Sodom and Gomorrah, 'Dont look back at us, look at them'

[allmendream]

So do you understand why throwing your hands up and saying “I don’t know” is not as useful and predictable or as satisfactory as an actual explanation based upon the evidence?

One thing the fossil record clearly does NOT show is that all species existed contemporaneously. So how is it that you accept the evidence of their long existence in the past without major change (say in three toed horses), but reject the evidence that those horses with toes didn’t live contemporaneously with horses with hooves?