A little oversimplified, but close enough for this discussion.
This must extend into cosmology or there is a plan, purpose, and Target:
Does not follow. One can certainly postulate a purposeful "universe maker" of some sort who crafted our universe for some purpose of its own, but which did not give a damn one way or the other about the development of organic life on the third planet of some obscure solar system out in the boonies.
On the other hand, maybe it *does* extend to cosmology. But you can't just sit in your armchair and *logically* conclude either way.
“Whether there is a target or not, the nature and mechanism of interspecies evolution demands that a millenia of transitional forms be processed through in order to get from a one cell organism to the variety of creatures we have today.”
And how can one argue with the predictions of this beautiful theory?
Very well, thanks for asking. There are indeed thousands of transitional forms, at least between creatures which are hardbodied or hardboned enough to fossilize with some degree of success.
1. Had the rate of expansion of the big bang been different, [megasnip]
There are certainly some wild-assed guesses in that chain. Some are reasonable extrapolations, but others are just numbers out of a hat, since we don't know enough about universe formation yet to know if things *could* have ended up any other way. It makes for some fun philosophical contemplation, but I'm not sure if it's good for much else. And again, it ignores the "otherwise we wouldn't be asking about it" issue.
6. The chance formation of life from nonlife (abiogenesis) has been estimated at around 1 x 1040,000
Clearly, you've lost some typesetting notation there...
Thus, the probability of life forming anywhere in the cosmos is miniscule.
Manure. I've personally checked every single "estimate" of this sort I've managed to get my hands on, and they're all ridiculously simplistic. None of them even uses an arguably plausible mechanism for their probability calculation. Anyone who claims to have even a rough estimate of the actual likelihood of life first arising is a fool. The possible range given our current knowledge is anywhere from inifinitismal to near certainty. We just can't know yet.
FIG O: Origin of the Phyla: Darwinian predictions
You are, of course, invited to justify your claim that the chart accurately reflects the "Darwinian predictions" for the origin of phyla.
Damn, somewhere around the web I once found a really good rebuttal for this popular sequence of creationist "graphs", but I can't locate it at the moment. So I'll give a brief recap.
The biggest problem with these "conceptual" graphs (note that they aren't the product of any actual measurements or data...) is that they show a one-dimensional measure of "morphological distance". But the only meaningful measures of "morphological distance" are multi-dimensional, not flat. A tree branching off in all directions would appear "overlapped" on these sketches, giving extremely misleading mental ideas about true disparity.
But that aside, the actual fossil data *does* come much closer to fitting the "branching tree" sketch abovce than this dishonest one:
FIG Q: The origin of the phyla: the fossil evidence
That's just ridiculous. It shows *no* change in "morphological distance" between phyla from the Cambrian until now, which is just utterly ludicrious. The promulgators of that graph would have you believe that there's no more difference between the worm-like Cambrian chordate (it wasn't even yet a vertebrate) and the worm-like Cambrian arthropod, than there is between today's, say, giraffe and dragonfly. It's a great example of "how to lie with graphs".
In fact, the fossil record of phyla disparity much more resembles the top graph (that's the "Darwinian prediction", I remind you) than the lower graph. While it's true that representatives of today's major animal phyla had appeared by the time of the Cambrian, they were all very primitive and simplistic by today's standard, and showed more in common with each other than obvious differences (the differences only become "meaningful" when viewed through today's knowledge of the different directions that each early "body type" was going to branch -- at the time, a worm with a spinal cord versus a worm with a more diffuse nerve net would hardly rise to the level of different families, much less different phyla. The amount of morphological distance *was* far less in those days than it is today. The "tree of life" had only a few dozen branches, and they were "close" together in comparison to wide gulfs between groups of animals today.
The sudden appearance of between 50 and 100 disparate body plans with extremely low species diversity supports the conclusion that neither gradual Darwinian evolution nor lower taxon-level punctuations can account for the origin of the higher taxa and the major body plans.
Horse manure. The "disparate body plans" were hardly as "disparate" as their modern ancestors now are. At the time they barely showed what we would consider earth-shaking differences from each other. Yes, they had some significant differences, but hardly on the level of, say, a modern butterfly versus a crab, even though both are in the *same* phyla. The disparity of life in the Cambrian was far, far more limited than the later "spreading" of the "tree of life".
In short, while there were a relatively limited number of species at the time of the Cambrian, it's because life was still branching out, the "many phyla" point is just a *modern* view of those humble beginnings, and how almost each Cambrian species was to eventually father its own major trunk of the ever-branching tree of life.
There's nothing there that's at all inconsistent with what we already know about evolutionary speciation.
Whoops, that should be "modern descendants", of course.
…different night, same old stars…
-Jack Johnson
Let me start here by throwing my cards on the table (I do not think we have been properly introduced). I am a Christian who enjoys science and has since childhood. I was brought up in an ultra-conservative household – meaning:
My father, a retired Air Force Cornel, had a radio talk show before Rush every day in Texas and my mother was a housewife who cooked for 250 people every Wednesday for church. Did I rebel as a youth? Yes, I became an extreme libertarian with gnostic beliefs. (Just to make my family proud – LOL!)
Academia changed my life and I was blazing my own trail – everything was cool and I was rebelling against ‘literally’ everything. (Many things happened here at this point that I am neither proud of or care to divulge) Long story short, I met a great woman, married, had a child, and evaluated my beliefs. I became a Christian. Ironically this occurred because I thought my child needed moral guidance (like I had) and I started taking him to church. I have learned more from a child than any school.
Anguish in Affluence- -Ravi Zacharias
“Give me the makings of the songs of a nation,' said eighteenth-century Scottish political thinker Andrew Fletcher, "and I care not who writes its laws."' His confident words not only divulge a major cultural access point to our contemporary mind-set, but also acknowledge the control of song lyrics upon the moods and convictions of the young, who are embattle by the tug of so many allurements.I readily grant Mr. Fletcher his assertion. My own experience testifies to the impressions carved upon my consciousness by popular music. Beyond that, such music accorded me the privilege of identifying with the expression of shared sentiments. I recall an occasion in that pale stage as a when I sat in my living room in New Delhi India, suspended between the dreary world of my physics textbook on my lap and the low sound of music from the radio in my ear. In this “between-two-worlds” state of mind, I was suddenly captivated by the sentiments of a song that seemed to echo the struggles in my own heart. The strange blend of Eastern chant in the background and the crisp baritone voice of the singer, a Westerner, conveyed a sense of universality to the obvious anguish that imbued each line and articulated the crowded questions I had painfully suppressed-
From the canyons of the mind
we wander on and stumble blind,
Wade through the often tangled maze
of starless nights and sunless days,
Hoping for some kind of clue-
road to lead us to the truth.
But who will answer? ...
is our hope in walnut shells
worn' round the neck with temple bells?
Or deep within some cloistered walls
where hooded figures pray in shawls?
Or high upon some dusty shelves,
or in the stars,
or in ourselves?
Who will answer?The songwriter persuasively touched the emotions as he grappled with the pain that fifes passages engender-the overwhelming despair of a family when love is lost; the agony for one in the death of a child, the torment of another struggling with suicide.- the noise and din in a discotheque for some as they seek to escape the haunts of loneliness; the apprehension of all, living under the threat of a nuclear conflagration. Each scenario ended with the question, "Who will answer?" Finally the chorus thundered forth the intensity of the conflict deep within the human consciousness.
If the soul is darkened
by a fear it cannot name,
If the mind is baffled
when the rules don’t fit the game, 'Who will answer?
Who will answer?
'Who will answer?It was remarkable to me, even at that stage of my life, that the candid admission of such emptiness emerged from the world that symbolized the new Eden-America. And even more to the point, it came from that segment of society that epitomized the success for which millions of young people clamor-Hollywood, that bastion of perpetual enchantment. How could this be? Had the breadth of such anguished questioning been articulated from my native soil, it would have been understandable, for Indian culture has never been reticent to voice the tragedy that life portends. V S. Naipaul, one of the world’s finest writers, has appropriately captured India’s angst in referring to her as a wounded civilization.
Coincidentally, at that very time in my life, one of India's finest artistic accomplishments had won international acclaim with a film called Mother India. The film portrayed a family’s life-and-death struggle to bring some measure of dignity and decency to their mortal existence. Between warding off disease and death, battling the vicissitudes of national disasters, and coping with family clashes, life had become. synonymous with pain. The chorus of the film’s theme song summed it up well.
Since I have come into this world,
I must live.
If living means drinking poison,
I have to drink it.The fatalism, the nihilism, the "take life by the throat philosophy with all of its existential trauma, were endemic to a nation so victimized by centuries of conflict and struggle. But how was it that the same questions that were predictable from within a "wounded" context were also raised by those who apparently did not experience the same impoverishments and lived in a country where life’s physical deprivations had been in large measure conquered?”
---From Ravi Zacharias – Can Man Live Without God
That being said, I am not a creationist. I have read through this thread and have seen name calling on both sides. It is both childish and stupid. Although this has obviously occurred on both sides of the debate I see a common occurrence here that I believe needs to be remedied and put to rest.
First I will ask the question that pertains to this thread topic:
Anyone who doubts (but understands) the ‘theory of common descent’ is not competent for a job as a physician.
Is this statement true?
This term Creationist and creationiod – is this honest? Does anyone really want to justify this with an excuse? (Maybe some will so they can continue this action – although it is a lie)
George Carlin mode:
Don’t you get it MAN! We are stuff… Stuff, stuff, and more stuff… Oh, DNA… ummm complex stuff.. and stuff, stuff,…
Hey, don’t make me keep repeating this stuff because my mind has more intelligent stuff than…
Wait, intelligence? OK, just more complicated stuff…
So anyway, see these pictures of transitional fossils… pretty cool eeh?
Yeah yeah, yeah, I know… furry carnivorous mammals jumped into the water and started turning into whales – here is a chart that proves it… see the pretty pictures.
Lewis Black mode:
Wait, you actually believe that intelligent design doesn’t mean creationism?
Don’t you understand? If you pick up a newspaper and do not conclude that the ink formed words by chemical bonding alone – you are a creationist!
No wait. If you conclude that the complex information contained in DNA was designed and contains complex information – you are a creationist.
Oops… I mean, that if you determine that something was intelligently designed and man did not do it – you are a creationist!
Umm… I mean if you think that there is intelligence causing, or prior to man’s intelligence – you are a creationist!
OK. What I am trying to say is that if you believe a cause must always occur before an effect – you are a creationist!
Now surely you are not so stupid as to think that there was intelligence that caused man’s intelligence. Intelligent design comes only from man and biological design comes from natural selection. Fortunately we are intelligent enough to figure this out… at least some of us.
Note: (Natural selection sarcasm mode, i.e.… not sarcasm via intelligent design)
Humor – I love it!
Let’s look at something not so humorous:
A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion
Here we have an example of life without any ‘intelligent’ design.<
Let’s look at the cards that you put on the table:
One can certainly postulate a purposeful "universe maker" of some sort who crafted our universe for some purpose of its own, but which did not give a damn one way or the other about the development of organic life on the third planet of some obscure solar system out in the boonies.
Now I don’t call anyone who disagrees with ID a ‘stupid designer’ or automatically call them an atheist. I just ask questions….
Bats and whales – what do they have in common?
Snakes and spiders – what do they have in common?
Yo’ Dude. We just live in this ‘lucky’ ecosystem…