Posted on 02/10/2009 8:25:43 AM PST by GodGunsGuts
...Coyne and Pigliucci tell us (again) that there is such overwhelming evidence for evolution. OK, put up or shut up. They don’t know what a species is, they don’t know what the target of selection is, they don’t know if natural selection is a queen or a jester, they don’t know what adaptive radiation is, they don’t know how speciation operates (the main reason for Darwin’s little storybook), and they can’t connect mutations to any actual benefit to an organism. Other than those little minor matters, evolution is so supported by such mountains of evidence that only a fool with an agenda could dare question it...
(Excerpt) Read more at creationsafaris.com ...
You just contradicted yourself. We do not know how life formed. But there is a very clear geological record of a progression from primitive, simple life to more complex life.
It basically amounts to selection of individual genetic “units”. This is still hard to define because science has no way of knowing whether or not their were silent mutations or gene reversals in the extinct phylogenetic lines. That data is totally lost to time. The modern definitions (such as Ernst Mayr’s biological species concept) are better than the old ideas of population selection but they are not all-inclusive. It also doesn’t help that fossils and ancient DNA tend to be destroyed by the environment far more often than not.
Petroleum geology relies heavily on paleontology. Hard science.
Perhaps you know of a company that asks whether a potential new hire is an evolutionist or a creationist. I don’t.
However, I doubt an oil company would want a 'geologist' who believes all this was created in 6,000 years. Because that mindset rejects key findings in paleontology, structural geology and petroleum formation. It would be like a Pharma company hiring someone who does not believe in germ theory.
Of course they're dependent. The tower could not be constructed without considering the foundation upon which it rests.
“very clear geological record of a progression from primitive, simple life to more complex life”
No there is not! There is a bunch of strata in which a bunch of dead creatures were clearly sorted according to density & a few other factors (such as birds being on top because they would naturally be the last to get caught by a cataclysmic water event) by a massive water action, and a theory which ludicrously orders these animals in a timescale like deepest = oldest. There is a system in which fossils are dated by the rocks in which they are found, and rocks which are dated by the fossils that are found in them.
And all through the dead things we find, we find clear, delineated KINDS of animal! NEVER do we see changes from one type to another type.
And contradictions ABOUND in the evolution theory. How do you evolve a blow hole, for example? Breathing is either yes, or no. If no, the animal dies.
The theory is DEAD IN THE WATER. Even many pro-evolutionists are admitting it now. The most honest ones will tell you they only believe in it because they don’t want to believe in God.
“petroleum formation”
so what about all the petroleum on Titan, or the methane on Jupiter, or Saturn? Dinosaurs & swamps yes?
Last I checked, Exxon isn't exploring for oil on Titan. Recovery costs are a bit too high to be profitable. But give Pelosi time, and that might change.
The point is, we are looking for oil and gas here. There is a lot of science involved on the subject. I was studying to be a petroleum geologist when the oil bust of the mid eighties hit. How much have you studied this subject?
I hadn’t read that part closely enough to pick up on the humor. But that’s ok, because you drawing my attention to it definitely made me laugh. LOL
I am not claiming such.
But the geological record is clear. For over two billion years, all we see are simple life forms - stromatolites and other such organisms. Then we start seeing more complex critters, prior to the Cambrian. Then we get fish in the Cambrian. Amphibians, I believe, in the Devonian. Reptiles later. Mammals don't appear until the Triassic. Birds don't appear until the Jurassic.
So the problem is - you demand transitional forms. But that basically is immaterial for what I am saying. The progression in the fossil record is clear. Simple moves to complex over great periods of time. One can say ID is behind that, or one can postulate evolution. My beef is with those who concoct wild theories that exist in complete defiance of the geological record.
In brief, the definitions of species are so broad and rubbery as to render the term useless in biology.
Yet the very existence of species is considered a support of biological evolution.
That is pure horsecrap. My paleoentology professor in college was a devout Christian who believed the Bible said who and evolution said how. He was not going to shoehorn what the rocks told him into Biblical literalism (which itself often relies on interpretation).
It’s still useful for reference purposes, better than refering to plants and animals as numbers or something hard to remember.
Too silly for words. I see I am dealing with another Young Earther. Which means serious debate is basically worthless. Have a good day.
Yes exactly. All the components of oil and gas are found in HUGE quantities on other planets, proving that oil & gas are a natural mineral.
It’s the geology that finds the oil. Texas oilmen will tell you if you drill a kink in the well it makes the oil come up faster. There’s no scientific backing to it, but they’ll swear by it anyway, and spend plenty of money doing it. Industries are often like that
Oil & gas are also found in places where as far as science is concerned, there has never been significant amounts of life, like north Alaska, so that’s that argument out the window!
“a devout Christian who believed the Bible said who and evolution said how”
So what, he thought God could make little microbes, but that’s it? Man. Talk about “people will only believe in small miracles”
You keep asserting things and demanding that we accept them, apparently just on your say-so. You seem to like coming up with labels for styles of argument; perhaps you can tell us what the word for that one is.
Evolution depends on microbes (or whatever form of self-replicating life came first) already being here, just as gravity depends on matter already being here. As a description of how life behaves, though, it doesn't matter how that life got here, just as it doesn't matter to gravity how matter got here.
I'll borrow a framework that's been used here before: consider three possible origins of life--1, God seeded the first microbes; 2, aliens seeded the first microbes; 3, the first microbes developed chemically from nonliving substances. I'm saying that for the theory of evolution, as a description of what happened after that event, it doesn't matter which of those 3 is correct. You must think it does, or you wouldn't be insisting that evolution pick one. So what difference do you think it makes to evolution as a scientific theory, separate from any social or moral implications which one it is?
Fair enough, you don’t know of any company that would concern its self about evolutionist vs. creationist belief.
And what you call ‘hard science’ really does involve a great deal of interpretation based upon personal belief or bias.
O.K., But let’s ask some of the creationists here if they, because of a certain mind set, reject the idea that different rock formations and layers might have a greater likelihood of containing oil than others. Or that studying the formations where oil has been found before would lead one to search for oil in similar formations.
Or if they might read seismic tests differently or the chemistry of bore cuttings.
As best I understand the creationist position it’s not a question of whether a rock formations and layers exist but their age.
But let’s ask the creationists about their mindset.
“You seem to like coming up with labels for styles of argument; perhaps you can tell us what the word for that one is”
um, I didn’t “come up with” the word sophistry! here: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sophistry
But certainly sir, I can help you with that. My reasoning is factual, and based on logical reasoning, and addressing the real issues, rather than ideas of “alien microbes started evolution”! So where did the aliens come from?
OK, so you realize that the aliens idea is silly, I’m sure. So it comes down to “God the put microbes there” or “the microbes came from dirt”. That’s great, that’s the admission I wanted.
The “came from dirt” idea is ALSO crazy. Seriously. You would wait a lot more than a trillion years for 100 L-type amino acids to come together in the same vicinity, never mind being in the right order, to create even ONE strand of DNA, never mind an entire cell.
So you’re left with the “God made evolution by putting tiny microbes” idea. And if that’s really your thing, I have no major beef with you. It doesn’t make any sense that God would be able to make tiny microbes but not larger animals. And the kind of people that believe that are most usually the same ones who find the virgin birth hard, or the feeding the 5000, or in fact any tangible miracle. But if the admission is that the theory of evolution relies on God, then I’m satisfied by that. I don’t agree, but I’m certainly satisfied by that.
I can die a happy genetic unit!
Sorry DB, but this - still - rests on too many assumptions to be credible, too much circular reasoning with isn’t being addressed at the core of the contention. You’re providing “proofs” that dance around the sidelines, but which still rely upon the same unproven assumptions for their credibility.
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