Bowap

http://www.worthychristianforums.com/index...t&p=1376296 http://www.worthychristianforums.com/index...t&p=1379647 I think these statements illustrate my points, why I decided to come here, and also your obvious lack of understanding of the subjects. So yes, I have given up trying to have a serious discussion with someone who clearly doesn't have a clue what they are talking about, isn't even prepared to learn or listen to evidence and arguments, and who also accuses everyone who doesn't agree with biblical literalism of being a non-Christian.

By creationism I mean the notion that fully formed adult organisms were essentially 'poofed' into being, unrelated to everything else, pretty much as a literal reading of various religious texts would indicate. On this forum were are talking really about Christian creationism but there are of course lots of Muslim and Hindu creationists, and those who follow other religions. There is also what is known is evolutionary creationism, which is essentially theistic evolution and not what I am referring to as 'creationism' here. Creationists basically deny the theory of biological evolution. I would say that there are two main proposition to this; i) universal common descent, i.e. all living organisms on the planet are descended from a common ancestor/ancestral gene pool and so are genealogically related if you go back far enough in time, and ii) this diversification was produced by natural processes; natural selection, sexual selection, genetic drift etc acting on variations. I would generally describe a creationist as someone who denies these principles and claims that divine intervention and supernatural miracles were required to produce life as we see it. It does of course become rather nebulous when we consider the vast range of views held by Christians. Some creationists accept the scientific evidence for the age of the earth, others reject it (as well as pretty much all of modern science) and insist that the earth/universe is 6,000-10,000 years old. Moreover, if we take someone like Michael Behe (proponent of Intelligent Design), is he a creationist? He accepts common descent, but does not think that natural processes were sufficient to produce life as we see it today, so he thinks God perhaps actively guided the mutations (an idea that is not unreasonable but for which no empirical scientific evidence could either vindicate or falsify), or maybe planted the the first living cell on the Earth front-loaded with information (an idea Ken Miller calls "an absolutely hopeless genetic fantasy," or what Sean Carroll describes as "utter nonsense that disregards fundamentals of genetics"). I'm not sure how I would refer to his position but whatever it is, I don't see that it has much merit, either theologically or scientifically.

How can you say you know what macroevolution is and then when I provided observed instances of it you simply say, "Nope?" I'm afraid that closing your eyes and refusing to accept facts does not make those facts disappear. You agreed that macroevolution is evolutionary change at or above the species level, so species is the taxonomic level representing the dividing point between micro and macroevolution, and thus speciation constitutes observed evidence of macroevolution. If you do not accept this then you will need to provide a better explanation than simply saying "Nope." As for Neanderthal; http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v.../neandertal.asp "Biblical creationists believe Neandertal Man was just a unique variant of modern man who lived in Europe and adjacent Asia and North Africa after the Babel dispersion in the Ice Age (the aftermath of the Flood—ref. 24)." http://www.icr.org/article/neanderthals-are-still-human/ "Conclusion Neanderthals were human." You continue to reject evidence for common descent without presenting any reason for your rejection. If you accept paternity testing as accurate then you must also accept the same methods which allow scientists to establish the common ancestry of various species, including us. Evolution demands that nested hierarchies exist, it is a prediction of the theory. There is absolutely no reason for them to exist if creationism were true, in fact they are precisely what we would not expect if the similarities between organisms were a result of common 'design' rather than common descent. Yet whichever way we attempt to compare different forms of life, we discover that the nested hierarchy is the outcome of the process. Creationists can refuse to accept this but that is not a response, anyone can refuse to accept anything they want; I can refuse to accept that today is Tuesday, that the Earth orbits the Sun, or that the sky is blue, but my denying these realities does not change reality itself. In their literature creationists have no response to nested hierarchies, the best they can apparently do is to try to compare living organisms to manufactured objects such as vehicles or machines, but anyone who understands the concept realises how fundamentally flawed this is. Machines and vehicles do not possess unique character combinations, they do not reproduce to pass on inherited characteristics, and any 'enforced' hierarchy is easily shown to have loops and violations in it, the death knell for a nested hierarchy.

I'm not arguing with God, I'm arguing with people who try to interpret the Bible as an introductory textbook in biology and physics. The scientific definition of 'macroevolution' is (as I have already stated) evolutionary change at or above the species level. This is something that we have documented dozens and dozens of times in the wild and in the laboratory. So yes, there is undeniable evidence that macroevolution has occurred as we have actually directly observed it. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/speciation.html Homo sapiens, in essentially our modern form, appear in the fossil record around 200,00 years ago. Moreover we have a whole series of hominid fossils dating from around 4-5 million years ago, showing undeniable progression towards more human-like characteristics, flatter face, upright stance, increase in cranial capacity etc, through time. What is an objective observer supposed to make of this? Was God practising? Or was descent with modification (evolution) occurring? I don't even know how you can say that Neanderthals have "been proven to not share our DNA." What does that even mean? Young-earth creationists insist that Neanderthals were fully modern humans, just in an antedeluvian world (however, they clearly weren't members of our species). We share around 99.5% of our DNA with Neanderthals, and that's because we shared a very recent common ancestor with them, probably around 400,000-750,000 years ago. I provided you with evidence for our common ancestry with the other apes, and it was just ignored. The main example I used the was SINEs (short interspersed elements), these are chunks of DNA that are inserted near genes. The insertion of these elements marks a gene in a species, and it is then inherited by all species descended from it. These events are quite rare and there is no active mechanism for removing them. As a result, their presence in the same place in the DNA of separate species can only be explained by those species sharing a common ancestor. These are the same principles by which paternity testing works. I also mentioned nested hierarchies, these provide undeniable evidence for macroevolution, and no evolution denier has ever been able to mount a response to this. The reason this stuff is not spoken about by 'creation scientists' is because they have no response to it. If you want to read an article by a 'creation scientist' on the human and chimp genomes read this; http://documents.clubexpress.com/documents...lyArVOo%2FgM%3D http://74.125.77.132/search?q=cache:9mXBhf...=clnk&gl=uk The author spends most of the article saying that everything we observe is exactly what we would expect if common descent we true, but that he can't accept that due to his theological beliefs. Whatever he is doing it isn't science, in science you have to be prepared to go wherever the evidence leads you, regardless of what you want to be true.

The majority of creationists believe in a young earth/cosmos, i.e. no more than 10,000 years old. Every single human being who has ever lived is a descendent of apes, because all humans are apes, more specifically 'great apes'/Hominidae, along with chimps, gorillas, and orangutans*. This is an undeniable fact of taxonomy, and it is true absolutely irrespective of whether the theory of evolution is true. Probably the best evidence for our common ancestry with the other extant apes comes from human chromosome 2, shared pseudogenes/SINES/LINES/ERVs in exactly the same places in our DNA, all converging upon the same phylogenetic tree. The distribution of inherited genetic markers is the principle by which paternity testing works and greater in-depth analysis provided by comparative genomics allows scientists to establish the common ancestry of different species beyond any doubt - http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/4825/sinesxl7.jpg . Moreover, no denier of evolution has ever provided a better explanation for the nested hierarchy of living organisms than universal common descent. *Notice that DNA analysis shows that we are more closely related to chimps than chimps are to gorillas and we are more closely related to gorillas than they are to orangutans. "To put this into perspective, the number of genetic differences between humans and chimps is about 10 times less than between the mouse and rat." http://www.genome.gov/15515096

I see that this whole debate is not really going anywhere, for some people a literal reading of Genesis is the way it happened, and nothing will ever change their minds. It's my opinion that God gave me a brain and intellect and didn't intend for me to forego their use. Biblical literalists insist that anyone who doesn't agree with their theology is not a Christian, and so there is not even the potential for any meaningful dialogue. Oh, and you don't think we have looked at what 'creation scientists' have to say? I have looked very hard, believe me. There are no coherent responses to nested hierarchies, undeniable temporal stratification in the fossil record, human chromosome 2, ERVs/LINES/SINES/pseudogenes (all of which converge upon the same phylogenetic tree), embryonic development, the fundamental unity of living organisms, the various other methods which provide convergent independent phylogenies, thousands of transitional fossils, atavisms, biogeography, observed speciation (macroevolution) events, convergent radiometric dating techniques and other methods which undeniably indicate an ancient earth/universe, observed cosmological events from billions of light years away that can also only mean that the universe is ancient, cosmic microwave background radiation, and everything else modern science tells us but which creationists (especially those who believe in a young earth) feel they have to deny.

There is so much misinformation that emanates entirely from creationist sources, I'll list some just some regarding evolution. If you've ever heard these statments you'll have heard them from creationists and they are factually inaccurate. - There is serious debate going in within the scientific community about whether evolution has occurred/ evolution is a 'theory in crisis'/ it is being abandoned by scientists. (Former YEC Glenn Morton has an article on this - The Imminent Demise of Evolution: The Longest Running Falsehood in Creationism - http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/demise.html) The thing is that scientists do have serious debates about the rates and patterns of evolutionary change, how important natural selection is or genetic drift, and how organisms are related but there is no scientific debate going on about whether or not evolution has actually occurred. Scientists already think there is so much evidence in favour of it, and has been for a long time now, they regard the proposition that 'living organisms have descended with modifications from common ancestors' as established beyond any reasonable doubt. No scientist is going to publish an article saying "yet more evidence for evolution," it would be like NASA announcing a press conference to confirm that the earth is still round, or things are still falling down. Here are some statements from scientists and scientific organisations; http://www.interacademies.net/Object.File/...20statement.pdf http://www.lulu.com/items/volume_63/170900...int/1709901.pdf http://ncseweb.org/taking-action/project-steve All mutations are bad/ there are no beneficial mutations. It is a fact that the majority of mutations are neutral, that is they confer neither an advantage nor a disadvantage to the organism possessing them. Now, whether a non-neutral mutation is positive or negative depends on a whole series of factors, such as what the organism is, where it is living, what the conditions are as well as various other factors. With regard to such mutations, the proportion which are harmful is usually higher than those that are beneficial, although not by as large a margin as is often suggested. However, there do undoubtedly exist mutations which confer a survival advantage to those organisms possessing them and so are beneficial, known examples would be; antibiotic resistance, those that provide resistance to diseases or illnesses, those that increase bone strength, those providing bacteria with the ability to degrade nylon, those leading to bacteria developing the ability to utilize citrate as a source of energy. There is no mechanism to add 'new genetic information' to the genome. There are various mechanisms for this; gene duplication, recombination, insertional mutations, transposition, and translocation, all of which can and do produce new genetic information. There are also point mutations which impart new functions. If you want to look at this from the point of information theory, go here - http://recursed.blogspot.com/2009/01/test-...nformation.html . Evolution contradicts the second law of thermodynamics. There has never been any contradiction between evolution and the second law of thermodynamics, only misleading claims made by people who clearly understood neither. Here are just two links explaining with this objection to evolution is unfounded; http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/11...d_evolution.php http://www.swarmagents.cn/thesis/doc/jake_230.pdf There are no transitional fossils. There are many fossils that are established by paleontologists as definitely transitional, scientists are finding more all the time, they are almost tripping over the things. Creationist websites can write all the 'rebuttals' to them that they want but it won't change the fact that they are transitional, the people on the these websites have not worked in the field of paleontology, have not even seen the fossils and so do not have the expertise to dismiss the work of scientists who are trained in the field and have actually worked with the fossils. Examples of transitionals would be; Primitive chordates to vertebrates; Acorn 'worm', Amphioxus. Pikaia, Haikouella, Myllokunmingia, Haikoichthys, Conodonts, Arandaspis, Birkenia. Evolution of sharks; Acanthodian, Tristychius, Cladoselache, Stethacanthus, Falcatus, Xenacanthus, Ctenacanthus, Hybodont, Paleospinax, Protospinax. Sarcopterygii (lobe-finned fish) to tetrapods; Osteolepis, Coelacanth, Lungfish, Eusthenopteron, Panderichthys, Elginerpeton, Obruchevichthys, Ventastega, Metaxygnathus, Tiktaalik, Acanthostega, Icthyostega, Hynerpeton, Greererpeton, Tulerpeton, Pederpes, Eryops. Amphibians to amniotes (primitive reptiles); Proterogyrinus, Limnoscelis, Tseajaia, Solenodonsaurus, Bruktererpeton, Seymouria, Limnoscelis, Diadectes, Westlothiana, Hylnomus, Paleothyris. Evolution of marine reptiles: Ichthyosaurs; Nanchangosaurus, Utatsusaurus, Grippia, Chaohusaurus, Cymbospondylus, Mixosaurus, Californosaurus, Opthalmosaurus. Plesiosaurs; Cladiosaurus, Pachypleurosaurus, Pistosaurus, Cryptocleidus, Hydrothecrosaurus. Mosasaurs; Varanus, Aigialosaurus, Opetiosaurus, Dallasaurus, Clidastes, Globidens, Prognathodon, Plesiotylosaurus. Evolution of snakes (snake fossils with not only hind limbs but also fully functional hip bones); Eupodophis, Pachyrhachis, Haasiophis, Najash rionegrina, Adriosaurus michrobrachis. Evolution of crocodiles; Gracilisuchus, Terrestrisuchus, Protosuchus, Geosaurus, Steneosaurus, Baurusuchus. Dinosaurs: Evolution of sauropods; Lagosuchus, Anchisaurus, Herrerasaurus, Massopondylus, Plateosaurus, Melanosaurus, Cetiosaurus, Camarasaurus, Brachiosaurus, Titanosaurus, Diplodocus, Dicraeosaurus. Evolution of therapods; Euparkeria, Compsognathus, Eoraptor, Staurikosaurus, Coelophysis. Evolution of Ornithischia; Lesothosaurus, Fabrosaurus, Heterodontosaurus, Evolution of Certaopsia; Psittacosaurus, Graciliceratops, Archaeoceratops, Bagaceratops, Protoceratops, Leptoceratops, Zuniceratops, Pachyrhinosaurus, Styracosaurus, Centrosaurus, Monoclonius, Chasmosaurus, Anchiceratops, Arrhinoceratops, Pentaceratops, Torosaurus, Triceratops . Evolution of birds; Sinosauropteryx, Beipiaosaurus, Caudipteryx, Oviraptor, Troodon, Sinornithosaurus, Microraptor, Dromaeosaurus, Archaeopteryx, Meilong, Rahonavis, Confuciusornis, Iberomesornis, Sinornis, Gobipteryx, Enantiornis, Vorona, Patagopteryx, Hesperornis, Icthyornis. Synapsids (mammal-like reptiles) to mammals; Protoclepsydrops, Clepsydrops, Archaeothyris, Varanops, Haptodus, Dimetrodon, Eotitanosuchus, Lycaenoas, Lychosuchus, Biarmosuchia, Procynosuchus, Dvinia, Thrinaxadon, Cynonathus, Chiniquodon, Diademodon, Probelesodon, Probainognathius, Exaeretodon, Kayentatherium, Diarthrognathus, Sinoconodon, Eozostrodon, Yanoconodon, Megazostrodon, Morganucodon. Mammals: Evolution of dogs; Cynodictis, Hesperocyon, Mesocyon, Ectopocynus, Osbornodon, Otarocyon, Cynarctoides, Phlaocyon, Cormocyon, Desmocyon, Cynarctus, Tomarctus, Aelurodon, Paratomarctus, Carpocyon, Eipcyon, Osteoborus, Borophagus, Leptocyon, Eucyon. Evolution of cats; Viverravidae, Homotherium, Proailurus, Pseudaelurus, Miracinonyx, Acinonyx. Evolution of the walrus; Proneotherium, Aivukus, Pontolis, Gomphotaria, Dusignathus, Alachtherium, Valenictus. Evolution of the horse; Protorohippus, Orohippus, Happlohippus, Epihippus, Mesohippus, Miohippus, Parahippus, Merychippus, Protohippus, Callipus Astrohippus, Pliohippus, Dinohippus, Equus. Evolution of bears; Ursavus elmensis, Protursus simpsoni, Ursus minimus, Ursus etruscus, Ursus savini, U. spelaeus, U. arctos, U. maritimus. Evolution of seals; Pachycynodon, Puijila darwini, Enaliarctos, Leptophoca, Montherium. Evolution of rhinos; Hyrachyus, Uintaceras, Trigonias, Penetrigonias, Subhyracodon, Woodoceras, Skinnerceras, Diceratherium, Gulfoceras, Menoceras, Teloceras. Evolution of rodents; Anagale, Barunlestes, Heomys, Tribosphenomys minutus, Acritoparamys atavus, Paramys. Evolution of tapirs; Homogalax, Heptodon, Helaletes, Colodon, Protapirus, Miotapirus, Tapirus terrestris, Tapiris indicus, Tapirus. Evolution of camels; Poebrodon, Poebrotherium, Stenomylus, Floridatragulus, Oxydactylus, Procamelus, Camelops. Evolution of giraffes; Paleoryx, Canthumeryx, Giraffokeryx, Samotherium, Palaeotragus, Bohlinia, Hunanotherium. Evolution of whales; Indohyus, Pakicetus, Ambulocetus, Dalanistes, Maiacetus, Rodhocetus, Takracetus, Gaviocetus, Basilosaurus, Dorudon, Mysticetes, Odontocetes. Evolution of elephants; Phenacolophus, Pilgrimella, Phosphatherium, Moeritherium, Barytherium, Numidotherium, Palaeomastodon, Gomptherium, Stegodon, Tetralophodon, Stegotetrabelodon. Evolution of sirenians; Prorastomus, Pezosiren, Prothotherium, Eosiren. Evolution of humans; Sahelanthropus tchadensis, Australopithecus anamensis, Australopithecus afarensis, Australopithecus gahri, Australopithecus africanus, Homo habilis, Homo ergaster, Homo erectus, Homo mauritanicus, Homo heidelbergensis. A theory means something is 'unproven' or uncertain, and is in some sense a 'lower' scientific construct than a law or a fact. (Theories, facts, and laws are all different things, one does not graduate to another as scientists accumulate more evidence and become more confident about them) You are correct but how many have we heard people say "evolution is 'only'/'just' a theory?" As if it just meant random, unsubstantiated speculation. There is no higher scientific level than theory. A scientific theory is a well-supported explanation of some natural phenomenon, that is testable, makes predictions, is falsifiable, and has broad explanatory power. A theory is very unlikely to simply be overthrown by a single fact. Theories may contain with in them laws, facts, or hypotheses. (But no matter how much they are tested and confirmed the theories will never themselves become facts or laws. No matter how much cell theory or atomic theory are shown to be accurate descriptions of reality, professors aren't going to start teaching their students classes in cell 'fact' or atomic 'law') A fact is a piece of data, an observation, or something that scientists simply accept as true and require no more evidence in favour of it. Evolution, as one particular scientific theory, has been tested by the finest scientific minds for a century and a half, and not only have scientists found nothing contradicting its basic tenets, but they have discovered what they consider to be overwhelming evidence in support of it. Here's an article from the National Academy of Sciences - http://nationalacademies.org/evolution/TheoryOrFact.html This is what this 'Evangelical Dialogue on Evolution' partly attempts to deal with. If you looked at around page 19 or so onwards, this issue is addressed.

There is so much misinformation that emanates entirely from creationist sources, I'll list some just some regarding evolution. If you've ever heard these statments you'll have heard them from creationists and they are factually inaccurate. - There is serious debate going in within the scientific community about whether evolution has occurred/ evolution is a 'theory in crisis'/ it is being abandoned by scientists. (Former YEC Glenn Morton has an article on this - The Imminent Demise of Evolution: The Longest Running Falsehood in Creationism - http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/demise.html) - All mutations are bad/ there are no beneficial mutations. - There is no mechanism to add 'new genetic information' to the genome. - Evolution contradicts the second law of thermodynamics. - All developmental / embryological evidence for evolution has been show to be false. (Ernst Haeckel did overemphasize similarities between vertebrate embryos and his idea that 'ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny' was false. However, this does not mean that embryology does not provide testable hypotheses and evidence for common descent. Darwin didn't base his ideas about embryology on those from Haeckel and modern scientific studies in this area are not based on them either, they haven't been for an awfully long time) - There are no transitional fossils. - Modern experts agree that 'Lucy' was a chimpanzee. (Talkorigins has dedicated a whole series of articles to simply dealing with out of context quote-mining and other misleading ideas that have been spread about the hominid fossil record. Not to mention the rest of the record.) - 'Macroevolution' has never been observed/ all that we have ever observed is 'variation within a species'. (The only scientific definition of 'macroevolution' is evolutionary change at, or above, the species level. Any other definition about 'kinds' or 'large scales' is arbitrary, and is no longer a defintion of 'macroevolution', it is something else) - Pretty much everything creationists say about 'junk' (or non-coding) DNA. (Steve Matheson, Professor of Biology at Calvin College, has a series of articles about this; http://sfmatheson.blogspot.com/2007/12/tal...t-junk-dna.html http://sfmatheson.blogspot.com/2008/01/tal...lies-about.html http://sfmatheson.blogspot.com/2008/02/tal...s-about_21.html http://sfmatheson.blogspot.com/2008/03/hug...fairy-tale.html ) These are just some basic points to do with evolution, there are many others related to evolution, and more relating to other scientific topics such as; Abiogenesis - The 'law of biogenesis' says that it is impossible for the first life to develop on the early earth from simpler molecules / Pasteur proved that abiogenesis was impossible. (All he and others demonstrated was that modern organisms don't pop into being out of thin air. There is absolutely nothing anywhere in science that says very primitive life cannot form from increasingly complex molecules) Geology - Radiometric dating is unreliable. (Pretty much all of their claims, including examples of bad dates are either totally out of context, or outright false information. No matter how many articles YEC websites want to write on this it isn't going to convince the huge number of scientists who use these techniques and know that, despite their limitations, they are overall very reliable. See Radiometric Dating A Christian Perspective - http://www.asa3.org/ASA/RESOURCES/WIENS.html) - The geologic column does not exist/ only exists in textbooks. Astronomy/ cosmology - The Big Bang or models for solar system formation are somehow in conflict with the conservation of angular momentum. - The Big Bang was an explosion and explosions don't produce order. Then we have other general stuff such as: - Darwin recanted on his deathbed. - A theory means something is 'unproven' or uncertain, and is in some sense a 'lower' scientific construct than a law or a fact. (Theories, facts, and laws are all different things, one does not graduate to another as scientists accumulate more evidence and become more confident about them) These are just some standard pieces of misinformation and I haven't even touched on areas such as the proposed evidence for a young earth.

Have you seen websites such as these; http://www.geocentricity.com/ "To hear tell, geocentrism, the ancient doctrine that the earth is fixed motionless at the center of the universe, died over four centuries ago. At that time Nicolaus Copernicus (picture below), a Polish canon who dabbled in astrology, claimed that the sun and not the earth was at the center of the universe. His idea is known as heliocentrism. It took a hundred years for heliocentrism to become the dominant opinion, and it did so with a complete lack of evidence in its favor. Copernicus Yet the victory of heliocentrism has been less than total. Over the years geocentrism has had its spokesmen. Among scientists who adhered to the centrality of the earth were three generations of Cassinis: a family of astronomers who dominated French astronomy from the late seventeenth to the early nineteenth centuries. Astronomers, pastors, and educators in the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church maintained the geocentric truths well into the twentieth century. They, with the reformers such as Luther, saw that the embracing of heliocentrism would weaken not only science, but also the authority of the Bible. The second of these two concerns: how the Bible's authority is weakened by heliocentrism; stems from the firm manner in which the Bible teaches geocentricity. Geocentric verses range from those with only a positional import, such as references to "up" and "down;" through the question of just what the earth was "orbiting" the first three days while it awaited the creation of the sun; to overt references such as Ecclesiastes 1, verse 5: The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose. Perhaps the strongest geocentric verse in the Bible is Joshua 10:13: And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day. " Or http://www.fixedearth.com/ "The Bible and all real evidence confirms that this is precisely what He did, and indeed: The Earth is not rotating...nor is it going around the sun. The universe is not one ten trillionth the size we are told. Today’s cosmology fulfills an anti-Bible religious plan disguised as "science". The whole scheme from Copernicanism to Big Bangism is a factless lie. Those lies have planted the Truth-killing virus of evolutionism in every aspect of man’s "knowledge" about the Universe, the Earth, and Himself." http://sites.google.com/site/earthdeception/ "The Earth is NOT Moving!! The Sun, Moon and Stars are going around a stationary Earth just as observed and just as the Bible says, (Sun 24hrs...... Moon 24hrs 50min 28sec...... Stars 23hrs 56min 4sec...... all east-to-west)." These people (at least one of whom has a PhD in astronomy) are adamant that the Bible teaches a fixed, immovable earth, and that conceding to 'secular' astronomy and heliocentrism is damaging to the inerrancy of Scripture. It's spoken about here in Lesson 6: Does the Earth Move? - http://www.blog.beyondthefirmament.com/vid...ucation-page-2/

So what about people who "are followers of Christ who understand that Jesus is both God and the Creator of the univsere" but then go on to become scientists? Are they not allowed to look at scientific evidence, and decide whether or not they find it compelling? Does accepting scientific explanations suddenly mean they "are not followers of Christ?" I don't even see how the theory of evolution could be in conflict with the idea of Jesus as "God and the Creator of the univsere" as it only explains biodiversity on Earth.

With regard to 'Ida', I was just saying that most scientists don't really like the term 'missing link', it is generally used by journalists and reporters. Read my Post #11, that's all I say. I am zeroing in on your claim about Lucy as you are directly accusing respected scientists of misconduct, and I think that if you are going to do so then you should be able to back up what you say, as it is a rather serious accusation. You said "Much is known about the dishonestly surrounding the " Lucy" finding and presentation" in Post #9 and I have asked you several times since to provide your sources for such a claim. All you have said since is "Specifically the jaw bone. If I remember correctly, it is the jaw bone of a chimp." I provided you with a source demonstrating that Lucy's jaw bone was definitely not that of a chimp. You then went on to say "There were other discrepancies found with Lucy's skeleton as well" so I want to know what they are and where you are getting your information from.

Is Richard Colling a non-believer, or 'no true believer', simply because he said, "I believe that it is a matter of when, not if, the evolutionary paradigm WILL be integrated into the evangelical Christian theology. If not, the Christian faith will be relegated to cultural obsolescence. With the genetic data derived from the human genome project and other sources, the evolutionary connectedness of life on earth can no longer be denied. Therefore to build the foundation of the Christian faith on opposition to evolution is not only silly, it is suicide for the long-term viability and credibility of the faith." Does it make me a non-believer if I agree with him?

http://www.anthro4n6.net/lucy/dental.gif Lucy's jawbone was nothing like that of a chimp. Tell me where these "papers from the scientific community" are and what they say. You can't simply go around making up claims, accusing the scientific community of dishonesty, and impugning the reputation of scientists unless you have evidence for it, either provide your evidence or retract your claims.

Shiloh357, if you have studied evolution then fine, I accept that, but a great many people haven't taken the time to at least understand why the scientific consensus today is what it is. They receive a distorted view of science from creationists that leaves them thinking "those crazy scientists, how can they believe all that stuff?" Is it your view that Christians are theologically committed to a 6-day creation some time in the last 10,000 years, and that anything else is 'unbiblical'? What do you say to Christians who say that the Bible clearly teaches geocentrism and that anything else is equally incompatible with Biblical Christianity (there are websites that advocate this believe me)?

http://www.worthychristianforums.com/index...t&p=1375378

I do have an agenda, to make other Christians understand that it damages Christianity in the eyes of educated people when promoters of pseudoscience go around saying that the Earth is 6,000 years old and Noah's Ark had dinosaurs on it. I was fed up with Christians watching garbage disseminated by Kent Hovind and refusing to listen to anyone else. There is nothing wrong with a Christian thinking that young earth creationism is nonsense, and many are in fact deeply offended by the idea that certain parts of the Bible were somehow an attempt by God to pass on scientific information. Notice that I didn't call anyone dumb, but many Christians are taken in by scientific sounding propaganda from people who really should know better and which appears to give credibility to what they already believe. This isn't necessarily their fault, nobody can be an expert on everything and we all have to rely on certain people as our sources for information, but creationist websites and speakers spread endless factoids and misinformation, something those articles and videos attempt to address. Christians can ignore reality and simply continue to fight a pointless battle that they can never win, or they can realise that science is simply a method for understanding God's creation and, as such, there can be no ultimate conflict between science and sound faith. Far too many Christians don't even understand evolution and end up embarrassing themselves by asking ridiculous questions that could have been answered if they had taken some time to understand the most basic aspects of it from scientists who study it. How many times have you heard the "if humans came from apes why are there still apes?" or "why don't monkeys give birth to humans anymore?" type questions? If people want to look at all the evidence from scientists, and also testimonies and information from scientists who see no conflict between evolutionary science and the doctrine God as creator, so that they are aware of all perspectives and then decide that evolution is still wrong or incompatible with Christianity, then OK, but in my experience far too many don't, they simply reject it out of hand. http://sfmatheson.blogspot.com/2008/10/how...pire-faith.html http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1993/PSCF9-93Miller.html http://web.archive.org/web/20030622051945/...rg/kmiller.html http://www.ualberta.ca/~dlamoure/3EvoCr.htm Oh, and if people want to talk about prejudice and discrimination I suggest that they go and read about Richard Colling, and find out how he was treated by "those who hold to the creation model."

OK, I'll rephrase it, the scientific community is not in principle biased against anyone who is willing to gather research and present their ideas to peer-review, whereby qualified people can analyze the claims that are being made. The problem is that the scientific community has addressed every claim ever put forward by a creationist/ I.D supporter and ultimately dismissed it as erroneous. However, these people continue to make the same assertions, and stick rigidly to their ideas, as they are unwilling to accept that they are wrong. That is because creationism is based on ideology, not science, these ideas are 'folk science', or pseudoscience, they attempt to provide a theologically acceptable 'model' for a certain worldview, but they are utterly useless as scientific paradigms to understand the natural world. They provide no new insights into scientific problems, and the 'science' behind them is so paper thin that it is immediately seen through by anyone with relevant qualifications and expertise. These ideas don't have to stand up to scientific scrutiny, that's why they are found on websites, not in the scientific literature, and they are almost never promoted by people with any training or experience in the scientific arena. These ideas only have to be convincing enough to unqualified members of the public so that they sound sufficiently plausible, and so provide some 'scientific' or evidential credibility for a certain belief system.

This is so easily falsified but just providing counter examples, Bible-believing Christians who are qualified scientists and readily accept evolution as being supported by overwhelming evidence and a unifying biological theory; Francis Collins, Darrel Falk, Denis Lamoureux, Richard Colling, Steve Matheson, Keith Miller, Robert T. Bakker, R. J. Berry, Denis Alexander, Graeme Finlay, James Kidder, Douglas Hayworth, Dennis Venema*, and many, many more. I could go on and list more liberal Christians too, and even some promoters of Intelligent Design for example (Michael Behe accepts common descent), but I think I've made my point. The scientific community is not biased against creationism/ID, they simply reject them as they rely either on untestable claims (the direct intervention of a supernatural being into the natural world) or those that are testable but have been proven wrong by peer-reviewed research. The only problem is that 'creation scientists' have a theological attachment to a literal view of the Bible which is an a-priori belief which is not open to any scrutiny, and must be upheld at all costs, no matter how much evidence there is against it (check out the 'statement of faith' many of the websites have). They are welcome to produce any research they might have to the rest of scientific community, but only if they are willing to accept they might be wrong, however they aren't, and so they don't contribute to the scientific process, don't add to the established pool of scientific knowledge and so can't be considered 'scientists' according to any reasonable understanding of that term. I'm sorry, but you have no right to determine how people understand parts of the Bible, if you are too theologically unsophisticated to understand the Bible in any other way than with the most literal, unquestioning and mindess of interpretations then that's your problem, but please, don't go round insisting that other Christians be as dogmatic, and unopen to reason and evidence as you clearly are. * He actually has a series of 3 videos here - http://www.blog.beyondthefirmament.com/vid...ianity-biology/ - talking about all of this.

I can find all sort of things on the internet, people who think the earth is flat, or that the Sun orbits it, others that say that the Holocaust never happened, that the moon landings were a hoax, 9/11 was an inside job, there are Bigfoot enthusiasts, AIDS denialists, 'New World Order' groups, UFO 'abductees', on and on I could go. There is an awful lot of nonsense out there, but I am asking you what dishonesty you are accusing the scientific community of with regard to 'Lucy'.

This whole idea that evolution leads to atheism is absolutely absurd. Evolution does in one sense provide a natural explanation for something that only really previously had a supernatural explanation (life on earth) and so it does in Richard Dawkins 's words "allow one to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist," but this is only if people are relying on God as some sort of scientific explanation, i.e. "well how else did we get here?" They were lots of other things that people used to attribute to the unknown workings of God, but for which we subsequently found natural explanations. For discovering how the natural world works we have science, and we should do science, we should not be constantly invoking God as an engineer to explain things we don't understand, God-of-the-gaps type arguments, as God only gets smaller as science inevitably fills in the gaps. Evolution is not atheist and never has been, many of the most prominent scientific proponents of evolution (and so opponents of creationism/ID) are (and historically have been) themselves devout theists. As many people have said, facts simply don't disappear because people find them objectionable, evolution really happened and so did the Big Bang, but to serious people of faith, how the natural world works should not impact upon one's belief in God as the ultimate explanation for why anything exists at all.

Hunterpoet, what is the "dishonestly surrounding the " Lucy" finding and presentation" that you are talking about? The point about the term 'missing link' is that it is a misnomer, based on a misunderstanding of evolution and what a transitional fossil is. Scientists don't really use the term, but journalists frequently do, to the annoyance of many people. The general reporting on this find from the press has been pretty poor to say the least so that is probably the reason for many of the misunderstandings, i.e. people writing about things they themselves don't really understand.

Yes, I am a Christian. Moreover, I have read the rules again and I still don't see which of them I violated. Was it that the links were to Youtube? Is it permitted to link to non Youtube videos, such as these; http://www.blog.beyondthefirmament.com/vid...tian-education/ http://www.blog.beyondthefirmament.com/vid...ucation-page-1/

A collection of 23 articles promoting a positive relationship between Evangelical Christianity and evolutionary science. http://www.scribd.com/doc/14157160/An-Evan...ue-on-Evolution

Lol.

How did light from this - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8022917.stm - reach us in 6,000 years?