More evolution questions

[taylor30]

Correct me if I am wrong, but the appearance of a common ancestry is not proof. Evolution has never proven its case since it has NEVER been able to find ANY transitional fossels. In fact, the evidence for evolution is so thin and riddled with holes, some scientists have been found guilty of fabricating false evidence because real evidence doesn't exist. Besides, common sense says evolution is a sham.

If you see 2 cars of similar make and model, would you say one evolved from the other? Of course not. You would say they have a common DESIGNER.

[taylor30]

Correct me if I am wrong, but the appearance of a common ancestry is not proof. Evolution has never proven its case since it has NEVER been able to find ANY transitional fossels. In fact, the evidence for evolution is so thin and riddled with holes, some scientists have been found guilty of fabricating false evidence because real evidence doesn't exist. Besides, common sense says evolution is a sham.

If you see 2 cars of similar make and model, would you say one evolved from the other? Of course not. You would say they have a common DESIGNER.

There are many transitional fossils. Some of the more common ones are H. habilis and H. erectus from the humanoid lineages, Tiktaalik for fish to tetrapods, Archeopteryx for dino to bird, Pakicetus and Ambulocetus for whales. Horse evolution is also abundant with transitional fossils, and another famous group are the synapsids characterizing reptile to mammal evolution.

If you see 2 cars of similar make and model, would you say one evolved from the other? Of course not. You would say they have a common DESIGNER.

Yes, because we know how cars are made and how they change over time, it is fundamentally different from biological systems. Cars don't reproduce other cars carrying down an equivalent of DNA that undergoes random errors through a selection process, the main mechanisms of evolution. Biological systems on the other hand do reproduce within a context of heredity/DNA undergoing mutation and natural selection.

I understand your point, and maybe I could have used a better picture. What I meant is this.

Science doesn't even follow its own rules. Science is supposed to base opinions upon facts. Evolution is the ONE area where they don't do this. FIRST they form tons of theories that they will boldly claim are facts. THEN they wi spend years and tons of money trying to find evidence of their theory. This is wrong and why most science is science-fiction to me now. There is ZERO evidence that man came from any other species or changed from something else. What I meant to say with the car idea is that just because you have 2 similar things, it doesn't mean they have a common ancestor. It more easily means a common designer. Since we know that God could design creatures that are similar, andthe evidence for evolution is VERY lacking, it makes sense to believe in common design. There is one thing we must remember about "science people". They do not hide the fact that they IGNORE and DISCOUNT any evidence of a God being involved. They violate their own laws. A TRUE scientist will allow the EVIDENCE to speak, not come with preconcieved ideas and a close mind to other possibilities.

I am a Christian because the EVIDENCE I have seen clear y points in that direction. I am not opposed to evolution because I want to buck the system. I am opposed to it because there is no REAL evidence for it.

[taylor30]

Correct me if I am wrong, but the appearance of a common ancestry is not proof. Evolution has never proven its case since it has NEVER been able to find ANY transitional fossels. In fact, the evidence for evolution is so thin and riddled with holes, some scientists have been found guilty of fabricating false evidence because real evidence doesn't exist. Besides, common sense says evolution is a sham.

If you see 2 cars of similar make and model, would you say one evolved from the other? Of course not. You would say they have a common DESIGNER.

There are many transitional fossils. Some of the more common ones are H. habilis and H. erectus from the humanoid lineages, Tiktaalik for fish to tetrapods, Archeopteryx for dino to bird, Pakicetus and Ambulocetus for whales. Horse evolution is also abundant with transitional fossils, and another famous group are the synapsids characterizing reptile to mammal evolution.

If you see 2 cars of similar make and model, would you say one evolved from the other? Of course not. You would say they have a common DESIGNER.

Yes, because we know how cars are made and how they change over time, it is fundamentally different from biological systems. Cars don't reproduce other cars carrying down an equivalent of DNA that undergoes random errors through a selection process, the main mechanisms of evolution. Biological systems on the other hand do reproduce within a context of heredity/DNA undergoing mutation and natural selection.

I didn't see that first paragraph when I wrote my last response.

I can't right now speak on those things because i don't have time to look them up and can't recall from memory what they are. EXCEPT with Archyopteryx. YEARS ago the scientific community admitted archeopteryx was simply a prehistoric bird, not a half bird, half dinosaur. Besides, why is it that if there is so much proof, scientists are getting busted for fraud and cheating to get things to come out a certain way? Even Darwin himself, the "god" of modern evolution admitted that his entire theory would completely be disproved without the transitional fossel. Besides, Darwin was VERY racist, as evidenced by the way he actually tried to classify the different races as different forms of evolution, with blue eyed whites at the top and blacks and Jews at the bottom. IMPORTANT NOTE TO ALL. It was the reading of Darwin and the ranking of the races that gave Hitler the idea of destroying everyone. He went after the Jews the most because Darwin had them at the very bottom, even under the blacks. All Life is of equal value in God's eyes, and just as the world would look pretty dull in ONE color, so would the races. Sorry, strayed of topic there. I think I have said enough. God Bless.

[MorningGlory]

←

We either share common ancestry or God decided to make it look as if we share common ancestry. I personally don't believe in god but if I was a theist I wouldn't want to worship a deceptive one

Really? How noble of you to stand above your Creator! You will (future tense in an hour, day, week...) not like your choice

Love, Steven

Hmmmm....trying to 'one up' God is just not a really good idea. Such arrogance shall not go unnoticed. We need to pray for the enlightenment of Stargaze and his compadres, Steven. I don't believe they understand how much they need the Savior.

I don't know how building evidence based paradigms to accept and not wanting to worship a deceptive God is 'trying to one up God' either, or is arrogant. I don't want to worship a deceptive deity either, regardless of reality, and I think deception is more of a motif with Satan rather than God anyway, at least traditionally. Isn't Gen. 3 partially about how Satan is the father of lies/deception?

I know you don't accept anything that supports evolution, but there are really only a few plausible solutions out there. Believe it or not, the physical evidence suggests common ancestry; either this is reality, we're being deceived, or the scientific method is severely flawed in discerning reality.

I don't know about you, but I think most people want to know/accept the truth, regardless of what it is. So how do we, or how should we, determine the truth? I myself think that starting with evidence and such is the best way. I wouldn't categorize it as arrogant, but more along the lines of sane.

I know you want to honor God and bring people to Christ, but telling non believers that they are being arrogant and snobby at God for trying to use evidence and not wanting to worship deceptive deities is not going to work, IMHO. I would suspect that it would have the opposite affect; as logically you'd infer that God requires the forgoing of evidence and there's nothing wrong with God deceiving mankind. I know I'm liberal, and maybe you don't mind worshiping a deceptive God or forgoing evidence, but that is simply not the God I recognize.

Atheism is the embodiment of arrogance, D-9. Satan wanted to exalt himself above God too....the outcome of such folly is known to anyone who has read the Bible. I seek to convert no one but I AM bound to tell the truth. My God is not deceptive; He has made us aware of how we should live and worship Him. Denial of Him changes nothing except the fate of those who do.

[MorningGlory]

There are many transitional fossils. Some of the more common ones are H. habilis and H. erectus from the humanoid lineages, Tiktaalik for fish to tetrapods, Archeopteryx for dino to bird, Pakicetus and Ambulocetus for whales. Horse evolution is also abundant with transitional fossils, and another famous group are the synapsids characterizing reptile to mammal evolution.

There are NO transitional fossils; there are only fossils designated as such by mortal man.

[OldEnglishSheepdog]

Let's back up a second, my understanding is that viruses didn't come into the picture until after mankind fell.

I doubt it. Hebrews says that all the work was completed in six days, and the fall occured after that point, so I can't grant that premise.

Mankind obviously fell after creation. Endogenous Retroviruses are molecular remnants of a past parasitic viral infection! So I don't see how this can be part of creation, part of the design.

Also keep in mind that regarding ERV's, it's only the chimpanzee that we closely share several ERV's, we don't share as much with the other primates. So either God used a special blueprint for us and chimpanzee's, or evolution is the answer. I think I'll stick with the latter.

I think you're missing something here, some of our genetic commonalities are break downs in our genetic code. Primates cannot internally synthesize vitamin C and if we look at the reason WHY we humans can't, it's the same exact reason why other primates can't...genetic defect [the exact same genetic defect mind you].

Stargaze, do you not understand the mistake you're making here?

You're not presenting the evidence. Instead you're using the interpretations of the evidence according to your worldview to try to challenge those of a competing worldview in the exact same way that you would rightly fault a Christian for saying you shouldn't believe in evolution because the Bible tells you not to.

I don't believe that Endogenous Retroviruses are necessarily molecular remnants of a past parasitic viral infection, and if they are I don't have any reason to suppose the same virus couldn't have affected humans and chimpanzees at the same time (say on the arc, for example), thereby resulting in the same outcome. Your assumption of common lineage is simly an evolutionary interpretation and I don't think it's the right one.

So presupposing that it is the right one, and holding the competing explanation to that presupposition just doesn't make any sense. It's circular reasoning. Surely you can see that.

You're taking the evidence, interpreting it according to evolutionary assumptions, labeling that interpretation as the evidence, and presenting it as though it is free from the assumptions you read in.

Now, what I’m trying to show you is that the evidence actually shows that one worldview is internally consistent, and one is internally inconsistent.

Creationism approaches the facts and has an explanation that accounts for them very well: An intelligent designer created life with commonalities for common functions. That makes sense of similarities in design as well as the insurmountable quantitative obstacles to evolution occurring as an unguided process of two destructive natural influence that are supposed to consistently produce constructive outcomes.

By contrast, naturalism is approaching the facts by interpreting them in a way that makes sense of some of the data but contradicts the rest. It then ignores the contradictions and declares the possible explanation as the definitive one and so mistakes interpretations of what was not observed, for the facts themselves, all the while remaining in willful ignorance of the things that are actually observed that challenge those facts… and then boldly pretends to have the corner on the market of empirically validation (to which it has yet to appeal).

So, creationism is the more internally consistent interpretation. The only objection to which is affirming the consequent.

Even then, every time we’re told that such and such couldn’t have been designed because of junk DNA or whatever, it turns out that such statements were not facts, that what we assumed was junk this or useless that was simply interpreted to be so out of ignorance. And if an instance of a finding being intuitive according to evolutionary interpretation is all that's required to confirm evolution, then all that's required to disconfirm evolution is an instance of a counter-intutitive finding in genetics, of which there are plenty.

What’s happened here is that you’re mistaking philosophy for science, because someone has pulled a bait-and-switch fallacy on you (switching the subjective interpretation of the empirical data for the data itself). Tragically, it doesn’t seem like philosophy is valued highly enough to enable the identification of the error.

[OldEnglishSheepdog]

Ultimately, when determining lineage, thanks to genetics the fossil record is irrelevant.

I find this a very interesting claim. It was upon the fossil record that the theory of evolution was constructed, so if the fossil record is irrelevant in determining lineage then it seems to me that before the data from genetics started to role in evolutionists were only right by coincidence, according to you?

I'd like to highlight that you made the statement that thanks to genetics the fossil record is irrelevant, because to be consistent we'll henceforth consider any appeal by naturalism to the fossil record to be irrelevant, as you say.

It is my experience that to continue down this line of investigation in eliminating explanations that are irrelevant and/or contradictory, we will see that one by one the compounding series of ad hoc assumptions that are employed to support the theory of evolution are removed, and eventually we'll rule out so many that evolution is simply untenable.

[OldEnglishSheepdog]

[if you are trying to wipe people out and you're blaming evolution....you don't understand evolution.

That's just not so.

If we arrived here simply as the result of unguided natural processes that favour survival advantage, then why wouldn't we wipe others out?

Natural selection has been suspended by our delusions of morality. What if I'm more highly evolved than others? What if I'm smarter, stronger and have evolved past the evolutionary hang-up of morality because I've advanced past the need for reciprocal altruism?

According to evolution, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Or why, according to evolution, would we safeguard the weak, sick, and less intelligent from the selection process?

You will find that you’re entirely incapable of finding scientific evidence to support your case that evolution should not be used as an excuse to select out the weak from our gene pool, or simply to do what we want to others (like murder or raping sprees) in order to advance our DNA.

“Humans have always wondered about the meaning of life...life has no higher purpose than to perpetuate the survival of DNA...life has no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference” (Richard Dawkins).

If there is anything inherently wrong with such action, it’s because in spite of the theory of evolution there are objective moral law and duties. No scientific evidence exists for the existence of such things, so on naturalism it’s delusional to suggest that we can’t or even shouldn’t wipe out others.

If you say we shouldn't then you have to support that we shouldn't and you can't support that scientifically. If, however, non-empirical evidence is good enough to support your case that on naturalistic evolution we can't just do whatever we want, then I submit that in order not to impose a double standard, you'll have to admit that non-empirical evidence does qualify as good evidence for important questions of what is true in reality, and therefore is good enough to support the position that there is a God.

[taylor30]

I understand your point, and maybe I could have used a better picture. What I meant is this.

Science doesn't even follow its own rules. Science is supposed to base opinions upon facts. Evolution is the ONE area where they don't do this. FIRST they form tons of theories that they will boldly claim are facts. THEN they wi spend years and tons of money trying to find evidence of their theory. This is wrong and why most science is science-fiction to me now. There is ZERO evidence that man came from any other species or changed from something else. What I meant to say with the car idea is that just because you have 2 similar things, it doesn't mean they have a common ancestor. It more easily means a common designer. Since we know that God could design creatures that are similar, andthe evidence for evolution is VERY lacking, it makes sense to believe in common design. There is one thing we must remember about "science people". They do not hide the fact that they IGNORE and DISCOUNT any evidence of a God being involved. They violate their own laws. A TRUE scientist will allow the EVIDENCE to speak, not come with preconcieved ideas and a close mind to other possibilities.

I am a Christian because the EVIDENCE I have seen clear y points in that direction. I am not opposed to evolution because I want to buck the system. I am opposed to it because there is no REAL evidence for it.

Actually there are creatures out there that look exactly alike and yet they're not the same species, they refer to this as cryptic biodiversity. They go by what the genetics say, now what they want it to say. We don't say we share a common ancestor with chimpanzee's [and other primates] because we kinda look alike, we state that based on examining the genomes and finding traits that are passed down through a common ancestor.

I don't think you realize you are doing the exact same thing you accuse us of doing on here. You also are making assumptions based on assumptions. Ironically, you are claiming your opinion is evidence and proof. I have read your answers and you keep saying the same thing. You keep saying that because something like humans and chimps are very similar, that makes proof. However its not. The genetic code doesn't erase the lack of transitional fossels. If 2 things are 99% similar, that only PROVES that they are similar, not that one came from the other. If we evolved from anything, there should be several species that shows the slight changes. So tell me what species prove that change. Keep in mind that Neandrathol, Nebraska, Piltdown, Cro Magnon, and others are NOT missing links. Some were outright frauds, and others were 100% human. So which species are the missing inks between us and chimps.

[MorningGlory]

I'm not saying the fossil record is worthless or whatever, I just mean that creationists seem to keep beating on the fossil record thinking they're slaying the great dragon when little do they realize there's a 50' foot fire breathing dragon right behind them called Genetics.

Stargaze, you JUST a few minutes ago wrote that the fossil record is irrelevant. And I quote:

"Just like there are balls of fire in the sky we mortals designate as "stars". Ultimately, when determining lineage, thanks to genetics the fossil record is irrelevant."

What 50 foot firebreathing dragon? Genetics only cements the foundation for the Creator....you do realize that, right?