Intelligent Design, Science & Religion

[teddyv]

 

1 hour ago, David1701 said:

I meant the Grand Canyon as a whole, not referring to intricate details that have been added since it was first made.

What are the added intricate details that you are referring to here?

[Paul James]

17 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

Evolution is a phenomenon that is directly observed.   Perhaps you don't know what biological evolution is.   What do you think it is?

Technically, evolutionary theory is a scientific theory.   In science, a theory is an idea or set of ideas that have been repeatedly confirmed by evidence.  Would you like to learn about some of the predictions of the theory that have been confirmed?

It's directly observed.   Because you don't know what biological evolution is, you're unable to deal with it.   It is a change in allele frequencies of a population over time.   We see that constantly.   We also see speciation.   Even many creationist organizations now admit that fact:

Is Fixity of Species Biblical?

Before the time of Charles Darwin, a false idea had crept into the church—the belief in the “fixity” or “immutability” of species. According to this view, each species was created in precisely the same form that we find it today. The Bible nowhere teaches that species are fixed and unchanging.

https://answersingenesis.org/natural-selection/speciation/

You were misled about that, too.  Darwin, for example wrote:

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.

Charles Darwin, last sentence of On the Origin of Species, 1872

It's not a "demonic delusion."   YE creationists are often God-loving and sincere in their faith, which is not  inspired by demons.    They are, unless they make an idol of their new doctrine, no less Christians than the rest of us.

 

As an old man, Darwin confessed that the notions behind his book "Origin of the Species" were the "unborn ideas of a young man".  This was how he viewed what he wrote:  not fact, but ideas that weren't necessarily much more than his own imagination,

Evolution is not just a vague, unproven theory, but it is a total rejection of the God of the bible and the gospel of Christ.   Godless "experts" have transformed the "unborn ideas of a young man" into a delusion that blinds folk to the reality of God and the truth of the gospel of Christ.   It is in keeping with:

"Whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them" (2 Corinthians 4:4).

[Paul James]

1 hour ago, David1701 said:

Noah's Flood was not a "flash flood"!  It lasted for many months.

Recent floods, although much smaller than the global flood of Noah's day, have shown that many layers of sediment can be laid down, in a short space of time.

There is a sediment layer that contains a complete fossil record of life that existed at the time of the Flood.  These fossils could not have been there before the Flood, because there are sediment layers below them that have no fossils, which one would expect to be there if the fossil layer went right down to the bottom.  And, if Evolution was true, we would see fossils below that contains evidence of intermediate species as one species changed to a higher evolutionary form.  But we don't see any evidence of that.

Instead, we see a sediment layer that was obviously caused by a catastrophic Flood which instantly killed the animals and fish (fossils of fish halfway through eating a smaller fish) and left their bodies in the sediment layer to fossilise over time.   It is also interesting that these fossils show that the fish and animals are exactly the same as they are today, which shows that over around 11,000 years, no evolutionary process has taken place.

It is also interesting that a complete set of dinosaur bones has been discovered in a place where a very large quantity of water once flowed and the position of the bones shows that the animal was swept up and rolled over and over in a massive flow of water that could only have happen in a massive flood.   These bones were found well away from the Middle East region which shows that the Flood was not just a regional one as some suppose.   Also, it shows that dinosaurs existed as late as 11,000 years ago when the Flood happened, and if that is so, they were there at the same time there was a human population.

[David1701]

1 hour ago, teddyv said:

 

What are the added intricate details that you are referring to here?

Erosion, mostly.

Edited December 5, 2020 by David1701

[The Barbarian]

23 minutes ago, Paul James said:

Recent floods, although much smaller than the global flood of Noah's day, have shown that many layers of sediment can be laid down, in a short space of time.

Indeed, where many very small flows occur, you see lamina, which may even be laid down daily.    Varves are seen in many places two layers annually, in very still waters.

But the entrenched meanders we see in the Grand Canyon are laid down very gradually when an old river (old stream meander, not new ones) is uplifted, and rejuvenated.    It then becomes trapped in its bed, and no longer wanders, cutting deeper and deeper into the old bed over millions of years.

26 minutes ago, Paul James said:

There is a sediment layer that contains a complete fossil record of life that existed at the time of the Flood. 

Actually, there are many, many such layers in the Grand Canyon.   Some are marine sediments, complete with fossils of delicate corals and other very fragile cnidarians, some soft-bodied.   And between them are desert landscapes with desert fossils.    It's a major problem for creationists, trying to explain how a desert had time to form and be buried in the middle of a flood.

29 minutes ago, Paul James said:

It is also interesting that these fossils show that the fish and animals are exactly the same as they are today, which shows that over around 11,000 years, no evolutionary process has taken place.

Actually, it's millions of years, according to physicists who can test the rocks to see.   And can you name even once species of fish or animal in those fossils that is the same species as lives today?   

Neither can anyone else.   There are none.

30 minutes ago, Paul James said:

It is also interesting that a complete set of dinosaur bones has been discovered in a place where a very large quantity of water once flowed and the position of the bones shows that the animal was swept up and rolled over and over in a massive flow of water that could only have happen in a massive flood. 

Elephants that die and fall into rivers get swept downstream.  Why do you think dinosaurs would be different?

32 minutes ago, Paul James said:

These bones were found well away from the Middle East region which shows that the Flood was not just a regional one as some suppose. 

You do know that dinosaurs lived all over the world, right?    We see evidence of rivers and floods throughout Earth's history.

And no, there are no dinosaur fossils above the KT boundary, long before there were hominoids, much less humans.  Would you like to see that?

 

[David1701]

37 minutes ago, Paul James said:

There is a sediment layer that contains a complete fossil record of life that existed at the time of the Flood.  These fossils could not have been there before the Flood, because there are sediment layers below them that have no fossils, which one would expect to be there if the fossil layer went right down to the bottom.  And, if Evolution was true, we would see fossils below that contains evidence of intermediate species as one species changed to a higher evolutionary form.  But we don't see any evidence of that.

Instead, we see a sediment layer that was obviously caused by a catastrophic Flood which instantly killed the animals and fish (fossils of fish halfway through eating a smaller fish) and left their bodies in the sediment layer to fossilise over time.   It is also interesting that these fossils show that the fish and animals are exactly the same as they are today, which shows that over around 11,000 years, no evolutionary process has taken place.

It is also interesting that a complete set of dinosaur bones has been discovered in a place where a very large quantity of water once flowed and the position of the bones shows that the animal was swept up and rolled over and over in a massive flow of water that could only have happen in a massive flood.   These bones were found well away from the Middle East region which shows that the Flood was not just a regional one as some suppose.   Also, it shows that dinosaurs existed as late as 11,000 years ago when the Flood happened, and if that is so, they were there at the same time there was a human population.

This all sounds good, apart from the dating of the Flood, which was probably about 4,400 years ago, if I recall correctly.

[Alive]

13 minutes ago, David1701 said:

This all sounds good, apart from the dating of the Flood, which was probably about 4,400 years ago, if I recall correctly.

This makes me chuckle.

:-)

[The Barbarian]

Evolution is directly observed.

Not at the macro level.

That's directly observed. Remember the scientific definition of macroevolution. Evolution at or above the species level. Would you like some examples?

In fact, with each new anthropological discovery it becomes increasingly clear humanity's evolution runs parallel to the rest of animalia

No. Even Linnaeus realized that, long before Darwin. But we fit nicely into the primates. Like the other apes, we are descended from the same group that gave rise to Old World monkeys although apes split off from that group before today's Cercopithecidae.

and despite two centuries worth of investigation we still have new idea where exactly the two intersect.

If you think apes are animals it happened about 5.5-4 million years ago, with Ardipithecus sp. or possibly somewhat earlier, if Sahelanthorpus turns out to be a hominid. That's still to be resolved.

Your quote seems a bit out of date. A. afarensis was certainly more human-like than any modern ape, but it was not yet human, lacking a few important features.

If trans-phylum and inter-family evolution were

observable we'd still see lower primates evolving into homo sapiens.

Whatever gave you that idea? You're thinking of the idea of orthogenesis, not part of evolutionary theory. And it's been refuted.

Big fail there, Barbarian.

No kidding. Do you understand what the word, "observable" means, in science? Perhaps you don't know what biological evolution is.

Perhaps it is you who does not understand correctly.

I've spent a lifetime in biology. And any person can look it up, if they are interested.

Why insinuate Paul or others don't understand?

Apparently, he wasn't interested.

Do you understand the ad hominem nature of that insinuation?

Paul was a saint. He was inspired by God in the things he wrote in his epistles. He wasn't God, though, and it's wrong to attribute Godlike understanding to him.

Posters have brought up many valid concerns and in response a list of fallacies are deployed.

Not all of them. They have brought up reasonable questions, apparently in good faith. Some, maybe, but probably not knowingly, like the thing about other primates now evolving into humans.

Not very scientific, rational or reasonable.

Well, not everyone understands evolution or evolutionary theory.

Nor persuasive.

Not if one understands the phenomenon.

But very avoidant.

Maybe sometimes. But I won't make that judgement.

Theists and non-theists look at exactly the same date, and the same information, and they simply draw different conclusions.

I've known both theists and non-theists in biology, and they do tend to derive the same conclusions from the same evidence.

The commonality is being cognizant of the evidence itself. And that seems to matter more than one's religious notions, or lack of them.

 

[The Barbarian]

 

As an old man, Darwin confessed that the notions behind his book "Origin of the Species" were the "unborn ideas of a young man".

I've read a lot of Darwin, but I never saw that. Got a checkable source?

This was how he viewed what he wrote:  not fact, but ideas that weren't necessarily much more than his own imagination,

Seems unlikely since he was honored and respected for that theory in his old age, becoming a fellow of the Royal Society (the most important scientific society of his time) and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Evolution is not just a vague, unproven theory, but it is a total rejection of the God of the bible and the gospel of Christ.

That would be peculiar, since Darwin attributed the origin of life to God. It's just an explanation for the way populations of living things change over time.

To those for whom the Gospels are about the way biology works, it's an issue. Those for whom it's about God and man and our salvation, normally don't see it as relevant.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[The Barbarian]

1 hour ago, David1701 said:

And, if Evolution was true, we would see fossils below that contains evidence of intermediate species as one species changed to a higher evolutionary form.  But we don't see any evidence of that.

Well, let's see what a knowledgeable YE creationist has to say about that...

Evidences for Darwin’s second expectation — of stratomorphic intermediate species — include such species as Baragwanathia27 (between rhyniophytes and lycopods), Pikaia28 (between echinoderms and chordates), Purgatorius29 (between the tree shrews and the primates), and Proconsul30 (between the non-hominoid primates and the hominoids). Darwin’s third expectation — of higher-taxon stratomorphic intermediates — has been confirmed by such examples as the mammal-like reptile groups31 between the reptiles and the mammals, and the phenacodontids32 between the horses and their presumed ancestors. Darwin’s fourth expectation — of stratomorphic series — has been confirmed by such examples as the early bird series,33 the tetrapod series,34,35 the whale series,36 the various mammal series of the Cenozoic37 (for example, the horse series, the camel series, the elephant series, the pig series, the titanothere series, etc.), the Cantius and Plesiadapus primate series,38 and the hominid series.39Evidence for not just one but for all three of the species level and above types of stratomorphic intermediates expected by macroevolutionary theory is surely strong evidence for macroevolutionary theory. Creationists therefore need to accept this fact.

YE creationist Dr. Kurt Wise Toward a Creationist Understanding of Transitional Forms