Let's Discuss Scientific Objections to Evolution

[teddyv]

12 hours ago, one.opinion said:

By the same line of reasoning, you would have to question whether or not Billy Graham believed the Bible was the Word of God.

I will not argue with anyone so certain of their own infallibility that they refuse to even consider opinions other than their own. I may continue a conversation, but will not engage in a pointless argument.

Likewise, one would have to accept that pi is in fact 3. 

:)

[teddyv]

10 hours ago, FresnoJoe said:

 

And "So Called" Science Is Not

O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: 1 Timothy 6:20

~

Love, Joe

Is not "science" in this version derived from the Greek "gnosis"? In that context we cannot say that it is the same as how we use the word science today from those days when gnositicism was a rather large problem for the church to deal with.

[one.opinion]

4 hours ago, David1701 said:

The "mother of all living" obviously refers to being the original human mother, from whom every human (apart from Adam) is descended.  This is not difficult.

If you actually apply thought to it, it is more difficult than you assume. She is obviously not literally the physical “mother of all living”. You believe it is figurative in the physical sense. I believe it fits the theme of scripture better as figurative in the spiritual sense.

[DeighAnn]

13 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

20 hours ago, DeighAnn said:

Genesis 1:21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

I'm pleased you accept that He did create them each according to their kind.   It would be even better if you didn't disapprove of the way He did it.

OK, you don't agree with "after his kind" as being complete enough for you, so 

I will try one more time with Gods own words. 

Why I said God doesn't like mixing.  
Deuteronomy 22:9 Thou shalt not sow thy vineyard with divers seeds: lest the fruit of thy seed which thou hast sown, and the fruit of thy vineyard, be defiled.

Deuteronomy 22:10 Thou shalt not plow with an ox and an ass together.

Deuteronomy 22:11 Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as of woolen and linen together.



Why I said God created us as we are, not through evolution.
1 Corinthians 15:38 But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body.


Why I believe God made us exactly as we are? 
Genesis 1:31 And God saw every thing that HE HAD MADE , and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

 DISAPPROVEING of Gods creation?  NOT ME. 

 As I have given SCRIPTURE, showing were my beliefs AND what I put forth  come from, 

and , if indeed what you CLAIM IS GODS TRUTH is,  and I am missing the mark, PLEASE

SHOW ME HIS WORDS, as I have now done for you.  I UNDERSTAND YOUR WORDS, AND EXPLANATIONS, your understanding and so I desperately would love to avoid anymore of those, 

SO, if AT ALL POSSIBLE,  PLEASE show me 

WHERE IS IT WRITTEN.

and it will be all settled. I will at that point apologize as anyone who calls themselves a Christian would, and if not let it go, dust off your feet, and I will do the same.   After all were not talking quantum physics, are we?


 

[Tristen]

On 8/28/2020 at 11:26 PM, The Barbarian said:

Yep.  Hence AIG's note that before Darwin, creationists denied speciation. ...

“ you are trying to imply that this has been a typical position of YE creationists until recently.

Yep. Hence AIG's note that before Darwin, creationists denied speciation”

Lol. What do you mean “Yep”? I explained in detail why your quote doesn't logically support your argument. Is your response to simply repeat the claim over-and-over in the hope that I'll let it slide by – because apparently if you say something enough times, it becomes more true?

 

“If Linnaeus did (and he seemed to have avoided that) he wouldn't have been the first”

And so you admit that creationists “before Darwin” acknowledged what we now refer to as speciation. Linnaeus self-evidently classified species into “Families”. Even the word “Genus” indicates relatedness.

 

“Darwin's discovery was how it worked”

Actually, Darwin was wrong about “how it worked”. Darwin proposed an infinite variation model of inheritance. But in the interest of fairness, Darwin did not have knowledge of the discreet nature of Molecular Genetics.

 

“By Darwin's time, lots of scientists realized that some kind of evolution must have happened”

If you are defining “evolution” by “speciation”, then I, a Biblical creationist, am also an evolutionist.

 

“This is only a problem for you, if you think God poofed animals and plants into existence. If you accept that the Earth brought forth living things as God says, it's no problem at all”

I don't know what “problem” you are referring to.

 

“And yes, plants also evolve, since we have directly observed speciation in plants”

I have no issue with “speciation”. Have you actually considered anything I've posted?

And yet again, whilst it is entirely irrelevant to the debate, I am personally curious to examine any example you have of “directly observed speciation” in any organism.

 

“And both the fossil record and genetics says plants evolved from a common ancestor”

Lol. Did they whisper that to you – in what language did they “say” it?

Facts don't tell us anything beyond their own existence – i.e. what we directly observe in them. You interpret “the fossil record and genetics” to support the historical claim of a “common ancestor” - but that is you reading external ideas into the facts. Common Ancestry is not information directly derived from the facts.

If you think facts can independently tell us anything beyond their existence, then you have been successfully indoctrinated. You have been instructed on how to interpret the facts, and now that is all you can see – such that you are incapable of even considering alternate interpretations. That indicates a narrow, subjective, unscientific, closed perspective.

 

“Your biggest problem is in defining "kind"”

It's no “problem” at all. The word “kind” defines a biological population (group or species) which is related via their created ancestors.

 

“in one sense,all life on Earth is of a kind”

But in a specific, more accurate “sense”, the word “kind” (as used in this context) is derived from the Bible and can be defined as above.

 

“There's more genetically and physiologically in common with you and a daisy than there are differences”

Where can I find this comparative research. I'd be interested to see how they objectively define similarities and “differences”. I'd also be interested to see what the “physiological” similarities are – beyond the fact that we both have eukaryotic cells.

Either way, genetic similarities can be interpreted as the Designer using the same information system to created a variety of organisms to adapt to the same planet. Physiological similarities also speak to the Designer's understanding of our need to survive in similar habitats.

 

“Pick major groups, which are "different kinds"according to creationists. If there's genetic relationships and transitional forms between them, your concept of "created kinds" is falsified”

It is logically impossible to falsify any claim about the unobserved past.

By what criteria would you determine that your so-called “transitional form” didn't belong to one kind, or the other, or to a kind that is independent of both.

By “genetic relationships” you mean they share some genetic feature – which can be readily attributed to a common Designer. And by “transitional forms” you mean share some physical similarity with each putative “kind” - which can easily be explained by created variety.

Let's say Kind 1 has Feature A, and Kind 2 has Feature B, and your claimed “transitional form” example has both Features A & B. Does that necessarily mean Kinds 1 & 2 are related? The answer is no – not even under the secular paradigm – since So-called Convergent Evolution allows for features to evolve independently. Did you know that the secular story requires eyes to have evolved independently more than 40 times – because the linear evolution of eyes doesn't fit the evolution story? So now 'evolution' can explain every possible fact (similarities can be explained by inheritance, or not inheritance; a.k.a. convergence) – making 'evolution' unfalsifiable. Likewise, I can explain every possible fact from a creationist perspective. For example, God created Kind 1 with enough genetic diversity to account for Feature B – a trait which has since been lost to Kind 1 because of Natural Selection.

 

“So what do you have? I rarely get a response to this question,since it goes right to the heart of creationist assumptions. And it directly tests those assumptions. There are actually a few cases left where we don't yet have transitionals, so you might get lucky. Give it a try?”

I suspect they don't try it because, like me, they see the logical futility of the exercise.

If you like, pick two kinds for which you already have a “transitional” - and I'll show you how easy it is for me to interpret your example to be consistent with the Biblical creation account.

 

“ Does the Bible actually say that the sun goes around the earth?

Yep:

Ecclesiastes 1:5 The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises”

Lol. So the correct answer is actually, self-evidently, 'No, the Bible nowhere states that “the sun goes around the earth”'.

 

“Remember, the early Hebrews saw the earth as a flat circle with a solid dome of the sky overhead. So the sun, in their view, moved across the sky, went under the Earth in the west, and then moved under it to appear again in the east. Since they believed the Earth did not move, logically the sun had to be moving around the Earth. Hence Ecclesiastes.”

I don't know how much of this is true, but it is all entirely irrelevant. God is the ultimate Author of scripture. God has always known exactly how the solar system works. And He nowhere states that “the sun goes around the earth”. But He does explicitly state that the creation took place over a sequence of days; each containing an evening and morning.

 

“I thought you didn't like symbolic or hyperbolic language in scripture”

You may have “thought” that, but I never claimed that.

 

“Your rationalizations are dependent on what you'd like scripture to say”

My “rationalizations are dependant” on overwhelming evidence derived from the text itself. I made a very clear argument pointing out that fact – which you have ignored.

 

NEXT POST:

15 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

As you see, Answers in Genesis admits that much. ...

 

“ Initially, you claimed that creationists taught 'fixity of species' until recently – which I contested.

As you see, Answers in Genesis admits that much”

How many times do I have to point out the logical error of this claim (without the slightest attempt from you at a rational response) before I can assume you are being intentionally dishonest about it?

 

“And as you learned, speciation tends to be gradual and in most cases”

Yet again, you dishonestly pretend that I didn't previously understand speciation. So more intentional dishonesty.

 

“the observation of speciation occurs over a long period of time as in the observation of speciation from D. miranda”

That is 3 lies in the first 2 sentences of this post. How many lies do you get to tell before I get to call you out as a liar.

 

“A New Bird Species Has Evolved on Galapagos And Scientists Watched It Happen

…

https://www.sciencealert.com/darwin-s-finches-evolve-into-new-species-in-real-time-two-generations-galapagos ”

Firstly, this describes a hybridisation event, not an evolutionary speciation event. It has zero relevance to the discussion about species developing into other species. Basically, two closely related species of finch reproduced offspring that had both paternal and maternal traits.

It seems that the ultimate reproductive isolation was due to behaviour (i.e. bird song), not genetics or even morphology. So whether or not the offspring could even be counted as a new species is highly debatable. They haven't even tested for reproductive isolation from the paternal population yet. We are also told that one of the first generation hybrids did breed with a member of the native population. In fact, questions should be asked as to whether or not the original parents should be classified into two separate species at all – given that their mating produced fertile offspring. They weren't even confident enough to give the new so-called species a name.

So this is a very questionable example that relies on a very loose definition of speciation (original paper found here: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6372/224 )

 

“As you learned earlier, insect and plant speciatsion have been directly observed”

More lies pretending I was unlearned.

 

“As your fellow YE creationist Kurt Wise points out, transitional series are "very good evidence for macroevolutionary theory. "”

Is that what someone I don't know “points out”? Does that somehow obligate me to something?

 

“The fact that we have all these predicted transitionals where they were predicted to be, is a major problem for creationism, as Wise honestly admits”

You mean the one's where I asked for the examples of such predictions in the literature, along with the corresponding papers reporting their discoveries?

 

“He points out that the fossil record of whales is a particularly difficult issue, since they seem to contradict a YE interpretation of God's creation of living things”

Is there an associated argument with that claim, or just 'some guy said …'?

 

“Even worse for creationists, there are no transitional forms where evolutionary theory says there shouldn't be any”

How does this have any impact on “creationists”?

 

“ Surely if your impression were true, you would be able to find an abundance of older creationist literature (i.e. from a time before we supposedly saw the light of Darwin) arguing for 'fixity of species'.

I only note that even Answers in Genesis admits the fact”

So the only evidence you have for your claim is a quote that doesn't logically support your claim. Got it.

 

[The Barbarian]

8 hours ago, teddyv said:

Likewise, one would have to accept that pi is in fact 3. 

Or possibly, people making molten seas were really sloppy in construction in those days.  

[The Barbarian]

11 minutes ago, Tristen said:

Where can I find this comparative research. I'd be interested to see how they objectively define similarities and “differences”. I'd also be interested to see what the “physiological” similarities are – beyond the fact that we both have eukaryotic cells.

Your DNA and plant DNA (and RNA) work exactly the same.   YOu have the same Krebbs cycles, the same cell membranes, most enzymes and cell structure.   Basically, the difference is in having a cell wall and vacoule, and in addition to having mitochondria as we do,they also have chloroplasts.   Both of these are basically bacteria, with their own, bacterial DNA, reproducing separately from our own cells.

You have more in common with a daisy, than things by which you differ.   All eukarotes evolved from a common eukaryote ancestor.   Genetic analysis shows this.

 

[David1701]

7 hours ago, one.opinion said:

If you actually apply thought to it, it is more difficult than you assume. She is obviously not literally the physical “mother of all living”. You believe it is figurative in the physical sense. I believe it fits the theme of scripture better as figurative in the spiritual sense.

Oh good grief!  How is that going to work?  Please explain how you think Eve is the mother of us all, in a spiritual sense.  This should be good...

[Tristen]

3 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

Your DNA and plant DNA (and RNA) work exactly the same.   YOu have the same Krebbs cycles, the same cell membranes, most enzymes and cell structure.   Basically, the difference is in having a cell wall and vacoule, and in addition to having mitochondria as we do,they also have chloroplasts.   Both of these are basically bacteria, with their own, bacterial DNA, reproducing separately from our own cells.

So we both have eukaryotic cells that contain membrane-bound DNA and derive energy from carbon molecules - we could be twins.

 

3 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

You have more in common with a daisy, than things by which you differ.

Lol. This is redundant. I am more like a daisy than the things I am less like. That sure is true.

 

3 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

All eukarotes evolved from a common eukaryote ancestor.   Genetic analysis shows this.

So explain how "Genetic analysis shows this".

Or does it really only show that we have some traits in common - and you, subsequent to observation,interpret that fact as us being related through a common ancestor? Because those are two separate claims - only one of which is a fact (and the other, an unobserved story).

 

[The Barbarian]

59 minutes ago, Tristen said:

So we both have eukaryotic cells that contain membrane-bound DNA and derive energy from carbon molecules

And many, many genes,  And all the basic energy chemistry, most of the enzymes, mitochondria, etc.   Same cell architecture, tubules, active transport molecules,... (very long list)

 You have more in common with a daisy, than things by which you differ.

 

1 hour ago, Tristen said:

Lol. This is redundant.

No, you just didn't read carefully.    You have more  in common with a daisy than things by which you differ.    You and a daisy are more alike than you are different.

 

1 hour ago, Tristen said:

So explain how "Genetic analysis shows this".

Scientists can compare the DNA of different organisms to see how closely they are related.    They know this shows relatedness, since they have checked this with organisms of known descent.     It turns out that plants and animals are pretty closely related compared to most living things: