Oh.... kay....fool said:
Evidence for Creation & Against Evolution.
- Thread starter bob b
- Start date
Back to the evidence.
10. Distinct Types
If evolution happened, one would expect to see gradual transitions among many living things. For example, variations of dogs might blend in with variations of cats. Actually, some animals, such as the duckbilled platypus, have organs totally unrelated to their alleged evolutionary ancestors. The platypus has fur, is warm-blooded, and suckles its young as do mammals. It lays leathery eggs, has a single ventral opening (for elimination, mating, and birth), and has claws and a shoulder girdle as most reptiles do. The platypus can detect electrical currents (AC and DC) as some fish can, and has a bill somewhat like a duck—a bird. It has webbed forefeet like an otter, a flat tail like a beaver, and the male can inject poisonous venom like a pit viper. Such “patchwork” animals and plants, called mosaics, have no logical place on the evolutionary tree.
Figure 5: Duckbilled Platypus. The duckbilled platypus is found only in Tasmania and eastern Australia. European scientists who first studied platypus specimens thought a clever taxidermist had stitched together parts of different animals. The “patchwork” appearance of the platypus is seen only by those who believe each animal must be very similar to other animals. In fact, the platypus is perfectly designed for its environment.
There is no direct evidence that any major group of animals or plants arose from any other major group.a Species are observed only going out of existence (extinctions), never coming into existence.b
References:
a. And let us dispose of a common misconception. The complete transmutation of even one animal species into a different species has never been directly observed either in the laboratory or in the field.” Dean H. Kenyon (Professor of Biology, San Francisco State University), affidavit presented to the U.S. Supreme Court, No. 85–1513, Brief of Appellants, prepared under the direction of William J. Guste Jr., Attorney General of the State of Louisiana, October 1985, p. A-16. Kenyon has repudiated his earlier book advocating evolution.
“Thus so far as concerns the major groups of animals, the creationists seem to have the better of the argument. There is not the slightest evidence that any one of the major groups arose from any other. Each is a special animal complex related, more or less closely, to all the rest, and appearing, therefore, as a special and distinct creation.” Austin H. Clark, “Animal Evolution,” Quarterly Review of Biology, Vol. 3, No. 4, December 1928, p. 539.
“When we descend to details, we cannot prove that a single species has changed; nor can we prove that the supposed changes are beneficial, which is the groundwork of the theory [of evolution].” Charles Darwin, The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Vol. 1, p. 210.
“The fact that all the individual species must be stationed at the extreme periphery of such logic [evolutionary] trees merely emphasized the fact that the order of nature betrays no hint of natural evolutionary sequential arrangements, revealing species to be related as sisters or cousins but never as ancestors and descendants as is required by evolution.” [emphasis in original] Denton, p. 132.
b. “... no human has ever seen a new species form in nature.” Steven M. Stanley, The New Evolutionary Timetable (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1981), p. 73.
10. Distinct Types
If evolution happened, one would expect to see gradual transitions among many living things. For example, variations of dogs might blend in with variations of cats. Actually, some animals, such as the duckbilled platypus, have organs totally unrelated to their alleged evolutionary ancestors. The platypus has fur, is warm-blooded, and suckles its young as do mammals. It lays leathery eggs, has a single ventral opening (for elimination, mating, and birth), and has claws and a shoulder girdle as most reptiles do. The platypus can detect electrical currents (AC and DC) as some fish can, and has a bill somewhat like a duck—a bird. It has webbed forefeet like an otter, a flat tail like a beaver, and the male can inject poisonous venom like a pit viper. Such “patchwork” animals and plants, called mosaics, have no logical place on the evolutionary tree.
Figure 5: Duckbilled Platypus. The duckbilled platypus is found only in Tasmania and eastern Australia. European scientists who first studied platypus specimens thought a clever taxidermist had stitched together parts of different animals. The “patchwork” appearance of the platypus is seen only by those who believe each animal must be very similar to other animals. In fact, the platypus is perfectly designed for its environment.
There is no direct evidence that any major group of animals or plants arose from any other major group.a Species are observed only going out of existence (extinctions), never coming into existence.b
References:
a. And let us dispose of a common misconception. The complete transmutation of even one animal species into a different species has never been directly observed either in the laboratory or in the field.” Dean H. Kenyon (Professor of Biology, San Francisco State University), affidavit presented to the U.S. Supreme Court, No. 85–1513, Brief of Appellants, prepared under the direction of William J. Guste Jr., Attorney General of the State of Louisiana, October 1985, p. A-16. Kenyon has repudiated his earlier book advocating evolution.
“Thus so far as concerns the major groups of animals, the creationists seem to have the better of the argument. There is not the slightest evidence that any one of the major groups arose from any other. Each is a special animal complex related, more or less closely, to all the rest, and appearing, therefore, as a special and distinct creation.” Austin H. Clark, “Animal Evolution,” Quarterly Review of Biology, Vol. 3, No. 4, December 1928, p. 539.
“When we descend to details, we cannot prove that a single species has changed; nor can we prove that the supposed changes are beneficial, which is the groundwork of the theory [of evolution].” Charles Darwin, The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Vol. 1, p. 210.
“The fact that all the individual species must be stationed at the extreme periphery of such logic [evolutionary] trees merely emphasized the fact that the order of nature betrays no hint of natural evolutionary sequential arrangements, revealing species to be related as sisters or cousins but never as ancestors and descendants as is required by evolution.” [emphasis in original] Denton, p. 132.
b. “... no human has ever seen a new species form in nature.” Steven M. Stanley, The New Evolutionary Timetable (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1981), p. 73.
One Eyed Jack
New member
fool said:
Not anymore.
Johnny also believed in time machines. :kookoo:fool said:
1. A makes claim X
2. Claim X is 53 years old and outdated.
3. Therefore A who made the claim lacks integrity
Johnny never bothered to:
(1) Establish that Claim X was outdated (presumably no longer true), or
(2) That A agreed/knew that Claim X was no longer true but went ahead and used it anyway.
His failure to do either of these things constitutes a flaw in either his judgment or character and exposes his posting as a mere childish tantrum against a person who is considered by those personally acquainted with him as being of high moral character.
But I am optimistic that Johnny is basically a fine young person who will eventually grow up.
2. Claim X is 53 years old and outdated.
3. Therefore A who made the claim lacks integrity
Johnny never bothered to:
(1) Establish that Claim X was outdated (presumably no longer true), or
(2) That A agreed/knew that Claim X was no longer true but went ahead and used it anyway.
His failure to do either of these things constitutes a flaw in either his judgment or character and exposes his posting as a mere childish tantrum against a person who is considered by those personally acquainted with him as being of high moral character.
But I am optimistic that Johnny is basically a fine young person who will eventually grow up.
More evidence against evolution, and by implication for creation.
11. Altruism
Humans and many animals will endanger or even sacrifice their lives to save another—sometimes the life of another species.a Natural selection, which evolutionists say selects individual characteristics, should rapidly eliminate altruistic (self-sacrificing) “individuals.” How could such risky, costly behavior ever be inherited, because its possession tends to prevent the altruistic “individual” from passing on its genes for altruism?b If evolution were correct, selfish behavior should have completely eliminated unselfish behavior.c Furthermore, cheating and aggression should have “weeded out” cooperation. Altruism contradicts evolution.d
References:
a. “... the existence of altruism between different species—which is not uncommon—remains an obstinate enigma.” Taylor, p. 225.
Some inherited behavior is lethal to the animal but beneficial to unrelated species. For example, dolphins sometimes protect humans from deadly sharks. Many animals (goats, lambs, rabbits, horses, frogs, toads) scream when a predator discovers them. This increases their exposure but warns other species.
b. From an evolutionist’s point of view, a very costly form of altruism occurs when an animal forgoes reproduction while caring for another individual’s young. This occurs in some human societies where a man has multiple wives who share in raising the children of one wife. More well-known examples include celibate individuals (such as nuns and many missionaries) who devote themselves to helping others. Such traits should never have evolved, or if they accidentally arose, they should quickly die out.
Adoption is another example.
From a Darwinian standpoint, going childless by choice is hard enough to explain, but adoption, as the arch-Darwinist Richard Dawkins notes, is a double whammy. Not only do you reduce, or at least fail to increase, your own reproductive success, but you improve someone else’s. Since the birth parent is your rival in the great genetic steeplechase, a gene that encourages adoption should be knocked out of the running in fairly short order. Cleo Sullivan, “The Adoption Paradox,” Discover, January 2001, p. 80.
Adoption is known even among mice, rats, skunks, llamas, deer, caribou, kangaroos, wallabies, seals, sea lions, dogs, pigs, goats, sheep, bears, and many primates. Altruism is also shown by some people who have pets—a form of adoption—especially individuals who have pets in lieu of having children.
Humans, vertebrates, and invertebrates frequently help raise the unrelated young of others.
... it is not clear that the degree of relatedness is consistently higher in cooperative breeders than in other species that live in stable groups but do not breed cooperatively. In many societies of vertebrates as well as invertebrates, differences in contributions to rearing young do not appear to vary with the relatedness of helpers, and several studies of cooperative birds and mammals have shown that helpers can be unrelated to the young they are raising and that the unrelated helpers invest as heavily as close relatives. Tim Clutton-Brock, “Breeding Together: Kin Selection and Mutualism in Cooperative Vertebrates,” Science, Vol. 296, 5 April 2002, p. 69.
Six different studies were cited in support of the conclusions above.
c. “Ultimately, moral guidelines determine an essential part of economic life. How could such forms of social behavior evolve? This is a central question for Darwinian theory. The prevalence of altruistic acts—providing benefits to a recipient at a cost to the donor—can seem hard to reconcile with the idea of the selfish gene, the notion that evolution at its base acts solely to promote genes that are most adept at engineering their own proliferation. Benefits and costs are measured in terms of the ultimate biological currency—reproductive success. Genes that reduce this success are unlikely to spread in a population.” Karl Sigmund et al., “The Economics of Fair Play,” Scientific American, Vol. 286, January 2002, p. 87.
d. Some evolutionists propose the following explanation for this long-standing and widely recognized problem for evolution: “Altruistic behavior may prevent the altruistic individual from passing on his or her genes, but it benefits the individual’s clan that carries a few of those genes.” This hypothesis has five problems—the last two are fatal.
Observations do not support it. [See Clutton-Brock, pp. 69–72.]
“... altruistic behavior toward relatives may at some later time led to increased competition between relatives, reducing or even completely removing the net selective advantage of altruism.” Stuart A. West et al., “Cooperation and Competition between Relatives,” Science, Vol. 296, 5 April 2002, p. 73.
If individual X’s altruistic trait was inherited, that trait should be carried recessively in only half the individual’s brothers and sisters, one-eighth of the first cousins, etc. The key question then is: Does this “fractional altruism” benefit these relatives enough that they sire enough children with the altruistic trait? On average, one or more in the next generation must have the trait, and no generation can ever lose the trait. Otherwise, the trait will become extinct.
If X did not inherit the altruistic trait but got it from a rare mutation, then probably no brothers, sisters, or cousins have the trait. No matter how much the individual’s clan benefits, the trait will become extinct. From an evolutionist’s perspective, all altruistic traits had to originate this way. Therefore, altruistic traits cannot survive the first generation.
The hypothesis fails to explain altruism between different species. Without discussing examples that require a knowledge of the life patterns of such species, consider the simple example above of humans who forgo having children in order to care for animals.
11. Altruism
Humans and many animals will endanger or even sacrifice their lives to save another—sometimes the life of another species.a Natural selection, which evolutionists say selects individual characteristics, should rapidly eliminate altruistic (self-sacrificing) “individuals.” How could such risky, costly behavior ever be inherited, because its possession tends to prevent the altruistic “individual” from passing on its genes for altruism?b If evolution were correct, selfish behavior should have completely eliminated unselfish behavior.c Furthermore, cheating and aggression should have “weeded out” cooperation. Altruism contradicts evolution.d
References:
a. “... the existence of altruism between different species—which is not uncommon—remains an obstinate enigma.” Taylor, p. 225.
Some inherited behavior is lethal to the animal but beneficial to unrelated species. For example, dolphins sometimes protect humans from deadly sharks. Many animals (goats, lambs, rabbits, horses, frogs, toads) scream when a predator discovers them. This increases their exposure but warns other species.
b. From an evolutionist’s point of view, a very costly form of altruism occurs when an animal forgoes reproduction while caring for another individual’s young. This occurs in some human societies where a man has multiple wives who share in raising the children of one wife. More well-known examples include celibate individuals (such as nuns and many missionaries) who devote themselves to helping others. Such traits should never have evolved, or if they accidentally arose, they should quickly die out.
Adoption is another example.
From a Darwinian standpoint, going childless by choice is hard enough to explain, but adoption, as the arch-Darwinist Richard Dawkins notes, is a double whammy. Not only do you reduce, or at least fail to increase, your own reproductive success, but you improve someone else’s. Since the birth parent is your rival in the great genetic steeplechase, a gene that encourages adoption should be knocked out of the running in fairly short order. Cleo Sullivan, “The Adoption Paradox,” Discover, January 2001, p. 80.
Adoption is known even among mice, rats, skunks, llamas, deer, caribou, kangaroos, wallabies, seals, sea lions, dogs, pigs, goats, sheep, bears, and many primates. Altruism is also shown by some people who have pets—a form of adoption—especially individuals who have pets in lieu of having children.
Humans, vertebrates, and invertebrates frequently help raise the unrelated young of others.
... it is not clear that the degree of relatedness is consistently higher in cooperative breeders than in other species that live in stable groups but do not breed cooperatively. In many societies of vertebrates as well as invertebrates, differences in contributions to rearing young do not appear to vary with the relatedness of helpers, and several studies of cooperative birds and mammals have shown that helpers can be unrelated to the young they are raising and that the unrelated helpers invest as heavily as close relatives. Tim Clutton-Brock, “Breeding Together: Kin Selection and Mutualism in Cooperative Vertebrates,” Science, Vol. 296, 5 April 2002, p. 69.
Six different studies were cited in support of the conclusions above.
c. “Ultimately, moral guidelines determine an essential part of economic life. How could such forms of social behavior evolve? This is a central question for Darwinian theory. The prevalence of altruistic acts—providing benefits to a recipient at a cost to the donor—can seem hard to reconcile with the idea of the selfish gene, the notion that evolution at its base acts solely to promote genes that are most adept at engineering their own proliferation. Benefits and costs are measured in terms of the ultimate biological currency—reproductive success. Genes that reduce this success are unlikely to spread in a population.” Karl Sigmund et al., “The Economics of Fair Play,” Scientific American, Vol. 286, January 2002, p. 87.
d. Some evolutionists propose the following explanation for this long-standing and widely recognized problem for evolution: “Altruistic behavior may prevent the altruistic individual from passing on his or her genes, but it benefits the individual’s clan that carries a few of those genes.” This hypothesis has five problems—the last two are fatal.
Observations do not support it. [See Clutton-Brock, pp. 69–72.]
“... altruistic behavior toward relatives may at some later time led to increased competition between relatives, reducing or even completely removing the net selective advantage of altruism.” Stuart A. West et al., “Cooperation and Competition between Relatives,” Science, Vol. 296, 5 April 2002, p. 73.
If individual X’s altruistic trait was inherited, that trait should be carried recessively in only half the individual’s brothers and sisters, one-eighth of the first cousins, etc. The key question then is: Does this “fractional altruism” benefit these relatives enough that they sire enough children with the altruistic trait? On average, one or more in the next generation must have the trait, and no generation can ever lose the trait. Otherwise, the trait will become extinct.
If X did not inherit the altruistic trait but got it from a rare mutation, then probably no brothers, sisters, or cousins have the trait. No matter how much the individual’s clan benefits, the trait will become extinct. From an evolutionist’s perspective, all altruistic traits had to originate this way. Therefore, altruistic traits cannot survive the first generation.
The hypothesis fails to explain altruism between different species. Without discussing examples that require a knowledge of the life patterns of such species, consider the simple example above of humans who forgo having children in order to care for animals.
13. Language
Children as young as seven months can understand and learn grammatical rules.a Furthermore, studies of 36 documented cases of children raised without human contact (feral children) show that language is learned only from other humans; humans do not automatically speak. So the first humans must have been endowed with a language ability. There is no evidence language evolved.b
Nonhumans communicate, but not with language. True language requires both vocabulary and grammar. With great effort, human trainers have taught some chimpanzees and gorillas to recognize a few hundred spoken words, to point to up to 200 symbols, and to make limited hand signs. These impressive feats are sometimes exaggerated by editing the animals’ successes on film. (Some early demonstrations were flawed by the trainer’s hidden promptings.c)
Wild apes have not shown these vocabulary skills, and trained apes do not pass their vocabulary on to others. When a trained animal dies, so does the trainer’s investment. Also, trained apes have essentially no grammatical ability. Only with grammar can a few words express many ideas. No known evidence shows that language exists or evolves in nonhumans, but all known human groups have language.d
Furthermore, only humans have different modes of language: speaking/hearing, writing/reading, signing, touch (as with braille), and tapping (as with Morse code or tap-codes used by prisoners). When one mode is prevented, as with the loss of hearing, others can be used.e
If language evolved, the earliest languages should be the simplest. But language studies show that the more ancient the language (for example: Latin, 200 B.C.; Greek, 800 B.C.; and Vedic Sanskrit, 1500 B.C.), the more complex it is with respect to syntax, case, gender, mood, voice, tense, verb form, and inflection. The best evidence indicates that languages devolve; that is, they become simpler instead of more complex.f Most linguists reject the idea that simple languages evolve into complex languages.g [See Figure 139 on page 261.]
If humans evolved, then so did language. Because all available evidence indicates that language did not evolve, then humans probably did not evolve.
Reference:
a. G. F. Marcus et al., “Rule Learning by Seven-Month-Old Infants,” Science, Vol. 283, 1 January 1999, pp. 77–80.
b. Arthur Custance, Genesis and Early Man (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1975), pp. 250–271.
“Nobody knows how [language] began. There doesn’t seem to be anything like syntax in non-human animals and it is hard to imagine evolutionary forerunners of it.” Richard Dawkins, Unweaving the Rainbow (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1998), p. 294.
c. “Projects devoted to teaching chimpanzees and gorillas to use language have shown that these apes can learn vocabularies of visual symbols. There is no evidence, however, that apes can combine such symbols in order to create new meanings. The function of the symbols of an ape’s vocabulary appears to be not so much to identify things or to convey information as it is to satisfy a demand that it use that symbol in order to obtain some reward.” H. S. Terrance et al., “Can an Ape Create a Sentence?” Science, Vol. 206, 23 November 1979, p. 900.
“... human language appears to be a unique phenomenon, without significant analogue in the animal world.” Noam Chomsky, Language and Mind (Chicago: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1968), p. 59.
d. “No languageless community has ever been found.” Jean Aitchison, The Atlas of Languages (New York: Facts on File, Inc., 1996), p. 10.
“There is no reason to suppose that the ‘gaps’ [in language development between apes and man] are bridgeable.” Chomsky, p. 60.
e. “... [concerning imitation, not language] only humans can lose one modality (e.g., hearing) and make up for this deficit by communicating with complete competence in a different modality (i.e., signing).” Marc D. Hauser et al., “The Faculty of Language: What Is It, Who Has It, and How Did It Evolve?” Science, Vol. 298, 22 November 2002, p. 1575.
f. David C. C. Watson, The Great Brain Robbery (Chicago: Moody Press, 1976), pp. 83–89.
George Gaylord Simpson acknowledged the vast gulf that separates animal communication and human languages. Although he recognized the apparent pattern of language development from complex to simple, he could not digest it. He simply wrote, “Yet it is incredible that the first language could have been the most complex.” He then shifted to a new subject. George Gaylord Simpson, Biology and Man (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1969), p. 116.
“Many other attempts have been made to determine the evolutionary origin of language, and all have failed. ... Even the peoples with least complex cultures have highly sophisticated languages, with complex grammar and large vocabularies, capable of naming and discussing anything that occurs in the sphere occupied by their speakers. ... The oldest language that can reasonably be reconstructed is already modern, sophisticated, complete from an evolutionary point of view.” George Gaylord Simpson, “The Biological Nature of Man,” Science, Vol. 152, 22 April 1966, p. 477.
“The evolution of language, at least within the historical period, is a story of progressive simplification.” Albert C. Baugh, A History of the English Language, 2nd edition (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., 1957), p. 10.
“The so-called primitive languages can throw no light on language origins, since most of them are actually more complicated in grammar than the tongues spoken by civilized peoples.” Ralph Linton, The Tree of Culture (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1957), p. 9.
g. “It was Charles Darwin who first linked the evolution of languages to biology. In The Descent of Man (1871), he wrote, ‘the formation of different languages and of distinct species, and the proofs that both have been developed through a gradual process, are curiously parallel.’ But linguists cringe at the idea that evolution might transform simple languages into complex ones. Today it is believed that no language is, in any basic way, ‘prior’ to any other, living or dead. Language alters even as we speak it, but it neither improves nor degenerates.” Philip E. Ross, “Hard Words,” Scientific American, Vol. 264, April 1991, p. 144.
“Noam Chomsky ... has firmly established his point that grammar, and in particular syntax, is innate. Interested linguistics people ... are busily speculating on how the language function could have evolved ... Derek Bickerton (Univ. Hawaii) insists that this faculty must have come into being all at once.” John Maddox, “The Price of Language?” Nature, Vol. 388, 31 July 1997, p. 424.
Children as young as seven months can understand and learn grammatical rules.a Furthermore, studies of 36 documented cases of children raised without human contact (feral children) show that language is learned only from other humans; humans do not automatically speak. So the first humans must have been endowed with a language ability. There is no evidence language evolved.b
Nonhumans communicate, but not with language. True language requires both vocabulary and grammar. With great effort, human trainers have taught some chimpanzees and gorillas to recognize a few hundred spoken words, to point to up to 200 symbols, and to make limited hand signs. These impressive feats are sometimes exaggerated by editing the animals’ successes on film. (Some early demonstrations were flawed by the trainer’s hidden promptings.c)
Wild apes have not shown these vocabulary skills, and trained apes do not pass their vocabulary on to others. When a trained animal dies, so does the trainer’s investment. Also, trained apes have essentially no grammatical ability. Only with grammar can a few words express many ideas. No known evidence shows that language exists or evolves in nonhumans, but all known human groups have language.d
Furthermore, only humans have different modes of language: speaking/hearing, writing/reading, signing, touch (as with braille), and tapping (as with Morse code or tap-codes used by prisoners). When one mode is prevented, as with the loss of hearing, others can be used.e
If language evolved, the earliest languages should be the simplest. But language studies show that the more ancient the language (for example: Latin, 200 B.C.; Greek, 800 B.C.; and Vedic Sanskrit, 1500 B.C.), the more complex it is with respect to syntax, case, gender, mood, voice, tense, verb form, and inflection. The best evidence indicates that languages devolve; that is, they become simpler instead of more complex.f Most linguists reject the idea that simple languages evolve into complex languages.g [See Figure 139 on page 261.]
If humans evolved, then so did language. Because all available evidence indicates that language did not evolve, then humans probably did not evolve.
Reference:
a. G. F. Marcus et al., “Rule Learning by Seven-Month-Old Infants,” Science, Vol. 283, 1 January 1999, pp. 77–80.
b. Arthur Custance, Genesis and Early Man (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1975), pp. 250–271.
“Nobody knows how [language] began. There doesn’t seem to be anything like syntax in non-human animals and it is hard to imagine evolutionary forerunners of it.” Richard Dawkins, Unweaving the Rainbow (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1998), p. 294.
c. “Projects devoted to teaching chimpanzees and gorillas to use language have shown that these apes can learn vocabularies of visual symbols. There is no evidence, however, that apes can combine such symbols in order to create new meanings. The function of the symbols of an ape’s vocabulary appears to be not so much to identify things or to convey information as it is to satisfy a demand that it use that symbol in order to obtain some reward.” H. S. Terrance et al., “Can an Ape Create a Sentence?” Science, Vol. 206, 23 November 1979, p. 900.
“... human language appears to be a unique phenomenon, without significant analogue in the animal world.” Noam Chomsky, Language and Mind (Chicago: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1968), p. 59.
d. “No languageless community has ever been found.” Jean Aitchison, The Atlas of Languages (New York: Facts on File, Inc., 1996), p. 10.
“There is no reason to suppose that the ‘gaps’ [in language development between apes and man] are bridgeable.” Chomsky, p. 60.
e. “... [concerning imitation, not language] only humans can lose one modality (e.g., hearing) and make up for this deficit by communicating with complete competence in a different modality (i.e., signing).” Marc D. Hauser et al., “The Faculty of Language: What Is It, Who Has It, and How Did It Evolve?” Science, Vol. 298, 22 November 2002, p. 1575.
f. David C. C. Watson, The Great Brain Robbery (Chicago: Moody Press, 1976), pp. 83–89.
George Gaylord Simpson acknowledged the vast gulf that separates animal communication and human languages. Although he recognized the apparent pattern of language development from complex to simple, he could not digest it. He simply wrote, “Yet it is incredible that the first language could have been the most complex.” He then shifted to a new subject. George Gaylord Simpson, Biology and Man (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1969), p. 116.
“Many other attempts have been made to determine the evolutionary origin of language, and all have failed. ... Even the peoples with least complex cultures have highly sophisticated languages, with complex grammar and large vocabularies, capable of naming and discussing anything that occurs in the sphere occupied by their speakers. ... The oldest language that can reasonably be reconstructed is already modern, sophisticated, complete from an evolutionary point of view.” George Gaylord Simpson, “The Biological Nature of Man,” Science, Vol. 152, 22 April 1966, p. 477.
“The evolution of language, at least within the historical period, is a story of progressive simplification.” Albert C. Baugh, A History of the English Language, 2nd edition (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., 1957), p. 10.
“The so-called primitive languages can throw no light on language origins, since most of them are actually more complicated in grammar than the tongues spoken by civilized peoples.” Ralph Linton, The Tree of Culture (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1957), p. 9.
g. “It was Charles Darwin who first linked the evolution of languages to biology. In The Descent of Man (1871), he wrote, ‘the formation of different languages and of distinct species, and the proofs that both have been developed through a gradual process, are curiously parallel.’ But linguists cringe at the idea that evolution might transform simple languages into complex ones. Today it is believed that no language is, in any basic way, ‘prior’ to any other, living or dead. Language alters even as we speak it, but it neither improves nor degenerates.” Philip E. Ross, “Hard Words,” Scientific American, Vol. 264, April 1991, p. 144.
“Noam Chomsky ... has firmly established his point that grammar, and in particular syntax, is innate. Interested linguistics people ... are busily speculating on how the language function could have evolved ... Derek Bickerton (Univ. Hawaii) insists that this faculty must have come into being all at once.” John Maddox, “The Price of Language?” Nature, Vol. 388, 31 July 1997, p. 424.
Greenrage
New member
bob b said:
Your "argument" boils down to the claim that complex organism are too complex to have reached their present state of complexity. This of course is falsified by the fossil record, which shows that organisms become increasingly complex over time, and as you go back in time, orgainism have simpler and simpler forms. You don't find mammals in 1 billion year old sites, but you do find more primitive organisms.
This is a result you would expect from ET. It makes no sense if the world were created ex nihilo.
Just based on this alone ET is the valid theory.
But of course now here comes the nonsense about the Great Flood and that the earth is only 6K years old, and isochronic dating being false.
One Eyed Jack
New member
Greenrage said:
The fossil record shows no such thing. It simply shows that a bunch of organisms died -- apparently, in some world-wide catastrophe. Some life-forms are more complex than others, but it has nothing to do with how long they've been around. When you date the fossils by the rocks and date the rocks by the fossils, it's pretty easy to put them in any order you want.
That's not what they do, that's a handy reference for what strat you're in, and it was observed way before Darwin came up with his bit, but that's not the sum of palentology.One Eyed Jack said:
As far as your flood goes, you need to explain how the flood managed to sort all those species out into the order in which we find them.
Greenrage said:
This argument is of course made obsolete by several lines of evidence, some fairly new:
1) The Cambrian Explosion,
2) Complex eyes in trilobites very early in the fossil record,
3) "modern" plant types in the Cambrian layers of the Grand Canyon and elsewhere,
4) The new findings in developmental biology indicating genes from complex creatures were already present in simple forms such as yeast: the "tool kit" hypothesis.
The primary reason the myth of evolution from "primitive" creatures persists is [1] because evidence like that above which falsify it is witheld by those who know better, and [2] the alternative hypotheis (Genesis) is too "religious" and "unscientific" (unnatural) to be accepted by agnostics and atheists (and even some easily duped Christians).
So you admit there is a Cambrian Explosion?bob b said:
Trouble is that dosen't fit with your hypothosis, according to your theory there should be dead animals of all types buried homogenously thru out the fossil record.
Again, this dosen't fit with your theory, did you mean early in the flood deposit?
So you you admit there are different plant types in different layers? Again this dosen't fit you theory, a Good old Floodin wouldn't sort your species for you, we're you aware of that?
What's so simple about yeast?
You got ahold of it somehow and it just got shown to be the pile of non-sequiters that it is by the dumbest person here.
There's alot of alternative hypotheiseseses, you try to set up a false dilema by setting your myth against science, why not set your myth against another myth? You might not get beat up so much.
fool said:
No, that's the erroneous evolutionist's concept of what would happen during a global flood.
According to the uniformitarian hypothesis, there should to be a gradual appearance of lifeforms starting with a single phylum. This is not what is seen. Essentially all the animal phyla appear simultaneously.
There are different plant types around the world today. Evolutionists deny that this was the case in the past by taking different creatures from different places and artificially constructing an imaginary "progression".
What is the evidence for this assertion?
:rotfl:
No, the correct view is we declare the truth revealed by an infallible God in scripture as opposed to the fabulous speculations by fallible men (even Dr. Steve Jones admits that scientists can be wrong but the "big book" can't).
Do enlighten, you need to explain how a flood sorts animals by species, so that there aren't any house cats buried with T-rexs, when you posit they all lived contemperaneously.bob b said:
I don't give a flying pile of
ureX: what the uniformitaeianiststs say, you're dealin with fool here, lean in and pay attention. Poking holes in whoever's theory dosn't support your brand of stupidity..Like you construct an imaginary flood that happened 4,000 yrs. ago caused by Yaweh to cleanse the Earth?
Where's your evidence that a worldwide flood will sort dead animals and plants worldwide into the sequence we see in the ground?
That all you got Bob?
Ban all the smart people and then laugh at the fool?
You're pathetic, and the weakness of your character is a thorn in the heel of every thing you say. Integrity is a gift a man gives to himself, I hope you give yourself that gift before you stand before God.
Why bother soiling the concepts of rationality and science and logic if you're going to rest your case on revealation?No, the correct view is we declare the truth revealed by an infallible God in scripture as opposed to the fabulous speculations by fallible men (even Dr. Steve Jones admits that scientists can be wrong but the "big book" can't).
Why not just say "God told me" and keep your filthy mits off the disiplens we use to run our civilization?
Why does it matter so much to you how old the Earth is? Why can't you let the theory follow the evidence? Are you so afraid of the truth that you have to lie to yourself to keep your salvation? Do you think God wants to hang out with a bunch of idiots?