Evolution

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aharvey

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Morphy,

Here's the deal. When Darwin's ideas began to take hold in the scientific community, fundamentalist Christians got up in arms and vigorously attacked "evolution." This was long before antibiotics, much less resistance to antibiotics, and the Biblical interpretation at the time held that all modern organisms occur in forms unchanged from when they were created. So these ancestors to modern YECs emphatically rejected evolution, natural selection, adaptation, the whole Darwinian story. But even though Darwin was not the first to discuss the possibility, his name became inextricably linked to the term "evolution;" ergo, the conflict became known as "Creationism vs. Evolution."

As interest in Darwin's ideas prompted vast amounts of new research, it became clear that organisms do change over time in response to environmental factors in pretty much the way that Darwin argued. Short-term changes in population genotypes, and the specific forces that triggered them, were soon impossible to deny. This created a quandary for Creationists, who I think gradually came to terms with these within-species changes but were still completely hostile to the idea that one species could evolve into another, a process that is actually called “speciation.� So the original "Creationism vs. Evolution" dichotomy was now clumsily inaccurate, as it implied a rejection of something they no longer had a problem with, and did not allude to the real issue (i.e., speciation). On the other hand, there was a lot of equity invested in the "creation vs. evolution" slogan. So, instead of replacing "creation vs. evolution" with a more accurate slogan, they have apparently decided to redefine the concept of "evolution" itself.

Part of the reason they went this route may have been a second awkward realization, namely that there are far more species, extant and extinct, than anyone had realized in Darwin's day. The notion of eight simple folk somehow bringing together millions of species onto a single ship, and keeping them fed, watered, cleaned, and healthy on a single ship for a year, was clearly impossible. This led to the uncomfortable conclusion that Noah's ark could not have held all the species of animals that we know exist or have existed, and therefore that some post-Flood speciation must have occured. That is, Creationism could no longer automatically equate "species" with "biblical kind" (i.e., created independently of all other kinds), and therefore even "creationism vs. speciation" wasn't exactly right.

At present, unfortunately, “biblical kind� is an ungrounded concept; no one has been able to determine how to identify the limits of a kind, and thus you can find YEC literature that approximates kinds with everything from species to domains. Nonetheless, it figures prominently in the new debate that is implied in the “Creation vs. Evolution� slogan as brandished here at TOL and other YEC strongholds. Specifically, any “change in population genotypes over time� that occurs within a biblical kind is NOT evolution, as you’ve been told here, it is “adaptation� (be aware that this is NOT how actual biologists use this term). “Evolution� is restricted to the transition from one biblical kind to another (ditto, of course). However, given that the origin of a biblical kind is by definition independent of all other biblical kinds, “evolution� defined this way is logically impossible.

Pretty clever, eh? “Evolution� is a concept that has now been defined out of existence by creationists, but it is a trivial version of “evolution� that no actual biologist would ever use. Keep this in mind when you read the YEC literature. Also realize that if you define an idea to be impossible, it will of course be impossible to find evidence in support of that idea, and you don’t really need to present evidence against that idea. What YECs really done, but seem much more reluctant to discuss, much less rant and rave about, is change the question to “How many times did life independently originate on Earth?� Evolutionary biologists would of course say the evidence suggest the answer is once; I hope you have better luck than me extracting an answer from creationists.
 

brother Willi

New member
"How many times did life independently originate on Earth?� Evolutionary biologists would of course say the evidence suggest the answer is once; I hope you have better luck than me extracting an answer from creationists. "

i think once can break the bank with odds makers.:D
 
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brother Willi

New member
Originally posted by Morphy

I'm sorry to say that, but I am unable to translate it - could you put it in other words? I'm foreigner and I'm not as familiar with English as I would like to.
i can do my best

but,I'm foreigner in my own country

:D


evolution will follow a line going back in time, just as a creationist will.

a creationist will find "kinds" as the Bible says.

the evolutionist will go past "kinds" and find "one", but that means life from nonlife
 

Gerald

Resident Fiend
Re: Evolution

Originally posted by Morphy
If you think theory of evolution is wrong how do you explain growing resistance of bacteria to antibiotics? How do you explain growing restistance of tumor cells to anticancer drugs???

Unfortunately for Bob Enyart the only logical explanation for those phenomenons is evolution...
Well, there are some theists who deny that bacteria actually cause disease, and attribute such things to demonic activity.

Not saying that Enyart believes this; just thought I'd point it out.
 

aharvey

New member
Originally posted by brother Willi

"How many times did life independently originate on Earth?� Evolutionary biologists would of course say the evidence suggest the answer is once; I hope you have better luck than me extracting an answer from creationists. "

i think once can break the bank with odds makers.:D

I'm afraid I don't have any idea what this is supposed to mean!

Oh, let me say that TOL-style: :confused:
 

Jukia

New member
Originally posted by brother Willi



evolution will follow a line going back in time, just as a creationist will.

One of the issues is how far back in time does one go? Most scientists go back several billion years. Many creationists, especially the Genesis literalist young earthers you often find here, go back about 6000 +/- years. The young earthers ignore the evidence or have bizarre rationalizations to show why the earth is only several thousand years old but, by doing so they make it impossible for evolutionary mechanisms to have the time to work.
 

brother Willi

New member
Originally posted by aharvey

I'm afraid I don't have any idea what this is supposed to mean!

Oh, let me say that TOL-style: :confused:
were you sayin how many times life came from non life?

the odds say, it could not happen.
i know, folks win the lottery, odds is only odds.

how many times you think it happened?

plant

animal

?
 

brother Willi

New member
Originally posted by Jukia

One of the issues is how far back in time does one go? Most scientists go back several billion years. Many creationists, especially the Genesis literalist young earthers you often find here, go back about 6000 +/- years. The young earthers ignore the evidence or have bizarre rationalizations to show why the earth is only several thousand years old but, by doing so they make it impossible for evolutionary mechanisms to have the time to work.

how far, needs dating.

can we look back with the time scale in our pockets?
 

brother Willi

New member
Re: Re: Evolution

Re: Re: Evolution

Originally posted by Gerald

Well, there are some theists who deny that bacteria actually cause disease, and attribute such things to demonic activity.

Not saying that Enyart believes this; just thought I'd point it out.

is what we attribute such things to important to that they are?
 

Gerald

Resident Fiend
Re: Re: Re: Evolution

Re: Re: Re: Evolution

Originally posted by brother Willi
is what we attribute such things to important to that they are?
Yes, because attributing disease to demonic activity calls for a different treatment regimen than would be called for if disease is attributed to microbial activity.
 

brother Willi

New member
Re: Re: Re: Re: Evolution

Re: Re: Re: Re: Evolution

Originally posted by Gerald

Yes, because attributing disease to demonic activity calls for a different treatment regimen than would be called for if disease is attributed to microbial activity.

is it the fight for life?
 

aharvey

New member
Originally posted by Jukia

One of the issues is how far back in time does one go? Most scientists go back several billion years. Many creationists, especially the Genesis literalist young earthers you often find here, go back about 6000 +/- years. The young earthers ignore the evidence or have bizarre rationalizations to show why the earth is only several thousand years old but, by doing so they make it impossible for evolutionary mechanisms to have the time to work.

Jukia,

Actually, creationists must allow for a fairly enormous amount of evolutionary activity in a pretty short time span. There are (roughly) 20 modern species of monkeys in the genus Cercopithecus; 30 species of hares in the genus Lepus; 60 species of voles in the genus Microtus; 100 species of bats in the genus Myotis; 250 species known in the chalcid wasp genus Brachymeria; 300 species in the noctuid moth genus Catocala; 600 species in the frog genus Eleutherodactylus; over 2000 species in the sedge genus Carex; over 1000 species in the legume genus Acacia in Australia alone. And this is just the barest sampling. It seems one is faced with two equally unlikely scenarios: either there were far more critters stuffed into the Ark than we've ever imagined, or many, sometimes hundreds or even thousands of new species have evolved in the past 4000 years from each species that wandered off the Ark.
 

aharvey

New member
Originally posted by brother Willi

were you sayin how many times life came from non life?

the odds say, it could not happen.
i know, folks win the lottery, odds is only odds.

how many times you think it happened?

plant

animal

?

"All life shares a common ancestor" is the same thing as "Life originated once." So animals, plants, fungi, bacteria, all share a common ancestor if you go back far enough. But you must be aware that we're not talking a rock spontaneously popping out a fully formed modern cell.

And in any case, in your view what raw materials did God use to form living material? Was it living or non-living? Why is it easier to imagine life being formed from non-living material many separate times rather than just once?

So how many times did God create life from scratch? And what do you base your answer on?
 

Jukia

New member
a harvey:
I understand the problem with the time scale from the ark. Seems to me that if that were the case--very fast speciation (or call it adaptation from Biblical "kinds" if you will) then why dont we see that happening today? I hear creationists all the time complaining that we can't prove evolution in the lab therefore how do we know it happened, but seems to me that if the Noachian kinds changed enough in 4000 years to give us what we have here now we ought to be able to show the same in the lab.
Oh wait, silly me, God must have changed the rules recently, that explains it!
 

brother Willi

New member
Originally posted by aharvey

"All life shares a common ancestor" is the same thing as "Life originated once." So animals, plants, fungi, bacteria, all share a common ancestor if you go back far enough. But you must be aware that we're not talking a rock spontaneously popping out a fully formed modern cell.

And in any case, in your view what raw materials did God use to form living material? Was it living or non-living? Why is it easier to imagine life being formed from non-living material many separate times rather than just once?

So how many times did God create life from scratch? And what do you base your answer on?

as to "All life shares a common ancestor"

the only real difference i see is, i would say
"one common Creator"

and im gyuessin that when you say
"But you must be aware that we're not talking a rock spontaneously popping out a fully formed modern cell."

UMMM
the "soup" did other things, maybe?


"And in any case, in your view what raw materials did God use to form living material? Was it living or non-living?"

what is the "clay" wrote of in the Bible?

got me, im here now:D
 

brother Willi

New member
Originally posted by Jukia

a harvey:
I understand the problem with the time scale from the ark. Seems to me that if that were the case--very fast speciation (or call it adaptation from Biblical "kinds" if you will) then why dont we see that happening today?

have you hjeard of the
Chicago mouse

why dont we see new life startin in my jelly jar?

there was and is a time for all
 
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Jukia

New member
Originally posted by brother Willi

do you really need to know?:D

if i say its # will it make it so?

No, if you give a # it does not make it so. So let me ask another way--Willi, how old do you think the earth is? And what do you base that on?
 

brother Willi

New member
Originally posted by Jukia

No, if you give a # it does not make it so. So let me ask another way--Willi, how old do you think the earth is? And what do you base that on?

the life is as old as the Bible says it is.

are you sure what the Bible says?
 
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