You know the syndrome: Someone is caught in a scandal relating to sex, and then they take an offer to pose nude for pornography, and end up merely as a naked embarrassment to everybody.
Same syndrome, but mercifully, without the nudism (yet): Creationists taking it just a bit too far. Two examples.
Example 1: Don McLeroy, newly appointed to the chair of the Texas State Board of Education, was embarrassed by the release of tapes of a talk he gave in a church, demonstrating for anyone who didn’t already know that he’s opposed to teaching science in biology, especially if that science involves evolution. Bad enough?
He’s posted a transcript of the tape on his own website. It almost appears he’s hoping for an appointment as a “fellow” of the Discovery Institute.
McLeroy may have posted the transcript to try to correct a statement the transcripts say he made: “”Remember keep chipping away at the objective empirical evidence.”
At McLeroy’s website, it’s listed like this: “Remember keep chipping away with the objective empirical evidence.” It’s a subtle difference, but it suggests McLeroy is ill-informed enough that he thinks there may be evidence to support creationism, rather than devious enough to urge the denial of reality. Bob, at Hot Dogs, Pretzels and Perplexing Questions, wrote:
I’m not quite sure what to make of all this. Was it a Freudian slip? Did he innocently misspeak? Or could it be that he edited the text after the fact? Either way, I don’t think it makes that much of a difference. They have no objective empirical evidence of their own to chip away with, just the objective empirical evidence they stubbornly attempt to chip away at, and to no avail. I’ll leave the discovery of any other discrepancies as an exercise for the reader, at least for now.
McLeroy shows no desire to appear neutral, as employees of TEA are now required to be toward science — or “neutered” toward science, as one might say.
Example 2: McLeroy’s Islamist partner, Adnan Oktar ( aka “Harun Yahya”), is a continuing embarrassment. This isn’t news, but I stumbled across the actual images he pirated — and they are impressive.
The Atlas of Creation purports to show that no evolution has occurred between a few fossil forms and modern forms of animals — therefore, Oktar concludes in his book, evolution could not have occurred at all. Oktar couldn’t sell the book, so he sent copies of the thing to school libraries across Europe, and then to selected people and school libraries across North America.
The book is beautifully printed and bound, with hundreds of full color plates — it must have cost a fortune to produce.
And so, Oktar had to make economies somewhere. He chose to plagiarize photos and not bother with lawyers to procure rights to print the photos. He also chose to abandon the use of fact checkers, it appears.
And so we get embarrassments, like Oktar comparing this caddis fly, below, to one caught in amber, and concluding there’s been no evolution. The problem, as you can plainly see from the photo I borrow from Forbidden Music, is that the “living” example is actually a fishing lure; Oktar has plagiarized a photograph of one of Graham Owen’s wonderul fishing lures.
Jesus urged his followers to become “fishers of men.” McLeroy and Oktar have confused such imprecations, horribly, with the hoax P. T. Barnum line, that there’s a sucker born every minute.
Owen’s lures are designed to fool fish. If McLeroy and Oktar have their way, Texas school children may end up as ignorant as the fish, and as easily fooled.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
Ediacaran: I think you’re right. My error.
Who you callin’ “science teacher,” Mr. or Ms. anonymous?
Texas science books don’t have hoaxes in ’em, haven’t for years. We have scientists look them over. The biggest hoaxes in recent years have all come from one set of sources, creationists — and there’s a book out that is almost nothing but hoax, called Icons of Evolution by Jonathan Wells, a Moonie who got an advanced degree at Harvard just so he could dupe church ladies and other unsuspecting types.
None of his stuff is in any Texas textbook.
Without looking at the sites you cite, I’ll wager you’ve not bothered to check the books in your state. Generally the hoax-obsessed rail on about the Piltdown hoax, completely oblivious to the fact that it didn’t make textbooks just because it didn’t fit the facts, which is what caused the scientists to go back and look at the stuff, uncovering the hoax.
In fact, I’ll wager that there is not a single hoax you can name that has made any textbook in more than 60 years.
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Ed writes: “What’s the great gap between chimps and humans? A gene here gives humans greater swelling in the frontal lobes where a couple of new thinking processes can occur; another gene gives humans a workable voice box; another fluke mutation causes a lack of hair (is that an advantage? perhaps, in a world where diseases are carried by lice that hide in fur). Another change steals from humans the ability to manufacture vitamin C. …”
Ed, from what I’ve read, our relatively close evolutionary cousins among the primates share the same crucial mutation that disabled our ability to synthesize vitamin c. If I recall correctly (from reading material at the ENSI evolution education site), primate protein sequences for chimps, orangutans and macaques all have the same deletion compared to more distantly related mammals, which are still capable of vitamin c synthesis. I’ll try to find a link and post it here. I just didn’t want anyone to get the impression that the vitamin c-disabling mutation was unique to the human lineage, but occurred in an ancestor that was much earlier than the chimp-human split. I’d have to check more data to see if the mutation was inherited by all primates. The outgroup used in the phylogenetic analysis in the ENSI class materials was the rat, which can synthesize vitamin c.
Another fascinating mutation that IS unique to the human lineage was a 92 base pair deletion that has been written about by Ajit Varki, that likely had effects on brain function. I’ll see if I can find a link or two on it.
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Well, the prostate gland may be the least of the design problems, but it’s on Ed’s mind a lot I bet!
What I think is unfair is how the trilobites got to have better eyes than us. That is just not cool. You’re right too, about the inferior materials. They ought to last a lifetime. Same with knee joints and colons. I’m going to sue the manufacturer!
We didn’t get a very good warranty either.
BTW – Mr. Science teacher: Do the textbooks you use happen to still include any of the classic evolutionary hoaxes? If so, what do you tell your students about them? You sound like a stickler for ‘truth’ so I’m certain you either don’t use those books, or you explain them to your students, right?
http://www.conservapedia.com/Theory_of_Evolution_and_Cases_of_Fraud,_Hoaxes_and_Speculation
http://www.nwcreation.net/evolutionfraud.html
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2007/02/hoax_of_dodos_pt_1_flock_of_do.html
http://www.bible.ca/tracks/textbook-fraud.htm
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The prostate gland is the least of Incompetent Design. A journeyman plumber would be ashamed of creating something akin to the sinus cavity. A first year engineering student knows better than place 60% of our weight on the spine. The eye is the result of deliberate design? Why build it using inferior materials subject to deformation and deterioration?
Of course evolution describes and explains all those situations, but I prefer to think that we’re the prototypes of an omnipotent designer. Somewhere out in the stars are the production models ;^)
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You have to ask?
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Um, Ed? Do believe in the ‘amazingly-powerful’ evolution God or the ‘arbitrary,angry, and devious ‘ God who gave you wee wee troubles?
I think I’m going to leave now.
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That the God of evolution is greater than the god of creationism should be clear to you, once you understand that evolution is in no way a theory of chance. Chance implies accident. Evolution, as defined ably by Darwin, is evolution by natural and sexual selection. “Selection” is the opposite of “chance.”
As God created a universe that creates conditions for life in many places, and which has life in almost bizarrely-robust forms, in great variety, and life with evolves according to a very few principles which appear for all theological purposes to be divine, then that God is amazingly powerful, everlasting and patient — not at all like the arbitrary, angry and devious god of creationists, who puts the male urethra through the prostate gland apparently out of great misunderstanding of how the human body works.
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There is no difference between “micro” evolution and “macro” evolution. That’s a faux issue seized upon by creationists to make creationism more sciency. It’s not good science, the way they abuse it.
In the one peer-reviewed paper I ever found where a scientist used the phrases, “microevolution” was defined as evolution that didn’t create speciation. This covers a vast range of mutations, but is basically an increase in variations between individuals in a species (evolution works on entire populations, not on individuals). “Macroevolution” was defined as evolution that can be identified as speciation — the creation of a new species.
In the paper, the author made clear the distinction is purely arbitrary, since the processes are exactly the same on both sides of the “speciation line.” So if a creationist admits microevolution, they’ve admitted evolution.
They won’t let you off that hook so easily, however — and here is where you encounter the inherent dishonesty in creationism argument. It’s not based on science. So science refutations of creationism arguments are often denied by creationists.
As I’ve noted before, perhaps in other threads here, evolution has plenty of evidence for macro evolution, for speciation. There is no doubt that modern bovines are not the aurochs from which it is descended with modifications (Darwin’s definition). There is no doubt that broccoli and radishes are not mustard plants, though still in the mustard family of plants. Hold up a radish and a mustard leaf, and ask a creationist if they are really the same species. Radish and broccoli? Get serious. Who told you “macro” evolution hasn’t been demonstrated? That’s false.
anony-Ma, do you understand evolution yourself? Have you read Mayr’s reduction of Darwin to four or five key points?
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Belief in God isnt’ falsifiable, no. But creationism offers specific predictions, and in almost every case, those predictions have been falsified. Intelligent design is more weaselly, with ID advocates openly saying they don’t have any hypothesis yet (which means there’s nothing to teach in school, and the Discovery Institute is clear in saying they thing schools are foolish to teach it — they refused to back the Dover, Pennsylvania, schools in teaching ID, even pulling out of the trial at the last minute).
I suspect your school board isn’t much up on the science. What state are you in? Surely there is a nearby university with a professor of biology who can offer suggestions on how to improve biology teaching, and spend a few hours with the school board educating them on why evolution is science and creationism is not — no?
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To Springfield, Illinois. Liberty Fund and Bill of Rights Institute seminar, “Presidents and the Constitution: Abraham Lincoln.”
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Your problem seems to be a marketing problem in a limited market — if parents are picking the charter school because it teaches creationism, there’s probably no legal way to compete. If another charter school opened and students went there because they served beer during 5th period, I doubt the school board would ask to serve beer during 5th period just once or twice a year, in order to compete. You have a similar problem here, if, as I said, the point of competition is the charter school’s teaching religion instead of the state standards in science. Don’t dumb down to their level.
Beef up the science stuff instead. I think science is a real attractor to kids and their parents, when it’s done well. These creationism eruptions don’t help. Have you considered expanding AP biology? Have you considered the International Baccalaureate curriculum, even just to beef up some sections?
[Would you mind e-mailing me your district? I’m curious now to know who the charter school is, and just what they offer.]
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e.i.f.: Have you yet read The Beak of the Finch, a story of evolution in our time? It’s written by Jonathan Weiner, a heck of a good science writer, and the book won the Pulitzer for general nonfiction in 1994. (Also, see here, the PBS “Evolution” website discussion of the Grants’ research.)
Or, alternatively, have you explored any of the material Berkeley University’s site on evolution?
There were several large chunks of evolution evidence listed for you in the previous thread. You failed to respond. I don’t mind debate, but please, discuss civilly.
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Embarrassing lure of evolution ‹‹ Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub››
now this is what i think this blog’s title should be
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iin a real debate you would go noware until you actually gave evidence not exactly hard evidence but actuall evidence of it being false/true
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lol you are the one who got schooled but i dont know if you wont to have another debate seeing that you could get tought a leason in history or are you the person who only said without citeing evidence of where and how you got your evidence but only said that it is false by your word only lol
P.S you will have to do better than just saying it is false before you open your mouth and say its false actually have cites to check out that will disprove it from all aspects
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Hm. Think this is the same ignorant EiF character from before? You know, the silly 15 or 16 year old who soundly had his butt kicked by facts and research?
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iam willing to combat evolution in any way and i wil!!!! prove you false evolutioners
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evolution is false!!!
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Depends on the state, actually. Generally, charter schools are considered private schools under the law, and don’t have to live up to the higher standards that public schools do. If a charter school were required to get kids past the state exit exam, they should consider teaching evolution to boost their chances.
Public schools may not teach creationism because it’s a violation of the establishment clause. Governmental entities cannot teach religious material as fact, nor show favoritism toward any religious view. Creationism is purely a religious view, and hence illegal. That’s what the court cases are all about.
In lay language, scientists have “proven” that macroevolution has occurred. Teaching falsehoods is bad form for teachers.
There’s nothing intellectually dishonest about considering alternative theories in science. Neither creationism nor its sibling, intelligent design, is a hypothesis in science. Creationism is religion, not science.
Two pernicious ways: First, it leaves kids who could be good researchers uninformed about the science. Graduates of creationism courses rarely pursue science, and about 80% of those who do, drop out.
Second, ill-informed public officials cut funding for government research efforts, generally based on misconceptions about what the research does. Stem cell research has been crippled in the U.S., for example. Research into HIV/AIDS was delayed for months while Surgeon General Everett Koop educated policy makers on how evolution was involved, and why that was not a political issue.
I am doing something about it. I teach high school. I agitate. I blog.
A very good environmental and land development lawyer, with a lot of legislative experience.
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Pam, you are making clear to me what a part of this problem is all about.
Some people seem to have severe tunnel vision and can’t seem to even hear what other people are saying. I’ve watched this happen at school board meetings. And I’m watching it here. You keep on misunderstanding what I’m saying, no matter how many different ways I try to present it. You miss some of the basic facts of the situation I’ve tried to outline for you. You have a preconcieved idea of what I’m saying, and can’t hear me when I ‘deviate’ from the program you think I or the school board is on. In my experience it’s not just the evolutionists that have this problem, but they do seem to carry the most of it; but as I say, it seems to be a problem for all the folks bent on fighting about it.
Maybe you should scroll up and re-read what I’ve been saying. It’s a rather interesting story, in my humble opinion. And there’s much more to it than just whether one believes in God or whether one believes in evolution, or for that nmatter whether one believes in nothing at all. The bigger issue is an educational situation, a public schooling situation, that many good, sincere people are grappling with.
I’m sure you are just as good and sincere too, but you have tunnel vision. It’s understandable, since this blog is about things like evolution and you came here for an argument, but the conversation has digressed into a related area. I suspect ed hasn’t responded in a while because he does understand the situation I’ve described, but hasn’t come up with a suggested solution yet.
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“I want to understand why it’s so contentious and wonder why we ‘can’t all just get along’. It’s not strictly a quality of education issue, since admittedly the charter school is doing a great job.”
The idea of presenting a specific religion as if it were a science is 1) it isn’t science or math 2) why is one person’s religion chosen over another’s?
Teaching science in science class isn’t contentious. Teaching one person’s religious beliefs instead of science is contentious.
If a school district or charter school substitutes religion teachings for math class, then it does affect the quality of education. As long as no government money or resources are used for teaching religion, then it is legal.
I was hoping you would get the school board to follow through on their thinking– whose religion do they want to impose? how do they justify one set of beliefs about God over another? how can they justify teaching religion in a science class? Would they also be willing to stop teaching geometry or algebra so that students could instead learn the latest hiphop?
Evolution is no more contentious than gravity. The burden is on the schoolboard as to explain why they want their own religion taught in a science class instead of at their own house of worship?
“The school board isn’t rying to tell anyone to believe or not believe in God or any other god.” That is precisely what they are considering as you have outlined. Creationism or Intelligent Design is an article of faith. Even if all religions believed in it, still doesn’t make it science.
No matter how many scientists try, the supernatural can never be evaluated as is it were a process of evolution or gravity or the circumference of a circle. As you emphasize, the heart of the question is– Why is the school board trying to force me to rely on science for a belief in God?
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Pam, you misunderstand me. And that’s probably my fault.
The school board isn’t rying to tell anyone to believe or not believe in God or any other god. There are two different, but related, issues I’m dealing with here. I found this blog in trying to do some research on the argument that is going on about creation vs evolution vs intelligent design. The over-arching problem of the school district I work for however is losing our students to this new charter school.
And you’re not understanding the charter school concept. Charter schools are a fairly new concept, somewhere between private and public you might say, but in actaulity they operate with public funds, tuition-free, but they get less money than we do. One difference is they are not given money for transportation. They fund transporation themselves, or the parents have to transport their kids themselves. That’s the biggest differnce in funding.
I also probably have confused things a bit by specifically talking about the evolution topic (but that is afterall what this blog thread is about). That’s just one issue, but the most contentious. As a regualr school district, our hands are tied more on what our curruculum must be, while the charter schools are much freer.
In some sense, you are correct that they are pandering in a way to what the parents want taught, but as i said they are not just teaching creation, but covering the topics involved from the three main viewpoints. And it’s not just in science that they differ from us. They use various materials in history, geology, language, social studies, etc that we don’t use.
In short, our problem is one of competition. They started a few years ago with 33 kids spread over K-12, and this year they have over 500 kids and are expanding…. while we have lost a similar number. And there’s only about 3000 school age kids in the area. We also compete with a private Christian school, another small charter school (that’s not doing well), homeschoolers, and another public high school that some families have opted to go to.
Yes, we have problems, but the big fight is over this topic we are discussing here. I want to understand why it’s so contentious and wonder why we ‘can’t all just get along’. It’s not strictly a quality of education issue, since admittedly the charter school is doing a great job. The school district would like to allow a yearly creation presentation, and perhaps try to include some intelligent design information in science classes, but the stumbling block has been a few staunch evolutionists who raise heck whenever the idea is brought up.
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Evolution and gravity were demonstrated ages ago so no one would need “validation” from a governmental agency. There are far more important things to do than go backwards in science. On the other hand, the continued efforts by the government (school boards) to tell people how they should believe in God is a continuing threat to religious freedom.
As far as school boards selling their curriculum to the highest bidders, this might explain why they confuse science/math and religion– they simply had no chance to learn the difference.
You say some argue that children should be prohibited from learning these things unless they also believe in a certain God or church. The argument is also leaning towards not setting any standards for citizenship but rather teaching whatever people with money want taught.
Learning science or learning how to multiply has nothing to do with whether one believes in Krishna or not. Dangling God like a Rio Grande maribou fly over a stream is a way to get parents to pay for school but isn’t a way to get educated children who know how long division works.
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One more thing: That charter school is doing all of that on about 30% less money per student. Suggestions? Where did Ed go, anyway?
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Frankly, Pam, I don’t think anybody is trying to get the government or the school board to ‘validate’ their beliefs (well, let me take that back in part: i think perhaps the evolutionists are looking for validation). I think the school board’s conundrum is in trying to satisfy the greatest number of parents. Many parents apparently feel that the charter school is offering a richer educational experience than we are, and I tend to agree. My grandchildren are now attending there. Some of our teachers have begun sending there own kids there. In fact, 3 of our best teachers have left for positions there! We are being out-competed. They are graduating some of their students early and sending them on to college – as young as 14!. Their test scores are about 25% higher on average. their graduation rate approaches 100%, while ours is at 82%.
The district feels its hands are tied, but are desperately trying to find a way to untie them. I’m just trying (not quite officially) to understand the nature of this argument. Does it just boil down to a belief or unbelief in God? If that’s the case, that is sad.
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anony-Ma Says:
February 22, 2008 at 7:21 am
I think you answered your own question. There is no hypothesis for God, because it is a “belief”. Thus, God can’t be proved or disproved and therefore science is irrelevant– belief can’t be “scientific” or “unscientific”.
Evolution is a fact, hypotheses can be falsified. Whether one has faith in God is irrelevant to facts, although a religious belief it might enlarge one’s appreciation of facts.
The problem is when people confuse belief and science, as you and the school board are doing. Many people argue that if one’s religious beliefs require “proof” or “disproof” then one’s faith isn’t. That is then a matter for religious study or soul searching with or without a minister or priest or rabbi or guru; not a scientist.
You might turn the question around– why do you require scientific proof for belief in the supernatural (which by definition can never occur because science deals with the natural, not the supernatural)? Why do the school board members want a government agency to validate their religious beliefs? If the government agency is allowed to validate their beliefs, why can’t the government also invalidate your school board’s religion? I’m confused– if the school board members want their religion’s tenets validated by the government, then the faith can’t be valid in the first place, can it?
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In scientific speak, I suppose the hypothesis for God creating and maybe evolving life on Earth can be falsified by other evidence, but that other evidence in itself is more or less other ways of interpreting the same evidence. Therefore, I don’t see a belief in God as being inherently ‘unscientific’ in itself.
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Matt, many folks (myself included, I guess) look at the Earth and the universe and see such a beautiful, well put together creation that it’s easy for us to imagine it must be designed, plus we believe our Bible when it tells us that it was indeed created by God.
How God did it is open to interpretation, I suppose. Even if we just look at the underlying ‘natural laws’ and the order built into mathematics, etc it is hard (for me at least) to not say there must have been some kind of plan or design. How such order in the universe – mathematical laws, gravity, other physical laws, the particles and waves that make up the universe an all that – could be here just by chance is more mind boggling to me than the idea of God.
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… what designer?
There is absolutely no evidence at all supporting the hypothesis of an intelligent designer. A completely unnecessary mechanism.
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Whew! That’s quite a read, but very interesting even for this non-scientist. I only have gotten thru a few pages so far, but I’ll read it through eventually, i promise.
A couple questions or obseravtions come to mind: I wonder if all this mathematical probability just points toward the same designer, and I also wonder if there were other organisms that used different chemicals in their make-up, if they would be able to eat and digest each other. If not, that they aren’t might also point back toward a ‘common designer’ not just a ‘common ancestor’ …. just pondering. Thanks for the link!
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What? No evidence for macroevolution? How about this?
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/
There is so much evidence, that it is not funny.
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I believe you are talking about microevolution. creationists (most of them anyway, as i understand) don’t have a problem with microeveolution. Their focus is on the origin of life (which evolutionists don’t have a theory about), and a refutation of macroevolution (which evolutionists don’t have any real evidence for). So how would that hurt education? And intelligent design doesn’t even really try to refute evolution at all.
Again, what is the fight about? Your arguments are getting weaker.
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2) They have proven it as much as any scientific theory can be proven. The evidence is there for anyone to see, papers published, research released.
3) Research into medical areas relies on a solid understanding of biology and evolutionary theory. Various drugs, when made, are made with understandings taken from Evolutionary theory in mind – how the body adapts to new substances/conditions and so on. You start teaching kids that evolution is wrong and instead go with ‘god did it’ … well, I don’t think I have to join the dots.
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I enjoyed the rising, dramatic background music during your last few paragraphs, but i still don’t understand a few things –
1) Why is it ‘legal’ for a charter school to cover creationism and intelligent design (along with a godless evolution), but not for other public schools (charter schools ARE public schools).
2) If evolutionary scientists have been unable to prove that macroevolution has taken place, what is ‘intellectually dishonest’ about considering alternatives?
3) How in heck does a belief in creationism, intelligent design, OR evolution impact research into the diseases you mentioned?
4) And if you think mediocrity in education is evil (I believe there IS much mediocrity sometimes), why aren’t hotshot lawyers like you doing something about that; perhaps fighting the wastage of tax dollars on the various other boondoggles?
5) Exactly what sort of lawyer are you anyhow? Your specialty?
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No, the charter school isn’t breaking laws — for a charter school.
But neither is it delivering quality education. I’ll wager that, if they offer AP biology, that class doesn’t fool around with creationism. If it does fool around with creationism, the AP label is being applied counter to contract, and I’ll wager their kids don’t do well on the exam.
I don’t understand why your board doesn’t just buck up and teach the best stuff to the kids? Do your board members give the kids garbage in other topics, too?
As a nation, we have gotten a lot of mileage out of our scientific and technical prowess. It’s painful to watch backwater fools give away our leadership in these fields to China, India, France, Singapore and other places.
Rising tide of mediocrity? No, you’ve got a school board that has marmots, marmots tunneling through the dikes that hold back the waters of ignorance. If they were communists, we’d try them for treason.
Maybe we should anyway.
Do this survey for the board and report the results: Call the biology departments at all the major Christian universities in the U.S., and ask them what they teach in their creationism course. Call Chapman, Notre Dame, Marquette, SMU, TCU, Baylor, Wake Forest, Vanderbilt, Brigham Young, Drake, the Loyolas, Saint Johns, Holy Cross, Georgetown, Catholic — anyone I’ve left out?
They will tell you that they don’t teach creationism. If you get a professor on a good day, she’ll tell you they don’t have time to teach garbage to students. The graduate programs are too competitive.
Evolution is taught because it works. If people believe as Christians do that God created the universe, whether we understand why God did it or not, we have to understand that evolution is the binding idea in biology. Evolution cures cancer, treats diabetes, produced the Green Revolution, and offers hope for new crops, new cures, and new preventions.
Anyone who suggests creationism be taught is fighting against progress in each of those fields. They’re trying to hobble our students, so we don’t find a new cure for leukemia, or melanoma, so we can’t turn the corner on a cure for cystic fibrosis, so we can’t get a new drug to make better the lives of the victims of multiple sclerosis.
Those diseases are nasty enough without help from misquided religionists. Their work to push creationism not only contributes to the rising tide of mediocrity in education. It is also evil.
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While Evolution has nothing to do with the origins of life, there are scientific theories which do – namely the Theory of Abiogenesis.
These two theories tend to get shoved together by creationists for some reason, despite the difference being explained to them countless times.
The stakes, as such, could be called Intellectual Honesty, Truth and making sure that future generations are taught facts rather than superstitions which have no evidence.
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According to #15 on that list of misconceptions about evolution you posted a link to, evolution is not really concerned with the origin of life, but primarily concerned with how life changed after creation.
Then what’s the problem? Creationists/intelligent design/evolutionists ought not to have that much to argue about.
you’re right, I guess I’m not too familiar with this issue. Why the big fight? What are the stakes here that are worth fighting over?
If science doesn’t know how life got started, what’s wrong with considering God? The intelligent design folks have considered God, as well as evoltuion, and are apparently ok with both sides, and the evolutionists don’t care about God, nor can they prove how the ‘kinds’ or ‘species’ came into existence …… so I ask again, what am I missing here? what are the stakes you children are fighting over???
BTW – I am not in TX. I am in AZ and our district is rapidly losing students to a charter school that doesn’t shy away from religion or science and is considering all three viewpoints in it’s classes. Without even a nasty lawyer on the scene, we are in real danger of bankruptcy ….. Just thought I’d clue you in on that. And guess what the lawyers DO say – that charter school isn’t breaking any laws.
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Jesus also had things to say about people who lie to children, and he had a lot to say about people who sow strife.
I think that, if you check the temperature of the McDonalds coffee these days, it will be less than the near-200 degrees that gave third degree burns to 80-year-old Stella Lieback in Albuquerque — but even if not so, there is a warning, and McDonalds would be liable for injuries to you from the product at that temp. Fluids at such temperatures are inherently dangerous, and the seller assumes the liability, in McDonalds’ case, with foreknowledge.
As I recall, the expert testimony at trial said that a lap spill of coffee at that temperature, you have seven seconds to get your clothes off to prevent a third-degree burn (you’ll still get second-degree burns). Can you unbuckle your seatbelt, open the car door, get out and get your pants off in seven seconds? If you sell people an inherently dangerous product like that, in a paper cup, and you know that it will cause crippling burns because you’ve already paid for several hundred such cases, don’t you think it only fair to take the liability?
What would Jesus say in such a case? Should we denigrate the woman as “old and slow” at trial?
It’s pretty clear that you are not so familiar with creationism in policy as I had thought. Were I representing a school district, I would have briefed them on the Kitzmiller trial and decision months ago. In fact that’s a part of teacher training here in Texas for most teachers. The only ones who appear blind to the law are the creationists on the state school board, who seem hell-bent to waste a couple million dollars of taxpayer money in litigation, and hell-bent to make our children stupid. Our youngest graduates this year. We scraped by.
Good luck — and pay careful attention to what Judge Jones said!
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I’ll check out your links later whne I have time. thanks for the info.
And on my way to work i think I’ll stop at McDonald’s and get a cup of coffee. I wonder if they know they are selling an illegal substance. Sounds exciting.
Remember too Ed what I said about dealing gently with others, as a Christian. I’m sure the majority of creationists are Christians, and if you truly are a Christian yourself you might be wise to deeply ponder your place in the world as both a lawyer and a man who walks with Christ. I think Jesus had a few things to say about lawsuits.
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anony-Ma, I assumed you were familiar with Panda’s Thumb and Pharyngula, but perhaps I shouldn’t assume such things.
P.Z. Myers had some posts today that go to the heart of what you’re considering; you may want to see them:
Two Tales of Whale Evolution
15 Misconceptions about Evolution
Oh, I almost forgot Panda’s Thumb.
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And, Pam, if I’m in that town, I’ll sue to get equal time for Christianity. Creationists shouldn’t get a chance to proselytize if Christians don’t.
You think the creationists howl when evolution is taught? Wait till they hear Christianity will be taught, showing creationism isn’t Christian.
Religion shouldn’t be introduced into science courses.
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anony-Ma Says:
February 20, 2008 at 10:10 pm
Perhaps it would help to think of this–
1) it is not a good idea to substitute something which isn’t science for a science course or topic. The same is true of mathematics. Neither creationism or intelligent design could substitute for mathematics or science. Chanting mosaic law would not substitute for physical education. Understanding the theory of gravity would not substitute for the Nicene Creed in Sunday School.
2) creationism itself is a type of religious belief. Would the school be able to justify teaching one specific belief and not others? How would the school choose between all the world’s religions? How would you evaluate whether teachers have the qualifications to teach Islam or Zoroastrianism?
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Well, I don’t play a lawyer on TV, I am one. There’s a difference between the “non-religious” pledge and the motto on the coin (‘isn’t religious, it’s secular’ Justice O’Connor, as I recall, wrote; if it were religious, it would be illegal) and advocacy of religion in a science class. And so far, every school district that has been dumb enough to do it has lost it’s shirt in the courts.
Here’s the deal: In 1981 Judge Overton told the creationists they could get into the textbooks and the curriculum at any time, if they’d just do some science, do some research that supports creationism, and write it up. In that case the creationists had alleged the science journals were biased against them, and they couldn’t get their science published, so Overton invited them to put into evidence the science articles they’d had rejected from the science journals . . . and they couldn’t find any. Not one. There simply was no research. There was no science there. Under oath, the creationists admitted it.
Here we are 27 years later, and still no research. And they want a seat at the table of science?
Have we no standards at all? Do we now accept “ain’t” as good grammar? Do we accept 2+2=3? Do we allow kids to say there are three continents?
There’s an ethical issue for the kids, too, I think: If we agree to teach them stuff we know to be false, where does it stop?
But don’t take my word for it. Go read the cases.
Epperson vs. Arkansas
McLean vs. Arkansas
Edwards vs. Aguillard
Kitzmiller vs. Dover
One follows these things for 30 years or so, and one does get weary of the bizarre and false claims of creationists. There is honor among thieves, some say, but little honor among creationists over time.
There’s also a lesson in the McDonalds hot coffee case in Albuquerque. The old woman asked for a reasonable less-than $25,000 to pay for her medical bills. McDonalds blew her off. When in court it was revealed to the jury that McDonalds had paid in several hundred other cases, and it was revealed that the coffee was so hot that it could not be safe, by design, and McDonalds impugned the little old lady, they got a jury decision they didn’t want. People who ignore the law and the facts get burned in court.
Creationists have lost every case they’ve been in. They generally lose it on the evidence, but often there is outright fraud, such as in the Pennsylvania case, and that helps the judges a lot in their decision making. A school board who votes to teach creationism in science class probably has several brothers in law who practice law in the local courts and need the money. It’s marginally more legal than simply embezzling the money and sending it to one’s brother in law, but only marginally so. Some day a motion to get the board members personally for being so stupid will go against the board member. Elected officials get immunity from lots of stuff, but sheer stupidity generally isn’t covered. Does your board want to be the one that makes new law in that regard?
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Our kids do say ‘one nation under God’ in the pledge every day; our sports teams say a prayer before games; Heck, our nation’s motto is ‘In God We Trust’.
I do know enough Ed, to know your separation of church and state argument is a red herring (and red in the sense of the separation phrase comes, not from the US constitution, but from the old Soviet constitution).
We teach a lot of stuff in school that comes with no requirement that a kid ‘believe’ it. We even teach some stuff about the founding fathers (I’m almost, but not quite embarrassed to admit) that isn’t historical, but mythical.
So if those things are ‘like’ teaching creation or intelligent design, as you say above, then I’d have to say it’s not illegal.
Would it leave us open to a lawsuit? Maybe. But that’s not my reason for being here in this blog and that’s not my area of concern at this point. In todays world EVERYTHING can leave you open to a lawsuit. People get sued for serving hot coffee.
My task is to try to find some common ground for extremists to sit down and discuss the issue, without name calling or threatening lawsuits. Since you appear to be an amateur expert on this, I was interested to hear what you had to say and especially how you would say it.
My personal view is that nobody from either side should feel threatened by the others, if they truly feel they have the truth on their side, but sadly that doesn’t seem to be the case. The creationist/intelligent design camps in town would simply like to be allowed to give a yearly presentation, similar to what we do for our unit on climate change by showing Al Gore’s movie once a year to the 7th graders. Nobody requires that the students believe it, especially since some of the science in the movie contradicts what they learn in their regular science class, but we show the movie in the interest of presenting various sides of the topic. So far, the global warming non-believers have not threatened to sue anybody.
This particular issue though seems to really get people riled up. they just talk at and past each other. Like you do. Its really too bad.
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It’s illegal for the government to advocate religious positions, especially as preferred over other religions or no religion. Creationism, since it has no science to support it (since about 1809), is a religious position. So is its cousin, intelligent design.
When a government endorses creationism, it does so against most Christian sects and many other religions, and against science. Governments can’t do that under all 50 state constitutions, and under the U.S. Constitution.
See McLean v. Arkansas from 1982, and the Supreme Court case Edwards v. Aguillard, from 1987, and the decision in the Kitzmiller case from late 2005 in Pennsylvania.
Hence, it’s illegal for a schoolboard to endorse it. It would be like requiring kids to say “God is Great!” at the end of the Pledge of Allegiance.
[Did someone just open a can of fishing bait?]
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I’ll admit that legal matters are not my area of expertise, but I’m surprised to learn that teaching creationism and/or intelligent design is illegal. Could you please provide more information on this? A link to the law or laws online would be very helpful. thanks.
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I’m not trying to get your board to pass anything illegal. What’s to indemnify? Doing the right thing doesn’t require indemnification.
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I see what you’re saying, but it’s really a matter of a middle ground to try to bring people together and reduce the divisiveness of the issue. None of the people asking for creationism or intelligent design are asking that evolution NOT be taught. The problem is the arguments that ensue when everybody wants to be ‘right’ and have the last word. If I may say so, it’s very much like your extreme statements above ‘middle ground on murder’, etc…..
I’m sure we could never get any churches to indemnify us against any possible lawsuits brought against us by evolutionists, because as you say they mainly have faith on their side. however, would YOU be willing to indemnify us against lawsuits by the creationists or intelligent design people?
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Generally, if I had a client school board that was so fuzzy on the issue, I’d put it to them like this: The science is solid, whether the board understands it or not. When put under oath, now in three trials over a quarter century, creationists of the most informed sort confess that they have no science to back creationism.
Legally, there is no “middle ground” without savaging science. Since school boards don’t make the rules about what is science and what is not, just as they don’t make the rules on what is agriculture or animal husbandry and what is not, it is not the place of a school board to issue such rules (no school board would think of telling its animal husbandry unit that they could no longer teach swine breeding, since swine are “unclean,” for example).
And if they do issue a rule that guts science, they should expect to end up in court, and they should expect to pay through the nose for their stupidity.
The school board in Darby, Montana, listened to their lawyer, left evolution in the curriculum, and avoided law suit. The school board in Dover, Pennsylvania, refused their legal counsel’s wise counsel on the topic, and it was only through the grace of the ACLU that the school board did not end up bankrupt.
Most schoolboards understand bankruptcy. One of these days some parent is going to sue to pierce the veil of immunity that school board members have as public officials, arguing that after losing 100% of the cases, creationism is a sure loser, and any school board member with three working gray cells should know that — and since the board decided instead to “compromise,” against the counsel of the lawyers, then the school board members were acting ultra vires and deserve to be personally liable.
You should ask your board’s liability insurer what their view is of boards that decide to take on the science establishment and God for no good reason.
But I digress.
Science has already “proved” the question one way. Someone on your board is asking you to figure out whether there isn’t someplace on Earth that water doesn’t flow uphill contrary to the laws of gravity, so that example could be cited to claim that gravity doesn’t work.
Science has the data. Denial of reality is a bad legal strategy.
Maybe you should try another tactic. Write every home office of every Christian denomination you can find. Ask them their position on teaching evolution. You’ll discover that all mainstream Christian sects but one support teaching the facts, which is evolution in this case. Then ask the Southern Baptist Convention and the Assemblies of God if they’ll indemnify your board if the board approves their religious views as science. If those few churches who argue for creationism won’t express their faith by indemnifying your board, and each member personally, then it should be clear that not even creationists are stupid enough to insist on creationism when it costs them money.
I’d suggest you look at some science, but the call for “middle ground” position tells me science has already been rejected. Your board is asking you for a middle ground on pregnancy, somewhere between conception and no conception; they’re asking you for a middle ground on murder, for a middle ground on genocide, for a middle ground on stealing, for a middle ground on dead or alive that allows moving from one to the other with impunity.
No such thing.
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Joe, thanks for coming back. Nice to see your post here.
Where does new stuff come from evolution? Isn’t that question that you’re puzzling over?
Darwin may no longer be the best place to go for the explanation, but he’s certainly got this issue covered.
In the first place, Darwin wondered how much variation would be required to actually make a new species. The puzzle over where to draw the line between an old species and a new one wasn’t such an issue then, since the science paradigm of the time — creationism — posed species as very much fixed, with a little variation possible. Darwin finally hit on the idea of seeing how much variation could be produced by artificial selection in animal husbandry. He investigated pig and cattle breeding, other domestic stock breeding, and he deeply delved into pigeon breeding, becoming an accomplished breeder himself. Reading the first couple of chapters of Origin of Species one realizes that Darwin found there is enough variation within most species already, with no need for “new” genes, to produce a new species. This is one of the wonders of nature and evolution that dedicated creationists are most loathe to comprehend, that nature has built into species the ability to make a new species without dramatic new genetic material. Assuming God has the director’s role in this process, God has made all living things fully capable and ready to evolve, in other words. Evolution is, consequently, inevitable.
There clearly are spectacular differences, say between a sea cucumber and a human, the creationist is wont to point out. Darwin suggested the most difficult problem, for him, was the evolution of an eye. It seemed “absurd” Darwin said, to think an eye could evolve. But, Darwin started looking backwards from well developed eyes, to lesser developed eyes, and then to lesser developed eyes, and so on, until he had a chain of evolutionary development in which each step was a minor one, but still a step leading from light sensitive patches on a creature (which are very common, really), to complex eyes such as those in falcons, or squids, or humans. When each step is so clearly possible, and in many cases probable, the fact that evolution is possible becomes clear, too. The process in toto remains awe-inspiring, however — perhaps moreso to the scientist who has an inkling of the astounding number of events required to get from one development to another.
Creationists often ask for great leaps in a generation or two. Evolution proceeds much faster than Darwin probably thought possible (the Grants found evolution running at a rate of 25,000 darwins, when 1 darwin would have previously been expected) — sometimes. Other times evolution appears not to occur at all, and a species remains relatively static for a long time, showing perhaps genetic drift as the greatest change. This slow, “careful” development over a thousand generations is what creationists just don’t accept. A thousand human generations would run from 20,000 to 40,000 years, perhaps a half of the time humans have been in our current form, and 3 to 13 times the life of the Earth according to many young Earth creationists.
If one’s god thinks only in 6,000 year increments, and one has difficulty grasping that, trying to get one’s mental arms around 600,000 years, or 6 million, or 60 million years, is nearly impossible (mammals have blossomed in the past 65 million years, a period that must cause the prehistory equivalent of future shock to the tenth power, to a dedicated creationist).
So, what you have to do to try to understand how these things can happen, is look backwards. What’s the great gap between chimps and humans? A gene here gives humans greater swelling in the frontal lobes where a couple of new thinking processes can occur; another gene gives humans a workable voice box; another fluke mutation causes a lack of hair (is that an advantage? perhaps, in a world where diseases are carried by lice that hide in fur). Another change steals from humans the ability to manufacture vitamin C. None of those changes is a major new organ; none of those changes, by itself, would cause anyone to say speciation had occurred. Those small changes, bundled together in one creature, make that creature markedly different from a chimp.
Now, we do not know that our proto-ape, common ancestor with chimps was more chimp-like than human. We may be looking at a slightly different path. But as you can see, there are no great changes required. (Here I’ve not considered the more than 20 steps we know occurred between the proto-ape and modern humans; some of these small steps were themselves broken down into even smaller steps, each one even less of a novelty than the whole step itself.)
From proto-ape back to proto-lemur-like creature, back to proto-mammal-like creature, back to not-quite-mammal-still-reptile creature, back to . . . well, you get the idea, I hope. Each step is small, making no great break from the previous generation or three. Only over time, in cumulative view, in retrpspect, can we see the changes in their completeness.
Once we get four-legged land dwellers, each step toward humans, or chimps, or dolphins, is a small one. Our just-beyond-reptile ancestor had symmetry, a heart-lung system, all the major organs we regard as necessary, four limbs, two eyes . . . in reality it’s a small leap from lizard to human, and when that small leap is broken down into smaller leaps that take place in millions of generations over 65 million years — well, what’s to doubt?
Evolution theory doesn’t pose “molecules to man.” But there’s no significant barrier from one-celled critter to man. And we can’t find any barrier from molecules to one-celled critter. The problems are not that evolution assumes that chain to be true, because it doesn’t. The problem is that creationists don’t want to admit the evidence to consideration. We used to think there must be a barrier, somewhere. We can’t find it. We can’t find any evidence that there is any barrier, anywhere.
I’m not asking Ron to prove evolution impossible. I’m asking him for a shred of evidence that there is any hurdle that hasn’t been demonstrated to be leapable. I don’t know of any such hurdles any more. I used to think speciation was the big one, then the fly guys told me speciation was common. I wondered whether cellular formation wasn’t the barrier, then I really read Sidney Fox’s paper, and realized that cells, too, are inevitable.
What I’m asking Ron to do is show that any part of evolution isn’t inevitable. I’m convinced he can’t find anything approaching a barrier to anything — so it’s inevitability I’m interested in now.
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Hi all, as a bystander, can I offer a couple of observations? I found this blog after being tasked by the school board I work with to ‘find some middle ground’ we could work with on this question of evolution versus creation. It has become a divisive issue in our community.
First, a bit of an aside. It looked to me in reading the above exchange that Ron had ignored the links to Talkorigins that were provided, but I have a feeling he may not have noticed them. It may sound silly, but I suspect he might be colorblind. The same thing often happens to my husband when links are not underlined.
Ron was trying to make a point about ‘kinds’ of animals. I think I know what he was trying to say. Example: We know dogs and wolves are different species, in fact they are classified in different genus as well (lupus and canus), but we also know of course that those classifications may not be ‘accurate’ in the sense that we know for certain that wolves and dogs easily interbreed, in fact it might be true to say that dogs are really a sub-species of wolf. In that sense, one could say that wolves and dogs are the same ‘kind’ of animal.
Interestingly, one of those talkorigins links said fairly closely what I think Ron was trying to assert:
“Biological classification is hierarchical; when a new species evolves, it branches at the very lowermost level, and it remains part of all groups it is already in. Anything that evolves from a fruit fly, no matter how much it diverges, would still be classified as a fruit fly, a dipteran, an insect, an arthropod, an animal, and so forth.” Claim CB910.1
I think that’s all he was getting at. He wanted to know how you would explain one ‘kind’ of animal becoming another ‘kind’, which is what has to happen in evolution. Does this sound right? I have heard this argument at a school board meeting, and it seems that the adversaries are not speaking the same language sometimes.
Also, Ed you sound like you consider yourself a Christian (as do I). Please let me remind you that we are admonished to deal gently with the beliefs of others, especially our brothers and sisters. Using ‘creationist’ as an epithet is unbecoming.
Until science is able to prove this question one way or another, in a way we are all going on ‘faith’. Nontheistic evolution, theistic evolution, young Earth, old Earth, etc…….. We don’t know, and you are correct the Bible is not explicit on this point.
I found your interpretation of Genesis 1:24 to be interesting, though, in a way you may have not intended – A strict reading means that the Earth brought forth the animals (which might support a theistic evolution stance), but then we would have to conclude that Man DID NOT evolve, but was created as it says. Interesting thought.
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Ron,
As a fellow Creationist myself, one thing you’ll have to know about Ed and these guys which is definitely to their credit. They know their stuff. They are usually pretty accurate to the data, which is really nice. I’ve been on the student end of the converstations I’ve had with Ed. Yet, it is very easy to be able to maintain a Creationist position, because it is not the evidence that is against Creationism, it is the inferences from the data. It is the assumptions made by Evolutionists that bother me, not the data. The only time table testing I have a problem with myself is the radio dating because it wouldn’t work on a young earth model anyway, so in my mind (which it may be limited there I understand) it doesn’t disprove an young earth, but merely shows that if it the earth were young, this wouldn’t be the way to find out.
One thing I read in this thread that you were mistaken on, but I am still amused by Ed’s response, is that there is no place on earth where the geologic columns exist. Ed correctly tells us that he knows of at least a couple; one in North Dakota if I remember right. I find that hilarious because by no means does that sound like a “norm” to me. Yet the science books I read in school made it sound like this was the way it was all over the earth.
Anyway, if you’re going to undertake this discussion (which you have), please be gracious, be patient, be willing to learn, and understand that unkind rhetoric merely undermines your points.
Ed,
I think, if I can get a grasp on what Ron is trying to ask, is this: Is there any place where there is a detailed, scientific “how” on how species evolve from a fish into a man? How, with offspring DNA being limited to that of the parents, does new DNA or changed DNA occur to the point that new information eventually produces a species that bears no resemblance to its ancestor (i.e. reptile to mammal)? It’s just not genetically possible to introduce brand new, never before seen DNA (which we don’t how DNA could have evolved so complexly without a genious mastermind) without some outside force manipulating the system. If it’s possible, I’d sure like to not be bald anymore because my head gets cold. Yet, as we talked about with the Giraffe, I am limited to working with what my ancestors have given me; no new data available.
I know the evolutionary answer is mutation and reproduction. Yet how does this process occur? (The reproduction I understand. I do have two kids). Reproduction doesn’t explain it because again, as we talked about with the Giraffe, the offspring is limited to its parents DNA. You can blend them between each other, but you still don’t get any new DNA that wasn’t present in either of the two parents. Regarding mutatiion, I have not found (and I have put some effort into it) many articles that explain how mutations explains man to molecules and the ones I did find all have fallen far short. Even the example of new species are very few and far between. Especially with the abundance and vast variety of life forms that we have today, you’d think that evplution would be occuring at a much more rapid pace than it would have even a million years ago. Yet I find that the list of endangered species is on the increase and the list of new species is limited to some fruit flies, some yeast, some plants, and a few other pretty unimpressive things. I just haven’t come even close to being convinced that mutation
You all seem to be asking Ron to demonstrate why molecule to man evolution is impossible. Let me use the atheist’s argument against God’s existence and say that it is impossible to prove a negative. You can’t say that evolution is impossible in the same way you can’t say God does not exist. So, you have to look at the probability. From the data that we have discussed and looked at, the mathmatical probability of evolution from molecule to man occuring is astronimically unreal! And yet from what I’ve read, evolutionists have said (and this is me paraphrasing) “we know it occured because here we are. It had to happen because we exist and so the math doesn’t matter.”
So, the problems aren’t with the data. The problems are with what evolution assumes to be true (like molecules to man) in order for the world view to be accurate.
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Ed,
“It’s obvious the wood was inserted into a hole in the rock…”
God put it there to test our faith!
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Problems of writing fast and on the fly. I’m not saying you won’t find wood in limestone. I don’t see any problem with that — we have all sorts of fossils in limestone. Fossilized wood — why not.
A wooden stick? That’s a later intrusion, most likely. The formation of the limestone would create stone out of the wood. You offer no details, Ron. I’m aware of two such claims in Texas, both of them hoaxes. It’s obvious the wood was inserted into a hole in the rock, millions of years after the rock was formed, maybe millions of years after the hole formed in the rock.
Got another example? Let’s see the details. None of these examples pose any problem for evolution theory, but they tax the honesty of creationists no end.
But generally, you waive any checking of facts on these stories. None of them check out to pose any problem for evolution. The boots in the coal in Texas are embarrassing hoaxes. The human footprints next to dino prints are embarrassing frauds, and desecration of God-made fossils. They’re beneath Barnum, hucksterish cartoons of the truth. They are efforts to sucker nice little old ladies in church. I hate it when people defraud nice little old ladies.
My game? Accuracy. Creationists generally don’t like to play that game.
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Ron,
That’s all you’ve got to say? Pathetic.
Don’t substantiate any of your claims, and just ignore everything else that’s been pointed out to you. Be my guest. At this point I’m more than happy to let you persist in your ignorance.
Good riddance.
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Great. Upright trees in coal mines. Why should that falsify the coal?
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I’m tired of you now, and just plain tired – it’s geting late. But I’ll point out one more thing then go away and leave you to it, whatever your game is, whether it’s intentional or not.
There really are upright tree trunks in coal deposits, fairly commonly – ask a coal miner sometime – and many other oddities, as well, things that ‘shouldn’t be there’. Coal mines are interesting places. Go visit one. Talk to the miners.
See ya.
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All sounds good, Ed – until one realizes where you misstepped and obviously lied above.
You give a somewhat plausible reason animal tissues might survive millions of years, and then tell me that such a claim for plant materials is ‘bizarre and false’.
Good luck in the future, Ed. You’ll need it.
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Already been pondered, and found wanting.
“After their kind?” That’s not what Genesis says, really. It says the Earth will bring forth the animals, each after their kind (see Genesis 1:11 and 1:24, for example). From the get-go, then, we’ve got Genesis supporting a biogenesis theory, with life arising from the Earth. In the one or two verses in which it is suggested life might reproduce after its kind, it would do you good, perhaps, to revisit the text in the original Hebrew, and note how much it sounds like Darwin’s “descent with modification.” The Bible doesn’t say “cloned.” The Bible doesn’t argue that species don’t express great variation, the stuff that makes evolution. The Bible in no way denies Darwin. Nor, for that matter, does the Bible support creationism.
Have you read the various creation stories in the Bible, Ron? I worry when creationists start off saying the Bible says creatures reproduce after their own kind, since the Bible doesn’t say that, and since such reproduction would be favorable to natural selection and not preservation of creationism. But, so it goes.
I’ve offered a half dozen examples of evolution, brand spankin’ new species, within one plant family, and several other examples, including beef. You’ve offered nothing to suggest anyone disagrees that speciation occurred there, nor anything to challenge the speciation. It’s one thing to note a lack of evidence when there is such a lack, but your ignoring the evidence presented does not nullify it in any way.
Let me remind you that for humans, we have a score of species between modern humans and the last common ancestor with the other great apes. In every possible way, evolution is demonstrated in those fossils. As Ken Miller says, we have the bones. Moreover, that evolution is clearly demonstrated in DNA, down to the fusing of chromosome 2, which accounts for humans having 23 sets while our great ape close cousins have 24. As Ken Miller also says, we have the DNA, too.
You have a vacant claim that DNA offers some barrier, but you cannot cite anyone to suggest such a barrier, and such a barrier is contrary to everything known about DNA.
You may want to rethink your position, with benefit of some serious reading of what science actually says, rather than what some lyin’ creationist fantasizes in his alliterative rap claims science says. Stick to the data, not the rhymes. The data dance to the rhyme to a greater poet, and the reading is all the more satisfying for it.
Yes, you’ve accurately summarized it. You snatched a claim right out from between your gluteal pads, and the claim is falsified by almost everything we know about DNA, mutation, variation and natural selection.
And now you dance around claiming you don’t have to provide even a glimmer of a hint of an iota of a paper from anyone in science supporting your gluteal-born argument.
That exclamation point: Is it your concession? It should be.
Not only is there a lot of evidence of evolution, in real time, in our time — Peter and Rosemary Grant have irrefutable evidence of it in morphology, blood types, songs, and DNA from their intensive observation of birds in the Galapagos (and Jonathan Weiner’s book won the Pulitzer in 1994, but we don’t expect you to have actually read the evidence after your sterling performance on evidence here) — but pesticide manufacturers sweat trying to prevent evolution of captive insect populations used to test pesticides. If the captive population evolves, the tests may not be valid, the pesticide may not work, and billions of dollars are at stake.
That’s another point. Evolution is tested and found true in the market place: Several dozen companies trading well on the stock exchanges rely on the validity of evolution theory for their profits, companies like Genentech, Pfizer, Con-Agra, Monsanto, and others. There is not a single company on Earth based on a creationist paradigm, traded on a stock market. Creationism is a loser of an idea, financially. Plus, it would be a violation of the securities laws to make the claims for creationism that you make here. Honesty is required when selling stocks.
Thank you, but no, I don’t need evidence from someone who doesn’t know scripture and distorts it in trying to twist scripture into a science text. If you will dishonor holy scripture in such a way after avoiding the facts in science, why should I believe you’re accurate in any endeavor?
The Bible’s account is true, we take on faith. Nothing in the Bible contradicts evolution, when fairly read. The Bible is not a science text. You torture scripture, and claim its forced confession is valid. Even George Bush knows better than that now.
You’ve obviously misread the evidence. No, I don’t think you have anything that would convince me you’re honest with the evidence, or even that you understand what the evidence is.
See what I mean? The layers are dated comparatively by physics, the operation of gravity and time. The oldest layers are the deepest. That’s not circular reasoning, it’s the laws of the universe in action. We Christians think God is behind the laws of the universe — heaven only knows what creationists think about it, but it’s obvious you don’t respect the laws of the universe.
Layers compared worldwide have similar fossils — those layers are deduced to be about the same age, unless there is dramatic reason not to deduce that. Your bizarre argument about circularity, completely ignoring the real basis for the comparisons, gravity and time, suggests that you are not seeking the facts, or understanding, but instead just spoiling for a fight. Jesus warned us there would be vexers like that.
Except that radio-carbon dating is not appropriate for fossils older than about 50,000 years, and appropriate radioisotope methods give spectacularly UNwild results, very consistent, using uranium, or argon-argon, or any of a variety of other isotopes. You’re making wild and false claims here yourself: There are no wild results from radioisotope dating done by non-creationists; creationists appear not to understand at all how God constructed the universe, and this is one more example of the disrespect for the Creator that gets my goat about creationism.
I know that you can find a complete column of all layers present and in the correct order in South Dakota, and at another place in Russia. I now know that you are plug ignorant of geology and radioisotope dating. Care to take a step back and try for accuracy on the next round?
So, then, you don’t understand how or why rock capsules might survive a million years? You really are ignorant of geology. Why cannot a rock vault preserve unfossilized tissues? Without air contact or other chemical reaction, what do you think should have happened? Do you even know where this event occurred, or why scientists consider it accurate, or how difficult it is to do anything with the preserved tissues?
Have you ever taken a chemistry course? You appear completely unfamiliar with chemical reactions such as those involved here.
Actually, it’s upright trees in volcanic ash. I’ll top that for you: In Yellowstone Park, there is an entire forest of such upright trees. Then, after it was covered completely with ash, another forest grew on top of it, and it, too, was covered with ash and petrified. Neither forest shows any hint of ever having been flooded. Both forests took millions of years to grow, one on top of the other.
Do you understand that this is complete refutation of any claim of a young Earth, and complete refutation of worldwide flood?
Hoaxes, mis-studied intrusions. And even with all the creationist hoaxers on Earth, still extremely rare. Three cases? That’s pretty uncommon.
Good thing. No fact checker would allow such bizarre and false claims to be published. Certainly such stuff shouldn’t be allowed near children, innocent children.
No, it doesn’t. Fish fossils on mountains are not on the mountains as they would be from a flood. They are found instead, in the mountains, where no flood could ever deposit them. They are deposits from shallow oceans, laid down slowly over millions and billions of years, undisturbed by floods as they petrified — and then raised to the mountain tops by tectonic forces greater than any creationist will give God credit for. In the Himalayas is such a layer, 3,000 feet thick, thicker than any flood could generate — and riven by erosion between the peaks, erosion that could only occur over tens of millions of years after the ocean was raised to the mountain tops. The ancient Tethys sea was closed, and then raised to dramatic heights by India’s ramming into Asia. But you can’t be troubled by such facts, no matter how well confirmed by God’s creation.
It’s not evidence of Noah’s flood. It’s evidence of pakicetus’s origins. But then, you don’t know anything about whale fossils, and you’ll probably claim they don’t exist.
Oh, there are many flood stories, sure — but God doesn’t tell a flood story to Job. Instead God relates a story bereft of Eden, absent Adam and Eve, and completely contrary to your claims. But you elevate creationism’s odd inventions and Bible distortions above even the words of God. You couldn’t be bothered to listen to what that old man had to say, I’m sure. He doesn’t talk about young Earth and foolish miracles. Why would you be interested at all?
And then there’s the Navajo story, which has four floods, not one — each pushing up to a higher existence. There’s the Chinese story, which clearly refers to the two great rivers. And then there is the absence of such a story in Egypt, and the absence of such a story in Africa, and the absence of such a story in the advanced cultures of MesoAmerica. And then there’s the solid evidence of Noah’s flood, a regional flood, caused when the ice dam at the Bosporus broke and the rising Mediterranean rushed in to flood Abraham’s land along the little river and lake that would, in a few weeks, be the Black Sea. No, it’s not geology and science you want, but Dungeon and Dragon-style fantasy.
Please keep it out of our church, will you? Our kids want real information, real gospel. I don’t recognize your stories as geology or any other science, and it sure ain’t Christianity’s story.
Not in the textbooks only because it won’t pass the smell test. The coliform count may be too high, too.
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Just spotted a typo. That last sentence should read, “And you have yet to provide us with a definition of “kind” that isn’t circular.
Oh, Ron. I found another one for you. See claim CH350. Maybe I already referenced it. Better safe than sorry. Good luck with that definition.
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Ron,
“I said you would do well to ponder this, but I’m not surprised you won’t.”
How else would I have gone through each of your claims if not by “pondering” them?
“I know, of course, you’ll say that it is I who am blind, but I’m not refusing to look at your evidence. You are refusing (read: unable) to show any! If you had some, you should be proud to show it off.
Each claim referenced above cites its own sources. Get to work. And while you’re at it, look these up as well.
“Problems with this theory of dating arise when radio-carbon (and other) methods give wild results…”
See claims CD010 and CD011
“…fossils are found in the ‘wrong’ strata…”
See claim CC340
“…(such as human footprints in Cambrian deposits)…”
The prints at Paluxy or the Meister print? See claims CC102 and CC102
“…or strata are found in the ‘wrong order’…”
What, the Lewis Overthrust? See claim CD102.1
“…dinosaur bones (supposedly 150+ million years old) are found to contain unfossilized tissues…”
Tyrannosaurus Rex? See claim CC371.1
“…student stops to wonder what pollen grains were doing there at the dawn of evolution…”
See claim CC341
“…fully-modern human skeleton is unearthed in strata way too old for that to be possible…”
Do you mean Moab man or Malachite man? See claims CC110 and CC111
“…human-made tools are found in coal deposits…
Maybe an iron pot? See claim CC131
That should be enough to keep you busy for a little while longer.
“You are simply saying ‘it is so because the textbook says it so’.”
I see you’ve been reduced to putting your own words in the mouths of others. And you still won’t shut up!
“…this points to a LOSS of DNA information…”
See claim CB102
“…astounding complexity of DNA…”
See claim CI101
“…what really blew my mind was the flood evidence!”
Please read “Problems with a Global Flood.”
And you have yet to provided us with a definition of “kind” that isn’t circular.
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You gave some links to interesting hybridization experiments, none of which created anything close to a new organism; simply gave some clue to the possibility of evolution (in the interpretation of the scientists involved). But if you’d read your own links (I did, by the way), you would also find that the vast majority of the hybrids were sterile. this points to a LOSS of DNA information – not evolution, which requires INCREASING information in the DNA, not to mention the ability to reproduce!
That’s all pretty simple stuff if you understand the astounding complexity of DNA and have a grasp of big numbers and probabilities, but what really blew my mind was the flood evidence!
I was happy for a long time to go along with the intelligent design idea, along with the idea of a vast age for the Earth, but an old paleontologist took the time to show me the things that didn’t fit the prevailing theory and really shook me up. The idea of a flood actually makes the pieces fit, and ignoring such ‘contrary’ evidence isn’t scientific thinking anyway. Good science finds new questions along the way and attempts to answer them, not sweep them under a rug.
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No evidence?
What do you think half a dozen people have been linking to?
What is your acceptable definition of evidence? Would you like us to travel to your house with some sort of travelling fossil exhibit? Maybe you’d like us to delve into temporal mechanics and somehow make a time machine so you can go back and see for yourself?
We have supplied evidence in spades, whereas you have made claims and presented false mechanisms which have been refuted time and again.
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I said you would do well to ponder this, but I’m not surprised you won’t.
No man is so blind as the one who refuses to see.
I know, of course, you’ll say that it is I who am blind, but I’m not refusing to look at your evidence. You are refusing (read: unable) to show any! If you had some, you should be proud to show it off.
Did I say ‘it is so because the Bible says so’? No, not really. I gave you evidence. You are simply saying ‘it is so because the textbook says it so’.
Which of us is relying the most heavily on our faith?
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Ron,
‘Kinds’ of animals have offspring ‘after their kind’
Still circular. Try again.
“On the one hand, you dispute the existence of the so-called DNA or genetic barrier – you claim nobody has even heard of such a thing – and then on the other hand claim that the idea has been soundly refuted by much observation and experiment!”
That’s the closest thing we could find, and with no help from you, of course. I for one still think you’re making %$#@ up.
“A lack of evidence is evidence, my friends!”
No, it’s not. It’s the beginning of an appeal to ignorance and your own personal incredulity.
“Are you familiar at all with the idea of the ‘geologic column’?”
I’m also familiar with claims CD101, CD102, CD103, CH550, CH560…
“The layers are field-dated by the kind of fossils found there, and the fossils are field-dated by the layers they are found in. Circular reasoning, but that’s the way it’s been done since the early 19th century.”
and claim CC310.
“The paleogeographic evidence, right there before our eyes, points to a worldwide, cataclysmic flood, not many thousands of years ago!”
How many thousands of years? I’ll take a wild guess. You mean claims CH200-CH799. That should cover it.
“You won’t find this stuff in your textbooks…”
Because it’s all patent nonsense.
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You guys are a hoot.
‘Kinds’ of animals have offspring ‘after their kind’ – which is obvious – but you guys still want proof of that?
And the burden of proof falls on me to show some evidence that evolution is impossible, even though you are unable or unwilling to show any positive proof for it?
On the one hand, you dispute the existence of the so-called DNA or genetic barrier – you claim nobody has even heard of such a thing – and then on the other hand claim that the idea has been soundly refuted by much observation and experiment!
A lack of evidence is evidence, my friends! Organisms don’t evolve into new and different organisms. There is no evidence of that. There have certainly been many experiments that have sought to prove that, but none have. Doesn’t that count as evidence to you?
Do you need evidence then, that the Bible’s account is true? Would evidence that a worldwide cataclysmic flood happened help? That’s what convinced me.
Are you familiar at all with the idea of the ‘geologic column’? That’s the idea that sedimentary layers were layed down slowly over millions upon millions of years. Along the way, animals and plants were covered and fossilized, giving a nice picture of the evolution of life. Correct?
It starts, basically with the pre-Cambrian, where there was almost no life (just some algaes and some pollens [!?]) then goes into the Cambrian, where life apparently suddenly exploded into complexity, then continues on up through a dozen or so (depending on the particular organizational system) with ever-increasing complexity and change until the present day. Each layer representing a period of millions of years. You learned this in high school, right?
The layers are field-dated by the kind of fossils found there, and the fossils are field-dated by the layers they are found in. Circular reasoning, but that’s the way it’s been done since the early 19th century.
Problems with this theory of dating arise when radio-carbon (and other) methods give wild results, or fossils are found in the ‘wrong’ strata (such as human footprints in Cambrian deposits), or strata are found in the ‘wrong order’ [Did you know that nowhere on Earth are the layers all present and in the ‘correct order?] or dinosaur bones (supposedly 150+ million years old) are found to contain unfossilized tissues, or a researcher cracks open a fossil-bearing chunk of limestone, smells fish, and goes ‘hmmm…’, or upright tree trunks are found in coal deposits (can a tree stand in a swamp for millions of years while being slowly covered by peat? It’s apparently a quite common occurence, though counter-intuitive), or a student stops to wonder what pollen grains were doing there at the dawn of evolution, or a fully-modern human skeleton is unearthed in strata way too old for that to be possible, or human-made tools are found in coal deposits (also not that unusual), or unfossilized wood or other plants materials are found in ‘ancient’ limestone ….. shall we go on? I’m not writing a book here.
The paleogeographic evidence, right there before our eyes, points to a worldwide, cataclysmic flood, not many thousands of years ago!
Or just realizing that virtually every culture on Earth has a ‘great flood’ story, many of which are quite similar in some details to the Biblical account.
You won’t find this stuff in your textbooks, but this is the stuff that turns agnostic scientists into Christians.
You would do well to ponder this, boys.
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Ron,
“A ‘kind’ as defined in Genesis, are animals that have offspring ‘after their kind’. Not really a very tough idea, is it?”
That’s a circular definition. Try again. And does “kind” refer to a breed, a species, or a genus? Pick one, Humpty Dumpty.
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For a given claim, the burden of proof falls upon he who made said claim.
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Oh, I’m sorry.
I must have left my “I’m your research finding slave with unlimited time” badge on.
Seriously, you’ve been pointed where to find this information out. How about you actually make some actual effort and do it yourself?
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Evolution theory doesn’t say that.
You don’t have a clue what you’re talking about, do you? Can you tell us? You can’t define “kinds,” you clearly aren’t talking about evolution theory here (maybe biogenesis theory, but that’s not evolution), you can’t tell us who proposed the barrier you claim everyone should know about or where anyone can learn about it.
Show you? I suspect the Missouri border patrol would toss you back. You’re the one making the claims. Put up time: Got data?
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Matt,
Your link does, indeed, say the idea has been soundly refuted, and the refutation has been “backed up by genetic and biological observations and experiments” but doesn’t cite any examples.
Maybe YOU can provide the examples?
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Bronze Dog,
You sound like the DNA expert here. Of course, I am not. I’m just a troll.
Perhaps you can explain the ability of DNA to change it’s coding into new life forms – and cite examples. Not just new breeds of cattle, primroses, dogs, brassicas, or such.
Evolutionary faith teaches that inorganic compounds formed into DNA, RNA, proteins, enzymes and other complex molecules, somehow became ‘alive’, got together as a bacterium or algae or something, and then continued re-creating itself for several billion years into all the variety of organisms we see today.
I’m sorry, but I don’t have enough faith to swallow that.
Show me.
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DNA Barrier? That hasn’t appeared anywhere in any scientific papers I’ve encountered or heard about. Is someone making up biological mechanisms again?
Perhaps he’s referring to the ‘Genetic Barrier’ which was a hypothesis proposed a century or so ago but was soundly refuted.
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/jul01.html
For more information on macroevolution, try here:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/macroevolution.html
And please remember, talkorigins.org (unlike AiG or DI) is a fully referenced, science based website which is pretty highly regarded as being an excellent collection of peer reviewed work.
But I doubt actual research and scientific findings have much bearing to creationists and intelligent design proponents. They certainly haven’t for some time now, at least.
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Re: Chimpanzees and Humans being ‘practically brothers’.
That just betrays your lack of understanding of DNA and large numbers.
Chimps and Humans ‘share’ about 97% of their DNA, but that 3% is a huge amount of information!
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You guys aren’t truly this dense, are you?
A ‘kind’ as defined in Genesis, are animals that have offspring ‘after their kind’. Not really a very tough idea, is it? The bible doesn’t use the terms species or genus, but then we know those terms are often rather vague and mistakenly applied anyway. To cite the bison/cattle example again: they are called two different species by scientists, but will readily cross-breed. They are the same ‘kind’ of animal. This sort of cross-breeding results in various ‘species’, within the same kind. This sort of differentiation is what you evolutionists point to, to ‘prove’ evolution, but actually does not prove it at all. St. Bernards and Chihuahuas are both dogs, in case you hadn’t realized that.
The DNA barrier, even if you hadn’t heard the term before, refers to the fact that organisms don’t change into other organisms. It just doesn’t happen. The coding of DNA is quite precise within certain parameters. In some animals and plants the coding allows for fairly wide variation (dogs), in others it doesn’t allow for much variation at all (cheetahs), but I’ll say again: one ‘kind’ does not become another ‘kind’. It cannot happen, and you cannot give a single example of it ever happening – now or in the past.
But it ‘must’ happen if evolution is correct. In fact, it must happen often, literally countless billions of times. If the theory has any plausibility at all, you ought to at least be able to point to ONE example. And the ‘fossil record’ ought to be chock full of all sorts of transitional forms of countless animals and plants.
So come on, guys: put your thinking caps on and find one decent example for me, or (keep those caps on) ask yourself why you can’t.
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celtictexan
“Why fear it?”
That’s a rather presumptuous question, not to mention vague. What makes you think I’m afraid, and of what? Certainly not this:
“…the faint possibility that evolution might have been set into motion by some higher power. That it might, even today, be manipulated in some way beyond our understanding.”
Such notions have no business in a science classroom. Why teach scientific facts alongside highly speculative religious propositions in public school science classes, as if the two were of equal weight? You did say that one was “fact” and the other a mere “possibility,” did you not? And if this possibility is “beyond our understanding,” then why even try?
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So you’d like to have fact taught alongside faint possibility?
From an educational perspective, just to choose one, it would create a nightmare for the formation of curriculum.
There’s the faintest of possibilities that god exists and has made the world as it is, placing fossils so everything looks old. There’s also the faintest of possibilities that the universe we know is contained within a single raindrop in a bigger universe. There’s also the faint possibility but nothing actually exists and it’s all just a figment of your own imagination.
So which possibilities get taught and looked at in the classroom? Which, of that infinite range, gets included in the curriculum? Which supported and evidenced facts have to be shoved aside to make room for the teaching of such nonsense?
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“DNA barrier?” Are you just making stuff up whole cloth? Nobody has ever posed a “DNA barrier.” There is no research to back up such a claim.
Other readers are right — you leave open the definition of “kind.” Is it your claim that radishes are the “mustard kind?” At what point do we say it has become a different kind? What is the DNA definition — where is the “DNA barrier?”
Is it your claim that dogs are of the canine kind, and cats of the feline kind? Or are they both of the carnivora kind?
And what about humans? If you pose a definition that allows all felines to be of one kind, then you’re saying that humans and chimpanzees, which are even more closely related, are practically brothers. Is that your claim?
Why not just stick with the facts?
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Here’s a link to follow up (but not to the older cat DNA bit)
Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog » One Species’ Genome Discovered Inside Another’s
http://engineering.curiouscatblog.net/2007/08/30/one-species-genome-discovered-inside-anothers/
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celtictexan, So you’d like to have fact taught alongside faint possibility? That’s ridiculous. Keep your promiscuous teleology out of the science classroom.
You didn’t answer the question Why fear it?
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The DNA barrier is unfamiliar to me, also. However, it is known that various bits of DNA in domestic cats (and I believe in humans) do not originate with cats but with bacteria or phages which became integrated into what we know today as “cats”. They are an integral part of the molecule now.
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Ron, kindly define “kind”. And stick to that definition.
If you define “kind” as “species”, you’ve already been proven wrong.
If you don’t, how can you possibly expect us to provide an example? Pick a hard and fast location for your goalposts. Without a definition, you can just brush off any example by making your already nebulous definition to be ever broader.
Also, how exactly does this “DNA barrier” work? Name specific genetic mechanisms. Otherwise, you’re just making crud up.
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“It is the DNA barrier.”
Well, now you’re just making %$#@ up.
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Ed,
The barrier is the DNA coding itself.
Find me an example of one ‘kind’ of organism giving rise to another kind. It doesn’t happen. It cannot happen. It is the DNA barrier.
Oh, look! I answered Bronze Dog’s question too: They have offspring after their kind.
Would an alien be able to tell that a St. Bernard and a Chihuahua were of the same kind? If they observed succesful breeding or understood and analysed their DNA, then yes. But if they just relied on observations of morphology, then maybe not. In that case, they might make the same childish mistake of assuming bison and cattle are different kinds ….
Are you claiming that St. Bernards and Chihuahuas are evidence of evolution?
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I once thought about bringing up the modern cattle-auroch thing as an example of genetic engineering and evolution. Was wondering if there were any left in some tiny corner of the world. Guess not.
Something I’d be curious about: If an alien visited Earth, would they be able to tell if a St. Bernard and a Chihuahua are the same “kind”.
Of course, Creationists can’t even come up with a consistent definition of “kind”, so I guess that’s kind of moot. Reminds me of an even stupider version of Michael Egnor: He demands that biologists prove that new information can come from evolution. When they proved it with Shannon information theory, he specified some non-Shannon “biological information”. When asked to define his deliberately nebulous term, he said it was their job.
I wonder if our little troll friend is going to let us define “kind” and then object when we use a definition that’s been proven.
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Ron,
“Newsflash: They are the same kind of animal.”
Claim CB901.1 (again)
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall…
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I dunno about their not being any examples. I can see one right now: from daze of the usenet, trolls evolved from intelligent witty posters who used sly tactics to distract and amuse the audience to the current model of parasites of bandwidth. I compare that change to the evolution of primitive nematodes to modern tapeworms.
But what would I know, I’m a geographer and art historian.
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So, Ron, you say evolution can’t work? What’s the barrier?
Why can’t a single celled animal form a colony that becomes a multicelled animal? What’s the barrier?
Why can’t a multicelled animal develop bilateral symmetry? What’s the barrier?
And after symmetry develops, what barrier is there to any subsequent development?
None of the steps we know occurred between the proto-ape common ancestors of the other great apes and humans, and modern humans, requires a significant leap of anything. After a couple dozen species, modern humans have slightly bigger brains with a larger set of frontal lobes, better color vision, worse olfactory senses, smaller canines, an inability to make vitamin C, a slightly different larynx, and less hair. Where is there any barrier to any of the great apes still alive following a similar path of development — other than a lack of conditions to force the natural selection?
We have the most solid evidence ever developed that one-celled critters were ancestors to frogs: DNA. DNA is so powerful that we regularly use it to overturn jury convictions of murderers, and let the falsely-convicted off of death row. That same evidence provides the links you claim don’t exist.
How is it you are suddenly better able to discern these things than DNA? Why didn’t you warn the world of the 9/11 attacks?
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Ed,
Morphology. Big scientific sounding word. Let’s talk about the morphological differences between bison and cattle for instance. they are certainly structured differently, but they will cross-breed. Correct?
Newsflash: They are the same kind of animal.
Same story for every other example you evolutionists might weakly point to.
Still no evidence that a bacteria could become an algae could become a fish could become a frog, etc etc, (or in whatever ways you might imagine).
The evidence is neither ‘massive’ nor ‘abundant’. Try again. Or just open your eyes.
Bob,
You had nuthin, huh?
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[…] the creationists will provide even more entertainment, as Richard Fillmore’s Bathtub shows: Example 2: McLeroy’s Islamist partner, Adnan Oktar ( […]
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celtictexan,
So you’d like to have fact taught alongside faint possibility? That’s ridiculous. Keep your promiscuous teleology out of the science classroom.
Ron,
An Index to Creationist Claims
“There ought to be billions of transitional species…”
Claim CC200.1
“With fruit flies we get various forms, habits etc, but they are still fruitflies…”
Claim CB910.1
“My point is there is zero evidence of change across what we creationists like to call the Genesis ‘kinds’. Kinds can interbreed. Different kinds cannot.”
Claim CB901.1
“…given the billions of years of natural trial and error you believe in, we would see a real muddle of species – which we don’t.”
Claim CB805
“Evolution is a faith.”
Claim CA612
“…reality of the Deluge…”
And that’s when I stopped taking you seriously.
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celtictexan,
So you’d like to have fact taught alongside faint possibility? That’s ridiculous. Keep your promiscuous teleology out of the science classroom.
Ron,
“There ought to be billions of transitional species…”
Claim CC200.1
“With fruit flies we get various forms, habits etc, but they are still fruitflies…”
Claim CB910.1
“My point is there is zero evidence of change across what we creationists like to call the Genesis ‘kinds’. Kinds can interbreed. Different kinds cannot.”
Claim CB901.1
“…given the billions of years of natural trial and error you believe in, we would see a real muddle of species – which we don’t.”
Claim CB805
“Evolution is a faith.”
Claim CA612
“…reality of the Deluge…”
And that’s when I stopped taking you seriously.
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I’m not sure what links you looked at, but teosinte looks a lot more like wheat than it does modern corn. Anyone who argues that there is no evolution there isn’t paying attention to morphology.
But of course, we also have DNA.
Hybridization most certainly can lead to speciation, which is evolution, by any rational definition. Much of creationism is spent trying to avoid rationality, however, so denying the evidence is not only expected, but sadly de rigeur.
Change across Genesis kinds? First, that’s silly. Such change could be clear only retrospectively. But second, within kinds change is blessedly impressive. Only an idiot would claim that radishes and mustard are the same thing, or that Brussels sprouts are the same as radishes. And yet, since Jesus preached about the mustard seed, both radishes and Brussels sprouts have evolved from that family — as have rape seed (Canola in the later incarnation), broccoli and cauliflower. I expect Ron to try to find some way to deny this history.
Any stroll down the produce aisle in any U.S. supermarket produces almost exclusively products of recent evolution. But get over to the meat aisle, and again you’ll find it. Beef? Modern beef didn’t exist in Jesus’s time. The last aurochs, the species from which modern bovines are descended, died nearly a millennium ago (poached, ironically, in what is now Poland).
It’s impossible to eat at McDonalds without eating the fruits of evolution theory, applied by natural selection or artificial selection.
What sort of evidence are you really looking for, Ron, if the real world’s abundant manifestations of evolution are not enough?
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Matt,
Wow, there sure was a bunch of info in those links you provided, but let me point out a few things: First, hybridization in plants is no evidence of evolution. Maize becomes another strain of maize. Primrose becomes another strain of primrose, etc. And many of the hybrids noted were sterile. How would sterility push evolution along? With fruit flies we get various forms, habits etc, but they are still fruitflies and will interbreed with each other (if they are not sterile).
Also, all such hybrids tend to revert back to their parent strains if left to their own devices. Again, no evidence for evolution.
As to animals and fossils: evidence of extinct animals is not evidence for evolution, either.
One of the pages cited ‘Java Man’, a known hoax (or at least a serious mistake). I was quite surprised to see that one still touted. There are no doubt others in there as well.
My point is there is zero evidence of change across what we creationists like to call the Genesis ‘kinds’. Kinds can interbreed. Different kinds cannot. Drift across the DNA barrier simply doesn’t happen (even with help from lab techs). And if it did, given the billions of years of natural trial and error you believe in, we would see a real muddle of species – which we don’t.
Evolution is a faith. But don’t feel too bad about that. Just open your eyes and look at the evidence. I was once much like you guys. I went from believing in evolution, as taught in school, to being a theistic evolutionist, then began studying paleogeology and realized the reality of the Deluge – that’s a whole ‘nother topic!
But if anybody wants to take another stab at finding a new species, I’m listening. The evidence, though, is anything but ‘massive’.
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By the way Ron I don’t mean to just pick on you. Evolution is fact and very obvious to all but the blind def and dumb.
But the author of these somewhat obsessive posts, should likewise not be so afraid to explore at least the faint possibility that evolution might have been set into motion by some higher power. That it might, even today, be manipulated in some way beyond our understanding.
I mean seriously, what can it hurt as long as the fact of evolution is also taught.
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I have nothing to fear as far as creationism being taught in school. I also want and have no fear of evolution being taght but seriously Ron,you need to either evolve or have someone create a brain for you.
There ought to be billions of transitional species
Have you ever been to a Natural history museum, a good one like in DC or New York or Chicago, and seen skeletons of primates from the lowest up to man? How can you see that and not see transition.
May I see one?
I wish I could turn a T-Rex loose in your home, I suspect your brain would do a whole big bunch of evolving.
Ever heard of AIDS? Has it always been around? Did the “fruity” types of people 50 years ago worry about it? Think maybe, a virus evolved into new species?
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One things that annoys me more than repetition of long destroyed arguments and so-called evidence is the habit of creationists not to do even the most basic of research for themselves.
From talkorigins.org (a site which is well regarded for being properly referenced and based solely in science).
Examples of speciation which have been observed:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/speciation.html
Some reports on transitional fossils:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html
So, in summary, the evidence for Evolution happening is massive indeed. Whereas the evidence for creationism is … well, non-existent.
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That truly is embarrassing! Gives real creationists a bad name.
But seriously, since you apparently have a strong faith in evolution, maybe you can point me toward some evidence for evolution. There ought to be billions of transitional species, both living and dead (in the fossil record). May I see one?
Have there been any experiments that might support it? For instance, research with fruit flies. Have any researchers been able to breed fruit flies into a new species?
Have any bacteria or viruses been able to evolve into new species? They are rather simple creatures in the grand scheme of things. Do they evolve into new species? Even one example?
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Glossed over on glossy pages.
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Hook, line, and sinker!
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