The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 2)

Gintonious wrote: »

Except one of their perspectives is utterly deluded (I'll give you a hint which one, its not Sir David)

Neither person is deluded ... they're just presenting information from their own perspectives.

I quite frankly find the statement that people of faith are deluded, to be both patronising and insulting.

... as well as being untrue.

MrPudding wrote: »

Whilt I agree with most of what you have said above, that does nothing to change the fact that people that believe in YEC are delusional. Now, let me make something clear, as I pointed out in the original post with the definitional quotes, that does not mean I think they are mentally ill, though clearly they could be. It simply means that they hold "a persistent false psychotic belief regarding the self or persons or objects outside the self that is maintained despite indisputable evidence to the contrary."

That this delusion helps them through the day does not make it any less of a delusion, and indeed may go someway to explaining the persistence of the delusion.

MrP

Calling people with whom you disagree 'dilusional' adds nothing to the debate and is a Name Calling logical fallacy i.e. trying to win an argument by dismissing the person making the argument (rather than engaging with the argument itself).

I'm disappointed that you continue to evoke such fallacies Mr P!!!

Anyway, to get back to your point that Creationists (and in particular Creation Scientists) :-
"hold "a persistent false psychotic belief regarding the self or persons or objects outside the self that is maintained despite indisputable evidence to the contrary." (emphasis mine).
Can I quote from an eminent former Evolutionist on the matter of how Creation Scientists set fort their scientific hypotheses and the objective scientific validity of their arguments. I herewith quote from Prof Dean H Kenyon former Professor of Biology and Co-ordinator of the General Biology Programme at San Francisco State University,where he has taught on evolution and the origins of life for many years.
His published research includes work carried out at NASA Ames Research Centre on the spontaneous chemical origins of life.
He is certainly not somebody that can be dismissed as being 'psychotic'' and being a former evolutionist, cannot be accused of blind pre-existing faith in Creation or an inability to change his mind, when the evidence warrants it!!

Quote:- (from Foreward to What is Creation Science? Master Books 1999 and emphasis mine):-
"... there continues to be widespread misunderstanding in the scientific community concerning just what "creation science" is. Many have considered it to be simply religion in disguise and have chosen to shun it altogether, even to the point of refusing to examine any scientific creationist writings. This situation is regrettable and exhibits a degree of closedmindedness quite alien to the spirit of true scientifc inquiry.
My own initiation into creationist scientific writing came in 1976 with the geological sections of Whitcomb and Morris' The Genesis Flood, and somewhat later, A. E. Wilder-Smith's The Creation of Life: A Cybernetic Approach to Evolution. It soon became apparent to me that the creationist challenge to evolutionism was indeed a formidable one, and I no longer believe that the arguments in Biochemical Predestination ... and in similar books by other authors, add up to an adequate defense of the view that life arose spontaneously on this planet from non-living matter. Over the last number of years I have extensively reviewed the scientific case for creation and now believe that all students of the sciences (at any level) should be taught the major arguments of both the creation and evolution views.
... If after reading this book carefully and reflecting on its arguments one still prefers the evolutionary view, or still contends that the creationist view is religion and the evolutionary one is pure science, he should ask himself whether something other than the facts of nature is influencing his thinking about origins."

Safehands wrote: »

Great to see you back here JC.
What you or prof Kenyon present here is not an argument. It is an opinion. Show us some facts to back up his revelation, without having to read a tome.

Thanks Safehands.

You are correct that it is an opinion ... but crucially, it is a scientifically based professional opinion from an eminent former Evolutionist and the leading scientific authority on Biological Evolution in one of the leading secular Universities in the World (San Francisco State).

In relation to your substantive question about what facts are backing up his scientific opinion on the vanishing case for Evolution (in the Pondkind to Mankind sense of the word) can I say that if one wishes to believe in Evolution, (and it is a belief) then one must believe in it strictly as a matter of faith as there is no scientific/verifiable evidence for evolution that cannot be explained at least as well, and usually better, by creation.

I will quote freely as follows from Chapter 1 pages 1-6 of What is Creation Science? Master Books 1999 as it makes all of the points that I wish to make in answer to your question :-
"Evolutionists allege that evolution is a proven scientific fact, based on a multitude of scientific proofs, but they are unable to document even one of these supposed proofs!
This curious situation is illustrated below in quotations from several leading evolutionary scientists.

1. No Evolution at Present.
The lack of a case for evolution is most clearly recognised by the fact that no one has ever seen it happen.
"Evolution, at least in the sense that Darwin speaks of it, cannot be detected within the lifetime of a single observer."
(Dr David B. Kitts, Ph.D.(Zoology) Head Curator, Dept. of Geology, Stoval Museum. Evolution, vol.28, September, 1974. p. 466.)
Horizontal variations e.g. the different varieties of dogs are not real evolution, of course, ...
... A process which has never been observed to occur, in all of human history, should not be called scientific.

2. No New Species.
Charles Darwin is popularly supposed to have solved the problem of "the origin of species", in his famous 1859 book of that title. However, as the eminent Harvard biologist, Ernst Mayr, one of the nation's top evolutionists has observed:
"Darwin never really did discuss the origin of species in his On the Origin of Species" (as cited by a prominent modern evolutionist, Niles Eldredge, in his book, Time Frames: The Rethinking of Darwinian Evolution and the Theory of Punctuated Equilibria (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985), p. 33.)

Not only could Darwin not cite a single example of a new species originating, but neither has anyone else, in all the subsequent century of evolutionary study.

"No one has ever produced a species by mechanisms of natural selection. No one has gotten near it. . . ." (Dr Colin Patterson, Senior Paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History "Cladistics." Interview on BBC, March 4, 1982.)

3. No Known Mechanism of Evolution.
It is also a very curious fact that no one understands how evolution works. Evolutionists commonly protest that they know evolution is true, but they can't seem to determine its mechanism.

"Evolution is . . . troubled from within by the troubling complexities of genetic and developmental mechanisms and new questions about the central mystery--speciation itself." (Keith S. Thompson, "The Meanings of Evolution," American Scientist (vol. 70, September/October 1982), p. 529.)

One would think that in the 125 years following Darwin, with thousands of trained biologists studying the problem and using millions of dollars worth of complex lab equipment, they would have worked it out by now, but the mechanism which originates new species is still "the central mystery."

4. No Fossil Evidence.
It used to be claimed that the best evidence for evolution was the fossil record, but the fact is that the billions of known fossils have not yet yielded a single unequivocal transitional form with transitional structures in the process of evolving.


"The known fossil record fails to document a single example of phyletic evolution accomplishing a major morphologic transition. . . ." (Steven M. Stanley, Macroevolution: Pattern and Process (San Francisco: W.M. Freeman and Co., 1979), p. 39.)

This ubiquitous absence of intermediate forms is true not only for "major morphologic transitions," but even for most species.

"As is now well known, most fossil species appear instantaneously in the fossil record, persist for some millions of years virtually unchanged, only to disappear abruptly. . . ." (Dr Tom Kemp, Curator of the University Museum at Oxford University, "A Fresh Look at the Fossil Record," New Scientist (Vol. 108; December 5, 1985), p. 67.)

As a result, many modern evolutionists agree with the following assessment:

"In any case, no real evolutionist . . . uses the fossil record as evidence in favor of the theory of evolution as opposed to special creation. . . ." (Dr Mark Ridley, Professor of Zoology at Oxford University, "Who Doubts Evolution?" New Scientist (vol. 90; June 25, 1981), p. 831.)

5. No Order in the Fossils.
Not only are there no true transitional forms in the fossils; there is not even any general evidence of evolutionary progression in the actual fossil sequences

"The fossil record of evolution is amenable to a wide variety of models ranging from completely deterministic to completely stochastic." (Dr David M. Raup, "Probabilistic Models in Evolutionary Biology" American Scientist (vol. 166. January/February 1977), p. 57.)

"I regard the failure to find a clear "vector of progress" in life's history as the most puzzling fact of the fossil record. . . . we have sought to impose a pattern that we hoped to find on a world that does not really display it." (Prof Stephen Jay Gould, Professor of Geology at Harvard, "The Ediacaran Experiment," Natural History (vol. 93; February 1984), p. 23.)

The superficial appearance of an evolutionary pattern in the fossil record has actually been imposed on it by the fact that the rocks containing the fossils have themselves been "dated" by their fossils.

"And this poses something of a problem: If we date the rocks by their fossils, how can we then turn around and talk about patterns of evolutionary change through time in the fossil record?" (Dr Niles Eldredge, in his book, Time Frames: The Rethinking of Darwinian Evolution and the Theory of Punctuated Equilibria (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985), p 52).

"A circular argument arises: Interpret the fossil record in the terms of a particular theory of evolution, inspect the interpretation, and note that it confirms the theory. Well, it would, wouldn't it?" (Dr Tom Kemp, Curator of the University Museum at Oxford University, "A Fresh Look at the Fossil Record," New Scientist (Vol. 108; December 5, 1985), p. 66.)

6. No Evidence That Evolution Is Possible.
The basic reason why there is no scientific evidence of evolution in either the present or the past is that the law of increasing entropy, or the second law of thermodynamics, contradicts the very premise of evolution. The evolutionist assumes that the whole universe has evolved upward from a single primeval particle to human beings, but the second law (one of the best-proved laws of science) says that the whole universe is running down into complete disorder.

"How can the forces of biological development and the forces of physical degeneration be operating at cross purposes? It would take, of course, a far greater mind than mine even to attempt to penetrate this riddle. I can only pose the question. . . ." (Sydney Harris, "Second Law of Thermodynamics." in the San Francisco Examiner on January 27, 1984.)

Evolutionists commonly attempt to sidestep this question by asserting that the second law applies only to isolated systems. But this is wrong!

". . . the quantity of entropy generated locally cannot be negative irrespective of whether the system is isolated or not." (Dr Arnold Sommerfeld, Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics (New York: Academic Press, 1956), p. 155.)

"Ordinarily the second law is stated for isolated systems, but the second law applies equally well to open systems." (Dr John Ross, Letter-to-the-Editor, Chemical and Engineering News (July 7, 1980), p. 40.)

Entropy can be forced to decrease in an open system, if enough organizing energy and information is applied to it from outside the system. This externally introduced complexity would have to be adequate to overcome the normal internal increase in entropy when raw energy is added from outside. However, no such external source of organized and energized information is available to the supposed evolutionary process. Raw solar energy is not organized information!

7. No Evidence From Similarities.
The existence of similarities between organisms--whether in external morphology or internal biochemistry--is easily explained as the Creator's design of similar systems for similar functions, but such similarities are not explicable by common evolutionary descent.


"It is now clear that the pride with which it was assumed that the inheritance of homologous structures from a common ancestor explained homology was misplaced. (Sir Gavin de Beer, Homology, an Unsolved Problem (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 15.)

"The really significant finding that comes to light from comparing the proteins' amino acid sequences is that it is impossible to arrange them in any sort of an evolutionary series." (Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (London: Burnett Books, 1985), p. 289.)

8. No Recapitulation or Vestigial Organs.
The old arguments for evolution based on the recapitulation theory (the idea that embryonic development in the womb recapitulates the evolution of the species) and vestigial organs ("useless" organs believed to have been useful in an earlier stage of evolution) have long been discredited.

". . . the theory of recapitulation . . . should be defunct today." (Prof Stephen Jay Gould, "Dr. Down's Syndrome," Natural History (April 1980), p. 144.)

"An analysis of the difficulties in unambiguously identifying functionless structures . . . leads to the conclusion that "vestigial organs" provide no evidence for evolutionary theory." (Dr S.R. Scadding, "Do `Vestigial Organs' Provide Evidence for Evolution?" Evolutionary Theory (vol. 5, May 1981), p. 173.)"

Safehands wrote: »

OK, so lets assume all of the quotes are true JC.

All the quotes are true ... and nothing has changed in the mean-time since they were made ... other than further disproof for Pondkind to Mankind Evolution.

Safehands wrote: »

What you are saying is that evolution is not true so therefore it follows that creation is. So where is the proof for this?

Again I'll quote liberally from from Chapter 1 pages 7-9 of What is Creation Science? Master Books 1999 as it succinctly makes many of the points that I wish to make in answer to your question :-
(Pondkind to Mankind) evolution is not true and "apart from its necessity as a support for Atheism and Pantheism, there is clearly no scientific evidence for evolution.
The absence of evidence for evolution does not, by itself, prove creation, of course; nevertheless, special creation is clearly the only alternative to evolution.

"Creation and evolution, between them, exhaust the possible explanations for the origin of living things. Organisms either appeared on the earth fully developed or they did not. If they did not, they must have developed from pre-existing species by some process of modification. If they did appear in a fully developed state, they must have been created by some omnipotent intelligence." (D.J. Futuyma, Science on Trial (New York: Pantheon Books, 1983), p. 197.)
While we admittedly cannot prove creation, it is important to note that all the facts offered as evidence against evolution (gaps between kinds, no evolutionary mechanism, increasing entropy, etc.) are actual predictions from the creation "model!"

Creationists prefer the reasonable faith of creationism, which is supported by all the real scientific evidence, to the credulous faith of evolutionism, which is supported by no real scientific evidence. The question remains unanswered (scientifically, at least) as to why evolutionists prefer to believe in evolution.

It is not possible to prove, in the experimental sense, either evolution or creation, since we can neither observe past history directly nor reproduce it in the laboratory. Nevertheless, we can compare and contrast the respective abilities of the evolution and creation models to explain - and even to predict - those scientific data which can be directly observed. Scientists who are creationists maintain that the creation model is far more effective than the evolution model in doing this.

... The Nature of True Science
Science means "Knowledge", not speculative philosophy or naturalism. The essence of the scientific method is measurement, observation, repeatability. The great philosopher of science Karl Popper, stresses that falsifiability is the necessary criterion of genuine science. That is, a hypothesis must at least in principle, be testable and capable of being refuted, if it is truly scientific.
Clearly, neither model of origins - creation or evolution - is scientific in this sense. Neither one can be tested, for the simple reason that we cannot repeat history. The origin of the universe, the origin of life, the origin of man, and all such events took place in the past and cannot now be studied in the laboratory. They are entirely beyond the reach of the scientific method in the proper sense.
That does not mean, however, that their results cannot be observed and tested. That is, we can define two "models" of origins, and then make comparative predictions as to what our observations should find if evolution is true, and conversely, what we should find if creation is true.
... According to the evolution model, the origin and development of all things can be explained in terms of continuing natural laws and processes operating in a self-contained universe. The basis of the creation model is that at least some things must be attributed to completed supernatural proceeses in an open universe. These are really the only two possibilities.
In this form the creation model is quite independent of the Biblical record, and can be evaluated solely in terms of the scientific data."