The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 1)

samb

BrianCalgary wrote:

Ring species show the process of speciation in action. In ring species, the species is distributed more or less in a line, such as around the base of a mountain range. Each population is able to breed with its neighboring population, but the populations at the two ends are not able to interbreed. (In a true ring species, those two end populations are adjacent to each other, completing the ring.) Examples of ring species are


the salamander Ensatina, with seven different subspecies on the west coast of the United States. They form a ring around California's central valley. At the south end, adjacent subspecies klauberi and eschscholtzi do not interbreed (Brown n.d.; Wake 1997).
greenish warblers (Phylloscopus trochiloides), around the Himalayas. Their behavioral and genetic characteristics change gradually, starting from central Siberia, extending around the Himalayas, and back again, so two forms of the songbird coexist but do not interbreed in that part of their range (Irwin et al. 2001; Whitehouse 2001).
the deer mouse (Peromyces maniculatus), with over fifty subspecies in North America.
many species of birds, including Parus major and P. minor, Halcyon chloris, Zosterops, Lalage, Pernis, the Larus argentatus group, and Phylloscopus trochiloides (Mayr 1942, 182-183).
the American bee Hoplitis (Alcidamea) producta (Mayr 1963, 510).
the subterranean mole rat, Spalax ehrenbergi (Nevo 1999).

Guess what, the author is speaking about differences within a species. But, no new species. I'm beginning to think you can't understand my simple question: Where are the new species? I have read all sorts of stuff like this. But, still no new species coming from the joining together of two parents producing a different offspring. Strictly species adapting.

Species are generally defined simply as two populations that cannot interbreed. However within ring species (such as salamander example) genes can flow from one end through the intermediates to the other end through breeding. This is why the author has diescribed them as sub-speices (and I think he is correct to do so).
It is not hard to imagine one of the intermediate becoming extinct (or becoming geographically isolated), in which case you certainly would now have two seperate species. These species could then change further to become very different creatures.

still no new species coming from the joining together of two parents producing a different offspring

Here you show that you do not understand what you are refuting. Two parents will never give birth to another species (if by some freak occurance they did, who would this creature mate with?, its a ridiculus idea, if this is what you think evolution is then you are right to refute it).
Evolution works slowly, generation by generation. Genes that are beneficial to individuals chances of reproducing more frequently will be passed on more than others and will therefore become more numerous.

e.g. a population of foxes arrives in a snowy cold climate. Individual foxes born with genes that produce thicker furr(and whiter fur) will in general be more succesful (will not be eaten or freeze) than others. They will therefore have (ON AVERAGE) more offspring than the others and these genes for thicker and whiter fur will become more and more frequent. After many generations the entire population will become as furry and white as is best suited to that environment. Eventually this fox will be different enough from the warm climate fox to constitute a new species. Once speciation has occured the organisms can then become more and more different.
I am of course talking here about the Arctic fox.

Much of your problem seems to be a difficulty in a species splitting in two. A population ariving on an Island is an obvious way. They cannot then interbreed with the mainland ones and can therefore adapt seperately.

-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h--h-h-h-h--h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h--h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h--h-h-h-h--h-h-h-h-h--h-h-h-h--h-h--h-h--h-h--h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h->>>>>
Each h is a generation. Just because each h is the same species it does not mean that the first h could reproduce with the last (if last was transported back in time:) ). The change is gradual. As beneficial genes become more frequent and less beneficial ones become less frequent.

Now imagine that a population gets geographically isolated (say on an island for simplicity). So you have an island population (i) and a mainland population (m).

-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i- i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i--i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-
i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i->>>
/
/
/
-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m--m-m-m--m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m- m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m--m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m- m--m-m-m--m-m-m-m--m--m-m--m-m--m-m---m-m-m- m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m>>>>>>

Island population can clearly change independantly of the mainland population.

I think we should stick to one topic at a time, you other questions can make for a good heated debate someother time. Merry Christmas:)

robindch

> I don't claim vast experience in biology

Ah, so you weren't being serious when you said "I have read so much on the subject over the last 20 years that I can't list them all".

Fair enough! :rolleyes:

robindch

Samb -

> Two parents will never give birth to another species

Perhaps a bit surprisingly, this is untrue. See the link that I quoted to BC earlier on:

http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/P/Polyploidy.html#Polyploidy_and_Speciation

...where the first instance of two parents (a cabbage and a radish) producing a fertile, non-compatible offspring, was demonstrated in the lab back in 1928. It's since been done with other flora and fauna and has been seen to happen out in nature too quite a few times, as one or other of the talkorigins links shows.

btw, the similarity of biological evolution with evolution of language is useful when trying to understand slow-rate speciation. Within a single generation, you'll obviously never get one person suddenly starting to speak middle english, having been born into old english (unless you've been invaded!), just as you could never have seen an eohippus give borth to a modern horse. But over the course of centuries, the language does drift slowly around the place, dropping unused features, and adding new ones, with the inevitable result that mutually unintelligible dialects eventually emerge (eg, latin being the principal parent of french, spanish, italian and romanian). It would be interesting to hear from any of the creationists what their opinion of the "language analogy" is.

Anyhow, when viewed in parallel with the language analogy, the traditional creationist challenge that "I'll never believe in evolution until I see a monkey give birth to a baby human!" begins to look very silly indeed.

Happy christmas to all!

Asiaprod

Interesting to note that ideas of Intelligent Design have now started to appear in the Japanese press. I have taken the liberty to incvlude the whole piece since that link for the story will be gone by tonight.


A Japanese take on 'intelligent design'
Why do my compatriots, the Japanese, try to copy Americans -- often on the basis of a most tenuous understanding? The wonderment occurred when I checked the Internet to see if the notion of "intelligent design" (I.D.) was known in Japan and at once found that it was, and more.

Among the "intellectuals" who embrace it is Hisayoshi Watanabe, professor emeritus of English and American literature at the University of Kyoto. Asked by the Sankei Shimbun newspaper to explain I.D. for a Sept. 26 article, Watanabe began by noting that U.S. President George W. Bush's remark "heightened its recognition" in the United States. He then defined I.D. as "a theory that proposes to give up explaining the making of this universe and the natural world in terms of aimless, plan-less mechanical forces alone," and to "recognize as science -- other than natural factors like 'inevitability' (natural law) and 'coincidence' -- a 'design' factor."
Asked about the oft-made point that I.D.'s principal promoter is the "Christian right" and that "the intelligent being" assumed to exist in the I.D. argument "is just another name for God in the Creation based on the Old Testament," Watanabe dismissed it by saying, "If it were anything of the sort, not a single scientist would be supporting it."
Really? Did Watanabe stop to think why Bush told reporters in early August that "Both (intelligent design and evolution) ought to be properly taught"? Did he not know that Bush is the first U.S. president in memory who openly points to his own constant communion with God and who has openly, methodically, set out to ignore the doctrine of separation of church and state? Did he not know that the Christian right is Bush's major political base?
The fact is that the U.S. is the most religious among the industrialized countries. Polls consistently show 60 percent of those surveyed cite religion as a vital factor in their lives, compared to about 17 percent in England and 10 percent in Japan. And the overwhelming majority of the believers in the U.S. are Christians. To deny the link between Christianity and I.D. is to miss the whole point.
The reporter who interviewed Watanabe for the Sankei article is more forthright in this regard. On one hand, he indignantly tells us that a Japanese middle-school textbook, "most heavily influenced by Marxism," carried until 2001 a two-page spread contrasting Darwin's evolution theory with biblical creationism and the treatment of Japan's own creation myth in prewar textbooks. Such a comparison strikes me as apt.
The Sankei reporter thinks otherwise: It tells the students to "regard the Bible and myths negatively," he says, adding that the proposition that the monkey is the ancestor of human beings denigrates human dignity or robs us of "romance."
On the other hand, he approvingly cites Yatsuhiro Nakagawa, who dismisses both creationism and evolution as "unscientific." Nakagawa, who teaches international politics at Tsukuba University, stresses that there is a difference between the two. "The myth that 'God created man' gives us the sense of self-awareness and responsibility to guide us toward a nobler development," whereas "the theology that humans are 'descendants of monkeys' encourages them to deny themselves as humans and leads to their regression."
This is inane, but Nakagawa at least gets one thing right: Creationism is the opposite of evolution. And "intelligent design" is just another name for creationism -- or, as McGraw-Hill's Web site for higher education puts it, "a thinly disguised version of scientific creationism." I assume McGraw-Hill puts "scientific" before "creationism" to minimize protests.
In any case, Watanabe's insistence that the notion that "design does not derive from God" is to flaunt ignorance. Christianity's open war against Darwin's theory dates from just a year after "The Origin of Species" was published in 1859, when Bishop Samuel Wilberforce mounted the first assault in what was soon dubbed "the Great Debate." Two of the day's foremost scientists, Thomas Huxley and Joseph Hooker, vigorously defended Charles Darwin, but the bishop, naturally unpersuaded, claimed victory, though so did Huxley and Hooker.
The "fundamentalist" position that holds certain descriptions in the Old and New Testaments, such as Moses' parting the Red Sea and the Immaculate Conception, to be literal truths emerged around 1910 in the U.S. and has since remained strong.
Watanabe surely has heard about the Monkey Trial of 1925, although it may be assuming too much to think that he is aware of the fact that the Tennessee law allowing the prosecution of John Scopes for teaching evolution in his high school was not amended until 1967, and even then it merely lifted the outright ban.
I also expect him to know that the term "creation science" can be traced to the founding in 1963 of the Creation Research Society, as well as the existence and functions of the deceptively named Discovery Institute. There are also outfits like the Thomas More Law Center, which promotes the cause. That particular law center, in fact, provided legal aid for the defense in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District -- a case that arose from the shenanigans of the education board in Dover, Pennsylvania, to compel the teaching of I.D. in its schools.
But Watanabe, who has started "an academic movement" called "Design of Creation Society," may know all this. As he makes clear in the Sankei interview, his real objection is to "materialism, the mechanistic theory that holds that the universe can have neither purpose nor direction." In short, he is in the realm of religion or theology. But then he shouldn't blunder into the realm of science.
In "The Perimeter of Ignorance" (November 2005 issue of Natural History), astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson gives a quick run-down of how scientists, beginning with Ptolemy, have dealt with God or gods. One episode he cites is particularly telling on the distinction to be made between religion and science, and it has to do with Galileo:
In his 1615 letter defending his position, Galileo quoted an unnamed church official saying that the Bible "tells you how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go." Or, as a lawyer for the plaintiffs during the Kitzmiller trial said to Michael Behe, a biochemist at Lehigh University and an I.D. advocate, if I.D. is a scientific theory, so must be astrology. Last Tuesday, U.S. District Judge John Jones struck down the Dover education board's policy of teaching I.D. as unconstitutional.

wolfsbane

Asiaprod said:

The "fundamentalist" position that holds certain descriptions in the Old and New Testaments, such as Moses' parting the Red Sea and the Immaculate Conception, to be literal truths emerged around 1910 in the U.S. and has since remained strong.

Not wishing to enter this ID debate at the moment, but just wanting to clarify the facts on this. The issuing of a statement of Christian fundamental doctrines occurred around this time and it led to the Fundamentalist Movement, but these doctrines were the historic faith of the Protestant Church. It was to counteract the downgrade of doctrine by Liberalism that these doctrines were re-stated. All sorts of Evangelicals would have adhered to these teachings; not to do so was to mark oneself as an unbeliever.

Since that time, Evangelicalism has not held all the ground: Fundamentalists, Conservatives and Reformed still hold to the traditional faith, but Neo-Evangelicalism has embraced some of the Liberal theology. Just recently, for example, one leading 'Evangelical' denied the Substitutionary Atonement of Christ. This embarrassed many of his colleagues in the Evangelical Alliance, but they did not reject him as a heretic. So I wonder just how much of the historic faith one can reject and still be recognised as an Evangelical. Seems very dishonest to me.

robindch

BrianCalgary wrote:

God explains it all. He created the universe.
I am not going to argue how God did it.

I think Brian's two quotes sum up the wisdom of creationism better than I'll ever be able to.

J C

Quote Samb
What about people that never hear this stuff, never read the bible, and therefore do not believe it.

A very important question.

All Human Beings are created by God with an inner longing to be with Him. Equally, God desires that everyone should be saved – Jesus Christ said in Lk 9:56 “for the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them” (KJV).
Jesus Christ is a just and loving God who came to save sinners and not to destroy us. I believe that God’s justice and love will save everybody who doesn’t have the faculty to make a decision to be saved, either through personal incapacity or through never hearing the Word of God.
There are a number of different people who fit into this category – unborn children who die in utero, children who die before reaching the use of reason and all people who die without ever having the opportunity to hear the Word of God because of intellectual incapacity or because they have never been told that to be saved they must believe on Jesus Christ and repent of their sins.

Jesus Christ said in Mk 10:14 “let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to SUCH AS THESE” (NIV). This indicates that children and other people who are similarly innocent of the Word of God WILL be saved through God’s grace and justice.


Quote Excelsior
Evolution casts no shadow on the question of existence or non-existence of a God.

Materialistic evolution is NOMINALLY SILENT on the existence or otherwise of God. However, because materialistic evolutionists adopt an EXCLUSIVELY MATERIALIST approach to explaining the origins of the universe and all life therein (i.e. they exclude a priori any supernatural intervention) they are therefore de facto atheistic on the ‘origins issue’. Materialistic evolution (apparently the ONLY acceptable conventional scientific approach) DOES by direct implication QUESTION AND REJECT the possible existence of God by not allowing the evidence for the existence of God and His Acts of Creation to be examined or scientifically evaluated.
Let us face reality here – a philosophy that a priori refuses to countenance a divine basis for the origin of life is by definition atheistic, no matter how you “dress it up”.

Scientific Evolution now seems to be right back to it’s atheistic roots, where “the only (evolutionary) game in town” is the belief that “primordial chemicals somehow evolved into Man” by undefined and unobserved natural processes – and without any help from God or any other external intelligence. IF God did provide such help, evolutionary scientists have ruled that it cannot be studied or reported upon – and therefore Theistic Evolutionists have effectively no separate role within evolutionary science. They may believe that God exists if they so wish, but they are unable to pursue any approved conventional scientific research into whether He had any role in evolution and they are also unable to officially voice any scientific opinion in this regard. Effectively theistic evolutionists must become atheistic or at the very least agnostic evolutionists on the ‘origins question’.

The other interesting situation that has arisen within conventional science, is that ANY scientific questioning of neo-Darwinian materialistic evolution has become scientifically suspect, because such questioning is apparently regarded as prima face evidence of a religious (and therefore a scientifically unacceptable) orientation until proven otherwise. This seriously circumscribes the ability of Theistic Evolutionary Scientists, or indeed other conventional scientists who study the evidence for Creation, to meaningfully contribute their viewpoints on the ‘origins issue’ within conventional science.

However, it is ‘full steam ahead’ for the ‘origins debate’ within a religious context – and so the ‘cutting edge debates’ and the main source of popular understanding of the ‘origins issue’ has effectively moved from realm of ‘Science‘ to that of ‘Religion’ – ironically, just like what happened with this debate.
The sceptics forum on Boards.ie closed down a debate on ‘Evolution v Creation’ on their forum some months ago, while threatening anybody who opened up the debate again with expulsion from the sceptics forum. The debate then re-opened on the Christianity Forum.

Conventional science appears to now be in a self-imposed Cul de Sac on the ‘origins issue’ – unable to meaningfully question it’s own basis for materialistic evolution in any scientific forum, yet fully exposed to the effects of the major breakthroughs by conventional scientists who are studying the observable evidence for Creation.

The situation that evolutionists now find themselves in is analogous to a forensic scientist who is called to the scene of a possible murder, and who refuses to pursue any evidence for the death of the person concerned other than death by accidental or natural causes, because he believes that forensic science is only able to investigate accidental or natural causes.
When pressed by the police to do a comprehensive crime scene investigation, he protests that EVEN IF an ‘external intelligent agent’ did it, he is both unable and unwilling to scientifically pursue the matter any further due to an a priori commitment to the exclusion of intelligent causes from his enquiries.
If there was a possibility that an ‘external intelligent agent’ could have been involved in the death of the person, the police would rapidly seek an alternative scientific opinion and would engage the services of a forensic scientist with the ability and the inclination to pursue all reasonable “lines of inquiry”, including the possibility of ‘an external intelligence’ being involved in the death.

This is an exact parallel to the situation, which faces society today on the ‘origins issue’. Conventional evolutionary scientists are refusing to pursue any investigation into the origins of life, other than through accidental or natural causes – even though they have been unable to demonstrate such causes. They further opinion that EVEN IF an ‘external intelligent agent’ (AKA God) did it, they are both unable and unwilling to scientifically pursue the matter any further due to an a priori commitment to the exclusion of any ‘external intelligent’ (i.e. non-natural) cause from their enquiries on the ‘origins issue’.
While this stance serves science well on other issues where natural causes HAVE been established, it effectively sidelines science on the ‘origins issue’ where considerable uncertainty exists about exactly HOW life originated – and no plausible natural mechanisms have been identified or demonstrated which explain the origins of life.
Indeed, Biological Science is unique in actually having a Law of Biogenesis, which directly contradicts the basic premise of it’s own Evolutionary Theory, that at some point in history non-life gave rise to life.
Because there is a clear conflict between the Law of Biogenesis and Evolution (which IS resolved by Divine Creation) there is therefore a strong possibility that an intelligent agent WAS involved in the origin of all life. Because this possibility exists, the opinions of conventionally trained scientists with the ability and the inclination to pursue all reasonable “lines of inquiry”, including the possibility of “an external intelligence” being involved in the Creation of life, will be sought.

Materialistic evolution is losing ground, as increasing numbers of people see the overwhelming objective evidence for Biblical Creation presented by conventionally trained scientists – while evolutionists refuse to either debate or examine the evidence, because of their a priori commitment to materialism.

For better or for worse, the scientific die has been cast in favour of ONLY ONE scientifically valid interpretation of evolution – a materialistic (and therefore an atheistic) one – and the theistic views of Theistic Evolutionists are therefore a priori scientifically excluded.
Theistic evolutionists help to reduce resistance to evolution among monotheists in general, and Christians in particular. However, if you scratch the surface, the clear ‘bottom line’ of evolutionary science still remains that any Divine aspect to the process is excluded – despite some wishful thinking on the part of Theistic Evolutionists that evolutionary science will accept a supernatural origin to life.

The ONLY scientifically acceptable evolutionary worldview is a materialistic one. Evolution officially, and apparently irrevocably, states that we are an accident of nature, living out an ultimately meaningless, competitive existence while waiting to be recycled in the Carbon and Nitrogen Cycles.
The contrast couldn’t be any greater with the Biblical worldview that we have been fearfully and wonderfully created by an ever-loving God to live out a purposeful, loving life on Earth while awaiting our eternal reward of Heavenly bliss.

J C

Quote Excelsior
Anyone, be they militant atheists like Dr. Suzuki or militant fools (did I just write that?!) like Boards.ie user JC who claims it (Evolution) does is making a very large, if subtle mistake.

Please provide satisfactory answers to all of the following questions – so that this thread may judge the relative merits of your belief in Evolution and my proofs for Special Divine Creation :-

1. Why does conventional science have an a priori position that life could ONLY originate through natural mechanisms, when such mechanisms have never been identified or demonstrated and a supernatural origin for life is such a distinct possibility, as to be a probability?

2. Please explain in your own words how Evolution "Muck to Man" 'WORKS'.

3. What is the postulated mechanism for the spontaneous generation of life - or is there one postulated?

4. What is the postulated 'primitive' mechanism that provided the diversity upon which Natural Selection supposedly worked?

5. What is the postulated "conservation" mechanism for the supposed earliest life forms that would allow any "accidental" positive changes to be preserved from one generation to the next?


Equally, what facts, scientific laws, inferences or tested scientific hypotheses can satisfactory answer any of the following valid scientific questions in relation to evolution?
1. Have we observed any mechanism spontaneously generating life – it should still be there somewhere if Evolution is true?
2. How can life be generated spontaneously if the random production of the critical amino acid SEQUENCE for an essential protein is a MATHEMATICAL impossibility?
3. If the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) radio telescopes were to pick up the DNA code for an Amoeba being transmitted from a distant point in our galaxy, science would definitively conclude that it had found proof of extraterrestrial intelligence – so why does science not conclude that the Amoeba’s own DNA code, is also proof of intelligent design?
4. If evolution is ongoing there should be millions of intermediate forms everywhere among both living and fossil creatures. Why has not even ONE functional continuum ever been observed among either living or fossil creatures for a functioning useful structure?
5. Why do our Mitochondrial DNA sequences (which are inherited in the female line i.e. 100% from our mothers) show that all human beings are originally descended from ONE woman?
6. Why do our Y-chromosome sequences (which are inherited in the male line i.e. 100% from our fathers) show that all men are originally descended from ONE man?
7. How do you explain the random (non-intelligent) design and production of observed biochemical systems at atomic levels of resolution that outclass the largest and most sophisticated manufacturing abilities of mankind?
8. How do you explain the random (non-intelligent) design of the observed levels of interlinked complexity and functionality within living systems that are multiple orders of magnitude greater than our most powerful computer systems?
9. Why do some scientists continue to believe that the Human Genome was an ”accident of nature” – while they know that the (relatively much simpler) super computers and gene sequencers that they had to use to decode it, were created through the purposeful application of intelligent design and enormous Human effort?
10. Why do we observe great perfection and genetic diversity in all species when “dog eat dog” Evolution would predict very significant levels of “work in progress” and the bare minimum of diversity necessary for the short-term survival of the individual?
11. Why is the only mechanism postulated by Evolution to produce genetic variation – genetic mutation – invariably damaging to the genome resulting in lethal and semi lethal conditions most of the time?
12. Any putative ‘evolving organism’ is statistically just as likely to be taking two “critical amino acid sequence” steps backwards for every one step forwards, as it is to be going the other way around. If ALL critical amino acid sequences except the CORRECT one will confer NO advantage – how can a population “work up” to the correct critical amino acid sequence through “genetic drift” or Natural Selection ?
13. Why do we observe that all living systems use pre-existing SOPHISTICATED complex biochemical systems and bio-molecules to produce SIMPLE bio-molecules – and not the other way around, if Evolution is true?
14. How do you explain the origins of DNA when the production of DNA is observed to require the pre-existence of other DNA / RNA and a massively complex array of other biochemical “machinery”?
15. Why have we never observed any species to actually INCREASE genetic information over time if “upwards and onwards” Evolution is in action out there?
16. What is the evolutionary explanation for the "Cambrian explosion," in which all major animal groups appear together in the fossil record fully formed instead of branching from a common ancestor - thus contradicting the evolutionary tree of life?
17. Why is it claimed that beak changes in Galapagos finches during a severe drought can explain the origin of species by natural selection - even though the changes were reversed after the drought ended, and no net evolution occurred?
18. Why is it claimed that fruit flies with an extra pair of wings is evidence that DNA mutations can supply raw materials for evolution - even though the extra wings have no muscles and these disabled mutants cannot survive outside the laboratory?
19. Why are artists' drawings of apelike humans used to justify materialistic claims that we are just animals and our existence is a mere accident - when fossil experts cannot even agree on who our supposed ancestors were or what they looked like?

Happy New Year!!

bmoferrall

J C wrote:

Materialistic evolution is NOMINALLY SILENT on the existence or otherwise of God. However, because materialistic evolutionists adopt an EXCLUSIVELY MATERIALIST approach to explaining the origins of the universe and all life therein (i.e. they exclude a priori any supernatural intervention) they are therefore de facto atheistic on the ‘origins issue’. Materialistic evolution (apparently the ONLY acceptable conventional scientific approach) DOES by direct implication QUESTION AND REJECT the possible existence of God by not allowing the evidence for the existence of God and His Acts of Creation to be examined or scientifically evaluated.
Let us face reality here – a philosophy that a priori refuses to countenance a divine basis for the origin of life is by definition atheistic, no matter how you “dress it up”.
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snip
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The contrast couldn’t be any greater with the Biblical worldview that we have been fearfully and wonderfully created by an ever-loving God to live out a purposeful, loving life on Earth while awaiting our eternal reward of Heavenly bliss.

Excellent post JC.
I feel the theistic evolution standpoint is a bit wishy-washy, dare I say it a cop out, and is often accompanied by an attempt to underplay the importance of the creation issue. pH's posts earlier in this thread expose its inconsistencies and illogicality very well, I feel.
Anyway, it will be fascinating to see how this all pans out in the coming years. It all seems to be reaching boiling point. I have a feeling that some interesting developments await us.
References to the issue are increasingly permeating the popular press, usually to the denigration of the creationist standpoint, and often blithely accompanied by potshots at 'those crazy christian fundies' by our erudite, well-informed, 'modern-man', correspondent.
Personally, I believe the credibility of the bible as the authoritative Word of God is at stake (not that it has much credibility in society at large as it is).

I should add that I have enormous respect for all scientists seeking unbiased answers to these very complex issues.

pH

J C wrote:

2. Please explain in your own words how Evolution "Muck to Man" 'WORKS'.

J C wrote:

1. Have we observed any mechanism spontaneously generating life – it should still be there somewhere if Evolution is true?

Really J C, you've been over this ground before many many times. Evolution does not and cannot explain The origin of Life .
Your question shows profound ignorance of the theory, it's like saying why doesn't the theory of gravity explain the creation of the first self-replicating molecules, it just doesn't!

The theory of evolution explains how once a self replicating molecule is in existance, more complex 'designed' organisms are formed.

Evolution is a very simple theory for lay-people to understand and challenge, however no-one without a graduate degree in organic chemisty has any real understanding of the processes in the creation of these molecules except at a very superficial level.

5. Why do our Mitochondrial DNA sequences (which are inherited in the female line i.e. 100% from our mothers) show that all human beings are originally descended from ONE woman?

Are you just too lazy to look this stuff up for yourself?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_eve

JustHalf

Because God is God, 'cause God is God
And not 'cause how he made us
I don't care about the mechanics
I don't need to know details
I just know that I was born to serve
And worship Him each day
And there's nothing that can change that
Even if we came from apes

Whiskey Priest

I have shortened some of the quotes - but they are in full above, and I have kept the numbering:

J C wrote:

1. Why does conventional science...

Because science cannot answer or investigate questions of faith. If, therefore, life did not originate through natural mechanisms, the question cannot be investigated by science. For science to investigate a question necessarily involves this initial assumption. However, it is possible for scientists to conclude that a question is not properly in the domain of science after initial investigations - for example, a biologist starting to investigate the origin of life using the assumption might abandon the investigation on concluding that life has a divine origin.

J C wrote:

2. Please explain in your own words how Evolution "Muck to Man" 'WORKS'.

In brief - through natural selection, the accepted mechanism. Slightly less briefly - all organisms are the expression of data stored in genetic codes. These codes are subject to damage and alteration through the actions of the environment, and such altered codes are passed to the next generation, increasing, decreasing, or not affecting the adaptation of such offspring to their environment and thereby their chances of passing on the altered code to their offspring in turn.

J C wrote:

3. What is the postulated mechanism for the spontaneous generation of life - or is there one postulated?

Currently, this is under investigation, but various mechanisms have been suggested, including clay catalysis. A review of all postulated mechanisms would be very time-consuming. Most of them involve a gradual increase in complexity of chemicals, such that the dividing line between 'life' and 'non-life' is somewhat fuzzy. Divine intervention remains a possible mechanism at this time.

J C wrote:

4. What is the postulated 'primitive' mechanism that provided the diversity upon which Natural Selection supposedly worked?

Errors in the replication of genetic code, as stated. Also possible is multiple 'origins of life' in the very basic sense of life.

J C wrote:

5. What is the postulated "conservation" mechanism...

Given a soup of simple chemicals and an energy input, current genetic-code-chemicals (RNA, DNA, some proteins) will 'reproduce' themselves by making copies of their strands (with sme errors, as noted). This is assumed to have been the original mechanism, just as it is the current one.

J C wrote:

1. Have we observed any mechanism spontaneously generating life – it should still be there somewhere if Evolution is true?

Clay catalysis has been observed experimentally, as has electricity-induced RNA formation. A lot depends on our ability to recognise 'life' as opposed to non-life, which is partly a matter of definition.

J C wrote:

2. How can life be generated spontaneously if the random production of the critical amino acid SEQUENCE for an essential protein is a MATHEMATICAL impossibility?

Most amino acids occur naturally, both terrestrially and in space. You are actually approaching the problem from the wrong end - you are assuming that life 'tried' to make a particular protein, and looking at the chances of that (which are incredibly small, but cannot be a mathematical impossibility, since then the protein could not exist!). Instead, out of all the possible protein shapes that have been generated accidentally by life, those that worked have been kept, those that didn't have been discarded, or are in the process of being discarded.

J C wrote:

3. If the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) radio telescopes...

Because the proof of intelligent life in the case of SETI is the transmission. The DNA code would simply prove the transmission was unlikely to be random.

J C wrote:

4. If evolution is ongoing...

Actually, there are a lot of transitional forms! Evolution of photo-sensitive patches from non-directional to directional, evolution of the bone structures of those dinosaurs that became birds, evolution of fins to flippers to legs. We are slightly handicapped by the fact that fossilisation tends to preserve only bones and gross structures, but the examples of functional continuua are multiple and diverse. Creationists usually fall back on simply denying the facts here, and most laypeople are unaware of the full extent of the fossil record.

J C wrote:

5. Why do our Mitochondrial DNA sequences...ONE woman?

There is hypothesised to be a population bottleneck where human population was reduced to c. 2000 individuals, and time and the workings of chance have done the rest. Please note also that this work rests on small samples - it is not possible to claim that the whole human race is descended from one woman on the basis of this work. Isolated peoples such as the Yanomamo have not been tested as part of this survey. Also, the so-called 'mitochondrial Eve' is properly described as the 'most-recent common ancestor of all humans alive on Earth today with respect to matrilineal descent'. Her existence does not in any way prove that there were no prior women!

J C wrote:

6. Why do our Y-chromosome sequences...ONE man?

See above. Note also that the work in question shows that the man in question lived some 84,000 years (see here) after the common female ancestor referred to above. Your 'Adam and Eve' could never have met!

J C wrote:

7. How do you explain the random...manufacturing

Billions of years of evolution versus a couple of hundred years of manufacturing. Your question only makes sense if you pre-suppose the young earth you are trying to prove.

J C wrote:

8. How do you explain...computer systems?

Billions of years of evolution versus a couple of decades of computing. Your question only makes sense if you pre-suppose the young earth you are trying to prove.

J C wrote:

9. Why do some scientists continue to believe...

Billions of years of evolution versus a couple of decades of computing. Your question only makes sense if you pre-suppose the young earth you are trying to prove.

J C wrote:

10. Why do we observe great perfection...

We are all work in progress. Your question, again, only makes sense by assuming that we are all in some final 'perfect' state, which is not accepted to be the case except by creationists. A good example would be polar bears, who are turning out not to be well-adapted to their currently changing environment.

J C wrote:

11. Why is the only mechanism postulated by Evolution...

Because 'damage' is being defined here as any change to the genetic code, which makes your question circular. Actually, most mutations (and you probably have some yourself) are not lethal or semi-lethal - they are in fact pointless.

J C wrote:

12. Any putative ‘evolving organism’ is statistically just as likely...

There is no such thing as a 'correct' sequence. If there is a sequence that confers an advantage over other possible sequences, then those organisms that have the advantageous sequence will be at a reproductive advantage. Over time, their offspring will tend to dominate the population. Note that more incapacitating mutations are weeded out faster.

J C wrote:

13. Why do we observe that all living systems...

Because your observation is at fault - organisms take in very simple chemicals (such as water, salts, amino acids etc) and use them to produce very complex chemicals such as DNA and proteins.

J C wrote:

14. How do you explain the origins of DNA...

Because it doesn't. The complex array of 'machinery' you refer to is there to try and reduce the rate of copying errors, but copying itself can pretty much be done by RNA alone (and it in turn can copy DNA).

J C wrote:

15. Why have we never observed any species to actually INCREASE genetic information...

Because evolution is not 'onwards and upwards' - it can also go downwards and sideways. Whatever works will survive, whether it's up, down, or sideways.

J C wrote:

16. What is the evolutionary explanation for the "Cambrian explosion,"...

Life predates the Cambrian. Look up the 'Ediacara' fauna, or the Burgess Shales. The idea that life started in the Cambrian is Victorian, and geology has moved on somewhat in the last 150 years.

J C wrote:

17. Why is it claimed that beak changes..during a severe drought..

Had the drought persisted, the beak changes would have been 'permanent'. The 'net evolution' that occurred was the evolution of beaks to survive the drought, and then the evolution of beaks to survive the non-drought.

J C wrote:

18. Why is it claimed that fruit flies with an extra pair of wings..cannot survive outside the laboratory?

This is evidence for one of the mechanisms of evolution - the persistence of mutated features. Other lab-induced evolutions in fruit flies (greater size, longer lifespans, more offspring) may be beneficial outside the laboratory. You have simply picked one mutation that is not beneficial, and you are ignoring any that do not suit your argument.

J C wrote:

19. Why are artists' drawings of apelike humans used to justify materialistic claims..

They aren't. They're used to bolster creationists' revulsion at the idea.

Now, overall, your questions and observations are intelligent, but they are also misleading, factually inaccurate, or assume what you are trying to prove. That is a shameful waste of your intelligence.

You cannot pin down God on a laboratory workbench. The scientific community as a community does not try to do so. The tools of science are irrelevant to faith, and the tools of faith are inappropriate to science. Fortunately, God will survive your clumsy and misguided attempts to tangle his existence with an improbable (human) claim that the earth is otherwise than it is.

zod

Now, overall, your questions and observations are intelligent, but they are also misleading, factually inaccurate, or assume what you are trying to prove. That is a shameful waste of your intelligence.

You cannot pin down God on a laboratory workbench. The scientific community as a community does not try to do so. The tools of science are irrelevant to faith, and the tools of faith are inappropriate to science. Fortunately, God will survive your clumsy and misguided attempts to tangle his existence with an improbable (human) claim that the earth is otherwise than it is.

* Stands up and applaudes *

robindch

JC -

Welcome back, thought we'd lost you there!

> How do you explain the random design at atomic levels
> of resolution that outclass the largest and most sophisticated
> manufacturing abilities of mankind?

Same way we explain the formation of the snowflakes which are busy flurrying past the window from which I'm writing this. There are simple, comprehensible processes at work which, from a base which appears formless and random, manages to produce snowflakes and snowshowers of great beauty. If you like, you can read up on this, then stand back and admire what can arise from the increasing complexity emerging at each step.

Alternatively, if you'd prefer, you can conjour up a god to create each water molecule, each snowflake, each snowstorm and each human to appriciate the passing show. But what an enormous failure of imagination it must take to be satisfied with this!

Happy new year to all from the snowy streets of St Petersburg, Russia!

Excelsior

Whiskey Priest- extraordinary post, certainly the best thing thrown up in this monster thread. Thanks to you!

Sapien

Whiskey Priest wrote:

You cannot pin down God on a laboratory workbench. The scientific community as a community does not try to do so. The tools of science are irrelevant to faith, and the tools of faith are inappropriate to science. Fortunately, God will survive your clumsy and misguided attempts to tangle his existence with an improbable (human) claim that the earth is otherwise than it is.

Indeed. What Herculean equanimity and diligence, oh Spirited Hierophant! My hat is decidedly off.

Sapien

Now, for heaven's sake, don't spend another neuron of mental energy on these fundie jokers.

samb

Well done whiskey priest you answered them JC well. I fear however that He must just keep posting that one up and ignoring the answers, much of which have been answerable for decades. Many show his complete lack of understanding of the subject such as the ones about Mitocondrial Eve.

Asiaprod

Whiskey Priest wrote:

I have shortened some of the quotes - but they are in full above, and I have kept the numbering:

What a great answer, my hat is of to you too. Buy the way, happy new Year JC, nice to see you back.

J C

samb wrote:

Well done whiskey priest you answered them JC well. I fear however that He must just keep posting that one up and ignoring the answers, much of which have been answerable for decades. Many show his complete lack of understanding of the subject such as the ones about Mitocondrial Eve.

I too congratulate you on providing the best answers that modern Evolution can give to each of these important questions.

I also thank you for addressing every question.

I intend to comment upon each one of your answers tomorrow, God willing.

J C

Quote pH
Really J C, you've been over this ground before many many times. Evolution does not and cannot explain The origin of Life .
Your question shows profound ignorance of the theory, it's like saying why doesn't the theory of gravity explain the creation of the first self-replicating molecules, it just doesn't!
The theory of evolution explains how once a self replicating molecule is in existance, more complex 'designed' organisms are formed.

Your admission that "Evolution does not and cannot explain The origin of Life" certainly should be published more widely. This is exactly what Creation Scientists have been saying for years.

However, many people, including many scientists continue to labour under the illusion that Materialistic Evolutionists have confirmed that the origin and development of life on this planet was by natural chemical processes without any super-natural intervention.

Intelligent Design proponents (many of whom are evolutionists or former evolutionists) have scientifically proven that this cannot occur due to the Laws of Logic, Probability, Physics, Chemistry and Biology.

The only scientifically valid Theory of Evolution is also known as the Theory of Natural Selection. This theory explains how EXISTING genetic diversity allows a population of living organisms to adjust to environmental changes through the “selection of the fittest”.

You are correct that Evolution doesn’t explain how life started off. Equally, it doesn't explain how the amazing genetic diversity we see around us arose or how the purposeful highly specified design inherent at each level within living organisms from the 'sub-cellular level' to the ‘cellular level’ to the ‘organ level’ to the ‘body plan level’ arose.

In actual fact, The Theory of Evolution can explain none of the really important questions about life – it does (in part) explain the SURVIVAL of the fittest but it is unable to answer the much more important questions about the ARRIVAL of the fittest.


Quote pH
Evolution is a very simple theory for lay-people to understand and challenge, however no-one without a graduate degree in organic chemisty has any real understanding of the processes in the creation of these molecules except at a very superficial level.

Nobody, including Organic Chemists, has any idea of how the complex information system that is DNA could have arisen by natural processes, and without the application of massive external intelligence.

Organic Chemistry per se has little to say about it – DNA is primarily an information and control system that has a biochemical component to it – just like a DVD is primarily an information storage device with a plastics aspect to it. The biochemical and plastics components of DNA and DVDs are not the most important issues – it is the nature and the origin of the information contained in both systems, which is of most interest.


Quote JustHalf
Because God is God, 'cause God is God
And not 'cause how he made us
I don't care about the mechanics
I don't need to know details
I just know that I was born to serve
And worship Him each day
And there's nothing that can change that
Even if we came from apes

Most people, including most evolutionists, think that it IS important to establish where we have come from and HOW we have got here!!

Scientific endeavour is founded upon the laudable idea that Humans should use their innate intelligence to objectively establish the effects of causes and the causes of the effects that they observe around them.

Arguably, the most important cause to be established is the ultimate cause of the life that we all currently enjoy.

I don’t know if science will ever establish it – but I certainly don’t share your fatalism in this regard. In fact, the amazing scientific progress that has been made through research into Intelligent Design and the evidence discovered for Creation in recent years gives me great confidence that the ultimate origin of life WILL be established beyond doubt quite soon.

Equally, the enormous resources devoted by evolutionists to researching the origins of life indicates that most evolutionists also share my belief that answering the ‘origins question’ is both important and possible.

Quote Whiskey Priest
Because science cannot answer or investigate questions of faith. If, therefore, life did not originate through natural mechanisms, the question cannot be investigated by science. For science to investigate a question necessarily involves this%

J C

Quote Whiskey Priest
Originally Posted by J C
5. What is the postulated "conservation" mechanism...
Given a soup of simple chemicals and an energy input, current genetic-code-chemicals (RNA, DNA, some proteins) will 'reproduce' themselves by making copies of their strands (with sme errors, as noted). This is assumed to have been the original mechanism, just as it is the current one.

A soup of SIMPLE chemicals can NEVER spontaneously organise themselves into RNA, DNA or even proteins.
Such an idea is like claiming that a handful of steel filings, a nugget of copper and a blob of plastic polymer will spontaneously organise themselves into a Video Cassette Recorder and TV, complete with a videotape playing “The Sound of Music” on the screen.
The simplest living cell is vastly more complex than a VCR or a TV – and so the chance of life arising spontaneously is ZERO – and the Law of Biogenesis confirms this fact.


Quote Whiskey Priest
Originally Posted by J C
1. Have we observed any mechanism spontaneously generating life – it should still be there somewhere if Evolution is true?

Clay catalysis has been observed experimentally, as has electricity-induced RNA formation. A lot depends on our ability to recognise 'life' as opposed to non-life, which is partly a matter of definition.

Clay chemicals are dead (and their chemical processes are Silicon based – unlike life which is Carbon based).
RNA formation requires extremely complex precursors and synthesis mechanisms including pre-existing RNA.

The artificial synthesis of an RNA analogue using enormous purposeful and intelligently controlled effort DOESN’T prove that biologically active molecules can arise spontaneously – in fact it indicates that they CAN’T.


Quote Whiskey Priest
Originally Posted by J C
2. How can life be generated spontaneously if the random production of the critical amino acid SEQUENCE for an essential protein is a MATHEMATICAL impossibility?

Most amino acids occur naturally, both terrestrially and in space. You are actually approaching the problem from the wrong end - you are assuming that life 'tried' to make a particular protein, and looking at the chances of that (which are incredibly small, but cannot be a mathematical impossibility, since then the protein could not exist!). Instead, out of all the possible protein shapes that have been generated accidentally by life, those that worked have been kept, those that didn't have been discarded, or are in the process of being discarded.

I have actually assumed an unlimited supply of all 20 common amino acids in my model. This is a very generous assumption in view of the fact that most amino acids are only found in trace amounts, if at all, outside of biological material.

I am not approaching the problem by assuming that life ‘tried’ to make a particular protein – I am only assessing the relative difference between the 10^130 possibilities of randomly combining the common amino acids into critical sequences of 100 amino acid chain lengths – and the fact that even one ‘incorrect’ amino acid in these critical sequences makes the protein functionally useless. Therefore, the chance of randomly producing a particular FUNCTIONALLY USEFUL protein is of the order of 10^130 which is a mathematical impossibility.

I have also proven that a specific critical Amino Acid Sequence, which is mathematical impossibility using random undirected means, can be produced with certainty by directed intelligence – and that is why functionally useful proteins exist – because they were Directly Created by God.

Quote Whiskey Priest
Originally Posted by J C
If the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) radio telescopes were to pick up the DNA code for an Amoeba being transmitted from a distant point in our galaxy, science would definitively conclude that it had found proof of extraterrestrial intelligence – so why does science not conclude that the Amoeba’s own DNA code, is also proof of intelligent design?

Because the proof of intelligent life in the case of SETI is the transmission. The DNA code would simply prove the transmission was unlikely to be random.

The proof of intelligent life is NOT in the transmission – otherwise ‘radio stars’ that broadcast random or repeating radio transmissions would be proof of ET intelligence ‘out there’.
The critical aspect of the DNA code is that it is neither random nor repeating, but it is actually INFORMATION – and this is what would indicate that it has an INTELLIGENT source.

My question therefore remains valid as to why SETI scientists don’t accept that the Amoeba’s DNA code is proof of an intelligent designer of the Amoeba’s DNA code.


Quote Whiskey Priest
Actually, there are a lot of transitional forms! Evolution of photo-sensitive patches from non-directional to directional, evolution of the bone structures of those dinosaurs that became birds, evolution of fins to flippers to legs. We are slightly handicapped by the fact that fossilisation tends to preserve only bones and gross structures, but the examples of functional continuua are multiple and diverse.

There were Dinosaurs that could fly and Dinosaurs that couldn’t – and neither kind are antecedent to birds, no more than Bats are.
There are fins, flippers and legs – but never any functional continuum of intermediates.
The handicap of incomplete fossilisation DOESN’T apply to living creatures – where not even ONE functional continuum has ever been observed for a functioning useful structure.


Quote Whiskey Priest
Originally Posted by J C
Why do our Mitochondrial DNA sequences (which are inherited in the female line i.e. 100% from our mothers) show that all human beings are originally descended from ONE woman?

There is hypothesised to be a population bottleneck where human population was reduced to c. 2000 individuals, and time and the workings of chance have done the rest. Please note also that this work rests on small samples - it is not possible to claim that the whole human race is descended from one woman on the basis of this work. Isolated peoples such as the Yanomamo have not been tested as part of this survey. Also, the so-called 'mitochondrial Eve' is properly described as the 'most-recent common ancestor of all humans alive on Earth today with respect to matrilineal descent'. Her existence does not in any way prove that there were no prior women!

Is it now actually 2,000 individuals?
I read recently that there were only 200 individuals!!!

Anyway, be that as it may, I can confirm that “the population bottleneck” to which you refer, was actually FOUR women – Noah’s wife and her three daughters-in-law.

I agree with you that there were also many ‘prior women’ – before the ‘population bottleneck’ aka Noah’s Flood.
However, there was ultimately ONLY ONE woman Directly Created by God – and her name was EVE – and our Mitochondrial DNA provides scientific proof that she EXISTED – and that we are ALL descended from her!!!


Quote Whiskey Priest
Originally Posted by J C
Why do our Y-chromosome sequences (which are inherited in the male line i.e. 100% from our fathers) show that all men are originally descended from ONE man See above.

Note also that the work in question shows that the man in question lived some 84,000 years (see here) after the common female ancestor referred to above. Your 'Adam and Eve' could never have met!

”My” Adam and Eve certainly DID meet – as God created them contemporaneously – about 7,000 years ago.
In fact, just think about it, none of us would be here, if the first man and the first woman didn’t 'get together' so to speak!!!

The fact that science states that the first man lived 84,000 years after the first woman – means that science is obviously WRONG about the time periods involved.
The regression values are incorrect – just like many of the ‘millions of years’ dates regularly attributed to the age of rocks and fossils, by evolutionists.


Quote Whiskey Priest
Originally Posted by J C
How do you explain the random (non-intelligent) design and production of observed biochemical systems at atomic levels of resolution that outclass the largest and most sophisticated manufacturing abilities of mankind?

Billions of years of evolution versus a couple of hundred years of manufacturing. Your question only makes sense if you pre-suppose the young earth you are trying to prove.
Billions of years of genetic copying ERRORS are distinctly unlikely to produce sophisticated biochemical systems at atomic levels of resolution that outclass the largest and most sophisticated manufacturing abilities of mankind. Otherwise, why do factories use quality control systems, if manufacturing errors improve product quality?

Billions of years are also unlikely to have any effect on dead chemicals monotonously interacting with each other.

Long periods of time on their own will have NO practical effect – unless plausible mechanisms can be identified and demonstrated that show that life can spontaneously generate – and to date no such mechanisms have been demonstrated.

Sapien

J C wrote:

Divine intervention is the ONLY plausible mechanism currently identified – and it is therefore all the more amazing that conventional science is REFUSING to investigate the most likely cause for the origin of life

Out of sadistic curiosity - how exactly would science investigate the mechanism of divine intervention in the creation of life?

J C

Quote Whiskey Priest
Originally Posted by J C
Why do some scientists continue to believe that the Human Genome was an ”accident of nature” – while they know that the super computers and gene sequencers that they had to use to decode it, were created through the purposeful application of intelligent design and enormous personal effort?
Billions of years of evolution versus a couple of decades of computing. Your question only makes sense if you pre-suppose the young earth you are trying to prove.

The reason we have super-computers is not due to the passage of time – it is due to the purposeful application of intelligent design and enormous Human effort.
Life utilises infinitely more complex ‘machines’ – and therefore the most likely explanation of it’s existence is the application of enormous intelligence – and NOT the passage of inordinate amounts of time, which in and of itself can achieve NOTHING.


Quote Whiskey Priest
We are all work in progress. Your question, again, only makes sense by assuming that we are all in some final 'perfect' state, which is not accepted to be the case except by creationists. A good example would be polar bears, who are turning out not to be well-adapted to their currently changing environment.

The fact that Polar Bears have billions of perfect cells working in amazingly complex ways with perfectly co-ordinated biochemical cascades operating at precision levels measured in nano-seconds means that Polar Bears were perfectly CREATED.

The fact that Natural Selection down the years has REDUCED the diversity of the current genetic information pool of Polar Bears to a point where their survival is threatened by environmental change is proof of Creation and The Fall. Please note that Evolution’s supposed ability to generate new genetic diversity, is demonstrably failing to occur in the case of Polar Bears, and indeed with many other creatures too.


Quote Whiskey Priest
Originally Posted by J C
Why is the only mechanism postulated by Evolution to produce genetic variation – genetic mutation – invariably damaging to the genome resulting in lethal and semi lethal conditions most of the time?

Because 'damage' is being defined here as any change to the genetic code, which makes your question circular. Actually, most mutations (and you probably have some yourself) are not lethal or semi-lethal - they are in fact pointless.

I define damage as a LOSS of genetic information – and ALL mutations are observed to do this. Sometimes it affects the organism, and as you have said, sometimes it has no effect. Sometimes, it even helps the organism’s short-term survival – but the fact that it is always a LOSS of information – is PROOF that mutation is not a plausible mechanism for the INCREASE in genetic information necessary to produce Mankind.


Quote Whiskey Priest
Originally Posted by J C
Any putative ‘evolving organism’ is statistically just as likely to be taking two “critical amino acid sequence” steps backwards for every one step forwards, as it is to be going the other way around. If ALL critical amino acid sequences except the CORRECT one will confer NO advantage – how can a population “work up” to the correct critical amino acid sequence through “genetic drift” or Natural Selection ?

There is no such thing as a 'correct' sequence. If there is a sequence that confers an advantage over other possible sequences, then those organisms that have the advantageous sequence will be at a reproductive advantage. Over time, their offspring will tend to dominate the population. Note that more incapacitating mutations are weeded out faster.

My point was that the Darwinian Evolutionary assumption (that incremental gradual changes are possible through natural selection) has been disproven by the discovery of critical amino acid sequences. Critical Amino Acid Sequences indicate that many aspects of life are an ‘all or nothing’ situation - where Natural Selection cannot work up to, for example, a particular useful protein – and it is therefore a mathematical impossibility to produce such a protein, under the rules of probability.


Quote Whiskey Priest
Originally Posted by J C
Why do we observe that all living systems use pre-existing SOPHISTICATED complex biochemical systems and bio-molecules to produce SIMPLE bio-molecules – and not the other way around, if Evolution is true?

Because your observation is at fault - organisms take in very simple chemicals (such as water, salts, amino acids etc) and use them to produce very complex chemicals such as DNA and proteins.

The point that I was making was that very complex molecules such as DNA, RNA, Chlorophyll. etc are required to translate simple raw materials such as water, carbon dioxide etc into relatively simple products such as sugars, etc.

The existence of DNA indicates that life could never “pull itself up by it’s own bootstraps” by using simple molecules to synthesise complex ones, such as DNA.
In fact, all observations show that complex molecules such as DNA are required as a PRE-REQUISITE to synthesising simple bio-molecules.

For evolution to be a runner, simple molecules would have to be demonstrated to produce more complex bio-molecules WITHOUT the assistance of other more complicated molecules such as DNA in the process.


Quote Whiskey Priest
Originally Posted by J C
How do you explain the origins of DNA when the production of DNA is observed to require the pre-existence of other DNA / RNA and a massively complex array of other biochemical “machinery”?

Because it doesn't. The complex array of 'machinery' you refer to is there to try and reduce the rate of copying errors, but copying itself can pretty much be done by RNA alone (and it in turn can copy DNA).

The complex array of ‘machinery’ IS ESSENTIAL to the copying process ITSELF, as well as having additional roles in reducing copying errors.
The ‘machinery’ to which I refer includes the cell superstructure as well as many proteins other than DNA or RNA which act to physically assist and chemically catalyse the DNA / RNA copying processes.
Indeed, further ‘machinery’ is required to translate the information contained in DNA into the living organism itself. Simple chemicals spontaneously interacting have never been found to generate any of this complex ‘machinery’.

Quote Whiskey Priest
Originally Posted by J C
Why have we never observed any species to actually INCREASE genetic information over time if “upwards and onwards” Evolution is in action out there?
Because evolution is not 'onwards and upwards' - it can also go downwards and sideways. Whatever works will survive, whether it's up, down, or sideways.

To evolve a Human Being from primitive life requires massive INCREASES in genetic information.

The fact that we have NEVER observed any species to actually INCREASE genetic information over time means that evolution is ALWAYS DOWNWARDS or SIDEWARDS (as you have stated) – and therefore evolution shows no potential to evolve a Human Being.


Quote Whiskey Priest
Originally Posted by J C
What is the evolutionary explanation for the "Cambrian explosion," in which all major animal groups appear together in the fossil record fully formed instead of branching from a common ancestor - thus contradicting the evolutionary tree of life?
Life predates the Cambrian. Look up the 'Ediacara' fauna, or the Burgess Shales. The idea that life started in the Cambrian is Victorian, and geology has moved on somewhat in the last 150 years.

Life obviously pre-dates the “Cambrian” – but the “Cambrian Explosion” in which all major animal groups appear together in the fossil record fully formed instead of branching from a common ancestor - DOES fundamentally contradict the idea of a gradually evolving ‘evolutionary tree of life’.

The “Cambrian Explosion” IS consistent with the rapid burial under sediment of billions of different organisms at the bottom of the World’s oceans during the start of Noah’s Flood.

J C

Quote Whiskey Priest
Originally Posted by J C
Why is it claimed that beak changes in Galapagos finches during a severe drought can explain the origin of species by natural selection - even though the changes were reversed after the drought ended, and no net evolution occurred?
Had the drought persisted, the beak changes would have been 'permanent'. The 'net evolution' that occurred was the evolution of beaks to survive the drought, and then the evolution of beaks to survive the non-drought.

Darwin’s Finches demonstrate that the population of finches in the Galapagos had sufficient PRE-EXISTING genetic diversity before the drought to produce ‘drought-resistant’ phenotypes and continued to preserve sufficient genetic diversity after N S during the drought to be able to revert to the non-drought phenotypes when normal conditions occurred.


Quote Whiskey Priest
Originally Posted by J C
Why is it claimed that fruit flies with an extra pair of wings is evidence that DNA mutations can supply raw materials for evolution - even though the extra wings have no muscles and these disabled mutants cannot survive outside the laboratory?
This is evidence for one of the mechanisms of evolution - the persistence of mutated features. Other lab-induced evolutions in fruit flies (greater size, longer lifespans, more offspring) may be beneficial outside the laboratory. You have simply picked one mutation that is not beneficial, and you are ignoring any that do not suit your argument.

Greater size, longer lifespans, more offspring are examples of how selection can amplify PRE-EXISTING genetic variety in a population.
What is needed to prove ‘Muck to Man Evolution’ is the spontaneous emergence of NEW information or traits. That is why various lab-induced MUTANT Fruit Flies have sometimes been seized upon by evolutionists as examples of ‘evolution in action’.
I was merely pointing out that a set of NEW non-functional wings, is more of a liability than an asset for the organism involved – and it will be eliminated by N S. It is therefore NOT evidence of ‘evolution in action’.


Quote Whiskey Priest
Originally Posted by J C
Why are artists' drawings of apelike humans used to justify materialistic claims that we are just animals and our existence is a mere accident - when fossil experts cannot even agree on who our supposed ancestors were or what they looked like?
They aren't. They're used to bolster creationists' revulsion at the idea.

Because of their training, conventional scientists who study Creation tend to avoid emotion and therefore they are not revolted by the idea of ‘Ape-Men’ – they’re just amazed at the artistic abilities of evolutionists and their capacity for wishful thinking.
You could fill a veritable zoo with the ‘missing links’ that have turned out to be neither ‘missing’ nor ‘links’ – and you could fill an Art Gallery with the drawings that have been inspired by these creatures.


Quote Robin
Originally Posted by J C
How do you explain the random design at atomic levels
of resolution that outclass the largest and most sophisticated
manufacturing abilities of mankind?

Same way we explain the formation of the snowflakes, which are busy flurrying past the window from which I'm writing this. There are simple, comprehensible processes at work which, from a base which appears formless and random, manages to produce snowflakes and snow showers of great beauty.

Robin, could I gently point out the fundamental difference between an inanimate snowflake and a living organism is that the latter is ALIVE.

Of course, science HAS established natural or random causes for phenomena such as snowflake formation and indeed the chemical basis of many biochemical processes.

However, science HASN’T established HOW life originated – and no plausible natural mechanisms have been identified or demonstrated which explain the origins of life.

Could I also point out that, although you or I can easily make a Snowman de novo, only a personality with an intelligence approaching that of God is capable of making a Man ex nihilo – and both are CREATIVE Acts.


I hope that you have an enjoyable time in Russia.

bmoferrall

J C

Sapien wrote:

Out of sadistic curiosity - how exactly would science investigate the mechanism of divine intervention in the creation of life?

Conventional scientists who study Creation and Intelligent Design do it every day.

The mechanisms are there alright - it is the willingness to study them and to recognise the work of the scientists who are studying them which is lacking.

zod

Hey J_C did the T-Rexs die in the big flood .. and if so was this because

1. They were bad T-Rexs
or
2. They would have been too hard to feed
or
3. Noah didn't like em and decided not to mention them in his manifest.

Asiaprod

J C wrote:

Conventional scientists who study Creation and Intelligent Design do it every day.

The mechanisms are there alright - it is the willingness to study them and to recognise the work of the scientists who are studying them which is lacking.

Its very unusual for you not to answer a question JC? If the mechanisms are there, please enlighten us as to what they are. If we could understand the process used to make this evaluation, then we might also be able to recognize the great work you say these scientist are doing. So far, all I have seen is hypothesizing, conjecture and speculation. I have yet to see one shred of proof!

JustHalf

J C wrote:

Most people think that it IS important to establish where we have come from and HOW we have got here!!

The whole scientific endeavour is founded upon the laudable idea that Humans should use their innate intelligence to objectively establish the effects of causes and the causes of the effects that they observe around them.

Arguably, the most important cause to be established is the ultimate cause of the life that we all currently enjoy.

I don’t know if science will ever establish it – but I certainly don’t share your fatalism in this regard. In fact, the amazing scientific progress that has been made through research into Intelligent Design and the evidence discovered for Creation in recent years gives me great confidence that the ultimate origin of life WILL be established beyond doubt quite soon.

Equally, the enormous resources devoted by evolutionists to researching the origins of life indicates that most evolutionists also share my belief that answering the ‘origins question’ is both important and possible.

I don't think I'm being particularly fatalistic. I just think God's sovereignty is established because God is God, and not because of any particular act He has done. Although His acts are great indeed, God is great apart from them.

The most important cause to establish is not where we came from, it is why we still live. Why are we alive? What is the purpose, if any, to our lives? Whose purpose is that? Ours? God's? If it is by God's purpose and will that we live, what does that mean? How will He use us? How can we best serve our King?