Best evidence for evolution [Archive]

Fredster

March 10th 2003, 01:05 PM

I want to know what kind of life you folks lead that enables you all to sit for hours in front of a computer posting emails to one another? Gheesh.

A few comments about Rufus’s skulls:

First, all we have here is a collection of skulls. Sounds rather obvious, but Rufus’s little picture really doesn’t establish his evolutionary world-view. He only uses his evolutionary world-view to interpret the skulls in the picture; drawing conclusions he believes supports his particular evolutionary agenda. The skulls hardly qualify for “evidence” for evolution. If you listen to Coast to Coast AM in the middle of the night, you could probably hear someone argue, rather persuasively, that those skulls demonstrate genetic tampering by aliens from another dimension. Like one fellow stated earlier in this thread, after I challenged Rufus, evidence must be interpreted. Raw facts in and of them selves don’t prove anything. The issue comes down to whether or not Rufus has the right starting point for interpreting his skulls. I don’t believe he does; regardless of how many PhD’s he may or may not have.

Second, the picture doesn’t answer where the genetic information came from that brought the ape population to being human. Neither does it answer how the shift from apes to humans took place. It is left to a variety of speculations. Human beings have the capacity for linguistic communication, logic, mathematics, emotional intimacy, moral ethics, walking upright, and a myriad of other abilities that apes never had or will have. When and how that influx of genetic information took place, separating humans from this ape population, is not answered by the picture of skulls.

Third, why can I not conclude that such skulls demonstrate a common designer? It is reasonable to conclude that one designer would use common materials when he created. In fact, one excellent thing about common biochemistry and structure is that such created organisms can share the same terrestrial home and environment. Moreover, they can gain nourishment from one another. I believe when God created, he created the potentiality for vast genetic variety with in a population. Hence the reason I interpret the skulls to represent such variety within a population. But that goes back to my particular theistic world-view and how I utilize it to interpret the data. I see a common designer with the skulls; the evolutionist sees a common ancestor, or something similar.

Fred

Stratnerd

March 10th 2003, 03:24 PM

Fred,

First, all we have here is a collection of skulls.

First, but not only... there are geological associations of each and then, looking at a larger time/evolutionary scale there are other skulls that should be included. The further we go back in time the less-human/primate like the fossils get. Then we also have genetic evidence for our relatedness to other primates. We also see similar situations for other organisms.

drawing conclusions he believes supports his particular evolutionary agenda. sure, that is not to say that Rufus hasn't or doesn't entertain other scenarios but maybe he sees these alternatives as being less able to explain what we see.

Raw facts in and of them selves don’t prove anything. The issue comes down to whether or not Rufus has the right starting point for interpreting his skulls. I don't believe you are stuck with a particular world view... why can't you view the evidence with several "hypothesis" at once? Each model makes some predictions, right? If the earth was some 6-10 K years old how would you expect to see these fossils arranged in time/space. If these organisms are related by descent what should we see?

When and how that influx of genetic information took place, separating humans from this ape population, is not answered by the picture of skulls. what precludes mutations from increasing brain size, giving language abilities, etc?

Third, why can I not conclude that such skulls demonstrate a common designer? how does a supernatural being(s) operate?

It is reasonable to conclude that one designer would use common materials when he created. you could conclude from the evidence but since we don't know how supernatural beings operate - how could be possibly test this?

But that goes back to my particular theistic world-view and how I utilize it to interpret the data. but particular world views will be more useful (e.g., make more prediction, be more testable) and world views will also differ in the number of ad hoc explanations. So we are all welcome to have particular world views or we can also have them "floating" and looking at several at once to see which works best.

Fredster

March 10th 2003, 03:36 PM

If the earth was some 6-10 K years old how would you expect to see these fossils arranged in time/space. If these organisms are related by descent what should we see?

I also add into the mix of geology the biblical record of a global, cataclysmic flood. This is something the earth's geology clearly demonstrates happened. An event of that magnitude would totally re-arrange any supposed uniformitarian arrangement. Moreover, you need to have rapid burial with the right conditions in order to have a fossil. The flood takes care of that as well.

what precludes mutations from increasing brain size, giving language abilities, etc?

Mutations either take away or re-arrange already present genetic material. What would need to take place is an influx of genetic information to get the language abilities, etc. Looking at a bunch of skulls doesn't answer the when or how such an influx took place.

how does a supernatural being(s) operate?

He has clearly revealed himself in the holy scripture, and you are without excuse in denying it. (regardless of how much you complain that you are).

Fred

Stratnerd

March 10th 2003, 03:48 PM

An event of that magnitude would totally re-arrange any supposed uniformitarian arrangement.

a topic that deserves its different thread

Moreover, you need to have rapid burial with the right conditions in order to have a fossil. The flood takes care of that as well. sure so do many small flood and non-flood anoxic conditions that exist sans global flood.

What would need to take place is an influx of genetic information to get the language abilities, etc. what precludes a mutation from increasing genetic information or phenotypic complexity? (this too deserves a separate thread)

Looking at a bunch of skulls doesn't answer the when or how such an influx took place. right.

Socratism

March 10th 2003, 04:46 PM

Stratnerd

March 10th 2003, 04:52 PM

and probably beyond the ability to accurate model scientifically

I think some things are and some things can't be. For the latter, natural selection in the distant past is something that probably can't be modeled. But there are many things that can be and I think these probably have been done by both sides (if consider the issue only having two) but both biblical literalism and evolution do make many many many testable predictions and we should, like any question, seek those predictions that best elimate a particular idea. Either way, you need to be prepared to swallow a very jagged pill.

Socratism

March 10th 2003, 05:11 PM

Fredster,

I want to know what kind of life you folks lead that enables you all to sit for hours in front of a computer posting emails to one another?

I can't speak for anyone else but in my case I answer the telephone all day answering questions and providing information.

I have developed the ability to do this while reading and preparing postings because it helps keep my sanity and makes the day go by faster. Unfortunately it is addictive enough that I do it even after the day is over. ;)

RufusAtticus

March 10th 2003, 06:34 PM

03-10-2003 @ 12:05 PM
Fredster:

First, all we have here is a collection of skulls.

Placed in chronological order, and showing smooth gradation from the earliest ones to the latest ones.

Sounds rather obvious, but Rufus’s little picture really doesn’t establish his evolutionary world-view.

Apparently you forgot that the picture wasn't the only thing in my post.

He only uses his evolutionary world-view to interpret the skulls in the picture; drawing conclusions he believes supports his particular evolutionary agenda. The skulls hardly qualify for “evidence” for evolution.

Why not? They show a gradual change in skull morphology becoming more modern as they get closer to present time.

Like one fellow stated earlier in this thread, after I challenged Rufus, evidence must be interpreted. Raw facts in and of them selves don’t prove anything. The issue comes down to whether or not Rufus has the right starting point for interpreting his skulls. I don’t believe he does; regardless of how many PhD’s he may or may not have.

Okay. Let's see your "creationist" interpretation.

Second, the picture doesn’t answer where the genetic information came from that brought the ape population to being human. Neither does it answer how the shift from apes to humans took place. It is left to a variety of speculations. Human beings have the capacity for linguistic communication, logic, mathematics, emotional intimacy, moral ethics, walking upright, and a myriad of other abilities that apes never had or will have. When and how that influx of genetic information took place, separating humans from this ape population, is not answered by the picture of skulls.

Mutation plus natural selection, migration, drift, and the mating system.

Third, why can I not conclude that such skulls demonstrate a common designer?

That only holds if the converse is true: different design signals different designers. The only problem is that your Christianity only allows for there to be one designer. As such, your argument invalidates your religion.

Mutations either take away or re-arrange already present genetic material.

Then explain duplications, insertations, and other mutations that add genetic material.

What would need to take place is an influx of genetic information to get the language abilities, etc. Looking at a bunch of skulls doesn't answer the when or how such an influx took place.

Every mutation creates new information. The other evolutionary forces are responsible for promoting them.

Individuals don't evolve. Populations do. So in linking information theory to evolution, one must consider the information in the population, which creationists do not do. Biologically, information can refer to different things. Pseudogenes, contain information about evolutionary history but not information that can be selected upon. In the context of this discussion, it would be best right now to consider the genetic information underlying traits, with an interest in adaptable traits. It is difficult to determine a way to measure the amount of this information, but one possibility is the size of the proteome. This is the number of unique proteins produced in the population and includes all loci and alleles. Whenever a mutation produces a novel allele, it adds information to the population. In other words, there is a new trait for selection to act upon. Here are two examples of the effects of information in a population.

Jeff knows something about Gina: "Gina is neat." Thus he has information about Gina. Before he leaves town, Jeff replicates this information by telling it to two people, Nick and Randy. Because neither of them pays attention, they don’t replicate the information exactly. Nick thinks "Gina is sweat," and Randy thinks "Gina is near." We can measure the about of information about Gina by the number of non-redundant attributes people ascribe to her. Here, the amount of information about Gina has doubled: from "neat" to "sweat and near." Clearly when we remember that it is the population that’s important to evolution, it is obvious how mutations can add information for selection to act upon.

Take this example retrieved from LocusLink [1], the only difference occurs in the 7th codon (6th amino acid because the first one, 'm,' gets cut off). The letters refer to amino acids [2].

Human Beta-hemoglobin (HBB)
1 mvhltpeeks avtalwgkvn vdevggealg rllvvypwtq rffesfgdls tpdavmgnpk
61 vkahgkkvlg afsdglahld nlkgtfatls elhcdklhvd penfrllgnv lvcvlahhfg
121 keftppvqaa yqkvvagvan alahkyh

HBB-S
1 mvhltpveks avtalwgkvn vdevggealg rllvvypwtq rffesfgdls tpdavmgnpk
61 vkahgkkvlg afsdglahld nlkgtfatls elhcdklhvd penfrllgnv lvcvlahhfg
121 keftppvqaa yqkvvagvan alahkyh

HBB-C
1 mvhltpkeks avtalwgkvn vdevggealg rllvvypwtq rffesfgdls tpdavmgnpk
61 vkahgkkvlg afsdglahld nlkgtfatls elhcdklhvd penfrllgnv lvcvlahhfg
121 keftppvqaa yqkvvagvan alahkyh

Each allele does not encode the exact same information since each one produces a distinctly different product. A single point mutation has enough effect on the information contained in the genome that it can determine whether an individual dies from malaria or not. In the presence of malaria, HBB-S is maintained because of heterozygote advantage. However, HBB-C also offers resistance to malaria, but the most fit genotype is the homozygote.[3] It is expected to become the most common allele in parts of Africa if the environment stays the same. These mutations have clearly added new information to the population. Selection then acts on this new information, changing the make up of the population. Thus, evolution happens.

It is important to realize that evolution occurs even if information is lost. It also occurs when information is gained or without any change in the amount of information at all. Thus no-new-information arguments do not actually address evolutionary theory. By focusing on individuals and not populations, no-new-information claims never even get close to disproving evolution. In fact, the actual claim, when applied to biology, is that the information capacity of an individual's genome cannot increase. However, this claim is false because there are known types of mutations that can increase the length of the genome and thus its capacity to hold information. Ernst Mayr discusses this origin of new genes in his latest book:

Bacteria and even the oldest eukaryotes (protists) have a rather small genome. . . . This raises the question: By what process is a new gene produced? This occurs, most frequently, by the doubling of an existing gene and its insertion in the chromosome in tandem next to the parental gene. In due time the new gene may adopt a new function and the ancestral gene with its traditional function will then be referred to as the orthologous gene. It is through orthologous genes that the phylogeny of genes is traced. The derived gene, coexisting with the ancestral gene, is called paralogous. Evolutionary diversification is, to a large extent, effected by the production of paralogous genes. The doubling sometimes affects not merely a single gene, but a whole chromosome set or even an entire genome.[4]

1. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/LocusLink/
2. http://www.chem.qmul.ac.uk/iupac/AminoAcid/AA1n2.html
3. Modiano D. et al. (2001) Haemoglobin C protects against clinical plasmodium falciparum malaria. Nature: 414 pp 305-308
4. Mayr E. (2001) What Evolution Is. Basic Books.

wehappyfew

March 10th 2003, 09:23 PM

03-10-2003 @ 02:36 PM
Fredster:
I also add into the mix of geology the biblical record of a global, cataclysmic flood. This is something the earth's geology clearly demonstrates happened. An event of that magnitude would totally re-arrange any supposed uniformitarian arrangement. Moreover, you need to have rapid burial with the right conditions in order to have a fossil. The flood takes care of that as well.

Fred
If you believe you can show how Earth's geology "clearly demonstrates" that a global cataclysmic Flood took place, then why not do so in one of the current threads devoted to that purpose, or open a new one? I have been unable to find anyone willing to discuss these ideas in such threads.

Can you support your statement that the Flood would "totally re-arrange any supposed uniformitarian arrangement" ? Having studied the Earth's layers of rock for many years, I have found no evidence that the layers are "totally re-arranged" by catastrophic forces. Do you know of any?

For Socratism:
You say that Ken Ham claims a global Flood would leave "trillions" of dead things. Would it surprise you find that he is wrong by a factor of about a million?

Stratnerd

March 10th 2003, 10:12 PM

Maybe Ham counts each copapod, coccolith, etc????

Curry

March 11th 2003, 07:50 AM

03-10-2003 @ 02:36 PM
Originally posted by Fredster:

Mutations either take away or re-arrange already present genetic material. What would need to take place is an influx of genetic information to get the language abilities, etc. Looking at a bunch of skulls doesn't answer the when or how such an influx took place.

What about changes in the amino-acid coding and nucleotide polymorphism of the FOXP2 gene (http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v418/n6900/abs/nature01025_fs.html) through selection to account for speech and language ability?

Socratism

March 11th 2003, 08:35 AM

For Socratism:
You say that Ken Ham claims a global Flood would leave "trillions" of dead things. Would it surprise you find that he is wrong by a factor of about a million?

You have given us an excellent example of why we shouldn't read a newspaper with a microscope.

Socratism

March 11th 2003, 09:07 AM

03-11-2003 @ 06:50 AM
Curry:
What about changes in the amino-acid coding and nucleotide polymorphism of the FOXP2 gene through selection to account for speech and language ability?

There are actually people who believe that one can renew an auto engine by putting a special additive into the crankcase oil.

Stratnerd

March 11th 2003, 09:41 AM

Socratism or ID-ist,

Dembski says it - some of you say it but what precludes genetic mutations from increasing phenotypic complexity?

RufusAtticus

March 11th 2003, 02:36 PM

03-10-2003 @ 12:05 PM
Fredster:

Hence the reason I interpret the skulls to represent such variety within a population.

Some more comments:

Well then you must not have any problem with humans and chimps begin related.

Furthermore, this doesn't explain the nature of the chronological series that we see. Why is it that the variation in this "population" that we see 2.6 mya is different than the variation in this "poplation" at present?

wehappyfew

March 11th 2003, 07:55 PM

03-11-2003 @ 07:35 AM
Socratism:

You have given us an excellent example of why we shouldn't read a newspaper with a microscope.

Ummm... I'm not sure what you mean. Your sparkling wit is apparently wasted on me. Can you explain more fully?

Curry

March 12th 2003, 07:12 AM

Originally posted by Curry

What about changes in the amino-acid coding and nucleotide polymorphism of the FOXP2 gene through selection to account for speech and language ability?

Socratism:

There are actually people who believe that one can renew an auto engine by putting a special additive into the crankcase oil.

And there are actually people who believe in fairies, goblins, UFOs, human clones, the supernatural, etc., with no evidence for any of them. But this (and your statement) doesn't address the evidence (http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v418/n6900/abs/nature01025_fs.html) for the development of human language due to changes in the FOXP2 gene via selection.

Socratism

March 12th 2003, 09:07 AM

03-12-2003 @ 06:12 AM
Curry:

And there are actually people who believe in fairies, goblins, UFOs, human clones, the supernatural, etc., with no evidence for any of them. But this (and your statement) doesn't address the
evidence (http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v418/n6900/abs/nature01025_fs.html) for the development of human language due to changes in the FOXP2 gene via selection.

Actually my statement addressed the issue by illustrating absurdity by being absurd.

The "evidence" in question indicates that a gene is "involved" in speech. Should this be surprising? What else would lead to human speech or any other function of the human body.

The article probably notes that there is some similarity between a gene in humans and a gene in apes. Is this some new revelation? Every beginning biology college student is exposed to cases where human genes are similar to animals and even worms and bacteria. The issue is how much similarity is there and why.

Much is made of the 98% similarity between chimps and humans, although this figure was recently revised downward to about 95%.

But now that the mouse genome has been sequenced, we find that there is a 97-98% similarity, even higher than that of the chimp.

To me this illustrates the absurdity of the argument of similarity by descent and points to a similarity of common design elements, much as the fact that greatly differing types of buildings can be constructed using similar building materials.

Stratnerd

March 12th 2003, 09:16 AM

But now that the mouse genome has been sequenced, we find that there is a 97-98% similarity, even higher than that of the chimp.
different measures of different things...

RufusAtticus

March 12th 2003, 11:13 AM

03-12-2003 @ 08:07 AM
Socratism:

Actually my statement addressed the issue by illustrating absurdity by being absurd.

The "evidence" in question indicates that a gene is "involved" in speech. Should this be surprising? What else would lead to human speech or any other function of the human body.

Of course this doesn't explain evidence of a selective sweep associated with the human gene.

The article probably notes that there is some similarity between a gene in humans and a gene in apes. Is this some new revelation?

So you didn't even read the article. Why do you pass judgement on FOXP2 when you haven't even read the information concerning it?

Much is made of the 98% similarity between chimps and humans, although this figure was recently revised downward to about 95%.

No, it wasn't. The paper that conclude 95% used a different distance measure than the studies that conclude 98%.

But now that the mouse genome has been sequenced, we find that there is a 97-98% similarity, even higher than that of the chimp.

And that is another different distance measure. You can't do the comparasion your doing when you use different measures.

Browse the genome databases at http://www.ncbi.nih.gov, and see how many genes you can find in which the chimp homologue is less similar than the mouse homologue.

To me this illustrates the absurdity of the argument of similarity by descent and points to a similarity of common design elements, much as the fact that greatly differing types of buildings can be constructed using similar building materials.

"Your honor, yes I was in a relationship with the child's mother arround the time of his conception. Yes the paternity test show that his DNA is more similar to mine than any one else. But that means nothing, except that we simply share a common designer."

Sher

March 12th 2003, 12:24 PM

03-10-2003 @ 12:05 PM Fredster: Third, why can I not conclude that such skulls demonstrate a common designer?
03-10-2003 @ 05:34 PM RufusAtticus: That only holds if the converse is true: different design signals different designers. I disagree, Rufus. Consider Picasso who painted a Blue Period, a Rose Period, and Cubism. Two paintings from the Blue have commonality, yet are different from two from the Cubism, which share commonality with each other. All, however, have a common "designer" in Picasso, and were "designed" for specific purposes in mind ... even if the purpose was just to please Picasso.

Stratnerd

March 12th 2003, 12:45 PM

What then, should be taken as evidence of different designers (given that we don't even know how different or the same super-intelligent being(s) would operate)? And at what level (DNA, ontogy, functional, etc) should we look at?

Socratism

March 12th 2003, 02:06 PM

"Your honor, yes I was in a relationship with the child's mother arround the time of his conception. Yes the paternity test show that his DNA is more similar to mine than any one else. But that means nothing, except that we simply share a common designer."

How many genes could you find in the child that were not present in either parent? Sounds like 100% similarity to me. ;)

Socratism

March 12th 2003, 02:22 PM

A story out today has some relevance to the discussion, as I will endeavor to explain.

"The study shows that FKHR not only has at least two different jobs, but also gets controlled in either of two different ways, depending on the context in which it works".
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/03/030312071324.htm

In discussions like this there seems to be a hidden assumption that a particular gene affects only one thing in an organism. Thus we have the previous "speech" gene mentioned.

However, it is becoming increasingly clear as examples mount that the situation is far more complex than previously imagined. Many times a whole host of genes are involved in a particular function, and further, many of those same genes affect other functions in a complicated web-like manner that is still far from being understood.

Stratnerd

March 12th 2003, 02:52 PM

S

How many genes could you find in the child that were not present in either parent? Sounds like 100% similarity to me. ;) which is my point about what do we look at to determine things like design. Should be stated a priori or else you can pick and chose the data to suit your fancy.

QED

March 12th 2003, 03:13 PM

03-12-2003 @ 06:06 PM
Socratism:

How many genes could you find in the child that were not present in either parent? Sounds like 100% similarity to me. ;)

Its actually ~50%. The mother's identity isn't in doubt. And obviously, since common genes is not good evidence of common ancestry, this fellow is off the hook for child support.

Tycho

March 12th 2003, 04:25 PM

03-12-2003 @ 09:24 AM
SherBear:
I disagree, Rufus. Consider Picasso who painted a Blue Period, a Rose Period, and Cubism. Two paintings from the Blue have commonality, yet are different from two from the Cubism, which share commonality with each other. All, however, have a common "designer" in Picasso, and were "designed" for specific purposes in mind ... even if the purpose was just to please Picasso.
Gee, do paintings reproduce themselves in such a way that their "Period" classifications are heritable attributes?

Socratism

March 12th 2003, 04:50 PM

03-12-2003 @ 02:13 PM
QED:
Its actually ~50%. The mother's identity isn't in doubt. And obviously, since common genes is not good evidence of common ancestry, this fellow is off the hook for child support.

You answered a different question than the one I asked. I asked how many genes were in the child that were not in the parents.

It is true (or at least statistically likely) that half of the alleles come from each parent, but no new genes are present, only a resorting of existing genetic material. This causes variation, but it is questionable whether this can generate new structures and organs, something which the extreme (or extrapolation without limit) view of evolution would require.

QED

March 12th 2003, 06:34 PM

03-12-2003 @ 08:50 PM
Socratism:

You answered a different question than the one I asked. I asked how many genes were in the child that were not in the parents.

It is true (or at least statistically likely) that half of the alleles come from each parent, but no new genes are present, only a resorting of existing genetic material. This causes variation, but it is questionable whether this can generate new structures and organs, something which the extreme (or extrapolation without limit) view of evolution would require.

I answered a different question than you were asking because it seemed you were answering a different question than Rufus Atticus asked.

To answer your question, it is likely that <1% of a child's alleles are different from either parent's somatic genome. It is mainly variation from a variety of mutations that contribute to the evolution of novelty. Recombination merely provides a vehicle for moving alleles through the gene pool.

Socratism

March 13th 2003, 10:01 AM

03-12-2003 @ 05:34 PM
QED:

I answered a different question than you were asking because it seemed you were answering a different question than Rufus Atticus asked.

To answer your question, it is likely that <1% of a child's alleles are different from either parent's somatic genome. It is mainly variation from a variety of mutations that contribute to the evolution of novelty. Recombination merely provides a vehicle for moving alleles through the gene pool.

Although your statement about recombination has been dogma for many years, recent research may overturn that belief.

http://www.criticalgenetics.org/paradigm_shift.htm

RufusAtticus

March 13th 2003, 11:48 AM

03-12-2003 @ 11:24 AM
SherBear:

I disagree, Rufus. Consider Picasso who painted a Blue Period, a Rose Period, and Cubism. Two paintings from the Blue have commonality, yet are different from two from the Cubism, which share commonality with each other. All, however, have a common "designer" in Picasso, and were "designed" for specific purposes in mind ... even if the purpose was just to please Picasso.

Let's run with that example. The four possibilities are
Similar design, common designer
Different design, different designer
Different design, common designer
Similar design, different designer

No matter which way you look at it, "similar design" arguments do not support monotheism.

RufusAtticus

March 13th 2003, 11:50 AM

03-12-2003 @ 01:06 PM
Socratism:
How many genes could you find in the child that were not present in either parent? Sounds like 100% similarity to me. ;)

How many genes could you find in a chimp that are not present in humans? Go ahead look at the genetic databases, you won't find any. Sounds like 100% similarity to me.

My point still stands. If genetic similarity only points to common designer and not common descent, then genetic paternity analysis is flawed. Same goes for other tests used in legal proceedings every day.

Socratism

March 13th 2003, 12:35 PM

03-13-2003 @ 10:50 AM
RufusAtticus:
How many genes could you find in a chimp that are not present in humans?

The genes in parents are passed to the offspring, which is why I asked how many child genes were not in the parent. I did not ask how many were not in the human race.

Go ahead look at the genetic databases, you won't find any. Sounds like 100% similarity to me.

If the chimp genes were 'identical" to the human genes you might have a better case. They are not identical. You simply assume that any differences are due to mutations occurring over vast ages. If that were the case then it would be strange that the mouse genome is even more similar to humans than the chimp genome, wouldn't it?

Actually, I would like to see your technical support for your claim that every human gene has a counterpart in the chimp. I assume you are bluffing unless you can prove otherwise.

My point still stands. If genetic similarity only points to common designer and not common descent, then genetic paternity analysis is flawed. Same goes for other tests used in legal proceedings every day.

I think you are simply waving your hand by comparing the two situations. There are multiple ways to make such comparisons, which only goes to prove the old adage that "figures don't lie but liars can figure". Present company excepted of course.

Stratnerd

March 13th 2003, 12:47 PM

If that were the case then it would be strange that the mouse genome is even more similar to humans than the chimp genome, wouldn't it? Socratism, please read up on this. I'm relatively sure that the mice-human figure represents shared genes (what was it - 97%) and the chimp-human figure (95% represents base by base similarity). Like I said before - different measures for different things. If you actually did a base by base comparison for humans and mice it should be < 95% and I bet chimp-human gene by gene similarity is at least 97%.

Socratism

March 13th 2003, 01:06 PM

03-13-2003 @ 11:47 AM
Stratnerd:

Socratism, please read up on this. I'm relatively sure that the mice-human figure represents shared genes (what was it - 97%) and the chimp-human figure (95% represents base by base similarity). Like I said before - different measures for different things. If you actually did a base by base comparison for humans and mice it should be < 95% and I bet chimp-human gene by gene similarity is at least 97%.

It sounds like you are guessing.

Rufus:

You probably do not have any idea how these comparison percentages are arrived at. Am I correct?

Do you want to stand pat on your claim that every human gene has a counterpart in the chimp?

We shall see.

Stratnerd

March 13th 2003, 01:19 PM

It sounds like you are guessing. Always! But I'm probably right this time...

The mouse genome is about 14 percent smaller than its human counterpart, but each species has about 30,000 genes — far fewer than estimates of just two years ago. A full 99 percent of a mouse's genes have counterparts in humans, including genes that cause mice to have tails.

From:
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/DailyNews/mousegenemap021204_wire.html

RufusAtticus

March 13th 2003, 01:59 PM

03-13-2003 @ 11:35 AM
Socratism:
If the chimp genes were 'identical" to the human genes you might have a better case.

Most of them are.

They are not identical.

This is a false statement. The majority of genes sequenced between humans and chimps are 100% identical.

You simply assume that any differences are due to mutations occurring over vast ages. If that were the case then it would be strange that the mouse genome is even more similar to humans than the chimp genome, wouldn't it?

The mouse genome is not more similar to humans than the chimp genome. Whoever told you that is either lying or sorely misrepresenting different distance measures. Take the following example of the hemoglobin beta gene. The Human and Chimp genes have 100% protein similarity. Humans and Mice are 80% similar.

CLUSTAL W (1.8) multiple sequence alignment

gi|122615|sp|P02023|HBB_HUMAN MVHLTPEEKSAVTALWGKVNVDEVGGEALGRLLVVYPWTQRFFESFGDLS
gi|7428621|pir||HBCZ MVHLTPEEKSAVTALWGKVNVDEVGGEALGRLLVVYPWTQRFFESFGDLS
gi|122513|sp|P02088|HBB1_MOUSE MVHLTDAEKAAVSCLWGKVNSDEVGGEALGRLLVVYPWTQRYFDSFGDLS
***** **:**:.****** ********************:*:******

gi|122615|sp|P02023|HBB_HUMAN TPDAVMGNPKVKAHGKKVLGAFSDGLAHLDNLKGTFATLSELHCDKLHVD
gi|7428621|pir||HBCZ TPDAVMGNPKVKAHGKKVLGAFSDGLAHLDNLKGTFATLSELHCDKLHVD
gi|122513|sp|P02088|HBB1_MOUSE SASAIMGNAKVKAHGKKVITAFNDGLNHLDSLKGTFASLSELHCDKLHVD
:..*:***.*********: **.*** ***.******:************

gi|122615|sp|P02023|HBB_HUMAN PENFRLLGNVLVCVLAHHFGKEFTPPVQAAYQKVVAGVANALAHKYH
gi|7428621|pir||HBCZ PENFRLLGNVLVCVLAHHFGKEFTPPVQAAYQKVVAGVANALAHKYH
gi|122513|sp|P02088|HBB1_MOUSE PENFRLLGNMIVIVLGHHLGKDFTPAAQAAFQKVVAGVATALAHKYH
*********::* **.**:**:***..***:********.*******

Actually, I would like to see your technical support for your claim that every human gene has a counterpart in the chimp. I assume you are bluffing unless you can prove otherwise.

Despite much searching, comparative genetics has yet to find any genes unique to our human lineage, but some studies have found unique genes shared between humans, chimps and gorillas.

I think you are simply waving your hand by comparing the two situations. There are multiple ways to make such comparisons, which only goes to prove the old adage that "figures don't lie but liars can figure". Present company excepted of course.

Nope the same genetic tests used to show that two humans are immediately related also show that humans and chimps are related.

You probably do not have any idea how these comparison percentages are arrived at. Am I correct?

LOL. Remember you're talking to a geneticist here.

Human and mice share 97% of their genes. That means that 97% of the genes found in mice have an orthologue in humans. That does not mean that the orthologues are identical. The HBB examples shows that although the human-chimp clade and mice share the HBB gene. They are only 80% similar.

Similarilly, Humans and chimps share 100% of their genes.

Humans and chimps are >98.5% similar when you measure nucleotide differences and discard indels. Humans and chimps are ~95% identical when you include some measure of divergence due to indels.

If you don't believe me, try looking at the genetics databases at http://www.ncbi.nih.gov.

Socratism

March 13th 2003, 03:52 PM

Rufus,

I stated that the mouse and human genes were not identical

You replied that this statement was false and offered as proof that "most of them were".

Then you warned me that I was talking to a geneticist.

That may be true but I also seem to be talking to someone who reasons illogically, since a single exception to the gene-to-gene comparison would mean that the chimp/human genes were not identical, which would make my statement true.

Socratism

March 13th 2003, 04:12 PM

Rufus,

I also noticed that you did not directly reply to my question:

Actually, I would like to see your technical support for your claim that every human gene has a counterpart in the chimp. I assume you are bluffing unless you can prove otherwise.

Did you actually mean to say that "every human gene has a counterpart in the chimp" without exception?

I would appreciate a yes or no answer instead of a comment that does not directly answer the question.

RufusAtticus

March 13th 2003, 06:01 PM

03-13-2003 @ 02:52 PM
Socratism:

I stated that the mouse and human genes were not identical.

You replied that this statement was false and offered as proof that "most of them were".

Perhaps you should reread your post, paying careful attention to exactly what I was responding to.

Then you warned me that I was talking to a geneticist.

That may be true but I also seem to be talking to someone who reasons illogically, since a single exception to the gene-to-gene comparison would mean that the chimp/human genes were not identical, which would make my statement true.

The fact is that you left it ambigous as to what chimp genes you were refering to. It was necessary to point out that the majority of genes are identical in both humans and chimps. I also pointed out that your claims about mice being more similar to humans than chimps were also false.

Did you actually mean to say that "every human gene has a counterpart in the chimp" without exception?

Reread my original comments to you and think about why I structured them as I did. So far every human gene studied has an orthologue in chimps. And that's a lot of genes. We won't know for sure that there is perfect orthology until the chimp genome is fully sequenced.

Socratism

March 13th 2003, 06:39 PM

Rufus,

So far every human gene studied has an orthologue in chimps. And that's a lot of genes.

I accept that the reason you did not answer yes or no is that you have backed away from using the word "identical" and are now merely claiming "equivalent", which is a term with a much broader meaning than "identical".

As an aside, how many is "a lot"?

RufusAtticus

March 13th 2003, 10:26 PM

03-13-2003 @ 05:39 PM
Socratism:

I accept that the reason you did not answer yes or no is that you have backed away from using the word "identical" and are now merely claiming "equivalent", which is a term with a much broader meaning than "identical".

Backed away? I suggest that you review my posts on this issue and pay careful attention as to when and where I have used the word "identical."

As an aside, how many is "a lot"?

Going on the NCBI database of Pan protein sequences, I'd guess ~1400 proteins. I'll see if I can did up any literature that has a more firm estimate.

RufusAtticus

March 13th 2003, 11:45 PM

http://webpages.charter.net/rufusatticus/YunisFig2.GIF

Curry

March 14th 2003, 06:57 AM

Socrates

March 15th 2003, 12:21 PM

Jimbo spruiks:Definition of evolution (from those talk.origins bozos

"Evolution is a change in the gene pool of a population over time. A gene is a hereditary unit that can be passed on unaltered for many generations. The gene pool is the set of all genes in a species or population."This occurs, is observed and is not in doubt. The conservative Christians who claim that evolution does not occur are simply wrong. Many if not most Christians understand that evolution is a fact. OK Jimbo, humor us all: what Christians can you name who deny "a change in the gene pool of a population over time"? I know of NONE. And I have yet to hear from people like you (or Italian Gold) why "a change in the gene pool of a population over time" contradicts the Biblical Creation/Fall model?

Of course, the TO morons are being either disengenuous or dishonest, because the sort of evolution they are defending is goo to you via the zoo. That's the evolution which conservative Christians object to. Jimbo should realize that deceitful equivocation (bait'n'switch) tactics won't work on the creationists here.

Jimbo continues:Here is the story of one Christian who accepts evolution:Another "useful idiot" for Jimbo to use to help to white-ant the Christian faith from within, and thus promote Jimbo's own atheistic faith. And of course, this craven churchian compromiser is defending goo-to-you evolution, not simply "a change in the gene pool of a population over time".

For goodness sake, if you want a story of a Christian who defends "evolution" defined as "a change in the gene pool of a population over time", I'll give you mine!! So big whoop.

Socrates

March 15th 2003, 12:31 PM

wehappyfew:
For Socratism:
You say that Ken Ham claims a global Flood would leave "trillions" of dead things. Would it surprise you find that he is wrong by a factor of about a million?I've only EVER heard or read Ken Ham say BILLIONS. So Mr Ham is not the one at fault here.

Socrates

March 15th 2003, 12:44 PM

Bubba arrogantly gloats:
Amazing how all of the creationists have gotten really quiet.Or else we had other less silly posts to deal with. As was said by one famous evolutionary plaeontologist "the skulls documenting human evolution are a creationists worst nightmare."Not that an electrician like Bubba would know (and if he supports Spong then I would question whether Bubba is a Christian at all, but Bubba's posts are confused on this). And a list from those talk origins bozos proves nothing.

In fact, a more careful analysis of the various traits by Wood, B. and Collard, M., The human genus, Science 284(5411):65–71, 1999 shows something very different. Their table shows the various specimens are neither transitional between australopith and hominin, and nor are they mosaics. Rather, Homo ergaster, Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis, and Homo neanderthalensis can best be understood as "racial" variants of modern man, while while H. habilis and H. rudolfensis were just types of australopithecines.

A Biblical creationist would regard them as all descended from Adam and Eve, and most likely arising after the separation of people groups after Babel. See The non-transitions in ‘human evolution’ ¯ on evolutionists’ terms (http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/tj/docs/tjv13n2_human_non-transitions.asp) http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/tj/docs/tjv13n2_human_non-transitions.asp

Socratism

March 15th 2003, 01:07 PM

Today @ 11:31 AM
Socrates:

wehappyfew:
For Socratism:
You say that Ken Ham claims a global Flood would leave "trillions" of dead things. Would it surprise you find that he is wrong by a factor of about a million?

I've only EVER heard or read Ken Ham say BILLIONS. So Mr Ham is not the one at fault here.

I plead guilty. I substituted "trillions" to satisfy the nitpickers, but that was apparently a lost cause. Of course neither Ham nor I stated how many billions/trillions.

Socratism

March 15th 2003, 01:24 PM

03-13-2003 @ 09:26 PM
RufusAtticus:

Backed away? I suggest that you review my posts on this issue and pay careful attention as to when and where I have used the word "identical."

Going on the NCBI database of Pan protein sequences, I'd guess ~1400 proteins. I'll see if I can did up any literature that has a more firm estimate.

While you are at it why not brush up on the difference between genes and proteins for you seem to be laboring under the old-fashioned concept that there is a one-to-one relationship between these two different things?

Socratism

March 15th 2003, 01:30 PM

Yesterday @ 05:57 AM
Curry:

Building materials are not subject to heritable mutations nor do they reproduce. And just how do we detect common design? Where is the testable hypothesis or evidence for Lord KRISHNA and his common design elements? Regardless, whether these elements reflect common design or common descent, it's evidence in isolation. However, when coupled with the other branches of the ToE, common descent fits the theory very well.

I think you need to bone up on the purpose of an analogy.

If I compared the eye to a camera would you object on the grounds that the eye doesn't involve the use of film?

BTW, it seems to be a common pattern in these discussions for an evolutionist in trouble with one argument to try to switch to another, frequently to a discussion of Genesis.

If you want to hear about the flaws in all the other fields of the ToE, go ahead and choose your poison (in a manner of speaking).

Socratism

March 15th 2003, 02:36 PM

03-13-2003 @ 10:45 PM
RufusAtticus:

http://webpages.charter.net/rufusatticus/YunisFig2.GIF

Wow. Rather stunning differences I would say. Sort of blows that "identical" thing out of the water, doesn't it?

RufusAtticus

March 16th 2003, 12:49 AM

Today @ 12:24 PM
Socratism:

While you are at it why not brush up on the difference between genes and proteins for you seem to be laboring under the old-fashioned concept that there is a one-to-one relationship between these two different things?

I never said otherwise. The reason to go by the number of Pan proteins deposited in the NCBI database is that those are the one's likely to be well charactarized and compared against human sequences. Trying doing some BLAST searches yourself, and look at the data that comes out.

Wow. Rather stunning differences I would say. Sort of blows that "identical" thing out of the water, doesn't it?

I never said human and chimp genomes were identical. Like I said, go back and reveiw when I used the term "identical" and pay close attention to context and the purpose of those statements.

Care to give a creationist interpretation of the chromosome homology?

RufusAtticus

March 16th 2003, 01:32 AM

Yesterday @ 11:44 AM
Socrates:

In fact, a more careful analysis of the various traits by Wood, B. and Collard, M., The human genus, Science 284(5411):65–71, 1999 shows something very different. Their table shows the various specimens are neither transitional between australopith and hominin, and nor are they mosaics. Rather, Homo ergaster, Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis, and Homo neanderthalensis can best be understood as "racial" variants of modern man, while while H. habilis and H. rudolfensis were just types of australopithecines.

Sorry, I've read that article and they come to no such conclusion. Whoever told you that they did lied to you.

Socratism

March 16th 2003, 09:33 AM

Care to give a creationist interpretation of the chromosome homology?

It's design "all the way down".

Science marches on and as it does prior evolutionary fantasies are left in the dust in favor of new ones that will in turn eventually also be discarded in favor of the latest "new thing"..

That is what a study of the evolutionary movement and its history consistently shows.

Socrates

March 16th 2003, 11:49 AM

Socrates:

In fact, a more careful analysis of the various traits by Wood, B. and Collard, M., The human genus, Science 284(5411):65–71, 1999 shows something very different. Their table shows the various specimens are neither transitional between australopith and hominin, and nor are they mosaics. Rather, Homo ergaster, Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis, and Homo neanderthalensis can best be understood as "racial" variants of modern man, while while H. habilis and H. rudolfensis were just types of australopithecines.
RufusAtticus:Sorry, I've read that article and they come to no such conclusion. Whoever told you that they did lied to you.Sorry yourself. I've read the paper too. They didn't have to come to that conclusion explicitly. It follows logically from their table.

RufusAtticus

March 16th 2003, 12:28 PM

Today @ 08:33 AM
Socratism:

It's design "all the way down".

Then tell me how design involves a chromosome fusion?

Science marches on and as it does prior evolutionary fantasies are left in the dust in favor of new ones that will in turn eventually also be discarded in favor of the latest "new thing"..

Apparently you missed the day in science history class when they covered how special creation was disproved in the late 1800s. Science marches on indeed.

Sorry yourself. I've read the paper too. They didn't have to come to that conclusion explicitly. It follows logically from their table.

Which table, they have seven?

RufusAtticus

March 17th 2003, 03:09 PM

Yesterday @ 10:49 AM
Socrates:

Sorry yourself. I've read the paper too. They didn't have to come to that conclusion explicitly. It follows logically from their table.

Which table? They have seven.

HemofHisGarment

March 28th 2003, 11:32 PM

Take a look at the book _in six days_ it highlights thoughts of 50 PhD's ranging from mechanical engineers to agricultural scientists who "understand evolution & still advocate a literal 6-day creation"....I just started reading it myself. Anyway, the thread is mildly interesting:tongue:

RufusAtticus

March 29th 2003, 01:28 AM

Yesterday @ 10:32 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=47474#post47474)
HemofHisGarment:

Take a look at the book _in six days_ it highlights thoughts of 50 PhD's ranging from mechanical engineers to agricultural scientists who "understand evolution & still advocate a literal 6-day creation"....I just started reading it myself. Anyway, the thread is mildly interesting:tongue:

Mechanical engineers? Agricultural scientists? LOL Got any population biologists? Sure anybody can claim to "understand evolution," but by their fruits we shall know them. What arguments do they offer why 6-day creation is true? Anything that revolves around positive evidence, or are they all theological in nature?

A Review of In Six Days (http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/cg_in_six_days.htm)

QED

March 30th 2003, 12:57 PM

03-17-2003 @ 07:09 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=38079#post38079)
RufusAtticus:

Which table? They have seven.

Would like to see this answered.

HemofHisGarment

March 30th 2003, 04:12 PM

03-28-2003 @ 11:28 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=47575#post47575)
RufusAtticus:

Mechanical engineers? Agricultural scientists? LOL Got any population biologists? Sure anybody can claim to "understand evolution," but by their fruits we shall know them. What arguments do they offer why 6-day creation is true? Anything that revolves around positive evidence, or are they all theological in nature?

A Review of In Six Days (http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/cg_in_six_days.htm)

You may want to actually READ the book...

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=2VYGKC6MBP&isbn=0890513414&itm=2

Socratism

March 30th 2003, 04:43 PM

With regard to the claim often heard that nobody but the experts can "understand evolution", there was a similar claim by the Church of the Middle Ages that scripture could only be interpreted by the "High Priests", which resulted in the edict that the death penalty would be used on any ordinary Christian who dared to own a Bible.

One should be suspicious of a theory that "can not be understood" by PhDs in fields other than those dealing in Origins.

If no one but the high priests can understand it perhaps it is because it doesn't ready make any logical sense.

Actually it makes sense at a superficial level only if you don't bother to look at it critically. Thus, the urgent attempts to suppress contrary evidence in the state supported schools and institutions.

We even have threads here claiming that failure to accept the theory is tantamont to "being insane" or otherwise "mentally deficient".

We currently talk about how the Iraqis are so desperate they turn to terrorist tactics. Are the evolutionists so equally desperate as to label opponents "insane"?

tgamble

March 30th 2003, 07:02 PM

Today @ 08:43 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=48667#post48667)
Socratism:

With regard to the claim often heard that nobody but the experts can "understand evolution", there was a similar claim by the Church of the Middle Ages that scripture could only be interpreted by the "High Priests", which resulted in the edict that the death penalty would be used on any ordinary Christian who dared to own a Bible.

Reminds of the creationists who think their interpretation is the only valid one.

One should be suspicious of a theory that "can not be understood" by PhDs in fields other than those dealing in Origins.

Nobody claims that. Lots of people with non live sciences Phds (or even without any degree at all) understand evolution.

It's just that none of em are creationists.

Actually it makes sense at a superficial level only if you don't bother to look at it critically. Thus, the urgent attempts to suppress contrary evidence in the state supported schools and institutions.

Not that any contrary evidence actually exists of course! Nope, just trying to keep religion from being taught in science classrooms and stop creationists from lying to students!

We even have threads here claiming that failure to accept the theory is tantamont to "being insane" or otherwise "mentally deficient".

A view you do nothing to prove wrong!

We currently talk about how the Iraqis are so desperate they turn to terrorist tactics. Are the evolutionists so equally desperate as to label opponents "insane"?

Are you so desperate that all you can do is hurl strawman arguments, use lies, distortions etc. never producing any evidence to support your myths? Obviously!

QED

March 30th 2003, 09:26 PM

Actually it makes sense at a superficial level only if you don't bother to look at it critically. Thus, the urgent attempts to suppress contrary evidence in the state supported schools and institutions.

There is no such thing. Creationism and ID are not merely collections of "contrary evidence". They have zero evidence that actually contradicts an old earth or evolution, past a surface examination. They have a very few, often questionable, pieces of evidence that could, taken alone, lend credence to a young earth, or detract from this or that single mechanism of evolution. They tend not to be the sort of "evidence" focused on in primary, secondary, and undergraduate classes - where only the broad strokes, and not the specific papers and data are analyzed. If we are to have high school students learning the evidence that seems to contradict the theory that birds are descended from dinosaurs (http://answersingenesis.org/docs/1357.asp), should we not also include the abundant evidence that birds are, indeed, descended from dinosaurs (http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/avians.html), meanwhile pointing out that the evidence against dino-bird is weak (http://www.msnbc.com/news/240332.asp)?

How much of a school year will you give to chasing the wild geese on AiG, and when will the students memorize the Krebs cycle, learn the difference between a ribosome and a cytoplast, culture bacteria, and look at them through a microscope, learning about gram-positive and gram-negative?

If the contrary evidence is suppressed in scientific institutions, then why why do we even know about Feduccia's research on ostrich eggs, or research from Gould & Eldredge showing a trend of species level stasis in the fossil record?

More importantly, if the contrary evidence is suppressed in scientific instutions, why can not one single soul produce a paper they have submited for review that details some of this evidence and was rejected for publication without proper cause? Surely between Morris, Ham, Gish, Safarti, Humphreys and the rest at least one of them has submitted a paper detailing evidence contrary to some accepted view of evolution, paleontology, or geology and had it rejected improperly. Why not let the world see it, and let us see the reviewers' comments, giving their reasons not to approve it for publication? That shouldn't be difficult, but the only thing produced so far have been letters to the editor. And not many of them.

Woman

March 31st 2003, 01:25 AM

Socratism:

With regard to the claim often heard that nobody but the experts can "understand evolution", there was a similar claim by the Church of the Middle Ages that scripture could only be interpreted by the "High Priests", which resulted in the edict that the death penalty would be used on any ordinary Christian who dared to own a Bible.

Just goes to show that there is a long history of the church trying to keep people ignorant. And your mentor, Socrates, does indeed believe that one must be highly educated AND have more than a nodding acquaintance with ancient Hebrew and Greek!

One should be suspicious of a theory that "can not be understood" by PhDs in fields other than those dealing in Origins.

As one should be suspicious of beliefs that cannot be understood by those without special history, theology, exegesis and language training.

If no one but the high priests can understand it perhaps it is because it doesn't ready make any logical sense.
You said it, not me.

Actually it makes sense at a superficial level only if you don't bother to look at it critically.

Actually it makes sense only if.....keep going

Thus, the urgent attempts to suppress contrary evidence in the state supported schools and institutions.

Thus, the urgent attempts to suppress contrary evidence of science, archeology, etc.

We even have threads here claiming that failure to accept the theory is tantamont to "being insane" or otherwise "mentally deficient".
We even have threads here claiming that failure to accept fundamentalist beliefs is tantamont to "being idiots" or otherwise mentally deficient."

We currently talk about how the Iraqis are so desperate they turn to terrorist tactics. Are the evolutionists so equally desperate as to label opponents "insane"?
We currently talk about how the Iraqis are so desperate they turn to terroist tactics. Are the Right to Lifers so equally desperate that they do the same thing?

Wanna borrow my mote/plank/beam remover?

:brow:

Socrates

March 31st 2003, 02:22 AM

QED:More importantly, if the contrary evidence is suppressed in scientific instutions, why can not one single soul produce a paper they have submited for review that details some of this evidence and was rejected for publication without proper cause? Surely between Morris, Ham, Gish, Safarti, Humphreys and the rest at least one of them has submitted a paper detailing evidence contrary to some accepted view of evolution, paleontology, or geology and had it rejected improperly. Why not let the world see it, and let us see the reviewers' comments, giving their reasons not to approve it for publication? That shouldn't be difficult, but the only thing produced so far have been letters to the editor. And not many of them.Gentry DID produce evidence under oath of PAPERS rejected because of an overt creationist implication, then published in other journals with with the creationist implications removed. Other creationists HAVE published papers on material with strong creationist implications, but they carefully hid them, as shown at www.answersingenesis.org/docs/538.asp

And if the journals have made it clear that they won't even devote space to creationists' normal right of reply, then why should we expect that they would devote space to a whole paper.

As AiG has shown at www.answersingenesis.org/docs2001/0406news.asp, there is little point wasting time with the establishment journals, so they publish in their own refereed scientific journals. QED is just trying to make excuses not to deal with the strong evidence provided.

Socrates

March 31st 2003, 02:37 AM

Socratism:

With regard to the claim often heard that nobody but the experts can "understand evolution", there was a similar claim by the Church of the Middle Ages that scripture could only be interpreted by the "High Priests", which resulted in the edict that the death penalty would be used on any ordinary Christian who dared to own a Bible.

Woman:
Just goes to show that there is a long history of the church trying to keep people ignorant. And your mentor, Socrates, does indeed believe that one must be highly educated AND have more than a nodding acquaintance with ancient Hebrew and Greek!Not to understand the basics of Christianity or "milk". But certainly, to understand some of the "meat", e.g. the challenge-riposte paradigm. And what people like JPH and I are doing is the OPPOSITE of what Socratism chided in the medieval Church, i.e. we are trying to MAKE this accessible to the public.

Socratism:

One should be suspicious of a theory that "can not be understood" by PhDs in fields other than those dealing in Origins.

How true. Yet evolutionists FREQUENTLY venture outside their own fields to attack Biblical Creation!

Woman:
As one should be suspicious of beliefs that cannot be understood by those without special history, theology, exegesis and language training.And this means that most bibliosceptics are totally unqualified to be attacking the Bible.
[list]Thus, the urgent attempts to suppress contrary evidence of science, archeology, etc.WHAT attempts? Creationist organisations do NOT dispute ANY of the OBSERVATIONS. Rather, we show how they can be better INTERPRETED.We even have threads here claiming that failure to accept fundamentalist beliefs is tantamont to "being idiots" or otherwise mentally deficient." More likely, creationists pointed out that ATHEISTS regars Christian compromisers as "useful idiots". And creationists have NEVER resorted to the vile abuse that evolutionists have hurled in print, e.g. accusations of pedophilia (Plimer), religionists should be locked in cages (Dennett), religious education as mental child abuse (Dawkins), "yahoos" (from Gould -- think Gulliver's Travels).[list]We currently talk about how the Iraqis are so desperate they turn to terroist tactics. Are the Right to Lifers so equally desperate that they do the same thing?Let's have some documentation here. The number of abortionists killed could be counted on your fingers, and the mainstream right-to-life organisations DENOUNCE such killings. And this is over 30 years of this silent holocaust against the unborn that's produced a death toll dwarfing all the wars put together.

AtheistArchon

March 31st 2003, 02:42 AM

As AiG has shown at www.answersingenesis.org/docs2001/0406news.asp, there is little point wasting time with the establishment journals, so they publish in their own refereed scientific journals. QED is just trying to make excuses not to deal with the strong evidence provided.

- Nonsense. Homeopathy believers will also run into very little resistance if they publish only within homeopathic circles.

- I'm really stunned as to why creationists would even bother with science anyway. I mean, creation certainly isn't scientific. Why bother? Is the goal to measure god or something? There's a good reason why creationists get frozen out of genuine scientific journals, and it's the same reason why homeopathy gets frozen our of genuine scientific journals. It ain't science.

- Those who complain that the mainstream scientific channels are "inadequate" or "prejudiced" against their hypotheses are usually the ones James Randi offers a cool million dollars to if they can demonstrate it under controlled conditions. Thus, they form their own little version of "science"... one that happens to allow them to get away with unscientific premises and methods.

- Lastly, as for "strong evidence provided"... I'd love to see it. I read AiG every day, and I've yet to see anything which counts as empirical evidence for creationism of any kind. The vast majority of AiG (and ICR) articles focus on attacking singular evolutionary examples, claiming that these "disproven" examples squash all of evolutionary theory, and then claiming that creationism is the only other alternative. Either that, or just making statements like "Evolution is silly!".

- Yeah. Publish in creationist journals. That'll show those mean old scientists.

Socrates

March 31st 2003, 02:45 AM

Roger Lewin (Bones of Contention: Controversies in the Search for Human Origins, p.68):

It is in fact a common fantasy, promulgated mostly by the scientific profession itself, that in the search for objective truth, data dictate conclusions. Data are just as often molded to fit preferred conclusions."

Boyce Rensberger (How the World Works, pp. 17-18)

At this point, it is necessary to reveal a little inside information about how scientists work, something the textbooks don’t usually tell you. The fact is that scientists are not really as objective and dispassionate in their work as they would like you to think. Most scientists first get their ideas about how the world works not through rigorously logical processes but through hunches and wild guesses. As individuals they often come to believe something to be true long before they assemble the hard evidence that will convince somebody else that it is. Motivated by faith in his own ideas and a desire for acceptance by his peers, a scientist will labor for years knowing in his heart that his theory is correct but devising experiment after experiment whose results he hopes will support his position.

RufusAtticus

March 31st 2003, 11:11 AM

Yesterday @ 03:12 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=48642#post48642)
HemofHisGarment:

You may want to actually READ the book...

Since you happen to have a copy near you, can't you answer my simple questions about it?

RufusAtticus

March 31st 2003, 11:14 AM

Yesterday @ 03:43 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=48667#post48667)
Socratism:

With regard to the claim often heard that nobody but the experts can "understand evolution", there was a similar claim by the Church of the Middle Ages that scripture could only be interpreted by the "High Priests", which resulted in the edict that the death penalty would be used on any ordinary Christian who dared to own a Bible.

This is relevant how?

One should be suspicious of a theory that "can not be understood" by PhDs in fields other than those dealing in Origins.

Plenty of people in non-biological fields understand evolution, it's just that none of them are creationists.

Actually it makes sense at a superficial level only if you don't bother to look at it critically. Thus, the urgent attempts to suppress contrary evidence in the state supported schools and institutions.

What contrary evidence? You've been asked point blank to provide such evidence in past threads but have been unable to do so. Why then do you keep up this farce?

RufusAtticus

March 31st 2003, 11:48 AM

Yesterday @ 11:57 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=48533#post48533)
QED:

Would like to see this answered.

Don't hold your breath. I suspect that Socrates has never even read the article but read some creationists site that refered to it, otherwise he wouldn't need to refer to their data genericly or need to assert that "their table [sic]" supports his argument without actually discussing "their table [sic]."

tgamble

March 31st 2003, 12:45 PM

Gentry DID produce evidence under oath of PAPERS rejected because of an overt creationist implication, then published in other journals with with the creationist implications removed.

So what? Science journals want to keep religious implications out. They have no place in science. DUH!

As AiG has shown at www.answersingenesis.org/docs2001/0406news.asp, <http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2001/0406news.asp,> there is little point wasting time with the establishment journals, so they publish in their own refereed scientific journals.

Yeah, where they don't have to worry about annoying standards like honesty and producing evidence!

They whine about censorship and at the same time, claim that they are NOT censored and creationists like Gentry DO get published!

What a pathetic joke!

WHAT attempts? Creationist organisations do NOT dispute ANY of the OBSERVATIONS. Rather, we show how they can be better INTERPRETED.

Actually, you don't. The creationist interpretation was rejected because it was wrong, because it could NOT explain the observations and geologic (or biological) data.

Instead, you take a myth and pretend it's the truth and filter all data through assumptions and don't give a damn about accuracy or honesty.

Creationism is the antithesis to science or any form of honest intellectual inquiry.

TheFiveSolas

March 31st 2003, 05:26 PM

QED & RufusAtticus,

Here is the chart that Socrates must be referring to.

It can be found in the following article by Dr's Bernard Wood and Mark Collard:

"The Changing Face of Genus Homo", Evolutionary Anthropology, 8(6), pg. 203, 1999.

And a somewhat similar one can be found in:

"The Human Genus", Science, vol. 284, pg. 70, April 2, 1999.

NOTE: Of all the traits studied, all except one fall into either Human or Australopithecus. The one exception is the brain size of Homo Erectus which is the only one indicated as being "Intermediate".

RufusAtticus

March 31st 2003, 07:23 PM

So the answer is "Table 7."

Of all the traits studied, all except one fall into either Human or Australopithecus.

Of course they do since Wood and Collard are trying to determine if fossils should be included in the genus Homo (human-like) or not (Australopithecus-like). Nothing is in the paper about racial variants as Socrates claimed, nor is that argument even supported in their data. Their table 6 clearly shows the transition.
http://webpages.charter.net/rufusatticus/WoodCollardT6.GIF.
Notice how the fossil species get closer and closer to Homo sapiens as they become more recent.

For everyone's edification, here is the conclusion from the Science paper.

We suggest that a fossil species should be included in Homo only if it can be demonstrated that it (i) is more closely related to H. sapiens than it is to the australopiths, (ii) has
an estimated body mass that is more similar to that of H. sapiens than to that of the australopiths, (iii) has reconstructed body proportions that match those of H. sapiens more closely than those of the australopiths, (iv) has a postcranial skeleton whose functional morphology is consistent with modern human–like obligate bipedalism and limited facility for climbing, (v) is equipped with teeth and jaws that are more similar in terms of relative size to those of modern humans than to those of the australopiths, and (vi) shows evidence for a modern human–like extended period of growth and development. The adoption of these criteria would mean that Homo would have both phylogenetic and adaptive significance. Researchers can then explore whether this adaptive shift in hominin evolution corresponds with changes in climate, analogous evolutionary changes in other large mammal groups (46), particular innovations in the hominin cultural record (47), substantial expansions in geographic range, or changes in ecological tolerance, as reflected in reconstructions of hominin habitats (48).

TheFiveSolas

March 31st 2003, 08:02 PM

RufusAtticus wrote:

Notice how the fossil species get closer and closer to Homo sapiens as they become more recent.

No, I don't. The chart you gave doesn't show a progression, based on a timescale, between our alleged ancestors and modern humans. Rather, as it indicates it shows the "normalized euclidian distances" between the various species listed.

The following progression chart (Figure 2 of "The Changing Face of Genus Homo") shows the assumed temporal progression. In addition, many of the species listed in the chart you pasted lived contemporaneously with each other, making progression impossible.

Saxonella

March 31st 2003, 08:16 PM

Today @ 11:23 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=49758#post49758)
RufusAtticus:

So the answer is "Table 7."

Of course they do since Wood and Collard are trying to determine if fossils should be included in the genus Homo (human-like) or not (Australopithecus-like). Nothing is in the paper about racial variants as Socrates claimed, nor is that argument even supported in their data. Their table 6 clearly shows the transition.
http://webpages.charter.net/rufusatticus/WoodCollardT6.GIF.
Notice how the fossil species get closer and closer to Homo sapiens as they become more recent.

Exactly. The paper(s) was/were not about phylogeny, but taxonomy (there is yet another paper on the same theme:

Collard M & Wood B. 1999. Grades among the African early hominids. In T. Bromage & F. Schrenk (eds), African Biogeography, Climate Change, & Human Evolution. New York:Oxford University Press, pp.316-327.

Hey--if you have a concept that works, why not run with it?

:smile: )

On a personal note: I disagree with them. Given that modern efforts at classification generally aim at reproducing evolutionary relationships, I don't think grade-based taxonomic systems are particularly useful--although I do understand why they are suggesting it. However, Australopithecine taxonomy is already very messy and almost certainly paraphyletic, and tossing some confusing fossils into the genus doesn't make things any better.

And Socrates should note (since he seems to be a stickler for suchlike minutiae) that australopithecines *are* hominins.

It should be noted, however, that according to recent research, Homo erectus/ergaster apparently did not have a human-like life history pattern, but one more like Australos. Which adds an interesting complication to the creationist "either/or" argument....

see:

Dean et al. 2001. Growth processes in teeth distinguish modern humans from Homo erectus and earlier hominins. Nature 414:628-631.

QED

March 31st 2003, 08:23 PM

[i]Yesterday @ 06:22 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=49099#post49099)
Me, previously: Why not let the world see it, and let us see the reviewers' comments, giving their reasons not to approve it for publication? That shouldn't be difficult, but the only thing produced so far have been letters to the editor. And not many of them.

Socrates: Gentry DID produce evidence under oath of PAPERS rejected because of an overt creationist implication, then published in other journals with with the creationist implications removed. Other creationists HAVE published papers on material with strong creationist implications, but they carefully hid them, as shown at www.answersingenesis.org/docs/538.asp

<Stares in wide-eyed disbelief>
Where do I start? The fact that the link you gave us supports the "no censorship" hypothesis better than the "censorship" hypothesis?

The fact that you (and Gentry, AiG, & the rest) do not know what reviewers' comments are, or how to demonstrate censorship by showing a single actual paper that has been rejected without due cause???

No. I will start small. I will simply ask that you give a reference to back up your biggest and boldest claim: that Gentry produced evidence under oath of improperly rejected papers. Besides a reference to the case, and the court in which it was decided, I would be interested to know what evidence he gave.

A "creationist conclusion" as you put it, must either be too vague to be meaningful, must report error on some very minor point in evolution, or must be unwarranted by the data. There is not data enough to draw a real "creationist conclusion" (i.e. there is not data enough in a single paper to conclude a young earth, since the overwhelming preponderance of the data rule out a young earth.) So yes, reviewers are most likely right to strike unwarranted or vague conclusions and leave only those that address minor points. Reviewers apply a similarly strict standard to non-creationists works, and will not approve conclusions that are contentious and not warranted by the data.

I quote from this thread (http://www.christianforums.com/threads/36208.html) from another board, where a publishing scientist tells us something about peer review and gives good ideas why we don't see the rejection papers from your supposed "victims" of "censorship" (emphasis added by me):

One concern about creationists is that they do not publish in the peer-reviewed literature. A while back Jerry asked me for one of my rejection notices for one of my papers. Remember, practically no scientific paper is accepted the first time thru. Of my 50 publications, 2 have made it thru on the first try and that is a high rate.

The paper was originally entitled "A population of cells resident within embryonic and newborn rat skeletal muscleis capable of differentiating into fat, skeletal muscle, cartilage, and bone" submitted to the journal Wound Repair and Regeneration in 1994.

Reviewer #1: "The premise and promise of the studies reported in this manuscript are extremely interesting as are the implications for repair and regeneration. However, the data presented in this manuscript fail to demonstrate that the diverse phenotypes displayed arise from a single pluripotential stem cell population as the authors claim. In addition, the circumstances under which the diverse phenotypes emerge are not physiological. Accordingly, the conclusions of this communication appear to be premature and are not adequately supported by the data presented. Furthermore, the methods used in this study do not allow the conclusions drawn to be reached unambiguously. ... A single agent (dexamethasone) appears to be the sole inducer for all phenotypes displayed. The authors specifically underscore the ability of dexamethasone to stimulate expression of these same phenotypes in embryonic (not applicable to this study) and lineage committed cells (p. 13, paragraph 3, lines 1-3). Thus, it is unclear why the authors immediately conclude that the "most likely possibility is that dexamethasone is non-specifically stimulating ... differentiation" (lines 5-7 of the same paragraph) of these diverse phenotypes from a single pluripotent mesenchymal stem cell and summarily reject alternative explanations."

Look how specific that is. The reviewer cites the exact portion of the paper he has trouble with. There were other objections by reviewer #1 but another indication of just how specific reviewers can get is seen here:
"(4) Attention to detail:
(a) at 19 days gestation, the rat conceptus is a fetus, it has not been an embryo for several days (this should be corrected throughout);

Reviewer #2
"This is a straightforward report of an experiment that demonstrates the formation of multiple cell types from a population of mesenchymal cells isolated from muscle tissue of the late fetal and newborn rats. Except for the conclusion regarding bone formation, where the evidence is not unequivocal, I have no problems with the data obtained. My chief difficulty with this manuscript is the author's use of the term "stem cells". Despite their having demonstrated that in avian tissue, I don't feel they should use the term until they have demonstrated the phenonmenon on clonal cultures. If, however, they refer to a population of cells with the ability to differentiate into multiple phenotypes, I have no problem."

This reviewer had far fewer problems than Reviewer #1, which is why there are at least 2 reviewers.

The paper rejected in this form. The letter from the editor read:
"Thank you for the opportunity to reveiw your manuscript. Unfortunately, I must inform you that we will not be able to publish the manuscript as currently submitted. ... If you feel you can adequately address these concerns, then I would be willing to accept a revised manuscript for re-review."

That is exactly what we did. I argued against some of the comments from reviewer #1 as being incorrect, specifically his concern that the differentiation was not accoimplished using physiological means. I pointed out that we were interested in the differentiation potential of the cells, not how it actually happens in vivo. That was for later studies.

My letter read "We are re-submitting the manuscript originally entitled ... Since the original submission, we have done additional work which has caused us to alter the title to "A population of cells resident within embryonic and newborn rat skeletal muscle is capable of differentiating into multiple mesodermal phenotypes". Specific replies to the original reviewers are attached. "

The resubmission was accepted and was published as:
Lucas, P.A., Calcutt, A.F., Southerland, S.S., Wilson, A., Harvey,R. Warejcka, D., and Young, H.E. A population of cells resident within embryonic and newborn rat skeletal muscleis capable of differentiating into multiple mesodermal phenotypes. Wound Repair and Regeneration, 3:449-460, 1995.

This is how it works. When creationists claim that there is a conspiracy to reject their work, we quite rightly want to see the rejection letters and reviewers' comments.

BTW, the title was changed because we had two new phenotypes: smooth muscle cells and endothelial cells. We also had a new way to identify the bone nodules.

And if the journals have made it clear that they won't even devote space to creationists' normal right of reply, then why should we expect that they would devote space to a whole paper.

Because a paper might actually contain some data - which is what science journals are in the business of publishing?

As AiG has shown at www.answersingenesis.org/docs2001/0406news.asp, there is little point wasting time with the establishment journals, so they publish in their own refereed scientific journals. QED is just trying to make excuses not to deal with the strong evidence provided.

Of course. If your work lacks the necessary methodology to make it with the big boys, just set up your own shop with lower standards. I bet UFOlogists do it too.

But really, why should I have to explain all this to you? You claim to be a scientist. You should already know what peer review is about, and why just claiming that Gentry had some papers with "creationist conclusions" rejected is nothing more than tilting windmills for an audience you hope doesn't know the difference.

QED

March 31st 2003, 08:30 PM

Today @ 12:02 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=49779#post49779)
TheFiveSolas:

No, I don't. The chart you gave doesn't show a progression, based on a timescale, between our alleged ancestors and modern humans. Rather, as it indicates it shows the "normalized euclidian distances" between the various species listed.

And if you know the time frames these fossil species existed in, then you will be aware that these normalized euclidian distances show a chronological progression.

The following progression chart (Figure 2 of "The Changing Face of Genus Homo") shows the assumed temporal progression. In addition, many of the species listed in the chart you pasted lived contemporaneously with each other, making progression impossible.

I have two grandparents living. Both of my parents are living. I only have stepsons, but my sisters have five biological children between them, all living contemporaneously with my sisters, my parents, and my grandparents. This in humans, where the range of life span is relatively narrow - not in entire species or genera where it is quite simple for an ancestral species to survive long after a descendent species has become extinct. Now, would you say that a progression from my grandparents, to my parents, to my sisters, to their children is impossible - since all of them are living contemporaneously?

Saxonella

March 31st 2003, 08:39 PM

No, no, no! I'm afraid you are badly mistaken. What you have reproduced is a consensus cladogram, and by definition cladograms have no temporal dimension. They show ONLY sister-group relationships, and it is completely invalid to infer any temporal sequence OR ancestor-descendant relationships from a cladogram. You will certainly find no such statements in the articles themselves. This is lesson #1 in Cladistics 101.

Your comments on "progression" are likewise confusing. Two or more taxa existing at the same time does not rule out one being ancestral to another. And of course, the chart Rufus reproduced was not *intended*, by either Rufus or Collard & Wood, to show "progression". That is because both Rufus and Collard & Wood understand that "transitional" (setting aside, for the moment, the fact that the Collard & Wood papers have nothing to do with the topic of "transitions") in an evolutionary context has nothing to do with "progression". That association seems to be one that creationists only are stuck on. I do not know why they do not get up to speed on current evolutionary thought.

Today @ 12:02 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=49779#post49779)
TheFiveSolas:

RufusAtticus wrote:

No, I don't. The chart you gave doesn't show a progression, based on a timescale, between our alleged ancestors and modern humans. Rather, as it indicates it shows the "normalized euclidian distances" between the various species listed.

(cladogram clipped)

TheFiveSolas

March 31st 2003, 08:41 PM

RufusAtticus,

In addition, the following chart, found in "The Human Genus" article shows the opposite of your assertion.

Note how the various traits show no progression at all.

Woman

March 31st 2003, 08:50 PM

Socrates:

And creationists have NEVER resorted to the vile abuse that evolutionists have hurled in print, e.g. accusations of pedophilia.

Oh Soc, your memory can’t be that short. I know mine isn’t. I heard you hurl the self same accusation.

Roger Lewin:

It is in fact a common fantasy, promulgated mostly by the scientific profession itself, that in the search for objective truth, data dictate conclusions. Data are just as often molded to fit preferred conclusions.

However, you have admitted that regardless of the data presented, creationists will ALWAYS find a, what do you call it...BETTER way to interpret it which is in line with the only conclusion they can entertain.

Woman

March 31st 2003, 08:56 PM

Saxonella:

And Socrates should note (since he seems to be a stickler for suchlike minutiae) that australopithecines *are* hominins.

Holy Moly Sax....Are you gonna try to tell Soc that autralopithecine is his cousin???? :eek:

Prepare to be denounced soundly. :bonk:

TheFiveSolas

March 31st 2003, 09:08 PM

Saxonella wrote:

No, no, no! I'm afraid you are badly mistaken. What you have reproduced is a consensus cladogram, and by definition cladograms have no temporal dimension. They show ONLY sister-group relationships, and it is completely invalid to infer any temporal sequence OR ancestor-descendant relationships from a cladogram...This is lesson #1 in Cladistics 101.

It's possible that I'm mistaken about what a cladogram is attempting to illustrate. However, it seems that the following definitions of "Cladistics" support my original assertion.

Cladistics
As we have seen, phylogeny is the evolutionary relationships among organisms. The patterns of lineage branching produced by the true evolutionary history of the organisms being considered comprise a hierarchy, for which the common metaphor is a tree. We often hear reference to a family tree, or even a branch of a family tree, in our daily lives.

A branch on such a tree is defined by context: we may be referring to a single twig which has no dependent parts, or to quite a large branch which has many smaller branchlets or twigs depending from it. In either case, such a branch is called a “clade”.

“Cladistics” is the word we give to the study of clades, and it is not substantively different from phylogenetics - the study of phylogeny. If there is any useful difference at all, it is a matter of emphasis: whether upon lineages (cladistics) or relationships (phylogenetics).

Taken from:
http://www.peripatus.gen.nz/Biology/defSystematics.html

Doesn't an "emphasis...upon lineages (cladistics)" involve a temporal progression? Isn't that what the term "lineage" refers to?

Or how about this:

What assumptions do cladists make?
There are three basic assumptions in cladistics:
1. Any group of organisms are related by descent from a common ancestor.
2. There is a bifurcating pattern of cladogenesis.
3. Change in characteristics occurs in lineages over time.

...The final assumption, that characteristics of organisms change over time, is the most important assumption in cladistics. It is only when characteristics change that we are able to recognize different lineages or groups. The convention is to call the "original" state of the characteristic plesiomorphic and the "changed" state apomorphic.

Taken from:
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/clad/clad1.html

Here again we find a reference to lineage and morphological changes over time.

Saxonella

March 31st 2003, 09:11 PM

Well, actually, paleoanthropologists do not expect to see individual traits "progress", either. Many traits are part of functional groups, and/or they reflect adaptation by the species they belong to. These adaptations will differ depending upon the different environments the species were adapted to.

In that light, once again you appear to be misinterpreting the purpose of the table. The authors are interested specifically in function and adaptation, and not "progression" or ancestry, and the traits in the table are *only* those of a specific functional complex (i.e. jaw and tooth dimensions related to mastication--orbital area is used to remove the effects of size). It is completely erroneous to draw any inferences about ancestry or "progression" from this table, because the authors' aim is to try and group species based on adaptation, not ancestry.

Today @ 12:41 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=49821#post49821)
TheFiveSolas:

RufusAtticus,

In addition, the following chart, found in "The Human Genus" article shows the opposite of your assertion.

Note how the various traits show no progression at all.

Saxonella

March 31st 2003, 09:14 PM

:rofl:

Heh...yeah, well, we all have relatives we don't like to acknowledge....

Today @ 12:56 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=49828#post49828)
Woman:

Saxonella:

Holy Moly Sax....Are you gonna try to tell Soc that autralopithecine is his cousin???? :eek:

Prepare to be denounced soundly. :bonk:

TheFiveSolas

March 31st 2003, 09:29 PM

Saxonella wrote:

Well, actually, paleoanthropologists do not expect to see individual traits "progress", either.

and

In that light, once again you appear to be misinterpreting the purpose of the table.

Please note that I wasn't the one "interpreting" the table this way. I was responding to the assertions of others in this thread who were.

This is what I was responding to:

RufusAtticus:
Notice how the fossil species get closer and closer to Homo sapiens as they become more recent.

The terms "closer and closer" imply progression.

And QED had written:

if you know the time frames these fossil species existed in, then you will be aware that these normalized euclidian distances show a chronological progression.

Again we see someone claiming that the "euclidian distances show a CHRONOLOGICAL progression."

QED

March 31st 2003, 09:41 PM

Again we see someone claiming that the "euclidian distances show a CHRONOLOGICAL progression."

Ah, but Solas - these normalized euclidean differences are calculated from overall morphology, not specific characteristics of jaw structure!

QED

March 31st 2003, 09:44 PM

btw Solas - with RE to the cladogram - one can read relative ages (based on divergence times) from a cladogram, but the cladogram is does not show a chronological progression in morphology - instead it shows the phylogenetic conclusion based on this and other data.

Saxonella

March 31st 2003, 10:12 PM

Today @ 01:08 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=49839#post49839)
TheFiveSolas:

Saxonella wrote:

It's possible that I'm mistaken about what a cladogram is attempting to illustrate. However, it seems that the following definitions of "Cladistics" support my original assertion.

No, they don't--they are actually rather peripheral to our discussion. You are trying to infer too much from too little information. In fact, your first quote, in the context of your assertion, does not pertain at all. The second is somewhat better, but not much.

Correct me if I am wrong, but you seemed to be assuming that the order that the taxa (the hominin species) appeared on the cladogram was the order in which they evolved, and that the "earlier" (i.e. the ones lower down on the cladogram) are ancestral to the ones farther up. If so, then both those assumptions are erroneous inferences that are not supported by the nature of cladograms, and are not to be inferred from cladograms.

A lineage, in the context of cladistics, is basically defined as a collection of organisms that share a unique evolutionary history. Therefore in our specific cladogram, all the hominins from A. afarensis to H. sapiens are a single lineage. Note also that the paranthropines: P. aethiopicus, P. robustus, and P. boisei, form a small lineage, or clade, within that larger hominin lineage (clade), because they share a common hypothetical ancestor at the point where the three lines branch. Also note, though, that the three species are what we call terminal taxa--each one is at the terminus of a separate branch. Therefore one cannot infer from the cladogram which, if any, of these species was *ancestral* to any of the others. And in any cladogram, all taxa are terminal taxa. So there is *no* statement of ancestor-descendant relationships made by a cladogram.

Now to the second quote: I will amend my earlier statement and say that there is a temporal aspect to cladograms, BUT it has to do with the appearance of characters only, and it is a relative and not absolute temporal scale. That is, the pattern of branching in a cladogram is determined by the appearance of evolutionary novelties in the characters. Not the taxa themselves. You have to realize that you can rotate any clade about its node and not change the statement of relationships that the cladogram is making. However, you will certainly change the "order" the taxa seem to appear in, so clearly the order is not what is important.

So note: we cannot draw any conclusions about which specific taxon is ancestral to any other taxon based upon a cladogram, because it deals with *patterns* of relationships only. And we cannot draw any conclusions about when a specific taxon arose relative to any other taxon; all we can say is that certain specific characters arose earlier or later than others. If I may use a quote of my own:

...not all characters evolve at the same rate and to the same degree in different lineages. As a consequence, all species are mosaics of pleisiomorphic and apomorphic traits, and it is inappropriate to speak of plesiomorphic and apomorphic species. One can speak of sister-group relationships or of relative position in a phylogenetic tree.

Brooks D. & McLellan D. 1991. Phylogeny, Ecology and Behavior p. 68

plesiomorphic = shared primitive (i.e. a trait shared by all taxa on a cladogram)

apomorphic = shared derived (i.e. a trait shared by a members of a clade that defines a node--in our cladogram, apomorphic traits for the paranthropines would be those found only on the branch leading to that specific group).

Saxonella

March 31st 2003, 10:21 PM

I could be wrong, but I do not believe that anyone but you referred to Table 5 in the Science article. Therefore the only person to "interpret" that table in this thread was you. And you declared that it did not support an assertion it was not meant to support, irrespective of what others may have tried to claim for other tables in this or any other article.

Today @ 01:29 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=49857#post49857)
TheFiveSolas:

Please note that I wasn't the one "interpreting" the table this way. I was responding to the assertions of others in this thread who were.

This is what I was responding to...:

TheFiveSolas

March 31st 2003, 10:34 PM

Saxonella wrote:

I could be wrong, but I do not believe that anyone but you referred to Table 5 in the Science article. Therefore the only person to "interpret" that table in this thread was you. And you declared that it did not support an assertion it was not meant to support, irrespective of what others may have tried to claim for other tables in this or any other article.

Table 7, as I've shown, was being interpreted chronologically by QED and RufusAtticus. Table 7 is derived from the data listed in Table 5. Since they interpreted the data in a chronologically progressive way I pasted the full data list from which Table 7 was derived as a means of showing that it doesn't seem to show any progression at all.

Saxonella

March 31st 2003, 10:57 PM

A veritable confusion of tables!

Letsee...the initial mystery table was Table 7, which is not the "euclidian distances" but the summary of functional analyses in order to determine in which of two and only two categories it is best to place Taxon X and Taxon Y (let's call them). Rufus' point about this table is quite correct--it has nothing whatsoever to do with "progression".

Table 6 is the "euclidian distance" table, and it is also true that there is no "progression" in this table, since it is a statement of adaptational differences based on a specific functional morphological data set. The degree of adaptational difference or similarity is not a statement about ancestry. Rufus made an off-the-cuff remark about temporal progression (again, which the table is not intended to support or infer); unfortunately he was mostly incorrect in that remark. However, since the table and the tables it was derived from did not intend to illustrate or imply "progression", their failure to show it says nothing about the presence or absence of morphological transitions in the hominin fossil record.

TheFiveSolas

March 31st 2003, 11:02 PM

Sax,
Ah yes, you are right about my confusing Table 7 with Table 6. Thanks for the correction. :thumb:

Socrates

April 1st 2003, 08:54 AM

Socrates:

And creationists have NEVER resorted to the vile abuse that evolutionists have hurled in print, e.g. accusations of pedophilia.

Woman whinged:
Oh Soc, your memory can’t be that short. I know mine isn’t. I heard you hurl the self same accusation.What absolute nonsense. Put up or shut up! The Mods would never have stood for it either.

Roger Lewin:

It is in fact a common fantasy, promulgated mostly by the scientific profession itself, that in the search for objective truth, data dictate conclusions. Data are just as often molded to fit preferred conclusions.

However, you have admitted that regardless of the data presented, creationists will ALWAYS find a, what do you call it...BETTER way to interpret it which is in line with the only conclusion they can entertain.And I showed that this is actually legitimate, and only someone untrained in science such as Woman would think that there is such a creature as an unbiased observer. That's why I quoted from evolutionists to show that EVERYONE interprets data. The only question is WHICH framework we should interpret by.

Socrates

April 1st 2003, 09:14 AM

Socrates:

Gentry DID produce evidence under oath of PAPERS rejected because of an overt creationist implication, then published in other journals with with the creationist implications removed.
tgamble:
So what? Science journals want to keep religious implications out. They have no place in science.Then stop your pathetic whinging about how creationists don't publish in mainstream journals. You're a NON-scientist who has decreed a priori that creation is not science.

QED:A "creationist conclusion" as you put it, must either be too vague to be meaningful, must report error on some very minor point in evolution, or must be unwarranted by the data. There is not data enough to draw a real "creationist conclusion" (i.e. there is not data enough in a single paper to conclude a young earth, since the overwhelming preponderance of the data rule out a young earth.) So yes, reviewers are most likely right to strike unwarranted or vague conclusions and leave only those that address minor points.You mean, they have decided a priori that ANY creationist conclusion is not science because it is not materialistic! Reviewers apply a similarly strict standard to non-creationists works, and will not approve conclusions that are contentious and not warranted by the data.You've gotta be kidding. I've read HEAPS of papers where the author gave a vague evolutionary handwaving explanation for some exquisitely designed structure.

And if the journals have made it clear that they won't even devote space to creationists' normal right of reply, then why should we expect that they would devote space to a whole paper.

Because a paper might actually contain some data - which is what science journals are in the business of publishing?
Don't try that crap -- they are happy to publish fact-free ATTACKS on creationists, but not to allow them to reply. This is frequently the case, including with Scientific American and with Australasian Science as in the article cited below.

As AiG has shown at www.answersingenesis.org/docs2001/0406news.asp, there is little point wasting time with the establishment journals, so they publish in their own refereed scientific journals. QED is just trying to make excuses not to deal with the strong evidence provided.
Of course. If your work lacks the necessary methodology to make it with the big boys, just set up your own shop with lower standards. Begging the question in a big way. Australasian Science has a far lower level than even Creation magazine, let alone TJ! The point of journals is to share information, and if the establishment ones won't share creationist information, then they will start their own peer-reviewed journals. We're not going to lose sleep if bigots refuse out of hand to publish creationist papers (unless they miss the implications) then turn around and denounce creationists for not publishing!But really, why should I have to explain all this to you? You claim to be a scientist.And do so truthfully. You should already know what peer review is about, Indeed I do.and why just claiming that Gentry had some papers with "creationist conclusions" rejectedOnce more a truthful claim, as shown by the fact that he got the same DATA published elsewhere. is nothing more than tilting windmills for an audience you hope doesn't know the difference.
That would apply to the likes of you and gamble!

Warcraft3

April 1st 2003, 10:34 AM

Hello all I am new to this forum and I must say the debate is pretty lively!!:smile:

Socrates:
"That's why I quoted from evolutionists to show that EVERYONE interprets data. The only question is WHICH framework we should interpret by."

And of course you interpret the data to fit with your YEC view, correct? And you assume that evolutionists interpret the data to fit with their "anti-God?" view, correct? I think that the evolutionists would take issue with that statement and claim that they are mearly drawing conclusions from the data, rather than fitting it into a "framework". As a former young earth creationist i am very familiar with the YEC view on things and I think we need to give people (including non-thiests) more credit, instead of assuming what their motivations are for taking one view over another. You have clearly stated that your starting point is a 24 hour interpretation of Genesis. I know of NOT ONE young earth creationist who has come to that view through science alone. Many evolutionists are in fact believers and strong ones at that. Dont assume that all people who arent YECs have an agenda.
:thumb:

Warcraft3

April 1st 2003, 11:07 AM

Socrates:

Your bio says that you are a "scientist" in australia. What kind of scientific work exactly are you engaged in? What is your degree in?

tgamble

April 1st 2003, 12:32 PM

Today @ 01:14 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=50175#post50175)
Socrates:

Socrates:

tgamble:
So what? Science journals want to keep religious implications out. They have no place in science.Then stop your pathetic whinging about how creationists don't publish in mainstream journals.

You were the one spewing out lies claiming that creationists CANNOT get published because of censorship and conspiracy. Shows just how honest you are! Your lies have come to bite you in the ass.

In any case, neither they nor you have been able to produce any evidence for a young earth or against evolution.

You're a NON-scientist who has decreed a priori that creation is not science.

RufusAtticus IS a scientist who says the same thing. So are the thousands of other scientists. Creationist myths from ancient religions are NOT Science!

The only ones who claims creationism is science are a few fringe quacks at creationist organizations.

Warcraft3

April 1st 2003, 12:51 PM

tgamble:
"The only ones who claims creationism is science are a few fringe quacks at creationist organizations."

Not all creationists are quacks.

"In any case, neither they nor you have been able to produce any evidence for a young earth or against evolution."

Evidence for a young earth? no:rofl:

Evidence against evolution? possibly:huh:

I think a few old earth creationists and intelligent design advocates have raised some good points and objections. Im not sure if I would put them in the same category as the YECs.

Socratism

April 1st 2003, 01:22 PM

As a former young earth creationist i am very familiar with the YEC view on things

I assume that you now believe in an old earth. Might I ask what was the major item which changed your mind?

I might add that I was an evolutionists most of my life who rejected evolution when I finally began looking into it in detail.

Some time after that I began to start taking scripture more seriously and found to my surprise that it was highly reliable.

Even then I continued to believe in an old earth for the evidence for it seemed overwhelming.

But then I started looking into the "evidence" in far greater detail and fould that it also was not as compelling as I had originally thought. Step by step I saw that things were not as I had been taught.

Now it is true that there are still some apparently compelling arguments for an old earth, but my experience in uncovering "holes" in previous arguments causes me to suspect there are similar holes in the remaining "certain evidences".

WinAce

April 1st 2003, 02:26 PM

Context for that Lewin quote, please. Some things in science are ambiguous, others are not. The evidence for a round earth or evolution really doesn't depend on "biased interpretations" to rule out alternative explanations like a flat earth or creationism.

QED

April 1st 2003, 03:36 PM

Today @ 01:14 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=50175#post50175)
Socrates:

Socrates:

[quote]You mean, they have decided a priori that ANY creationist conclusion is not science because it is not materialistic!

That is decidedly not what I mean. True enought that a supernaturalistic conclusion can never be warranted scientifically by the evidence, but creationist conclusions don't have to be supernaturalistic. "The Earth is 6000 years old" is a materialistic statement that can be checked. If a paper claims this conclusion on the basis of one bit of data, against mountains of contrary data, the conclusion will be discarded.

Me, previously: Reviewers apply a similarly strict standard to non-creationists works, and will not approve conclusions that are contentious and not warranted by the data.

Socrates: You've gotta be kidding. I've read HEAPS of papers where the author gave a vague evolutionary handwaving explanation for some exquisitely designed structure.

Vague? Maybe. Handwaving? Doubtful. The conclusion has to be warranted by the data - and not only when taken in isolation. I know you are afraid of vague, because science is supposed to be about unthinking certainty to you (thus your attempts to apply your own hermeneutics not just to the Bible, but to nature as well - and thus your belief that you have done so with infallibility).

Anyway... address the point instead of sidetracking, or better - concede it. I gave a good example to support my position. You gave unreliable eye-witness testimony (your own) that did not speak to the point.

Don't try that crap -- they are happy to publish fact-free ATTACKS on creationists, but not to allow them to reply. This is frequently the case, including with Scientific American and with Australasian Science as in the article cited below.

I don't know anything about Australasian Science. I do know that Scientific American is a popular science rag and does not represent "the scientific establishment" any more than Enoch represents "the Bible". And who cares about letters to the editor? Science isn't done in letters to the editor. But you knew that already... Right??

Me, previously: Of course. If your work lacks the necessary methodology to make it with the big boys, just set up your own shop with lower standards.
Socrates: Begging the question in a big way. Australasian Science has a far lower level than even Creation magazine, let alone TJ! The point of journals is to share information, and if the establishment ones won't share creationist information, then they will start their own peer-reviewed journals. We're not going to lose sleep if bigots refuse out of hand to publish creationist papers (unless they miss the implications) then turn around and denounce creationists for not publishing!

Me - creationists papers are likely rejected sometimes because of their overall poor quality.
You - You're begging the question.
Me - no, the question is censorship. You claim it is common based on the infrequency of creationist papers publication. I offer a different explanation.
You - We're not going to lose sleep if bigots refuse out of hand to publish creationist papers (unless they miss the implications) then turn around and denounce creationists for not publishing!
Me - NOW THAT'S QUESTION BEGGING!
Show us the rejected paper! Show us the reviewers' comments! "Because I really think so" is not reason for us to believe you.

Me, previously: But really, why should I have to explain all this to you? You claim to be a scientist.
Socrates: And do so truthfully.

Then why do I have to explain all of it to you???

Me, before: You should already know what peer review is about,
Socrates: Indeed I do.

It isn't clear from reading your posts, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

Me, previously: and why just claiming that Gentry had some papers with "creationist conclusions" rejected
Socrates: Once more a truthful claim, as shown by the fact that he got the same DATA published elsewhere.

Same data, different conclusions? Ah, could this be the key? Perhaps, if he had been clever, he could have had the same DATA published in the original publication he submitted to.

Besides, you claimed "evidence under oath" from Gentry - where is it? Or did you make that up?

Me, previously: is nothing more than tilting windmills for an audience you hope doesn't know the difference.
Socrates: That would apply to the likes of you and gamble!
Well your hope did not play out well! Because (I cannot speak for gamble) I do know the difference. I think more of your audience than just I will, too.

Bald Ape

April 1st 2003, 06:21 PM

Today @ 12:26 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=50352#post50352)
WinAce:

Context for that Lewin quote, please. Some things in science are ambiguous, others are not. The evidence for a round earth or evolution really doesn't depend on "biased interpretations" to rule out alternative explanations like a flat earth or creationism.

The Bald Ape $5 challenge: get Socrates to provide the context of any of his quote mining expeditions, beyond links to www.answersingenesis.com. :rofl:

RufusAtticus

April 1st 2003, 06:27 PM

From McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mclean-v-arkansas.html)

Creation science as defined in Section 4(a), not only fails to follow the canons of dealing with scientific theory, it also fails to fit the more general descriptions of "what scientists think" and "what scientists do." The scientific community consists of individuals and groups, nationally and internationally, who work independently in such varied fields as biology, paleontology, geology, and astronomy. Their work is published and subject to review and testing by their peers. The journals for publication are both numerous and varied. There is, however, not one recognized scientific journal which has published an article espousing the creation science theory described in Section 4(a). Some of the State's witnesses suggested that the scientific community was "close-minded" on the subject of creationism and that explained the lack of acceptance of the creation science arguments. Yet no witness produced a scientific article for which publication has been refused. Perhaps some members of the scientific community are resistant to new ideas. It is, however, inconceivable that such a loose knit group of independent thinkers in all the varied fields of science could, or would, so effectively censor new scientific thought.

Butters

April 1st 2003, 07:34 PM

Hey Rufus!

"ouch!"

:thumb:

tgamble

April 1st 2003, 09:00 PM

Yesterday @ 05:22 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=50313#post50313)
Socratism:

I assume that you now believe in an old earth. Might I ask what was the major item which changed your mind?

I might add that I was an evolutionists most of my life who rejected evolution when I finally began looking into it in detail.

Probably read a rew articles from ICR or AIG and believed it.

tgamble

April 1st 2003, 09:02 PM

Yesterday @ 04:51 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=50287#post50287)
steadele:

tgamble:
"The only ones who claims creationism is science are a few fringe quacks at creationist organizations."

Not all creationists are quacks.

Define creationist.

Evidence against evolution? possibly:huh:

I think a few old earth creationists and intelligent design advocates have raised some good points and objections. Im not sure if I would put them in the same category as the YECs.

At best, they've raised minor problems mostly argueing from ignorance. Behe's IC claims for example have been totally refuted. Probably why he hasn't published any papers in journals.

Warcraft3

April 1st 2003, 09:05 PM

Socratism:
"I assume that you now believe in an old earth. Might I ask what was the major item which changed your mind?"

Good question. There wasnt any one major item, but several things that caused me to reject YEC. Ill briefly list thee major areas where I had concerns about the YEC perspective.

1. Theological/Scriptural
a. I always thought the YEC connection with the "In the beginning..." events and that of the first day were weak. Im specifically thinking about the "heavens" created before the "light" and those bodies which produce light.
b. The purpose of the phrase "..the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters..." Why would God bother to tell us where He is at in reference to the earth? The YEC never really answered this question.
c. The reference to "evening and morning" before the sun was in existance troubled me as well. The explanations I heard failed to remove what I saw as a pointless phrase.
d. The length of the seventh day seemed to cast doubt on the nature of the whole "week". YEC explanations did not convence me.
e. The nature of the garden of Eden itself. To me it seems to be a special protected place for Adam and Eve. But this doesnt make sense to me if there wasnt any suffering or carnivorous activity taking place anyway. Protected from what?
f. The existance of the tree of life. Why was it there if they couldnt die anyway? And why did God specifically guard that tree after they had sinned? I did not find good answers to these in the YEC camp.
There were other problems that came later but these were the original questions from scripture that bothered me.

2. Scientific
a. The claim that the second law of thermodynamics disproves evolution.
b. The whole water canopy theory.
c. Very weak descriptions of exactly how fossilization would occur as a result of a world wide flood.
d. The whole "age of apperance" argument. Especially when applied to light travel times.
e. Complete dismissal of all radioactive decay measurements. They do have limitations and there have been errors, but to simply declare that they are completely worthless is not good science.
f. The magneic field decay argument.
g. The shrinking sun argument.
h. The moon dust argument.
i. The alleged human footprints next to dinosaur tracks.

Again there were other problems that came later on, but these were the first arguments that I really had a problem with.

3. Testimony
a. I noticed that some well respected theologins(spelling?) did not agree with this view.
b. I was troubled by the somewhat un-Christian like attitude toward people with opposing views.
c. It seemed like they accused the entire scientific community of some big conspiracy against them.
d. While people from other view points encouraged me to seek out other sources for information, I did not see this in the young earth camp. It seemed like all they wanted to do was have public debates with people.
e. They seemed to be extremely stubborn to admit errors and mistakes, while pointing the finger at everyone else.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
These were the things that caused me to question the view and dig deeper. The deeper I dug the more I found myself coming to conclusions that were not in agreement with YEC. Once I had come to the point where I was somewhat open to other possibilities I read up on what other people believed. Now I agree with alot of what Hugh Ross(or reasons to believe), and the ID advocates propose.
I hope that answers you question.

LOL funny icon

:yipee:

Socrates

April 1st 2003, 09:07 PM

RA parroted:Yet no witness produced a scientific article for which publication has been refused.But this was a clear error in fact by this biased judge. The record of Gentry's testimony shows that he DID produce such evidence.

tgamble

April 1st 2003, 09:08 PM

Today @ 01:07 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=50562#post50562)
Socrates:

RA parroted:Yet no witness produced a scientific article for which publication has been refused.But this was a clear error in fact by this biased judge. The record of Gentry's testimony shows that he DID produce such evidence.

You have a court transcript to back that up?

Warcraft3

April 1st 2003, 09:21 PM

tgamble:
"Define creationist"

Here is my definition: One who believes that the universe was created by a sentient being.

"At best, they've raised minor problems mostly argueing from ignorance. Behe's IC claims for example have been totally refuted. Probably why he hasn't published any papers in journals."

I think that "totally refuted" is a bit strong at this point in time. I have read what critics of Behe have said and Ive also read the responces back. It continues to go back and forth as the different arguments and points evolve. (Did I say evolve?):tongue:
I have not really seen any overwhelming arguments or evidence on either side of the issue. Im sure you will disagree with me on this, but that is where Im at right now. Dont get me wrong, I think Miller and others make some very good points. I just think that Behe and Dembski (and the other IDists) also make good points. Like Miller I dont see evolution as incompatible with religious belief, or the inspiration of the Bible. But right now the IDists and OEC have got me in their camp.

:smile:

QED

April 1st 2003, 09:51 PM

Today @ 01:08 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=50563#post50563)
tgamble:

You have a court transcript to back that up?

I am reading a mostly-complete transcript of Gentry's deposition here:
http://www.antievolution.org/projects/mclean/new_site/depos/pf_gentry_dep.htm

It is very long, and I have read less than half so far, but as yet no support for Socrates' claim.

I do notice that long after Gentry joined up with the Creation Research Society, that he was given membership in the prestigious American Phyisical Society (which he retained at the time of deposition), had been granted funding for projects from more than one scientific organization, and had been been offerred papers to review for the famous journal Science.

It's not looking too good for Socrates' hypothesis!

Socrates

April 1st 2003, 09:55 PM

Steadele gave his excuses for his compromise:

Theological/Scriptural
a. I always thought the YEC connection with the "In the beginning..." events and that of the first day were weak. Im specifically thinking about the "heavens" created before the "light" and those bodies which produce light. How boring -- God doesn't need bodies to produce light -- He won't in the New Jerusalem (Rev. 22:5). See also How could the days of Genesis 1 be literal before the sun was created? (www.answersingenesis.org/docs/1203.asp)
b. The purpose of the phrase "..the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters..." Why would God bother to tell us where He is at in reference to the earth? The YEC never really answered this question.And how does this show that OEC is superior to YEC? And why NOT mention the Earth since that is the center of God's activity?c. The reference to "evening and morning" before the sun was in existance troubled me as well. The explanations I heard failed to remove what I saw as a pointless phrase.:dufus: as the above article pointed out, all you need is a rotating Earth and directional light, created on Day 1.d. The length of the seventh day seemed to cast doubt on the nature of the whole "week". YEC explanations did not convence me.The length of the seventh day is 24 hours, as the Sabbath Command shows (Ex. 20:8-11). Furthermore, Dr Andrew Steinmann, Associate Professor of Theology and Hebrew at Concordia University, Illinois, argues :

On the sixth day, the article finally appears. But even here, the grammar is strange, since there is no article on <oy as would be expected. This would indicate that the sixth day was a regular solar day, but that it was also the culminating day of creation. Likewise, the seventh day is referred to as יעיבשה םוי (Gen 2:3), with lack of an article on םוי . This, also, the author is implying, was a regular solar day. Yet it was a special day, because God had finished his work of creation.
e. The nature of the garden of Eden itself. To me it seems to be a special protected place for Adam and Eve. But this doesnt make sense to me if there wasnt any suffering or carnivorous activity taking place anyway. Protected from what?
You brought up "protection", then invented more problems from your own mind. More to the point, why would God state that both humans and animlas were created vegetarian (Gen. 1:29-20) if animals were tearing each other apart for millions of years.f. The existance of the tree of life. Why was it there if they couldnt die anyway?God ordains both the means and the end. There was no death, and the tree was the means. And why did God specifically guard that tree after they had sinned? Because He had decreed this as His means of conferring immortality, and He was not going to be unfaithful even if Adam and Eve were.I did not find good answers to these in the YEC camp.
I got those last two from my current debate opponent JohnRanson :thumb: (see www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?postid=49433#post49433).

2. Scientific
a. The claim that the second law of thermodynamics disproves evolution.It IS a problem for CHEMICAL evolution, but most leading creationists would be more circumspect and advise concentrating on INFORMATION. And this argument is independent of the age of the Earth, so is hardly a YEC distinctive -- see The Second Law of Thermodynamics: Answers to Critics (http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/370.asp)b. The whole water canopy theory.Which many leading creationists reject, including AiG, which even before that has long urged caution about a theory which was always a MODEL not a direct techng of Scripture -- see Hanging Loose (http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/530.asp)c. Very weak descriptions of exactly how fossilization would occur as a result of a world wide flood.Judging by how ignorant you are of creationist arguments, it's obvious you are not in a position to know. More to the point, how do you get fossils formed WITHOUT catastrophic burial?
d. The whole "age of apperance" argument. Especially when applied to light travel times.Which AiG rejects!! Shows how little you really know, AGAIN! See How can we see distant stars in a young Universe? (http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/405.asp)e. Complete dismissal of all radioactive decay measurements. They do have limitations and there have been errors, but to simply declare that they are completely worthless is not good science.Who says they are completely worthless? No one questions the isotope ratios that are measured with great accuracy. They may tell us about the source magma chamber or about the subsequent geological history. But to claiming that these ratios represent ages is an INTERPRETATION. There are several ASSUMPTIONS, and plenty of examples where the methods disagree or fail on rocks of KNOWN age. See www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/dating.aspf. The magnetic field decay argument.Which is still cogent. Dr Hugh Ross thinks that field reversals disprove it, although 15 years ago the physicist Dr Russell Humphreys proposed a theory of RAPID reversals, which was later vindicated by finding rapid changes recored in a thin, fast-cooling lava flow. Humphreys sent his papers to Ross, who acknowledged receiving them, so it is highly dishonest of Ross to insinuate that creationists are unaware of reversals. See The earth’s magnetic field: Evidence that the earth is young (http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/3317.asp).
g. The shrinking sun argument.Hardly a major staple at AiG.h. The moon dust argument.
i. The alleged human footprints next to dinosaur tracks.
Both of these AiG has advised people NOT to use!! www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/dont_use.asp So Steadele is dishonestly setting up straw men all the way. 3. Testimony
a. I noticed that some well respected theologins(spelling?) did not agree with this view.WHY NOT? Invariably not because of the Hebrew but because they were intimidated by the "science". I have documented this in my opening post in the debate www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?postid=49433#post49433. So it is not independent evidence.b. I was troubled by the somewhat un-Christian like attitude toward people with opposing views.Totally unsubstantiated, and IRRELEVANT to whether YEC is correct. Jesus was also intolerant because he said in John 14:6

I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
c. It seemed like they accused the entire scientific community of some big conspiracy against them.
The major creationist organisations discourage conspiracy theorising.d. While people from other view points encouraged me to seek out other sources for information, I did not see this in the young earth camp. It seemed like all they wanted to do was have public debates with people.Who wants public debates? AiG wants to return the church to Biblical authority, rather than placing Scripture under "science".e. They seemed to be extremely stubborn to admit errors and mistakes, while pointing the finger at everyone else.Yeah, right, that must be why AiG published that "Don't Use" article :dufus:.Now I agree with alot of what Hugh Ross(or reasons to believe), What a joke -- this guy doesn't even know the simplest words in Hebrew like "yes" or "no", yet pontificates on it all the time. See
Exposé of NavPress’s new Hugh Ross Book (http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/4128.asp)
The dubious apologetics of Hugh Ross (http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/4149.asp) Hugh Ross Exposé (http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2002/0823ross_full.asp)
Analysis of the Ross–Hovind Debate, John Ankerberg Show (http://www.answersingenesis.org/news/Ross_Hovind_Analysis.asp)... and the ID advocates propose.That's better than Ross. See AiG’s views on the Intelligent Design Movement (http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2002/0830_idm.asp).

AtheistArchon

April 1st 2003, 10:25 PM

AiG wants to return the church to Biblical authority, rather than placing Scripture under "science".

- What? AiG wants to replace science with scripture in every setting, including public schools. There is no science behind creationism!

QED

April 1st 2003, 10:30 PM

AiG wants to return the church to Biblical authority, rather than placing Scripture under "science".

This is quite obviously an understatement (if not entirely a misstatement) of their goals. Reference the articles cited above by Socrates bashing Christians for interpreting scripture differently than they - showing that they want to push the church to the authority of their own interpretation of scripture (not the authority of scripture itsself).

And atheistarchon is correct - they want to push my kid's science class to a return to their interpretation of scripture - from science. I don't like that idea.

Socrates

April 1st 2003, 10:32 PM

WinAce:

Context for that Lewin quote, please. Some things in science are ambiguous, others are not. The evidence for a round earth or evolution really doesn't depend on "biased interpretations" to rule out alternative explanations like a flat earth or creationism.

I've given you all the context you need. If you think it's out context, then YOU prove it.

The Bald Ape $5 challenge: get Socrates to provide the context of any of his quote mining expeditions. More likely, to get the alopecic simian to regard a quote as innocent until proven guilty. My last quote was shown to be perfectly in context -- then the evolutionists made up excuses as to why they didn't AGREE with Haldane's quote.

QED

April 1st 2003, 10:57 PM

Today @ 01:51 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=50582#post50582)
QED:

I am reading a mostly-complete transcript of Gentry's deposition here:
http://www.antievolution.org/projects/mclean/new_site/depos/pf_gentry_dep.htm

It is very long, and I have read less than half so far, but as yet no support for Socrates' claim.

I do notice that long after Gentry joined up with the Creation Research Society, that he was given membership in the prestigious American Phyisical Society (which he retained at the time of deposition), had been granted funding for projects from more than one scientific organization, and had been been offerred papers to review for the famous journal Science.

It's not looking too good for Socrates' hypothesis!

Well, I finished the deposition. Unless the critical testimony is on the missing page (#7), unless I browsed too quickly and somehow missed this pivotal point, and unless there was some other time in which Gentry gave testimony under oath in this trial, he never produced any evidence of censorship of research.

He did note that he was denied funding on three occasions, and that he felt the denial was unfair on one of those three occassions. He pointed out an apparent conflict between the reviewers' estimations of the worth of his program at the time the grant request was reviewed and their earlier evaluations of it. This testimony was given concurrently with testimony that he had on other occasions received grant money after having requested it, and after his career in "Creation Science" was well under way.

More to the point, the unfairness of the denial was, in the estimation of the witness, unrelated to his creationist views. His opinion was that the reviewers' bias was a result of competition between the two.

I will have to ask outright - Socrates - is this trifling example the "evidence under oath" you have been referring to? Or did you have something substantial?

Warcraft3

April 2nd 2003, 01:56 AM

Socrates:
Ah Socrates, where do I begin? LOL ok here we go.............
"Steadele gave his excuses for his compromise:"
Actually I was answering a question by socratism which was....

"Might I ask what was the major item which changed your mind?"
Funny but nowhere in the question do I see the phrase "excuses for your compromise" In fact out of those four words only the word "your" actually appears in the original question. So Im not sure where you are getting that phrase from.:smile:

"How boring -- God doesn't need bodies to produce light -- He won't in the New Jerusalem (Rev. 22:5). See also How could the days of Genesis 1 be literal before the sun was created?"

Boring? Oh yes Im wrong cause my view is boring. Good answer.
--Ahh yes a link to AIG, what a shocker. You are assuming that after I read your link (which Ive read) that I will see how the days of Genesis could be 24 hours before the sun was created. You are missing the point. I have heard your explaination and I think the OEC explanation is THEOLOGICALLY SUPERIOR.

"And how does this show that OEC is superior to YEC? And why NOT mention the Earth since that is the center of God's activity."

Well I guess your post isnt all AIG links and insults, because that sounds like an actual question!!! Good job:thumb:
The answer is the OEC view (the one I hold) relates this verse to a change in reference, which then explains the remainder of chapter 1. I will refrain from giving you a reference because you know where to go to see a defense of this position. Again I think the OEC explaination is THEOLOGICALLY SUPERIOR.

"as the above article pointed out, all you need is a rotating Earth and directional light, created on Day 1."

Oh, the AIG article again. Already answered this one.

"The length of the seventh day is 24 hours, as the Sabbath Command shows (Ex. 20:8-11). Furthermore, Dr Andrew Steinmann, Associate Professor of Theology and Hebrew at Concordia University, Illinois, argues :"

A quote by a professer of Theology. Hmm wanna take a bet how fast I could find a quote from a professor or famous apologist supporting my view? Of course that wouldnt matter anyway because those who take my view are nothing but compromisers who need to be hit on the head like this :bonk:
And all of your supporters are good Christians who get an "A" for not compromising. Good answer yet again.

"You brought up "protection", then invented more problems from your own mind. More to the point, why would God state that both humans and animlas were created vegetarian (Gen. 1:29-20) if animals were tearing each other apart for millions of years."

I invented more problems? That isnt an answer, thats an accusation. Someone may have told you that they are the same thing but they arent. Gen.1:29-30? Even though my original post was addressing the INITIAL problems I had with YEC, and this particular issue came later, I will address your challenge. The answer is Gen. 8:1-4. God is issuing a new command to man concerning what is permissable to eat. Since this is directly connected to Gen.1:29-30 I would expect God to say something about the animals also. But there is no mention of any change taking place with the animals, only humans. I believe the reason for this is simply because nothing did change for the animals. Some of them were already eating meat.

"God ordains both the means and the end. There was no death, and the tree was the means."

If they had to eat of the tree to be immortal then apart from it they were not immortal. This is exactly my point. They werent created immortal. They were mortal humans like you and I who were in a special, supernatural environment.

"Because He had decreed this as His means of conferring immortality, and He was not going to be unfaithful even if Adam and Eve were"

I agree with that statement 100%. They were indeed mortal without the tree of life.

"(see www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthrea...49433#post49433).
"

That is one view yes. There are other scholars with other views on the meaning of the text. I simply do not agree with your view.

"It IS a problem for CHEMICAL evolution, but most leading creationists would be more circumspect and advise concentrating on INFORMATION. And this argument is independent of the age of the Earth, so is hardly a YEC distinctive -- see The Second Law of Thermodynamics: Answers to Critics"

Heh another AIG link. Anyway..... Several years ago I heard this argument used all too often. And always by YECs'. It is true that usually it isnt used anymore (thankfully) but again this was one of the ORIGINAL issues I had with YEC several years ago. Ten or eleven years to be exact.

"Which many leading creationists reject, including AiG, which even before that has long urged caution about a theory which was always a MODEL not a direct techng of Scripture -- see Hanging Loose"

AIG strikes again!!! Let me repeat myself yet again.....THIS WAS ONE OF THE ORIGINAL ISSUES I HAD WITH YEC ELEVEN YEARS AGO!!!!! I know that AIG specifically shows more restraint in using some of these evidences. So what? That just convinces me that you are the better than most YECs. It doesnt convince me that YEC is valid though. Getting back to the point though.... THIS WAS ONE OF THE ORIGINAL ISSUES I HAD WITH YEC ELEVEN YEARS AGO!!!!! All YECs dont have to agree on the issue for it to be an "issue" with me.

"Judging by how ignorant you are of creationist arguments, it's obvious you are not in a position to know. More to the point, how do you get fossils formed WITHOUT catastrophic burial?"

Im fully aware of what AIG specifically believes, and what is posted on your website. Once again...THIS WAS ONE OF THE ORIGINAL ISSUES I HAD WITH YEC ELEVEN YEARS AGO!!!!!

"Which AiG rejects!! Shows how little you really know, AGAIN! See How can we see distant stars in a young Universe?"

Ah yes, Russell Humphrys' infamous cosmology. Ive read some of his work and some critics of it as well. This explaination does not convince me any more than the apperance of age argument did when I first heard it (which was when I was like 12 years old).

"Who says they are completely worthless? No one questions the isotope ratios that are measured with great accuracy. They may tell us about the source magma chamber or about the subsequent geological history. But to claiming that these ratios represent ages is an INTERPRETATION. There are several ASSUMPTIONS, and plenty of examples where the methods disagree or fail on rocks of KNOWN age. See www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/dating.asp"

Oh my another AIG link. I must admit that I havent read all the articles in this particular section of AIG. As for the articles that I have read though.....There are two sides to every story, so I not only read YEC material but I also read material critical of it. Based on what I have read and my understanding of these methods AND the "assumptions" as you call them, I think that the side which accepts the "interpretation" that the ratios can and do represent ages has made a much better case than AIG. I will continue reading though---who knows maybe some day AIG will convince me of their position. But up to this point you havent.

"Which is still cogent. Dr Hugh Ross thinks that field reversals disprove it, although 15 years ago the physicist Dr Russell Humphreys proposed a theory of RAPID reversals, which was later vindicated by finding rapid changes recored in a thin, fast-cooling lava flow. Humphreys sent his papers to Ross, who acknowledged receiving them, so it is highly dishonest of Ross to insinuate that creationists are unaware of reversals. See The earth’s magnetic field: Evidence that the earth is young. "

Again another AIG link and again I say to you. There are two sides to every story. The critics of your position make a much stronger case than you do IMHO. Perhaps he insinuates that you are unaware because he believes you to be unaware. Implying purposeful dishonesty sounds a little like conspiresy(spelling?) theory to me.

"Hardly a major staple at AiG."
Okay, so what? Again.....drum roll please.........
THIS WAS ONE OF THE ORIGINAL ISSUES I HAD WITH YEC ELEVEN YEARS AGO!!!!!

"Both of these AiG has advised people NOT to use!! www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/dont_use.asp So Steadele is dishonestly setting up straw men all the way. "

Wow. I answer a question honestly about ORIGINAL ISSUES I HAD WITH YEC ELEVEN YEARS AGO!!!!! and you accuse me of being dishonest and setting up a straw man argument. Cant just take my answer at face value, can you? Have to accuse me of lying, right? Thanks alot for your good Christian attitude, I really appreciate it.

"WHY NOT? Invariably not because of the Hebrew but because they were intimidated by the "science". I have documented this in my opening post in the debate www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthrea...9433#post49433. So it is not independent evidence."

YOU say that was their motivation, but THEY dont say that. And since YOU CANT READ MINDS, when they say that it was something other than science which influenced their views I believe them. Stop accusing everyone who doesnt agree with you of being either ignorant, dishonest, or deceived. You cant assume peoples motivations for them. And again another AIG post. Im starting to think you are either Ken Ham or Jonathon Sarfati. Are you?:huh:

"Totally unsubstantiated, and IRRELEVANT to whether YEC is correct. Jesus was also intolerant because he said in John 14:6"

Unsubstantiated? By whom? By you? I guess I didnt realize that you could TRAVEL BACK IN TIME and see every conversation Ive had, book Ive read, and person Ive encountered. Now here is why it is RELEVANT to YEC. When people show too much emotion or even sarcasim over a particular issue it often is the result of 1. Having a weak position or 2. Being completely consumed by that belief to the point of fanaticism. Note that I say "often" not always. And please dont quote scripture in that manner. Jesus was intolerent in some ways yes, but he did not have an un-christian like attitude. So your quote doesnt really help your point.

"The major creationist organisations discourage conspiracy theorising."

As they should. I have however read some posts by you that seemed, at least to me, to be accusing the scientific community of extreme censorship with regard to YEC. To me that borders on conspiracy theory. If Im mis-representing you I apologize, but that is the impression I got.

"Who wants public debates? AiG wants to return the church to Biblical authority, rather than placing Scripture under "science"."

From my experience public debating was something the YEC did quite often. They were also quite good at it, usually "winning" the debate. Placing scripture under science? Of course thats what YOU think Im doing.

"Yeah, right, that must be why AiG published that "Don't Use" article ."

And I have read that article, and frankly I think its a good article. I wasnt specifically accusing AIG. But I was refering to ONE OF THE ORIGINAL ISSUES I HAD WITH YEC ELEVEN YEARS AGO!!!!!

"What a joke -- this guy doesn't even know the simplest words in Hebrew like "yes" or "no", yet pontificates on it all the time. See....."

"Pontificates" Now there is a word you dont hear used correctly every day. LOL I have read every one of your Ross articles and Ive listened to your webcast on him as well. I have also read and listened to his responces to your critisims. After hearing BOTH sides I believe he is more convincing.

"That's better than Ross."

Yes Im sure the ID advocates will be relieved that they have your approval.

So anyway........
What exactly do you do as a "scientist" Socrates? And what is your degree in? Just curious.

Mod. note: Please respect users requests for anonymity. I refer you to the TWeb Rules (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/decorum/). Thank you for your understanding in this matter.

tgamble

April 2nd 2003, 08:29 AM

Today @ 01:05 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=50559#post50559)
steadele:

Socratism:
"I assume that you now believe in an old earth. Might I ask what was the major item which changed your mind?"

Good question. There wasnt any one major item, but several things that caused me to reject YEC. Ill briefly list thee major areas where I had concerns about the YEC perspective.

I hope you got a thick skin to handle the hate filled attacks from people like Socrates. They really hate it when Christians reject YEC lies for scientific facts. All you'll get is abuse and links to AIG propaganda. You've probably seen it before but if not, feel free to ask for the scientific rebuttal.

Try not to take their abuse to seriously!

Heh another AIG link. Anyway..... Several years ago I heard this argument used all too often. And always by YECs'. It is true that usually it isnt used anymore (thankfully)

:rofl: I think you need to visit the talkorigins newsgroup. It gets used there all the time.

AIG (as you know) isn't the only creationist organization around and lots of groups still use it. AIG also uses lots of false arguments of course. No transitional fossils, population growth evidence for a young earth, everyone of their other ""proofs" Their entire site is filled with lies.

tgamble

April 2nd 2003, 08:47 AM

Here is my definition: One who believes that the universe was created by a sentient being.

Well in that case, I agree with you. I was useing creationist to refer to YECs which is the most common meaning.

I think that "totally refuted" is a bit strong at this point in time. I have read what critics of Behe have said and Ive also read the responces back. It continues to go back and forth as the different arguments and points evolve. (Did I say evolve?)

Miller has some new articles if you're interested.
http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/index.html

Dont get me wrong, I think Miller and others make some very good points. I just think that Behe and Dembski (and the other IDists) also make good points.

Obviously not good enough to pass peer review in scientific journals. Since you don't seem the type to buy into the conspiracy theory, persecuting scientists crap that Socrates does, this is a bit of a problem for you. Or them.

Warcraft3

April 2nd 2003, 11:48 AM

tgamble:

"I think you need to visit the talkorigins newsgroup. It gets used there all the time."

Ah yes talkorigins. Good website. Ive been there often to read their articles. They usually do a pretty good job presenting their case.

"AIG (as you know) isn't the only creationist organization around and lots of groups still use it. AIG also uses lots of false arguments of course. No transitional fossils, population growth evidence for a young earth, everyone of their other ""proofs" Their entire site is filled with lies."

Indeed it is not the only one. The population growth argument is completely ridiculous. Sad that it is still used. But funny also.:rofl:

The transitional fossil argument is not one that I use for either evolution or creation. Ive heard both sides and my conclusion is this: While there is some disagreement among scientists about the specifics of certain fossils they generally agree that the fossil record does APPEAR to show a change in organisims over time,i.e. evolution. The creationist(at least the OEC view I hold) argument is usually to say that this appearance is a mis-interpretation of God simply creating new species throughout time. So while I believe this to be true, I do recognize that this is a weak argument (at least in my opinion).

"Their entire site is filled with lies."

Im not sure I would accuse them of knowingly lying, if thats what you are implying.

RufusAtticus

April 2nd 2003, 11:59 AM

Yesterday @ 08:07 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=50562#post50562)
Socrates:

But this was a clear error in fact by this biased judge. The record of Gentry's testimony shows that he DID produce such evidence.

Well if you know this, then you should be able to quote for us the relevant section of the record of his testimony. I notice that some people have tried to find it to no avail. Can you support this claim?

tgamble

April 2nd 2003, 12:04 PM

Today @ 03:48 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=51018#post51018)
steadele:

tgamble:

"I think you need to visit the talkorigins newsgroup. It gets used there all the time."

Ah yes talkorigins. Good website. Ive been there often to read their articles. They usually do a pretty good job presenting their case.

Agreed. But I was reffering to the newsgroup, not the website. Through the feedback often parrots the 2LoT nonsense.

Indeed it is not the only one. The population growth argument is completely ridiculous. Sad that it is still used. But funny also.:rofl:

I find most of creation "science" to be a cross between funny and depressing.

The transitional fossil argument is not one that I use for either evolution or creation. Ive heard both sides and my conclusion is this: While there is some disagreement among scientists about the specifics of certain fossils they generally agree that the fossil record does APPEAR to show a change in organisims over time,i.e. evolution. The creationist(at least the OEC view I hold) argument is usually to say that this appearance is a mis-interpretation of God simply creating new species throughout time. So while I believe this to be true, I do recognize that this is a weak argument (at least in my opinion).

Well, if you start with the assumption of supernatural creation, it's certainly possible that the transitional series are merely seperate creationists but why would anyone think so?

If God was going to make seperate creations maybe he should have created mammals BEFORE reptiles and not created those annoying creatures that exhibit features of both, creating a transitional series that creationists are so desperate to handwave away. [for the purpose of my posts, creationist = YEC]

Anyway, the fossil record is consistent with either I suppose. But the fossil record doesn't match the order given in Genesis and there's really no need to assume constant creation events instead of evolution (with or without God). Instead of creating over and over, why not start a process that does it for you?

RufusAtticus

April 2nd 2003, 12:09 PM

03-31-2003 @ 09:57 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=49926#post49926)
Saxonella:

Rufus made an off-the-cuff remark about temporal progression (again, which the table is not intended to support or infer);

To clarify I never indended to imply that table 6 argued for A->B->C, just that the data in the table showed that hominins more recent in time are more similar to us and less similar to Australopithcus africanus.

Solas,

Do you have their Science paper available to you? Do you have any other questions about it? Have your other questions been resolved?

And because we are on the subject again:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/images/hominids2.jpg

http://webpages.charter.net/rufusatticus/YunisFig2.GIF

Warcraft3

April 2nd 2003, 12:20 PM

tgamble:

"Miller has some new articles if you're interested.
http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/index.html"

Ill be sure to check it out when I get the chance. I usually do my "internet" reading on the weekend, but this weekend I have to go to drill ( Im in the Army Reserves) so I may not get to it until next weekend.

"Obviously not good enough to pass peer review in scientific journals. Since you don't seem the type to buy into the conspiracy theory, persecuting scientists crap that Socrates does, this is a bit of a problem for you. Or them."

Indeed I do not buy into the conspiracy theory. As to it being a problem, I have to disagree there. It doesnt surprise me at all that intelligent design as a mode of explanation isnt published in the journals. Intelligent Design has VERY STRONG religious implications, so most journals are reluctant to publish articles dealing with it. I think this is understandable. As far as journals go in general though, alot of the information the IDists and OEC (the ones that I respect anyway) put out is from journal articles. While these articles arent about ID, per se, some of them do have material that can be interpreted to fit with ID theory.

With that said let me state my position with regard to teaching ID or OEC in schools. I DO NOT think that a public high school classroom is the place to debate evolution. As long as the students are made aware that the theory is incomplete and is still debated by a minority of scientists, I have no problem with them teaching it. Since most scientists who believe in evolution try to be neutral when it comes to the issue of God, I dont see how one can claim it is a "religion" as some have (for example Dr Duane Gish).

So while I agree with much of what Hugh Ross and the IDists say, I dont necessarily agree with them on everything. By the way...Ross has several interviews with representitives from various viewpoints on the whole creation evolution debate. Among these is Dr Eugiene Scott, whose name Im sure you are familiar with. That interview was a particularly good one. If you get a chance listen to it and tell me what you think. Im the last caller on the show and I ask the question about the mathematical model. Oh and just in case you do hear my question I really couldnt make out what she said when she asked me about homology. Thats why I said "not really" and let her explain it to me. Sorry Im getting off track here................

"I hope you got a thick skin to handle the hate filled attacks from people like Socrates. They really hate it when Christians reject YEC lies for scientific facts. All you'll get is abuse and links to AIG propaganda. You've probably seen it before but if not, feel free to ask for the scientific rebuttal.

Try not to take their abuse to seriously!"

LOL Dont worry I can take their abuse. Ive been hearing it for about 10 years now. Im sure they arent interested in hearing any kind of rebuttal anyway. I just try to encourage people to read BOTH sides of anything and then make up their minds.

While I dont take their abuse seriously, I do take seriously how their attitude affects their Christian witness. Im not here to try and "win" any arguments, but to give the OEC (like Ross) and IDists (like Dembski) a voice on this forum. A Christian should be more concerned with praying for peoples salvation then winning arguments against them. Very few people get saved because you can defeat them in a debate. So I guess Im trying to lower some of the hostility I see.
:argue: :bonk:

When I am feeling hostile about this issue I just look at this:

:yipee:

And I feel better :rofl:

Warcraft3

April 2nd 2003, 12:33 PM

tgamble:

"Well, if you start with the assumption of supernatural creation, it's certainly possible that the transitional series are merely seperate creationists but why would anyone think so?"

That is a pretty big question. Im not sure I can give you one answer to that. I guess you would have to ask the individual person why he or she thinks that.

"If God was going to make seperate creations maybe he should have created mammals BEFORE reptiles and not created those annoying creatures that exhibit features of both, creating a transitional series that creationists are so desperate to handwave away. [for the purpose of my posts, creationist = YEC]"

I really cant comment on what God should or shouldnt do.

"Anyway, the fossil record is consistent with either I suppose. But the fossil record doesn't match the order given in Genesis and there's really no need to assume constant creation events instead of evolution (with or without God). Instead of creating over and over, why not start a process that does it for you?"

For this one I will have to refer to reasons to believes view, since I agree with their explanation. As I understand their stand on this question they believe the fossil record IS consistant with the ordering of created beings, but their interpretation of the Hebrew words disagrees with YECs of course. As to the why question, they believe the reason this was done was to prepare the planet for the arrival of man. In fact I believe they would argue that Gods continuous "creating" of different animals over and over shows just how much he cared to prep the planet for us. If you want specific details, just go to the website. Maybe this isnt a water tight argument, but hey at least they took a shot at answering the "why" questions people have. I for one dont think their reasoning is that bad.

tgamble

April 2nd 2003, 01:32 PM

Indeed I do not buy into the conspiracy theory. As to it being a problem, I have to disagree there. It doesnt surprise me at all that intelligent design as a mode of explanation isnt published in the journals. Intelligent Design has VERY STRONG religious implications, so most journals are reluctant to publish articles dealing with it.

Maybe, maybe not.

With that said let me state my position with regard to teaching ID or OEC in schools. I DO NOT think that a public high school classroom is the place to debate evolution. As long as the students are made aware that the theory is incomplete and is still debated by a minority of scientists, I have no problem with them teaching it.

Ok. I think students should be presented with the data, given MAINSTREAM theories on it and be encouraged to investigate for themselves. If a student brings up Behe and IC, I think it should be discussed as much as possible. Through that may be inpractical given time constraints.

That is a pretty big question. Im not sure I can give you one answer to that. I guess you would have to ask the individual person why he or she thinks that.

Ok, I'm asking you.

I really cant comment on what God should or shouldnt do.

Let me put it this way then. If progressive creation was true, a good way to avoid an interpreation of evolution would be to falseify it from the start. ie. mammals before reptiles. Maybe a centeur or two, a pegasus. This would make evolution a nonissue.

In fact I believe they would argue that Gods continuous "creating" of different animals over and over shows just how much he cared to prep the planet for us.

I would respond by pointing out

1) He could have created the earth ready.

2) Dinosaurs roaming the earth and then dying off doesn't seem relevent to humans existence from a creationist point of view. Same could be said for pretty much all of earth's history.

3) It was millions of years before the first life appeared on the earth. Why the wait? Plus, it was single celled organisims. Needless to say, the Bible says nothing about em.

Despite Ross's claim to contrary, the order in the fossil record does NOT agree with the creation story (either one of em)

Bible Order
http://www.biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?language=english&passage=Genesis+1&version=NIV

plants
Sea Life and birds
Land Life

Fossil record

plants didn't come first, not all sea life appeared at the same time (whales evolved from land mammals) birds evolved from land animals (reptiles) Land life came before birds.

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/help/timeform.html

Warcraft3

April 2nd 2003, 02:50 PM

tgamble:
"I would respond by pointing out

1) He could have created the earth ready."

True, He could have. But I dont believe He did.

"2) Dinosaurs roaming the earth and then dying off doesn't seem relevent to humans existence from a creationist point of view. Same could be said for pretty much all of earth's history."

Ross has explained many times how the history of life on the earth fits his theology. He believes that the natural environment was preparred for human existance, at least partially, through the history of bio-diversity we see. The specifics are both on the website and in print. We could argue about the degree to which this is correct, but it certainly isnt INNCORRECT to say that the history of life (whether we evolved or not) affects the future environment. I firmly believe that this is the best explanation out there from a Creationist point of view. You probably disagree with me on this point, but that is my belief.

"3) It was millions of years before the first life appeared on the earth. Why the wait? Plus, it was single celled organisims. Needless to say, the Bible says nothing about em."

Why the wait? Interesting question from a human perspective, but I dont think that God was constrained to any time table--be it a short one or a long one.
The Bible does not mention single celled organisims, this is true. But omission of a fact or detail is not necessarily an error or lie. It may simply be an omission. I dont believe that Genesis is exhaustive by any means, so there are alot of missing details.

"Despite Ross's claim to contrary, the order in the fossil record does NOT agree with the creation story (either one of em)"

"plants
Sea Life and birds
Land Life

Fossil record

plants didn't come first, not all sea life appeared at the same time (whales evolved from land mammals) birds evolved from land animals (reptiles) Land life came before birds."

Well again I think he would disagree with that statement. As far as I understand his position he believes that the Genesis account does agree with the fossil record, when the Hebrew meanings are understood correctly. Keep in mind that what he is looking at what IS mentioned in the account, what isnt mentioned could have been created at any time since the details are omitted. Of course there is debate as to the meaning of the Hebrew words, and Im sure the YEC here will lash out at the interpretation. But if you like I could give you the specifics of his thinking on this matter, or you could just go check it out on the website or in print.
If Im gonna be specific I have to quote them and not just go on memory, because I dont want to be accused of mis-representing anyone. So if you want me to do the leg work and exactly state their position I will.

As to the quote you cited:
"It is useless to try to explain science to someone who isn't interested in what the facts have to say. And it's useless to try to learn anything from such people. If they are clever, as Johnson is, they can find a way to claim that almost any fact supports their position. If evolutionists agree on something, it's a dogmatic orthodoxy; if they disagree, they're squabbling about every detail of evolutionary theory. If a piece of evidence seems to count against evolution, evolution has been disproven; if it seems to count for evolution, that merely shows that evolution is unfalsifiable. If scientists state that they are personally atheistic, they are clearly exposing the rotten metaphysical heart of evolution; if they state that they are religious, they are clearly trying to cover the rotten heart up. If we learn anything new, it's evidence that our current theory is completely false; if what we learn is exactly what we expected, it's only because we were precommitted to finding it in the first place. If we point out where creationists are wrong, we are persecuting the underdog; if we ignore them, we are refusing to face the fact that they're right. If a piece of evidence supports one part of evolutionary theory, it doesn't support that other part. If we find a strong piece of evidence for evolution, there ought to be more just like it. If an evolutionist speaks out in favor of Darwinism, it's because they were strong-armed into it; if they say anything which can be taken out of context to suggest any skepticism about evolution, it's resounding proof that nobody in science believes the theory."

Sure, anyone can do that on any issue. That door can swing both ways.

tgamble

April 2nd 2003, 03:15 PM

Today @ 06:50 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=51144#post51144)
steadele:

tgamble:
"I would respond by pointing out

1) He could have created the earth ready."

True, He could have. But I dont believe He did.

Obviously. The point is that if humans were his prize creation (and there's no real reason to think so) he could have created the earth the right way from the start. But he didn't. You don't know why, I just conclude it wasn't created in the first place.

"2) Dinosaurs roaming the earth and then dying off doesn't seem relevent to humans existence from a creationist point of view. Same could be said for pretty much all of earth's history."

Ross has explained many times how the history of life on the earth fits his theology. He believes that the natural environment was preparred for human existance, at least partially, through the history of bio-diversity we see.

I know, I''ve read some of the articles there. My point is, there's no valid reason to reach his conclusions.

The specifics are both on the website and in print. We could argue about the degree to which this is correct, but it certainly isnt INNCORRECT to say that the history of life (whether we evolved or not) affects the future environment.

True, the question is if an asteroid wiping out the dinosaurs so mammals could evovle (be created, whatever) so humans could evolve (be created) is consistent with ID and humans being the prize creation.

Why the wait? Interesting question from a human perspective, but I dont think that God was constrained to any time table--be it a short one or a long one.

True, but if one is creating an enviroment for a prize creation, it hardly makes sense to create the earth then do nothing for millions of years.

The Bible does not mention single celled organisims, this is true. But omission of a fact or detail is not necessarily an error or lie. It may simply be an omission. I dont believe that Genesis is exhaustive by any means, so there are alot of missing details.

I would conclude that the missing data represents missing knowlege of those people who wrote it.

Well again I think he would disagree with that statement. As far as I understand his position he believes that the Genesis account does agree with the fossil record, when the Hebrew meanings are understood correctly.

I was useing the KJV of the bible. Doesn't he think it's an accurate translation? What is? What translation of the Bible agrees that whales came after land mammals?

Ross is trying to force the evidence to fit a myth. If you want to claim that the fossil record fits the creation story (either one) then please take a look at the fossil record and show how they agree so closely.

You say Ross is looking at what is written. So am I. I see it mentioning sea life which includes whales. I see that it claims that ALL sea life was created before land life and that simply isn't true.

Warcraft3

April 2nd 2003, 03:21 PM

tgamble:

"Ok, I'm asking you."

LOL I should have seen that one coming before I responded.

Okay the question you asked was:

"Well, if you start with the assumption of supernatural creation, it's certainly possible that the transitional series are merely seperate creationists but why would anyone think so?"

Here is why I believe that the history of life is a series of Creative acts instead of an evolutionary progression.

I do not believe that natural causes (left to their own devices) can produce the complexity and function that we see at various levels in lifeforms. If evolution did happen through purely natural causes then I believe we should have much more detailed models ,both chemically and mathematically, of exactly how it occured than we currently do. True, one can say that this is a work in progress and that eventually our knowledge will grow to a point where we DO have an exact model, but I am not persuaded of this.

I can only say that evolution,IMHO, cant really be that difficult to produce if it can happen. I mean in a relatively short period of time evolution supposedly prodused a solution to a very complex problem. {If you think about functionality as a solution to the "problem" of non-functional complex systems} So why do have a somewhat difficult time producing universal problem solvers from evolutionary algorithims? I really think we SHOULD have better explanations and models then what we currently do if evolution occured in a purely naturalistic way. I guess at the core of my argument I really do see Specified Complexity and Irreducible Complexity in some biological systems.

Im sure you are already aware of the specifics of these arguments and the current debates taking place on these issues. Im just one of those people who is convinced by the ID side of the argument.

As to why I specifically believe in an OEC interpretation of Genesis and more specifically in many of the things Ross believes.....I have read many, many books and articles on other explanations, other religions, etc and I really think that Ross has a pretty decent and encompassing model. Flame me if you must but that is where I stand.

I dont believe that I am forcing science or the Genesis text to fit some "box of belief" I have. I like to look at different sides and viewpoints, which is why I am here. I spoke with many professors and students while I was at Penn State University (I have a bachelors in Electrical Engineering and will soon be pursuing a masters at John Hopkins university while I work full time:shrug:)
on these issues and I heard just about every argument out there. Anyway............

I hope that answers that answers your question as to what my "reasons to believe" are :teeth:

Let the debate continue:argue:

Warcraft3

April 2nd 2003, 03:27 PM

tgamble:
"I was useing the KJV of the bible. Doesn't he think it's an accurate translation? What is? What translation of the Bible agrees that whales came after land mammals?

Ross is trying to force the evidence to fit a myth. If you want to claim that the fossil record fits the creation story (either one) then please take a look at the fossil record and show how they agree so closely.

You say Ross is looking at what is written. So am I. I see it mentioning sea life which includes whales. I see that it claims that ALL sea life was created before land life and that simply isn't true."

Okay, I will go get all the information and give you the specifics of exactly what his views are on this matter. I will do this after I get home, (its now 2:26) which should be by 6:30. So I should have the post up by 8:00.:thumb:

tgamble

April 2nd 2003, 03:48 PM

Today @ 07:27 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=51165#post51165)
steadele:

Okay, I will go get all the information and give you the specifics of exactly what his views are on this matter. I will do this after I get home, (its now 2:26) which should be by 6:30. So I should have the post up by 8:00.:thumb:

ok. But don't rush. I can wait.

tgamble

April 2nd 2003, 04:00 PM

Today @ 07:21 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=51163#post51163)
steadele:

tgamble:

"Ok, I'm asking you."

LOL I should have seen that one coming before I responded.

Okay the question you asked was:

"Well, if you start with the assumption of supernatural creation, it's certainly possible that the transitional series are merely seperate creationists but why would anyone think so?"

Here is why I believe that the history of life is a series of Creative acts instead of an evolutionary progression.

I do not believe that natural causes (left to their own devices) can produce the complexity and function that we see at various levels in lifeforms.

Why not? How much biology and biochemistry have you learned? Surely you know that this is merely an argument from ignorance?

I can only say that evolution,IMHO, cant really be that difficult to produce if it can happen. I mean in a relatively short period of time evolution supposedly prodused a solution to a very complex problem.

What problem?

{If you think about functionality as a solution to the "problem" of non-functional complex systems} So why do have a somewhat difficult time producing universal problem solvers from evolutionary algorithims?

I'm not sure what you mean here. If you asking why we can't produce solutions the way evolution did I can think of at least two answers

1) we don't know everything about how evolution works

2) We have a goal in mind. Evolution works with what it has and uses what works.

I really think we SHOULD have better explanations and models then what we currently do if evolution occured in a purely naturalistic way.

It's not been that long since DNA was discovered. All things considered, I think a lot of progress has been made.

Anyway, who says it had to accur in a purely naturalistic fashion? That's all science can test for and conclude but it's not evidence of absense.

I guess at the core of my argument I really do see Specified Complexity and Irreducible Complexity in some biological systems.

Not really sure what SC is but that IC systems exist isn't really the issue, but whether or not evolution can explain them.

As to why I specifically believe in an OEC interpretation of Genesis and more specifically in many of the things Ross believes.....I have read many, many books and articles on other explanations, other religions, etc and I really think that Ross has a pretty decent and encompassing model. Flame me if you must but that is where I stand.

I'm going to flame you. I think this discussion has been pretty civilized so far and I see no reason to change that. I hope it doesn't change.

The fact that you abandoned YEC nonsense shows that you are open to review and possible change of your views. That's always good even if you end up not changing.

Warcraft3

April 2nd 2003, 10:47 PM

tgamble:

Im still putting together the info for you to look at on Ross's stance on the creation week. I didnt get to it as early as i wanted to, so I didnt get to post it before 8. I also have to answer the other questions you raised in your last post. I should have answers posted by 9pm or so tomorrow. Sorry for the delay.

:bawl:

Socrates

April 3rd 2003, 12:11 AM

Steadele:

Ah Socrates, where do I begin? LOL ok here we go.............

Steadele gave his excuses for his compromise:
Actually I was answering a question by socratism which was....

"Might I ask what was the major item which changed your mind?"

Funny but nowhere in the question do I see the phrase "excuses for your compromise" In fact out of those four words only the word "your" actually appears in the original question. So Im not sure where you are getting that phrase from. It was an accurate term for what you are doing, and it's further shown by your buddying with the overt Bible-hating scientifically ignorant troll tgamble.

I wrote:

How boring -- God doesn't need bodies to produce light -- He won't in the New Jerusalem (Rev. 22:5). See also How could the days of Genesis 1 be literal before the sun was created?

Steadele:Boring? Oh yes Im wrong cause my view is boring. Good answer.

--Ahh yes a link to AIG, what a shocker. You are assuming that after I read your link (which Ive read) that I will see how the days of Genesis could be 24 hours before the sun was created. You are missing the point. I have heard your explaination and I think the OEC explanation is THEOLOGICALLY SUPERIOR.
Frankly, I don't believe you. Nothing in your post gave any idication that you had read AiG material. E.g. you spouted long-discredited long-age arguments, and also raised YEC arguments that AiG has advised people not to use.The answer is the OEC view (the one I hold) relates this verse to a change in reference, which then explains the remainder of chapter 1.But this change of reference exists only in Ross's grandiose mind. AiG responded in www.answersingenesis.org/docs/4128.asp:

Insightful exegesis or delusions of grandeur?

One key point about Ross’s ‘harmony’ of Genesis with billions of years is to claim that Genesis 1:2 ff. is written from the viewpoint of an observer at the earth’s surface. He claims (p. 21):
‘The frame of reference, or point of view, for the creation account suddenly shifts in Genesis 1:2, from the heavenlies that make up the entire physical universe to the surface of planet Earth. For whatever reason, perhaps because it comes so abruptly, most readers — even scholarly commentators — miss the shift. I am convinced that my absorption in science prepared me to see it.’
So Ross, despite a demonstrable ignorance of even the most basic Hebrew and an inability to use Hebrew lexicons correctly, discovers amazing insights, thanks to ‘science’. This claim by Ross, like so many others, is a denial of the perspicuity of Scripture. I.e., God’s people were left entirely in the dark about Genesis until modern uniformitarian theories were invented — mainly by bibliosceptics.

More likely, this alleged frame shift has been missed because it is not in the text! The real frame-shift to the Earth is very clear in the Hebrew, and occurs in Genesis 2:4, not Genesis 1:2. Genesis 1:1–2:3 is a summarised account of the whole creation, while Genesis 2:4 ff. focuses on the creation of mankind (in chapters 7 and 10, Ross rightly rejects higher critical theories that claim that Genesis 1 and 2 are contradictory creation accounts). This shift is clear from the boundary marking phrase ‘These are the generations (toledoth) of the heavens and of the earth’, or better, ‘This is the account …’. Also, in Genesis 2:4, the order ‘heaven and earth’ changes to ‘earth and heaven’, alerting the reader to focus on the earth.

To continue, I wrote:

as the above article pointed out, all you need is a rotating Earth and directional light, created on Day 1.

Oh, the AIG article again.Yep, what of it. Evidently your main exposure to creation was to people like Dr Dino. One day yo might surprise us all and actually refute the article instead of closed-mindedly dismissing it. Already answered this one. No you haven't -- you've just said you disagree. But you were still irresponsible to raise this canard since it has so often been answered. Also, Calvin and Augustine had no problem believing that the sun was created on the fourth day while some other light generated the day/night cycle somehow.

The length of the seventh day is 24 hours, as the Sabbath Command shows (Ex. 20:8-11). Furthermore, Dr Andrew Steinmann, Associate Professor of Theology and Hebrew at Concordia University, Illinois, argues :
A quote by a professer of Theology. And of Hebrew!!!!! Hmm wanna take a bet how fast I could find a quote from a professor or famous apologist supporting my view? Of course that wouldnt matter anyway because those who take my view are nothing but compromisers who need to be hit on the head like this :bonk: That's right, because without fail they give their main reason for disagreeing as the perceived conflict with "science". But Steinmann stuck to the Hebrew. AIG strikes again!!! Let me repeat myself yet again.....THIS WAS ONE OF THE ORIGINAL ISSUES I HAD WITH YEC ELEVEN YEARS AGO!!!!! Yeah, so you admit that you based your rejection on the "authority" of some dubious arguments many years ago. This is logically invalid.I know that AIG specifically shows more restraint in using some of these evidences. So what? That just convinces me that you are the better than most YECs. It doesnt convince me that YEC is valid though. But you have not actually shown that it is not.Im fully aware of what AIG specifically believes, and what is posted on your website. Once again...THIS WAS ONE OF THE ORIGINAL ISSUES I HAD WITH YEC ELEVEN YEARS AGO!!!!! So why wallow in this ancient history instead of "Moving Forward (http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/docs/v24n2_moving_forward.asp)"??

Which AiG rejects!! Shows how little you really know, AGAIN! See How can we see distant stars in a young Universe?
Ah yes, Russell Humphrys' infamous cosmology. Ive read some of his work and some critics of it as well. This explaination does not convince me any more I.e. you can't refute it, and don't want to have your compromise exposed, so you'll still harp on about ideas not accepted in the mainstream creationist community.... than the apperance of age argument did when I first heard it (which was when I was like 12 years old).Oh right, so your theology is based on the authority of a 12yo??!

"WHY NOT? Invariably not because of the Hebrew but because they were intimidated by the "science". I have documented this in my opening post in the debate www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?postid=49433#post49433. So it is not independent evidence.

YOU say that was their motivation, but THEY dont say that.Then demonstrate where I've misquoted them!

Yeah, right, that must be why AiG published that "Don't Use" article .
And I have read that article, and frankly I think its a good article. I wasnt specifically accusing AIG. But I was refering to ONE OF THE ORIGINAL ISSUES I HAD WITH YEC ELEVEN YEARS AGO!!!!!OK, but once again, why be such an avid anti-YEC based on things that happened 11 years ago and ignoring the best arguments by YECs. After all, Ross is widely considered the best OEC, so it's fair to use him as support. So isn't it fair to use the best YEC material for comparison? And your accusation is that YECs don't retract any errors, so it was fair to refer you to an article by a leading YEC organisation.
Yes Im sure the ID advocates will be relieved that they have your approval.I understand that Phillip Johnson WAS gratified by the response.

AtheistArchon

April 3rd 2003, 12:34 AM

- Somehow, Socrates, I don't think you're going to encourage Steadele to become a YEC again.

:brow:

TheFiveSolas

April 3rd 2003, 04:20 AM

QED wrote (as a rebuttal to Socrates' claim that Dr. Gentry had testified under oath to discrimination due to his creationist views):

More to the point, the unfairness of the denial was, in the estimation of the witness, unrelated to his creationist views. His opinion was that the reviewers' bias was a result of competition between the two.

That wasn't the impression that I got from reading the transcript. Prior to the section you refer to Gentry had described his original discussion with the Program Director. He had also alluded to the ramifications for the current geological model IF he was to find the type of evidence that he eventually did find. In the very section that you refer to Gentry asserts that the reviewers knew exactly what the implications of his findings were (i.e., that of a very young Earth).

In fact, he states it this way:

I can understand such statements could be made by persons unacquainted with geochemical terminology who might read my published reports. It is, however, very difficult for me to understand how a panel of geochemists could make such statements, especially in view of the fact that I had previously discussed with the Program Director the hypothesis and implications of my research on Po halos as they have been published in the open scientific literature and referred to in both the previous and the present NSF proposals.

The inference is that they knew the implications of his research but in their denial letter claimed that they didn't, and even went so far as to claim that he hadn't presented any hypothesis by which his theory could be tested, which was patently false (as is also proven by his latter testimony).

On a side note, I was thoroughly impressed with Dr. Gentry's humble submission of his findings to the review of his peers.

Specifically, I refer to a publication in the transactions of the American Geophysical Union, "EOS," dated May 29, 1979...I propose that this new framework has a scientific basis because there are certain predictions which, in principle, can be confirmed and others which can be falsified by suitable counter examples...I submit this letter to the members of the scientific community, not as an antagonist purporting to have the final word in a dispute, but as a colleague, who, in the spirit of free scientific inquiry, genuinely seeks a vigorous critical response to the evidence discussed herein."

Dr. Gentry offered a hypothesis that made predictions, was confirmed by evidence, was able to be falsified (he provided examples as to how), and that he presented to the scientific community for peer review. In addition, during deposition he offered the professional opinions of several top scientists who asserted that further research should be done in an attempt to either prove or disprove his findings.

To my knowledge, Dr. Gentry has, in university settings, presented his evidence and issued the challenge to falsify his findings as recently as 1997.

To quote Professor Emerson Thomas McMullen:

He (Gentry) claims the polonium halos he has observed in granite are evidence of God's instantaneous creation. Gradualistic geology holds that these halos formed naturally, which Gentry says is impossible. To back this claim up, Gentry has challenged the scientific community to first synthesize a handsized piece of granite and then produce a Polonium 218 halo in it. If this experiment can be done, he is willing to drop his claim. He has repeated this test of theories at the University of Tennessee in 1987, Stetson University in 1989, Clemson University in 1991, East Carolina University in 1993, Cornell University in 1996, and North Carolina State University in 1997.

And

G. Brent Dalrymple was a member of the U.S. Geological survey for over thirty years and is the evolutionary geologist who testified at McLean vs. Arkansas in 1981, that Gentry's work was a "tiny mystery." He still has no answer to Gentry's research although he badly wants to refute it. Under the letterhead of the National Center for Scientific Education,(19) he signed 1992 and 1995 letters to "the multi-thousand members of the prestigious American Geophysical Union" calling for a conventional answer to Gentry's findings. He posed the question "How would you answer a student who claims the presence of Polonium halos in granite demonstrates that granite had to have formed suddenly (i.e. was specially created)(20) Again, there has been no scientific counter to Gentry's and its startling implications.

The above two quotes can be read in full at:

http://www2.gasou.edu/facstaff/etmcmull/GENTRY.htm

AdvocatDiaboli

April 3rd 2003, 04:35 AM

Today @ 04:11 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=51751#post51751)
Socrates:
OK, but once again, why be such an avid anti-YEC based on things that happened 11 years ago and ignoring the best arguments by YECs. After all, Ross is widely considered the best OEC, so it's fair to use him as support. So isn't it fair to use the best YEC material for comparison? And your accusation is that YECs don't retract any errors, so it was fair to refer you to an article by a leading YEC organisation.

Just out of curiosity. What are the _best_ YEC arguments? AiG is too difficult to navigate/browse for me.

Thanks in advance.

tgamble

April 3rd 2003, 11:07 AM

Today @ 08:35 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=51986#post51986)
AdvocatDiaboli:

Just out of curiosity. What are the _best_ YEC arguments?

THE BIBLE SAYS SO! END OF STORY! BELIEVE IT OR ROT IN HELL YOU GOD HATEING SCUM!

:rofl: :rofl:

tgamble

April 3rd 2003, 11:09 AM

Today @ 04:11 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=51751#post51751)
Socrates:
It was an accurate term for what you are doing, and it's further shown by your buddying with the overt Bible-hating scientifically ignorant troll tgamble.

Steadele, you want to reqest a private forum or switch to email? The endless abuse of the antiscience biogot Socrates is getting annoying.

RufusAtticus

April 3rd 2003, 11:51 AM

Polonium Halo FAQs (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/po-halos/)

Merely placing a link with no surrounding context, etc., is against TWeb's Decorum

tgamble

April 3rd 2003, 12:20 PM

Today @ 03:51 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=52312#post52312)
RufusAtticus:

Polonium Halo FAQs (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/po-halos/)

the atheist STUDENT blah blah blah who's wife is a false christian blah blah blah posts a link to the garbage, god hating, bible bashing talkorigins blah blah blah.

Insert link to AIG trying to defend Gentry blah blah blah

There, that saves Socrates the hassle of posting.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

RufusAtticus

April 3rd 2003, 12:34 PM

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
Indeed.

Warcraft3

April 3rd 2003, 01:50 PM

Socrates:

First of all let me say that the reason I was a bit sarcastic in my responce to you was because you were sarcastic in your post.
I have reconsidered my position and have decided to dispense with any and all sarcasm. I apologize if you felt I was simply "hand waving" away the AIG posts you cited or your arguments. With that said let me respond to your most recent post briefly......

"............................. with the overt Bible-hating scientifically ignorant troll tgamble."

Bible-hating scientifically ignorant troll?? Socrates, this is quite an emotional and personal statement about tgamble, dont you think?
I do not know him personally and Im assuming you dont either. In fact you also dont know who I am. So here is a little bit of info that might help.

My name is Russell Steadele and I live in Glen Burnie Maryland. I currently work for a defense contractor in Annapolis (Alion Science and technology). I have a B.S. degree in Electrical engineering from Penn State University. I am 27 and have been an OEC for about 3 years. I first started doubting YEC when I was around 12 years old and rejected it when I was 20. During my time at Penn State my Mother passed away, causing me to reject God completely for a time. Slowly I began to read about OEC views and eventually was "converted" to OEC. I strongly resisted believing in OEC for a number of reasons, many of which were bitterness nad anger towards religion. But I found the theology of OEC to be quite compelling and so returned to my former religious convictions. So even though you said you dont believe me,

steadele-"I have heard your explaination and I think the OEC explanation is THEOLOGICALLY SUPERIOR."

Socrates- "Frankly, I don't believe you."

Im telling you that you are wrong. I gave you personal information to try and show you where Im coming from. OEC brought me BACK to God, not further away. YEC (AIG included) theology did nothing to bring me back. You may not like this, but these are the FACTS.

Now Socrates, you have a degree in some area in Chemistry, you live in Australia, and you respond with tons of AIG links. Do you or do not in fact work for AIG? You say you are a scientist, so tell us what kind of work you are engaged in. Maybe it will further support your qualifications for talking on specific topics. And if you wont divulge this info then at least expalin yourself. Thanks

"It was an accurate term for what you are doing, and it's further shown by your buddying with the overt Bible-hating scientifically ignorant troll tgamble."

I am not "buddying" with anyone. Tgamble disagrees with alot of what I say, but he doesnt personally attack me or make accusations. After this responce Im going to summarize(should be up by 9pm EST) for him Ross' views (and to a large degree my views also) on the creation order. Im sure he will disagree with this as will you, but he will not respond in an insulting manner. I hope you will do the same.

"Frankly, I don't believe you. Nothing in your post gave any idication that you had read AiG material. E.g. you spouted long-discredited long-age arguments, and also raised YEC arguments that AiG has advised people not to use."

I know you dont believe me, and thats fine. It doesnt change the fact though.

"But this change of reference exists only in Ross's grandiose mind."

No there are some scholars who either agree with Ross's interpretation of the Hebrew words or at least admit that the Hebrew meanings CAN be interpreted in his manner. Keep in mind that I do think your position is a VALID one with regard to the text, although I disagree with you.

"That's right, because without fail they give their main reason for disagreeing as the perceived conflict with "science". But Steinmann stuck to the Hebrew. "

They are interpreting the scripture within a certain "framework" that they have. You may disagree with the "framework", but I do not. I think it makes alot more sense of the text than the 24 hour day view.
They explain why the verb changes for "create or make" occur, they explain the relevance of the information on where Gods spirit is, they explain the need for a protected Garden environment for Adam and Eve, they explain the need for the tree of life, they explain the reason that Adam and Eve knew what "die" meant when God said "......you will surely die.....", and they put carnivirous activity and suffering into a much broader context towards the eventual conquering of evil and the new creation. I believe on these several issues and many more their theology simply makes more sense with respect to the rest of Scripture. That is my opinion.

"But you have not actually shown that it is not."

Look, Socrates, I have read AIGs' articles and have listened to the web cast as well. But Ive also read Ross's stuff and listened to his web cast. Three times he has had young earthers on his show including; Dr Danny Faulkner, Dr John Mark Reynolds(if memory serves), and most recently Dr Duane Gish. Have you listened to these shows? They are very enlightining. He has also had "evolutionists" on his show as well. Do you ever actually read his stuff or listen to it for the purpose of finding out WHY he thinks as he does? See,Ive noticed two very troubling things that people do when looking at the other side in this debate:

1. Get all information on the opposing view by reading or listening to RESPONCES from people in their own camp.
2. Reading or listening to opposing view points while shaking their head at everything they say and thinking "Oh they're wrong and Ill show them why they're wrong!!!"

You need to listen to the opposing side with an open heart and mind and try to UNDERSTAND them, instead of just trying to discredit them. Ive noticed at least ONE organization that does this out of all the OEC and YEC organizations Ive looked at. And that ONE is reasons to believe.

Oh and one last thing....Could you explain.............

this?

:cir:

Warcraft3

April 3rd 2003, 02:06 PM

Atheist Archon:
"Somehow, Socrates, I don't think you're going to encourage Steadele to become a YEC again."

I believe that would be a correct statement. While I understand why people on all sides of this issue get very emotional, I do not excuse it. I have friends (very close friends) on all sides of this issue and we discuss things in a civil manner. I have been corrected by both YECs' and Evolutionists before, and I have welcomed that correction. My purpose for discussion on this forum is so I can learn from and contribute to the discussion. Im sure everyone (including Socrates) has alot of knowledge that I can benifit from, so I dont mind heated debate, but I do mind personal attacks.

So anyway.....
what the heck is this?
:cir:

AtheistArchon

April 3rd 2003, 02:14 PM

So anyway.....
what the heck is this?

:cir: :cir: :cir:

- It's a little smiley guy playing the Atari! A joystick with the fire button on top. Ever watched someone's expression as they play a video game? I have to admit that I look exactly like that when I'm playing.

QED

April 3rd 2003, 03:38 PM

Today @ 08:20 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=#post)
TheFiveSolas:

QED wrote (as a rebuttal to Socrates' claim that Dr. Gentry had testified under oath to discrimination due to his creationist views):

That wasn't the impression that I got from reading the transcript. Prior to the section you refer to Gentry had described his original discussion with the Program Director. He had also alluded to the ramifications for the current geological model IF he was to find the type of evidence that he eventually did find. In the very section that you refer to Gentry asserts that the reviewers knew exactly what the implications of his findings were (i.e., that of a very young Earth).

You are correct. I re-read the relevant portions, and apparently I misunderstood before. By itsself, this is very poor evidence of censorship (and is not evidence of systematic censorship), but it may be evidence of one case of same. As such, Socrates' statement is technically correct - that Gentry gave evidence under oath of "censorship" (though not censorship of papers, but denial of funding). Gentry's testimony actually counters the hypothesis of systematic censorship. He obviously has rarely (if ever) been a victim of it, even though he would be a "prime" target. To prove this is a single case of censorship, we would need to know a little more detail on whether the data he expected to find would be adequate support for the hypothesis he was working on.

Rufus' link speaks somewhat (indirectly) to that question, as does this one:
http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/revised8.htm

RufusAtticus

April 3rd 2003, 05:53 PM

I'm confused. What reasons did they give for his denial of funding?

Warcraft3

April 3rd 2003, 06:22 PM

tgamble:

"Steadele, you want to reqest a private forum or switch to email? The endless abuse of the antiscience biogot Socrates is getting annoying."

Sure if you think that would be an easier way to go about it. If you (or anyone for that matter) wants to email me my address is: russellsteadele3@hotmail.com

I still have to respond to your post #152 and also give you the Ross stuff. Im heading home right now so I should be able to get all of it posted tonight.

Warcraft3

April 3rd 2003, 06:25 PM

AtheistArchon:

" It's a little smiley guy playing the Atari! A joystick with the fire button on top. Ever watched someone's expression as they play a video game? I have to admit that I look exactly like that when I'm playing.":cir: :cir: :cir:

Oooooooooooooooh ok. I see it now. LOL Thanks.
:rockon:

Warcraft3

April 3rd 2003, 08:47 PM

tgamble:

I have 2 things for you. The first one is an attempt to answer the whole "order of creation" issue using Ross's views. The second one is a suggestion.

1. Answer

Okay first of all remember that this view does not view Genesis 1 as an exhaustive list, so if something isnt mentioned it just was omitted. With that in mind, only the things that are specifically mentioned have to line up with what we see is geology. For example, since dinosaurs arent mentioned specifically they COULD have been created at any point in time during the creation "week". Since the days are considered to be long, unspecified periods of time there will, at times, be some overlap between two different days.

Also "the Day-Age interpretation claims that the narrative of Genesis 1 is from the point of view of the earth as being prepared for the habitation of man." http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologetics/pca_creation_study_committee_report.shtml?main

Keep this in mind also as you read the creation account, because it may help to explain some of Ross's views.

I only found a few articles off the website which could help to answer your question. The rest of the stuff I found was either in the webcast or was in his books. Since I dont have time to listen to 20 two hour webcasts, and every book I had by Ross is now in the hands of people who permantly "borrowed" the book, I was not able to get too much more info than the 3 web site articles. I did call their "hotline" though and spoke briefly with someone about these issues. So those are my sources.

This is from Ross's "word studies in Genesis one" on the website.

."In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. . Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering(1) over the waters. "

{skipped a few verses here}

" Then God said, "Let the land produce(2) vegetation(3); seed(4)-bearing plants(5) and trees(6) on the land that bear fruit(7) with seed(4) in it, according to their various kinds(9)." And it was so..

{skipped a few verses here}

." And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures(8) according to their kinds(9): livestock(10), creatures(11) that move along the ground, and wild aniaals(12), each according to its kind9." And it was so."

Definitions
1. RACHAPH: to brood over, cherishing and vivifying; to be tenderly affected; to be moved
2. DASHA: to bring forth herbage; to sprout; to bring forth
3. DESHE: new vegetation; young plants
4. ZERA: embryos of plants, trees, grasses, etc., i.e., the embryos of any plant species
5. ESEB: green plant(s)
6. ETS: any large plant containing woody fiber
7. PERIY: fod and/or embryos produced by any living thing
8. NEPHESH: vital animals, i.e., animals that clearly manifest the soulish attributes of mind, will, and emotion
9. MIYN: species; life4orm
10. BEHEMOWTH: large land quadrupeds
11. REMES: rapidly moving vertebrates; rodents and reptiles
12. CHAY: wild mammals; a multitude or mob; that which is lively or fresh

I think from the definitions he gives you can see where he is going with this. Of course some people accuse him of forcing the definitions to fit with his science, but it should be noted that there are several good scholars who do believe that the text does allow those interpretations. Gleason Archer is among those several.

I have also remember reading in one of Ross's books that some linguists have suggested that the word "hovering" or "brooding" may imply an introduction of life into the "waters". Ross merely mentions it, he doesnt necessarily hold this view.

I also read two articles I found on plants/trees from "Connections". Here is are 2 excerpts from those articles.....

Connections 1999, Volume 1, No. 2

How old is this early, perhaps the first, tree? It dates back 370 million years, more than a hundred million years before the first dinosaurs.

1. Brigitte Meyer-Berthaud, Stephen E. Scheckler, and Jobst Wendt, "Archaeopteris is the Earliest Known Modern Tree," Nature, 398 (1999), pp. 700-701.

and also

Connections 2001 - Volume 3, Number 1

“Ancient (2+ billion years old) deposits of organically generated silicates and calcium-bearing minerals show signs of wind erosion. In other words, this organic (living) matter was land-based not oceanbased, for wind can only erode exposed rocks (rocks not submerged in oceans). Thus, we have further confirmation that life existed on land more than 2 billion years ago, very early in Earth’s history.”

References:
1. Yumiko Watanabe et al., “Geochemical Evidence for Terrestrial Ecosystems 2.6 Billion Years Ago,” Nature 408 (2000), 574-78.
2. Sid Perkins, “Life Landed 2.6 Billion Years Ago,” Science News 158 (2000), 356.

Thats basically all I could find from articles posted on the web, because most of his info is in his books and on the webcast.
Hopefully it was helpful.
:shrug:

2. Okay now here is my suggestion,

Since I had a somewhat difficult time getting an abundance of information from the website, and all my books are being "borrowed" (never loan friends your books):argh: maybe a more direct approach is necessary. So I say you just ask Dr Ross himself, and see what he has to say. :idea: So what do ya say? Just send him an email and Im sure they will answer it either on their webcast or in a written responce. Or if you prefer Ill just ask them the question myself. Since I dont have his books with me I cant give you a complete "straight from the horses mouth" picture, but by asking him there will be no chance of any misrepresentation. So just let me know what you think.

:juggle: That isnt how I juggle.

tgamble

April 3rd 2003, 09:23 PM

Today @ 12:47 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=#post)
steadele:

tgamble:

I have 2 things for you. The first one is an attempt to answer the whole "order of creation" issue using Ross's views. The second one is a suggestion.

1. Answer

Okay first of all remember that this view does not view Genesis 1 as an exhaustive list, so if something isnt mentioned it just was omitted. With that in mind, only the things that are specifically mentioned have to line up with what we see is geology. For example, since dinosaurs arent mentioned specifically they COULD have been created at any point in time during the creation "week".

But dinosaurs ARE land life and thus are included on the 6th day. It doesn't mention much of anything specifically. No mention of dogs, cats, rabbits, bears, horses etc.

" Then God said, "Let the land produce(2) vegetation(3); seed(4)-bearing plants(5) and trees(6) on the land that bear fruit(7) with seed(4) in it, according to their various kinds(9)." And it was so..

so you agree that plants are the first to be created (whout assumeing other life was created but not mentioned)?

I have also remember reading in one of Ross's books that some linguists have suggested that the word "hovering" or "brooding" may imply an introduction of life into the "waters". Ross merely mentions it, he doesnt necessarily hold this view.

I doubt it. The story specifically mentions createing sea life on the 4th(?) day.

“Ancient (2+ billion years old) deposits of organically generated silicates and calcium-bearing minerals show signs of wind erosion. In other words, this organic (living) matter was land-based not oceanbased, for wind can only erode exposed rocks (rocks not submerged in oceans). Thus, we have further confirmation that life existed on land more than 2 billion years ago, very early in Earth’s history.”

I'm not sure how this is relevent.

2. Okay now here is my suggestion,

Since I had a somewhat difficult time getting an abundance of information from the website, and all my books are being "borrowed" (never loan friends your books):argh: maybe a more direct approach is necessary. So I say you just ask Dr Ross himself, and see what he has to say. :idea: So what do ya say? Just send him an email and Im sure they will answer it either on their webcast or in a written responce.

Last time I checked, he doesn't answer email questions. It would probably take up to much time.

Warcraft3

April 3rd 2003, 10:08 PM

tgamble:
Okay here is my responce to your post #148 (I might have said #150 but that was incorrect).

"Obviously. The point is that if humans were his prize creation (and there's no real reason to think so) he could have created the earth the right way from the start. But he didn't. You don't know why, I just conclude it wasn't created in the first place."

Yeah He also could have created the universe and earth in 1 millisecond, or in no time at all for that matter. Since God (IMHO) exists in more dimensions than we do I dont think how long it took Him to prepare the earth for man is directly connected with whether or not we are His special creation. We are or we arent based on ones view of mankind with respect to God, regardless of the preperation time.

"I know, I''ve read some of the articles there. My point is, there's no valid reason to reach his conclusions."

Keep in mind that most of his stuff is in his books and on the webcast, so if you are just reading the articles on the website or ,worse yet, "some" of the articles on the website you arent getting the whole "Ross" picture.

"True, the question is if an asteroid wiping out the dinosaurs so mammals could evovle (be created, whatever) so humans could evolve (be created) is consistent with ID and humans being the prize creation."

My answer would be yes.

"True, but if one is creating an enviroment for a prize creation, it hardly makes sense to create the earth then do nothing for millions of years."

Well I dont think how long God waited to go to the next phase would make "sense" to any of us, no matter how long or short that time was, unless we look at it in a theological point of view. Look at it this way, sometimes I dont know what humans motivations are for doing things are or why they made certain decisions of preference when designing something new, but Im sure their decisions make perfect "sense" to them. So of course there is the possibilty of God doing something that doesnt make "sense" to you. And of course the reasons why it may not make sense are as numerous as there are personalities.

"I would conclude that the missing data represents missing knowlege of those people who wrote it"

From a non-Christian point of view that is one way of looking at it. I, of course, disagree.

Okay the rest of the comments were about Ross which Ive addressed in a previous post.

How come there arent more fruit animations besides the banna guy?

:yipee:

tgamble

April 3rd 2003, 10:25 PM

Today @ 02:08 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=#post)
steadele:

"True, the question is if an asteroid wiping out the dinosaurs so mammals could evovle (be created, whatever) so humans could evolve (be created) is consistent with ID and humans being the prize creation."

My answer would be yes.

Why? What logical connection is there between that and ID?

"True, but if one is creating an enviroment for a prize creation, it hardly makes sense to create the earth then do nothing for millions of years."

Well I dont think how long God waited to go to the next phase would make "sense" to any of us, no matter how long or short that time was, unless we look at it in a theological point of view. Look at it this way, sometimes I dont know what humans motivations are for doing things are or why they made certain decisions of preference when designing something new, but Im sure their decisions make perfect "sense" to them. So of course there is the possibilty of God doing something that doesnt make "sense" to you. And of course the reasons why it may not make sense are as numerous as there are personalities.

So what we're stuck with is a God who's motivations and reasons are unknown and whose creation method is consistent with anything and everything because he created it, which is the conclusion that we have to start with for it to make sense.

"I would conclude that the missing data represents missing knowlege of those people who wrote it"

From a non-Christian point of view that is one way of looking at it. I, of course, disagree.

Ok. But why? What reason is there to assume they had knowlege but just didn't write it down?

TheFiveSolas

April 3rd 2003, 10:59 PM

Rufus wrote:

Solas,

Do you have their Science paper available to you? Do you have any other questions about it? Have your other questions been resolved?

Yes, I have that article available to me, which is how I was able to cut and paste the chart Socrates originally alluded to.

I don't really have any questions on the paper since their findings confirmed, for the most part, the position I already take. Namely, that the "criteria" by which fossils are lumped together (i.e., what defines genus and species for example) is governed by a precommittment to evolution.

I thoroughly enjoyed the article and fully support the conclusion that Homo habilus and Homo rudolfensis should be reassigned by removing them from genus Homo and placing them under the rubric of Australopithecus.

I also was encouraged by the chart that compares six major characteristics of the six "species" in question and shows that the two above fall FULLY in the Australopith camp AND that the remaining (which I believe are mere variations of true humans) exhibit FULL "Human-like" traits (with the lone exception of one trait of Homo erectus). There was a category labeled "intermediate" which referred to traits that fell in between the two ends of the spectrum of Australopith and Human. You would expect to see, if evolution were true, a gradual progression including intermediate forms but as the chart indicates ALL fall either into the ONE camp or the OTHER, with NO intermediates except for the ONE lone trait mentioned above.

Socrates

April 3rd 2003, 11:16 PM

Steadele:The population growth argument is completely ridiculous.And your refutation of Where are all the people? (http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/docs/v23n3_people.asp) is, what?

DivineOb

April 4th 2003, 12:07 AM

blah, hold on... have to fix something :P

Warcraft3

April 4th 2003, 12:19 AM

tgamble:

By the way I had a really good responce to your post but before I could post it my computer froze. :argh: So now Im a bit frustrated and Im gonna try and give you a quick answer.

"But dinosaurs ARE land life and thus are included on the 6th day. It doesn't mention much of anything specifically. No mention of dogs, cats, rabbits, bears, horses etc."

Actually Ross believes they probably fall somewhere on the fourth day. Again they arent mentioned specifically and I see no reason to assume that ALL land life was made on the sixth day. Look again at the definitions Ross is using for the Hebrew words in that verse.

And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures(8) according to their kinds(9): livestock(10), creatures(11) that move along the ground, and wild aniaals(12), each according to its kind9." And it was so."

8. NEPHESH: vital animals, i.e., animals that clearly manifest the soulish attributes of mind, will, and emotion
9. MIYN: species; life4orm
10. BEHEMOWTH: large land quadrupeds
11. REMES: rapidly moving vertebrates; rodents and reptiles
12. CHAY: wild mammals; a multitude or mob; that which is lively or fresh

So Ross would argue that only these specific ones are acutally mentioned on that day.

"so you agree that plants are the first to be created (whout assumeing other life was created but not mentioned)?"

I would say they are the first thing to be mentioned, but not necessarily the first life to be creadted.

"I doubt it. The story specifically mentions createing sea life on the 4th(?) day."

"I doubt it"

Well some scholars do believe this may be implied by the text, so I think its at least a possibility.

"The story specifically mentions createing sea life on the 4th(?) day."

Um its the 5th day. And again if you look at Ross's interpretation of the Hebrew words used it makes alot more sense. He is thinking only of specific types of sea creatures being created here, not necessarily ALL sea life.

"Let the water teem with living creatures(15), and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky." 21. So God1 created the great creatures(16) of the sea and every living(17) and moving thing(17) ........"

15. SHERETS: swarm of small or minute animals
16. TANNIYM: great or large sea animal; monster
17. NEPHESH: vital animals, i.e., animals that clearly manifest the soulish attributes of mind, will, and emotion

"I'm not sure how this is relevent."

I think they are trying to point to the possibility that maybe some form of land based plants DID appear very early. So while plants werent the FIRST life to appear, its possible they did come very early in the creation.

I have a link for you as well. I just listened to a radio show where Ross goes into a little bit of detail about some of these topics. He is incorporates more Hebrew words and overall theology (and scripture) in his explanation than I did. The best explanation is still in his book The Genesis Question, which I guess Ill have to buy again as a reference. Anyway when you click on the link go to radio show #241, and fast forward to about 1:07 in the show. Thats where the (brief) explanation is. Here is the link.
http://www.reasons.org/resources/multimedia/rtbradio/archives/index.shtml?main

"Last time I checked, he doesn't answer email"

He answers most email question during the webcast which is every Tuesday 11am-1pm PST. The webcast is called creation update and every show is archived on the website, so you can listen at any time.

Again if you want me to Ill email him the question (I wont be able to do it until Sunday though cause I have "war games" this weekend) I will. Or you could just send it yourself. Just let me know. Sorry my answers werent better, but I lost everything I wrote and I didnt want to write all that again--so I just gave you a quick answer. Ok I need sleep. Later.

RufusAtticus

April 4th 2003, 11:40 AM

Yesterday @ 09:59 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=#post)
TheFiveSolas:

Yes, I have that article available to me, which is how I was able to cut and paste the chart Socrates originally alluded to.

Yeah that's why I figured you had it.

Namely, that the "criteria" by which fossils are lumped together (i.e., what defines genus and species for example) is governed by a precommittment to evolution.

Fossil species are grouped together in genera based on similar morphology and personal preference and experience of the person doing the taxonomy. Cladistics argues that all taxonomic groupsing should be monophyletic (http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monophyletic). The paper is arguing that Homo should fit this paradigm. (I'm not sure if it was ever supposed to.) The paper is actually arguing that Homo is not monphyletic, but should be.

You would expect to see, if evolution were true, a gradual progression including intermediate forms but as the chart indicates ALL fall either into the ONE camp or the OTHER, with NO intermediates except for the ONE lone trait mentioned above.

Considering that chart 7 was trying to classify individuals into one genus or the other, you're going to naturally get the either/or classifications. However, the distance values in chart 6 do show the gradual transition you'd expect. Just like the picture of skulls I've posted at least twice in this thread.

Warcraft3

April 4th 2003, 02:28 PM

Socrates:

"Steadele:
The population growth argument is completely ridiculous.
And your refutation of Where are all the people? is, what?"

Ive seen that article somewhere before, but Ill read it over again and try to give you a responce by Sunday.

Russ

SLPx

April 4th 2003, 02:43 PM

Today @ 03:16 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=#post)
Socrates:

Steadele:The population growth argument is completely ridiculous.And your refutation of Where are all the people? (http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/docs/v23n3_people.asp) is, what?

Horticulturist Batten writes:

"If we assume that they had the same number of daughters, then they averaged 10.7 children per couple. In the next generation, Shem had 14 grandsons, Ham, 28 and Japheth, 23, or 130 children in total. That is an average of 8.1 per couple. "

He jumps from an assumption to an assertion of truth.

Why would we make such an assumption? There is noithing in Scripture about this, so Batten goes extra-biblical, and makes the assumption for, it seems, the sole purpose that it is needed for his 'math' to work. Of course, apparntly horticulturist Batten doesn't understand about recessive traits and the problems associated with inbreeding.

He also writes:

"Evolutionists claim that mankind evolved from apes about a million years ago. If the population had grown at just 0.01% per year since then (doubling only every 7,000 years), there could be 1043 people today—that’s a number with 43 zeros after it. "

Assuming a constant, exponential poulation growth. There is no reason whatsoever to assume this.

Batten's article is refuted by virtue of it being premised on mythical assumptions.

Socratism

April 4th 2003, 03:09 PM

Actually the human population growth rate is very strong. It is supported by all historical evidence.

With regard to current populations it is rather remarkable but true that the population of SubSahara Africa is continuing to grow rapidly despite the AIDS pandemic in those countries.

This is due to the amazingly high number of children born to the average female of 10-12. Check the UN published studies released by WHO, the World Health Organization for validation of this.

RufusAtticus

April 4th 2003, 03:12 PM

Today @ 02:09 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=#post)
Socratism:
This is due to the amazingly high number of children born to the average female of 10-12. Check the UN published studies releashed by WHO, the World Health Organization for validation of this.

Okay but what is the average number of grandchildren? (Think about it for a second why I'm asking this.)

tgamble

April 4th 2003, 03:21 PM

TheFiveSolas

April 4th 2003, 04:10 PM

Rufus wrote:

Fossil species are grouped together in genera based on similar morphology and personal preference and experience of the person doing the taxonomy. Cladistics argues that all taxonomic groupsing should be monophyletic.

This is not exactly true. Its not as cut and dried as you seem to imply. Currently there are two major interpretations.

The article (The Human Genus) under discussion even mentions this fact in the paragraph titled, "What is a Genus?" on pg. 66:

Systematists are debating the definition of the genus chategory as part of a wider discussion about the taxonomic implications of recent developments in phylogenetic analysis (15). There are two main interpretations of the genus category. In the first (evolutionary systematic) interpretation, a genus is a species or a group of species of common ancestry that occupies an ecological situation, or adaptive zone, that is different from that occupied by the species of another genus (3). A group of species of common ancestry under this definition can be either monophyletic, comprising a common ancestor and all its descendents, or paraphyletic, comprising a subset of a monophyletic group. In the second (cladistic) definition, a genus is a group of species that are more closely related to one another than to species assigned to another genus (15). Thus, this interpretation insists that a genus must be monophyletic; it cannot be paraphyletic.
The evolutionary systematic definition of the genus is rejected by those who subscribe to cladistic classification, because they do not accept that paraphyletic taxa are real evolutionary units. However, defining genera solely on the basis of monophyly is equally problematic because there is no criterion for specifying how many species should be included in a genus.

You went on to say:

Considering that chart 7 was trying to classify individuals into one genus or the other, you're going to naturally get the either/or classifications.

Actually chart 7 was classifying individuals into one of three categories; Australopithecus, Human, or Intermediate (listed in the chart as (A), (H), or (I) respectively).

Saxonella

April 4th 2003, 06:16 PM

Today @ 08:10 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=#post)
TheFiveSolas:

This is not exactly true. Its not as cut and dried as you seem to imply. Currently there are two major interpretations.

The article (The Human Genus) under discussion even mentions this fact in the paragraph titled, "What is a Genus?" on pg. 66:

And this is why I disagree with them--they are not being consistent. As far as I can see they are using a rather idiosyncratic measure of what makes a "genus" in order to get around two difficulties: how to classify some problematic fossils that are all at the very origin of the genus Homo (therefore, any such fossils are going to display rather fewer "Homo" features than later fossils are, and are going to be more difficult to classify), and how to make the genus Homo conform to a sort of popularized notion of "humanness" (see their discussion on "Criteria for Membership" on p. 66). Basically they are using grade-based (i.e. adaptation-based) criteria in order to do this.

They call this a "pragmatic" solution (p. 66), but as far as I can see, it only shifts the problem elsewhere--into the genus Australopithecus. Of course, they do admit this: "The transfer will almost certainly make Australopithecus paraphyletic, and the genus will subsume an impressive range of cranial morphology..." (p. 70). (No kidding, Sherlock! :smile: ) Which means that at some point someone else is going to have to try and sort out a mess they contributed to.

They compare a passel of cladograms and show that, when we include H. rudolfensis and H. habilis, Homo monophyly is "only weakly supported"--but the thing is, it *is* supported. One may well ask why it is only weak support, but the answers are i) because (as I mentioned earlier) if these truly are stem species, then it is entirely expected that they will possess only a few of the key Homo features (which they do, in fact, possess) and ii) unlike H. ergaster, erectus, and so on, there is a limited range of preserved anatomy from which to construct a data matrix. We simply do not have as much information to work with, and virtually all cladists will tell you (including Wood and Collard, in other publications), trees should be constructed from as many different anatomical areas as is possible to use. So it may turn out that if some decent associated postcranial material could be found, especially for H. rudolfensis, the support for Homo monophyly could well be stronger. As it is, I think that retaining the fossils in Homo, as weak as the support is, is preferable to arbitrarily dumping them into Australopithecus, which is itself practically a "wastebasket taxon" these days.

As far as I'm concerned, if monophyly means something--and they do think it does--then either one accepts it at the level of support that exists with the data one has available, or one tosses monophyly out the window, and we're back to the "old days" of chimps and gorillas being classified together because they are "adaptively closer" to each other (and believe me--human and chimp monophyly is also very "weakly supported" by *morphology*... but the support *is* there in a properly constructed morphological cladogram--see Begun D. 1992. Miocene fossil hominids and the chimp-human clade. Science 257:1929-1933. And of course genetically the support is unequivocal). In other words: ____ or get off the pot.

:eek:

Actually chart 7 was classifying individuals into one of three categories; Australopithecus, Human, or Intermediate (listed in the chart as (A), (H), or (I) respectively).

But to what end? That is Rufus' point: the overall aim of the paper is to try and place some fossils into one of two and only two taxonomic categories based upon how a set of morphological traits sorted. There are actually 4 morphological slots: Australo (A), Homo (H), Intermediate (I), and unknown (?).

And as I also pointed out in an earlier post, the "H" for H. ergaster and the "?" for H. erectus under column 5 should be "I", based on a study of life history variables done in 2001.

TheFiveSolas

April 4th 2003, 06:22 PM

Saxonella wrote:

And as I also pointed out in an earlier post, the "H" for H. ergaster and the "?" for H. erectus under column 5 should be "I", based on a study of life history variables done in 2001.

Can you elaborate on this? The particular aspect examined in column 5 is "Development". What type of development is in view here and in what sense is this development "intermediate"?

Thanks.

Saxonella

April 4th 2003, 06:49 PM

From Dean et al. 2001. Growth processes in teeth distinguish modern humans from Homo erectus and earlier hominins. Nature 414:628-631.

ABSTRACT A modern human-like sequence of dental development, as a proxy for the pace of life history, is regarded as one of the diagnostic hallmarks of our own genus Homo. Brain size, age at first reproduction, lifespan, and other life-history traits correlate tightly with dental development. Here we report differences in enamel growth that show the earliest fossils attributed to Homo do not resemble modern humans in their development. We used daily incremental markings to calculate rates of enamel formation in 13 fossil hominins and identified differences in this key determinant of tooth formation time. Neither australopiths nor fossils currently attributed to early Homo shared the slow trajectory of enamel growth typical of modern humans; rather, both resembled modern and fossil African apes. We then reconstructed tooth formation times in australopiths, in the ~1.5 Myr-old Homo erectus skeleton from Nariokotome, Kenya, and in another Homo erectus specimen, Sangiran S7-37 from Java. These times were shorter than those of modern humans. It therefore seems likely that truly modern dental development emerged relatively late in human evolution.

(my note: the Nariokotome skeleton is also referred to as H. ergaster)

Basically, the pattern of the formation the crowns of modern human permanent teeth (before they erupt) is tightly correlated with certain major events in life history, such as puberty (i.e. by the time that the crown of tooth x is completed, you will enter puberty). Apparently, while this pattern is the same in H. erectus/ergaster, the timing is not: the timing is more like that of australos, which means that life history variables are attained at different ages than in modern humans. It has long been assumed that erectus, because the pattern of development was the same, had essentially the same kind of lifespan, but it turns out to be untrue. It seems that "modern" timing did not appear before Neandertals (although they did not sample *every* possible species in the study).

Today @ 10:22 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=#post)
TheFiveSolas:

Saxonella wrote:

Can you elaborate on this? In what sense is the development "intermediate"?

Thanks.

TheFiveSolas

April 4th 2003, 10:00 PM

Saxonella,
Thanks for the clarification.

Here are a few quotes from a couple of relevant articles:

A second kind of analysis provides information on the rate, rather than pattern, of tooth development. This approach is based on the fact that the structure of a tooth preserves a record of development, mainly in the enamel...Dean et al. (3) applied this second kind of analysis to a wide range of fossil hominin species, including Australopithecus anamensis (which dates to 4.2 million to 3.9 million years ago), Neanderthals (300,000 to 28,000 years ago), and the ape Proconsul (18 million years ago). The study covers complete specimens — as in the teeth of the famous 'Turkana boy', an almost complete specimen attributed to H. ergaster (10) — and isolated teeth and even fragments of a single tooth...A cautionary note, however, is that when dental developmental data are not the only source of information on the growth process, different lines of evidence may lead to different conclusions. For example, combined estimates of the age at death of the Turkana boy — based on analysis of dental and skeletal development and on reconstruction of the stature of this individual — have suggested that his overall pattern of growth was within the normal range of variation seen in modern humans(15).

Taken from Nature, December 6, 2001, and can be viewed at:
http://216.239.53.100/search?q=cache:MPjj-meFutwC:www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf%3Ffile%3D/nature/journal/v414/n6864/full/414595a_r.html+enamel+formation+daily+incremental&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

And the following is relevant to our discussion on cladistics:

When paleoanthropologists craft evolutionary trees, they usually select bone and tooth measurements, sometimes as many as several hundred from different fossils, to plug into a computerized statistical analysis. This technique, called cladistics, places species on related limbs of the tree according to the number of recently evolved skeletal characteristics that they share with each other but with no other species. Scientists also have applied cladistics to differences in the nucelotide sequence of segments of DNA.

However, a growing number of investigators, including some formerly ardent evolutionary-tree nurturers now suspect that the branching cladistic creations suffer from conceptual root rot. The whole enterprise rests on shaky biological and misleading statistical assumptions, they say.

The article ends with the following:

"We can't solve debates over Neandertals or any other human ancestors using anatomical characteristics that are subjectively defined and don't have a clear relationship to evolutionary history," he (Anthropologist Dr. Timothy G. Bromage, City University of New York's Hunter College) remarks.

Taken from Science News, "Out on a Limb", and can be read at:
http://www.sciencenews.org/20001125/bob1.asp

Saxonella

April 5th 2003, 11:37 PM

Unfortunately, the first link you provided was broken, so I cannot comment on the article at the moment. I would prefer to read the whole thing first (or, if you can provide the author, see if I have it in my files).

As for the second--yes, I have read it; I am familiar with the material in my field. A few points you might want to consider:

First, we already know that cladistics, as a methodology, does work. It has been demonstrated to do so by using it in a blind study that reproduced, with about 95% accuracy, the phylogeny of a lineage of lab mice whose descent pattern was already known.

Secondly, paleoanthropology is the last paleontological and neontological area of natural history to adopt the method, and there remains a core of workers in that field (and Tim White is notable as being one) who have resisted and continue to resist its usage. In fact, the comment in the article that White has "generated his share of trees" is--well, it comes close to being a lie. White was never a cladist. He may well have created phylogenies, but he did not use cladistics. But if you go to virtually any other area of paleontology, such as dinosaurs, or birds, or archosaurs, or trilobites, or foraminifera, you will find that cladistics has been in usage for many years. Molecular biology uses it all the time. Historical ecology uses it routinely. If it doesn't work, why is it so common?

Third, cladistics works because it is objective and transparent. That is why cladists refer to the trees as hypotheses of relationships. They do so because these trees can be tested and are open to falsification, because the data used are available for any other researcher to examine and use to try and reproduce the results, or to attempt to falsify the results. And by using the resulting trees, true scientific predictions can be made about the morphology of hypothetical common ancestors (for example).

Without an objective way of producing relationships, anything anyone comes up with (like Tim White's ideas) simply have to be taken on "faith"--White says so, he's famous, so that must be it. There is no way to test them. And that approach, which has been prevalent in paleoanthroplogy for 40 or 50 years or so, has led to some terrible taxonomic confusions, problems we are still trying to sort out (i.e. the paraphyly of australopithecines).

Now--Wood and colleagues, with their craniodental data set, have demonstrated something that many paleoanthros who use cladistics have been saying for years: homoplasy (derived characters shared by taxa that do not share a common ancestor) are plentiful in hominoid craniodental anatomy and do tend to confuse results. That is what makes their particular study valuable. Therefore, the most reliable phylogenies will be those generated from as many characters drawn from as many anatomical areas as possible. Alas, unlike for living organisms, we do not have the luxury of choice with fossils: they preserve what they preserve, and you can only work with what you have. However, some of the better analyses make the limitations and caveats quite clear (and if you check, you will find that Wood and his colleagues are not advocating the abandonment of cladistics--just its refinement).

There is the problem that, since all you really need to run a cladistic analysis is a set of characters from a number of taxa and some software, anyone can do it. So one must be aware of GIGO, and one must be prepared to spend a lot of time with articles because character choice and other of the minutiae of such an analysis must be closely examined. Some of these analyses aren't very well thought-out, and some of the early ones don't even list the data matrix used (which makes it impossible to test them).

So yes, there are issues of character choice and independence and such that must be addressed through evo devo studies, and there are some good papers that are working in that direction. But "conceptual root rot"? I think not. The "conceptual root rot" is among those who still labour under the illusion that there was no more than one hominin species at one time, and that we can actually identify ancestors in the fossil record, instead of close relatives. Cladistics is a method which explicitly denies the possibility of both those things, so it's no wonder that some professionals are so against it.

Yesterday @ 02:00 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=#post)
TheFiveSolas:

Saxonella,
Thanks for the clarification.

Here are a few quotes from a couple of relevant articles:

DivineOb

April 7th 2003, 03:15 PM

Bump to ensure that Socrates doesn't forget to respond to the utter dismantling of "Where are all the people".

RufusAtticus

April 7th 2003, 03:18 PM

Today @ 03:15 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=58170#post58170)
DivineOb:

Bump to ensure that Socrates doesn't forget to respond to the utter dismantling of "Where are all the people".

If his past behavior is any guide, he never will.

TheFiveSolas

April 7th 2003, 05:46 PM

Saxonella,
Thanks for your opinion and the time you obviously put into your answer to me! :smile:

RufusAtticus

April 7th 2003, 05:50 PM

Solas,

Did Saxonella adequately address the issues you raised in your last response to me? (It was so well done I figured I didn't need to respond.) Anything more you want addressed or challenge us with? :simle:

Warcraft3

April 7th 2003, 11:18 PM

Socrates:

I said:
"The population growth argument is completely ridiculous".

And Socrates asked:
"And your refutation of Where are all the people? is, what?"

Here are some quotes from the article:

" Evolutionists claim that mankind evolved from apes about a million years ago. If the population had grown at just 0.01% per year since then (doubling only every 7,000 years), there could be 10^43 people today—that’s a number with 43 zeros after it."

"Those who adhere to the evolutionary story argue that disease, famine and war kept the numbers almost constant for most of this period, which means that mankind was on the brink of extinction for most of this supposed history.10 This stretches credulity to the limits."

"If the evolutionary timescale were correct, then we would expect the skeletons of the buried bodies to be largely still present after 100,000 years, because many ordinary bones claimed to be much older have been found.12 However, even if the bodies had disintegrated, lots of artefacts should still be found."

"If 20 people had come to settle some time after the Flood, say 3,500 years ago, it would have needed a population growth of a mere 0.28% per year to produce 300,000 people. Such a minimal rate operating over 60,000 years could produce more people than there are atoms in the Milky Way Galaxy!"

"It is relatively easy to calculate the growth rate needed to get today’s population from Noah’s three sons and their wives, after the Flood. With the Flood at about 4,500 years ago, it needs less than 0.5% per year growth.6 That’s not very much."

I wil comment after quoting the most signfigant statement in the article. That quote is:

"Of course, population growth has not been constant. There is reasonably good evidence that growth has been slow at times—such as in the Middle Ages in Europe."

Exactly. Population growth is not necessarily constant, but can be and in fact is limited by many factors. The reasoning in this article could easily be applied to other populations as well. If applied to insects, other mammals, reptiles, etc what conclusions do you get? If you assume a bascially constant growth rate how long does it take to "produce more people (insert any other species here) than there are atoms in the Milky Way Galaxy!"? If you can apply this reasoning to humans then why not to roaches, cats, salamenders, bacteria, etc? If you do this you will see why I do not accept this argument as valid.

Russ