special creation evidence

[Butters]

Hello everyone! This is my first post here, so take it easy please!

My intersest is the theory of special creation.
I am not intersested in a discussion of God vs atheism. What I'm interested in, is how the theory of special creation explains the evidence we have of our world and universe. For instance, if special creation claims that the universe is only 6000 years old, what evidence do we see to confirm this? If animals and men did not evolve from a common ancestor, but were created all at once, fully formed, how does this explain the fossil record? What about cro-magnen man? They were definatly not apes, but they were also not men, as we are, what were they?
Please, I am not trying to be cynical, I have always been taught that the universe was billions of years old, and we evolved from simpler animals. After talking to a creationist, and commenting that he didn't know anything about evolution, he rightly pointed out that I knew nothing about creationism. The problem is all the info I can find, either tries to dispute evolution, or just points to the Bible. I could accept that the universe is only 6000 years old, if thats where the evidence points. Any help?

Thanks!

[tgamble]

[i]Today @ 06:32 PM how does this explain the fossil record? What about cro-magnen man? They were definatly not apes, but they were also not men, as we are, what were they?

Men, as we are.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/cromagnon.html

The rest of your questions are good ones but the most you'll get is the claim that creation is a better explanation for the fossil record. But that's only if you ignore the transitional fossils etc.

Please, I am not trying to be cynical, I have always been taught that the universe was billions of years old, and we evolved from simpler animals. After talking to a creationist, and commenting that he didn't know anything about evolution, he rightly pointed out that I knew nothing about creationism. The problem is all the info I can find, either tries to dispute evolution, or just points to the Bible. I could accept that the universe is only 6000 years old, if thats where the evidence points. Any help? Thanks!

Well, answersingenesis and ICR point to alleged evidence for a young earth, but you won't find any in scientific sources.

all their alleged evidence has been refuted long ago and is basically a desperate attempt to cling to a young earth merely because the Bible (according to them) insists on one.

The best thing you can do here is visit the above websites see if any of it seems convincing. If it does, come back here and get the counter arguments and judge for yourself.

Their attacks on radiometric dating are a bit more complex. You might want to read some books on the subject (some of em are even written by Christians so you can't reallly accuse them of antibible bias). YEC attacks on RD typically depend on distortion and dishonesty.

One of the arguments I've seen for the ressurection is that for it to be a hoax or something it must be a vast and impossible one. These same people have no problem making conspiracy claims against the entire scientific community. Thousands of scientsits from all different faiths agree that the earth is old (and that evolution is right) yet they're all lying/mistaken and surpressing the truth from creationists. Does that sound plausable to you?

Hope that helps. Study both sides with an open mind and you'll inevitably discover that YECism is as ridiculous as claiming the earth doesn't move. Believe it or not, that claim is still being made!
http://www.fixedearth.com

[Socratism]

Today @ 01:32 PM post located here
Butters:

Hello everyone! This is my first post here, so take it easy please!

My intersest is the theory of special creation.
I am not intersested in a discussion of God vs atheism. What I'm interested in, is how the theory of special creation explains the evidence we have of our world and universe. For instance, if special creation claims that the universe is only 6000 years old, what evidence do we see to confirm this? If animals and men did not evolve from a common ancestor, but were created all at once, fully formed, how does this explain the fossil record? What about cro-magnen man? They were definatly not apes, but they were also not men, as we are, what were they?
Please, I am not trying to be cynical, I have always been taught that the universe was billions of years old, and we evolved from simpler animals. After talking to a creationist, and commenting that he didn't know anything about evolution, he rightly pointed out that I knew nothing about creationism. The problem is all the info I can find, either tries to dispute evolution, or just points to the Bible. I could accept that the universe is only 6000 years old, if thats where the evidence points. Any help?

Thanks!

From your post I seem to detect some misconceptions you might have about "special creation" and probably some other things.

First about evidence. It does not point: it is inert. People are the ones who point and they do so by making judgments based on their background and experience in the world (including their world view).

Inferences depend on assumptions. If the assumptions are wrong the inferences are affected.

It is initially a shock to most people that the Bible implies a young Earth. It was for me. It is for everybody taught that the Earth is billions of years old. But how do we know the Earth is that old? We trust the experts. However, if we actually look into the details with a skeptic's eye we notice something very peculiar: lots of the data is discarded because it "doesn't fit". This should raise a red flag for people trained that science doesn't do things like that. The point is that "selection" is being applied to the raw data so that results fit preconceived notions. To me this indicates that the conventional explanations and assumptions are probably wrong and thus the calculations of age based on the raw data may be equally wrong, perhaps by many orders of magnitude. In other words the effects assumed to be due to age may have a completely different explanation which has nothing to do with age at all.

I will answer your other points in a separate post.

[tgamble]

First about evidence. It does not point: it is inert. People are the ones who point and they do so by making judgments based on their background and experience in the world (including their world view).

RIght. Just because someone has a knife in their back doesn't mean he was murdered. That's just a fallable judgement. ROTFL!

Actually, the evidence DOES point. Radiometric dating has nothing to do with background or world view. That's a lie. Nothing more, nothing less.

Christians 200 years ago realized the evidence pointed away from a global flood and a young earth. Their "world view" had nothing to do with it.

Even if the judgemenst WERE based on world view and were biased, that's what peer review is for. Something creationsits don't really bother with.

However, if we actually look into the details with a skeptic's eye we notice something very peculiar: lots of the data is discarded because it "doesn't fit". This should raise a red flag for people trained that science doesn't do things like that.

Yup, dishonesty and claims of conspiracies and false accusations. The favorite tactics of creationists.

He's claiming that radiometric dates that don't fit are disgarded because they don't conform to an old earth and all the geologists (christians included) would reject anything that indicates a young earth or casts doubt on RD.

What a load od absolute RUBBISH!

For accurate information on RD, see the articles on this page.
http://www.tim-thompson.com/radiometric.html

Some of em are even written by Christians.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/wood...hronology.html

http://asa.calvin.edu/ASA/resources/Wiens.html

Or try the Affiliation of Christian Geologists if you have more questions.
http://www.wheaton.edu/acg/

It's creationists, not scientists, who disregard data that doesn't fit. They even admit it.

[RufusAtticus]

Hi Butters,

It's a good topic. I've already started two threads on this exact topic and only one person tried to answer it. I do have some things to point out though.

Men are animals. So it is best that you use the phrase "If men and the other animals..." Same thing with your comments about "apes." Cro-mangon men are definately apes, just like we are definately apes. You're point is that they are definately human just not modern humans, am I correct?

[Socratism]

Butters,

the theory of special creation

Some people mischaracterize this term to mean that all life forms present today were originbally created during 6 days and have never subsequently changed.

This is not the understanding of most creationists. In fact most of us believe that creatures can and do vary widely, and that the mechanisms designed in their geneomes are capable of generating great variation in very short periods of time. What we object to is the teaching by evolutionists that this process has no limits and is capable of major transformation such as dinosaurs to birds.

We believe that t the beginning there were multiple original lifeforms, not a single primitive replicating molecule, and that these original forms were "specially" created by God. This is the meaning of the term "special creation". There is nothing in this concept that denies that lifeforms can vary greatly as a result of the descent process. In fact, it was necessary that a rapid variation capability would be designed into the first forms in order for the Earth to be rapidly repopulated following the Flood catastrophe.

[Socratism]

Butters,

the fossil record

The actual evidence of the fossil record is a big problem for evolution.

Darwin pointed out that the lowest layers of the fossil record contains representatives of essentially all phyla of lifeforms.

This is a problem because his theory was that everything started from a single lifeform, which very gradulaly changed over vast periods of times, first splitting or else transforming into a slightly different form, first a new genus, and then higfher and higher categories of classification until finally the phylum level is reached.
Thus we should see this process as we move up higher in the geological/fossil layers. But this is not what we see. We see essentially all the phyla coming into existence in the lowest layer that has any significant number of fossils in it (there are some rare exceptions that contain a few creatures not readily classified)

Darwin's premise was that the fossil record was imperfect and as time went on the "mystery" of the so-called Cambrian Explosion would be filled in by subsequent findings of earlier fossils. Basically this has not happened.

There is a second problem with the fossil record supporting evolution. Paleontologists have known for a long time that the fossils do not show a slow, gradual progression which records major transformations of lifeforms. What it shows is abrupt appearance of a new form, relatively modest change for millions of years, followed in many cases by extinction. For example, ants trapped in amber supposedly many millions of years ago look essentially identical to the ants we have today. The same is true for other types of insects trapped in supposedly ancient amber.

A new theory has been proposed to explain the mystery: punctuated equilibrium. This states that it is normal for species to remain static for millions of years, but sometimes in a small isolated population changes occur so rapidly they result in a major transformation and because the population is small and the time scale relatively short no record has been captured in the fossil record which is thus imperfect and somewhat hapzard.
(Actually this is not "new" because Mayr claims to have suggested this in 1954).

[Socratism]

If you believe that story you are a good candidate for buying "prime" swampland in Florida.

[tgamble]

In a desperate effort to attack evolution, you refer to a source 140 years old! You also parrot a lot of misinformation.

No matter, here's some accurate information.

http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/fossil_record.htm

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

http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/whale_evolution.htm

http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaver...7/therapsd.htm

http://www.gcssepm.org/special/cuffey_00.htm

[tgamble]

Darwin pointed out that the lowest layers of the fossil record contains representatives of essentially all phyla of lifeforms.

ROTFL! That's a good one!

Pity you were serious.

Can you actually support that claim?

http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/

Go ahead. I dare you.

Darwin's premise was that the fossil record was imperfect and as time went on the "mystery" of the so-called Cambrian Explosion would be filled in by subsequent findings of earlier fossils. Basically this has not happened.

Actually it has happened as the links I just posted illustrate. Darwin's predictions of finding more transitional fossils have come true.

BTW, the cambrian is NOT the lowest layer. You're ignoring the precambrian.

[Butters]

Wow! That was a lot of responses!

tgamble, thanks for the web-site, I see I've forgotten alot since school, What I think I was reffering to was Neandertal man. It seems that this was NOT the same spieces(?) as us? Is this right?

Socratism, Yes, I'm sure I do have some misconceptions about creationism. From what I understand is that this theory says that God created plants, animals, men, the Earth, and everything in one week. This happened 6000(?) years ago. Somewhere around 4000(?) years ago, their was a global flood that killed everything execpt what was on Noahs Ark. Is this correct?

Also as to evidence pointing. It seems to me that it does. Take the age of the universe. We can see stars that are hundreds of light years away. It seems to me that this "points" to the conclusion that the universe is very old. This is a natural conclusion, based soley on the evidence. It is also independent of any other observation or world view. It so happens that this evidence fits in with the evolution model, but so what? Based soley on this observation, God could have created people fully formed millions of years after he created the universe. But no matter what theory you hold to, or even if you have no other theory, the universe we see "points" to the conclusion that it is old(older than 6000 years). So, what in this observation, would lead me to conclude that the universe is only 6000 years old?

RuffasAtticus, I don't know if men are animals or not, but we are different from them. On the other hand, looking at apes, and looking at humans, it's easy to believe we have a common ancestor. A shar-pai, and a wolf don't look any similar than us and apes.

Posted by Soccratism,
"We believe that t the beginning there were multiple original lifeforms, not a single primitive replicating molecule, and that these original forms were "specially" created by God. This is the meaning of the term "special creation". There is nothing in this concept that denies that lifeforms can vary greatly as a result of the descent process. In fact, it was necessary that a rapid variation capability would be designed into the first forms in order for the Earth to be rapidly repopulated following the Flood catastrophe."

Can you direct me to a web-site that explains the fossil record in these terms?

As for "punctuated equilibrum", from what I've seen so far, this makes sense. Whaching the discovery channel, they show how dinosaurs lived until the Earth was hit by an astriod, in the severe climate change, mammals survived, and changed rapidly to adapt to the new climate, it makes sense to me.

Thanks for all the interest!

[Woman]

Butters,

Welcome!

I'm neither Christian nor atheist, but believe that intelligence is evident all through the kosmos.

Earth. Old. Very old. Evolution. True.

Keep in mind that one ploy some creationists (and here I'm talking about the Young Earth, literal Genesis ones) use is to describle evolution using another name for it - agree with it totally as part of God's plan and then say, but evolution does not exist. They will tell you that evolutionists think they know how life started. Not true. They will tell you that "creation science" is actively engaged in research to provide evidence for special creation. Actually they are engaged in a campaign to discredit any branch of science which denies the supernatural.

Science isn't innocent either. Academics have long played political games, clung for too long to previously held ideas and pontificated to the faithful.

There is just a whole lot of great conversation here about the subject. Check out the threads.


Socratism says:

The theory of special creation...Some people mischaracterize this term to mean that all life forms present today were originbally created during 6 days and have never subsequently changed.

This is not the understanding of most creationists. In fact most of us believe that creatures can and do vary widely, and that the mechanisms designed in their geneomes are capable of generating great variation in very short periods of time. What we object to is the teaching by evolutionists that this process has no limits and is capable of major transformation such as dinosaurs to birds.*remind me to send you the achaeopteryx info.

We believe that t the beginning there were multiple original lifeforms, not a single primitive replicating molecule, and that these original forms were "specially" created by God. This is the meaning of the term "special creation". There is nothing in this concept that denies that lifeforms can vary greatly as a result of the descent process. (descent process? Ya mean evolution?) In fact, it was necessary that a rapid variation capability would be designed into the first forms in order for the Earth to be rapidly repopulated following the Flood catastrophe. (which according to most creationists happened only about 4,500 years ago, at which time people and dinosaurs were still living side by side)

Anyway, Butters - welcome aboard! Enjoy Theology Web!

[Socratism]

Woman,
When I say that I believe in the descent process that means I believe I had a father and a mother and that I vary from either one of them. I would not call that "evolution".

Get it?

[Saxonella]

Today @ 08:48 PM post located here
Socratism:

Butters,

The actual evidence of the fossil record is a big problem for evolution.

Darwin pointed out that the lowest layers of the fossil record contains representatives of essentially all phyla of lifeforms.

This is a problem because his theory was that everything started from a single lifeform, which very gradulaly changed over vast periods of times, first splitting or else transforming into a slightly different form, first a new genus, and then higfher and higher categories of classification until finally the phylum level is reached.
Thus we should see this process as we move up higher in the geological/fossil layers. But this is not what we see. We see essentially all the phyla coming into existence in the lowest layer that has any significant number of fossils in it (there are some rare exceptions that contain a few creatures not readily classified)

You have made a very fundamental error here: you have confused the process of evolution and the historical pattern it is likely to create, with the process of classification. Let me see if I can explain.

The largest "real" taxonomic group that exists in nature is the species. Only species, and populations within species, evolve. Species that are very closely related and which are very similar to each other are grouped together within a category called "Genus", and species which have a certain degree of difference from those are placed into separate genera. The degree of difference sufficient to either lump organisms together into the same genus or put them into a different genus will vary depending upon the organism under consideration, but generally there is a specific and consistent set of similarities one looks for that allows one to decide. However, each genus *must* consist of at least one, and usually a number, of species (else the genus could not exist).

Likewise, if there are several of these genera that are very similar to each other, each containing its group of species, these genera are grouped together into a category called Family. Each Family contains a group of genera that are more closely similar to other genera within that Family but different from genera in another Family--and each genus within the family category consists of a group of very similar species. Therefore, each Family consists of at least two groups of species.

And this is the crucial point: every taxonomic category, no matter how far up the scale it is, consists of species arranged into groups. And this is because any taxonomic group above the level of species is simply a convenient pigeonhole that humans have arranged species into. Which is why taxonomists can create groups as they need them, such as Superfamily or Suborder. All diversity is the result of speciation: the division of a parent species into two daughter species, and the subsequent branching of those daughter species into more species, and so on. After enough time and branching, that original species is not going to resemble a ggggranddaughter species very closely, and it will not be categorized into the same group as its ggggranddaughter species, but is still a species nonetheless.

Which means that "phyla" did not appear on earth first--species did. All phyla are made up of species. A "phylum" is simply the name humans have given to a very large category of species that all share a certain set of attributes. And really, it makes sense if you take time to think about it--you can't have a "phylum" until you have something to put into it, right?

In other words, life did *not* "transform" into genera and then into families; species gave rise to other species which gave rise to other species and so on in the vastness of geological time. Species differ from each other due to differing attributes; some of these attributes are very ancient (like a notochord), while other attributes are very recent (like flattened nails on primate digits). Still, no matter the age of the attribute, it arose in a species. Only humans came up with categories called "genus" and "phylum" in order to make sense of the patterns that are apparent in the fossil record and to account for the fact that some species have arisen rather more recently than other species.

So Butters, I hope you can see that it is not the fossil record that is a problem. Properly understood, it reflects the pattern that evolution would predict it to have, to the point that people have successfully predicted what kind of organisms should be found given the evidence to hand. This includes a recent discovery in amber of an intermediate between ants and wasps, the sort of thing that you (Socratism) say below is not found.

Darwin's premise was that the fossil record was imperfect and as time went on the "mystery" of the so-called Cambrian Explosion would be filled in by subsequent findings of earlier fossils. Basically this has not happened.

Can you say "Ediacara"? "Vendian"? Do you deny that these are earlier than the Cambrian?

There is a second problem with the fossil record supporting evolution. Paleontologists have known for a long time that the fossils do not show a slow, gradual progression which records major transformations of lifeforms. What it shows is abrupt appearance of a new form, relatively modest change for millions of years, followed in many cases by extinction.

This is extremely oversimplified--almost cartoonish. It certainly comes nowhere near addressing the great variation of preservation of lineages actually found in nature. One would be tempted to assume that you have had very little formal exposure to original, mainstream paleontology.

A lot of lineages are not preserved complete. Mostly these are the large terrestrial vertebrate lineages we tend to hear and read most about in the popular literature. However, given the vagaries of fossilization (you do not expect that this is a common occurrance, do you?), it is remarkable what we do find--such as the origin of mammals from their synapsid precursors. Or the origin of tetrapods. Or the succession of hominins.

The fact is, we have many different levels of preservation: some apparently abrupt, some rather more gradual, and some, like the deep-sea-core record of foraminifera, almost unbroken for several million years at a time.

For example, ants trapped in amber supposedly many millions of years ago look essentially identical to the ants we have today. The same is true for other types of insects trapped in supposedly ancient amber.

Except that Sphecomyrma freyi, one of the earliest ants ever found in amber, is very wasplike.

If you go here:

http://research.amnh.org/entomology/...rma.html#fig2a

and scroll not quite halfway down, you will find the formal published description of this ant. Note the comment by E. O. Wilson at the end of the "Description" paragraph.

A new theory has been proposed to explain the mystery: punctuated equilibrium. This states that it is normal for species to remain static for millions of years, but sometimes in a small isolated population changes occur so rapidly they result in a major transformation and because the population is small and the time scale relatively short no record has been captured in the fossil record which is thus imperfect and somewhat hapzard.
(Actually this is not "new" because Mayr claims to have suggested this in 1954).

Please be aware that punctuated equilibrium is a hypothesis about evolutionary rates and patterns, and not about evolutionary mechanisms. It is recognized as a form of allopatric speciation and was indeed initially proposed by Mayr (but without the "stasis" part).

[tgamble]

Today @ 10:13 PM post located here
Butters:

Wow! That was a lot of responses!

tgamble, thanks for the web-site, I see I've forgotten alot since school, What I think I was reffering to was Neandertal man. It seems that this was NOT the same spieces(?) as us? Is this right?

Neanderthal are typically classified as a subspecies of homo saipens. Homo saipens neanderthalis if I'm not mistaken. Check out
http://www.talkorigins.org/homs/faqs

Socratism, Yes, I'm sure I do have some misconceptions about creationism. From what I understand is that this theory says that God created plants, animals, men, the Earth, and everything in one week. This happened 6000(?) years ago. Somewhere around 4000(?) years ago, their was a global flood that killed everything execpt what was on Noahs Ark. Is this correct?

Don't forget the "variation with kinds" bit. What is a kind you ask? Who knows! But any evolution is just variation because. WEll just because. Just accept it. :-)

Also as to evidence pointing. It seems to me that it does. Take the age of the universe. We can see stars that are hundreds of light years away. It seems to me that this "points" to the conclusion that the universe is very old. This is a natural conclusion, based soley on the evidence. It is also independent of any other observation or world view. It so happens that this evidence fits in with the evolution model, but so what?

So it MUST be false because it contradicts a young earth which is the TRUTH!. So obviously the speed of light has changed or God created light in transit. Anything ANYTHING to avoid an old universe!

RuffasAtticus, I don't know if men are animals or not, but we are different from them. On the other hand, looking at apes, and looking at humans, it's easy to believe we have a common ancestor. A shar-pai, and a wolf don't look any similar than us and apes.

Maybe not but consider that a wolf and a human are both mammals and both are vertebrates etc.

If you don't think humans are animals (for some reason, this disturbs people) what kingdom do you think we belong to?
http://volweb.utk.edu/Schools/sulliv...e/taxonomy.htm

As for "punctuated equilibrum", from what I've seen so far, this makes sense. Whaching the discovery channel, they show how dinosaurs lived until the Earth was hit by an astriod, in the severe climate change, mammals survived, and changed rapidly to adapt to the new climate, it makes sense to me.

Well, that's not exactly what PE is since the evolution of mammals after the dinosaur extinction left behind a good fossil record and took millions of years. PE deals with the species level and reletivly short periods of time.

Thanks for all the interest!

No problem!