Evolution Weekend Highlights Religion, Science Debate

By Alexander Sheffrin|Christian Post Contributor

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In November, Ham also co-wrote the book "Darwin's Plantation: Evolution's Racist Roots” with Charles Ware, president of Crossroads Bible College in Indianapolis.

The book argues that Darwin’s ideas of natural selection places some "higher on the evolutionary scale" and others "closer to the apes," and are ideas that were precursors to the policies of Hitler and Stalin’s murderous regimes.

"Although racism did not begin with Darwinism, Darwin did more than any person to popularize it," Ham writes in his book.

According to a November 2007 Harris poll, more Americans (62 percent) believe in a literal hell and the devil than in Darwin’s theory of evolution (42 percent).

Christians, however, were far from a homogenous group and a break-up of respondents based on Christian traditions showed discrepancies in their level of belief.

Only 16 percent of born-again Christians said they believe in Darwin’s theory of evolution compared to 43 percent of Catholics and 30 percent of Protestants.

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prodriver »

Fri Mar 14, 2008 4:35 pm Agree: 0 Disagree: 0

something else: a scientific dissent from darwinism.
check this out: http://www.discovery.org/articleFiles/PDFs/100ScientistsAd.pdf

and if you really search for truth, Lee Strobels series on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zw-_rDZ76Z0&feature=related
prodriver »

Wed Mar 12, 2008 5:52 am Agree: 0 Disagree: 0

"...these are seperate theories all together. "

Big Bang explains its believers where the material came from that is supposed to be evoluted afterwards. To me this relation is quite clear, even though the theories don´t match, they have a common ground. No God needed, or allowed.
I can only repeat myself, why do you fight here for your thoughts?
What is it that drives you, engaging for this topic? Educating stupid Christians? There is no hope, I fear. All of these EvoBanging-Theories lack of proof. There is much to much lying and false or half information around it. But clear minded I can only reject all these theories.

Again, if I am wrong, who cares, but if you are you lose life.

Hey maybe you want to check out this christian research page. Take some of the information and check it with non believing information.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/does-c14-disprove-the-bible

Do you know Ravi Zacharias? Check him and his teachings as well. A brilliand mind.

You owe this to yourself.
agentorange20 »

Tue Mar 11, 2008 9:38 pm Agree: 0 Disagree: 0

"All comes together the question where all came from (big bang) and the question how we got it this way today and where this all will go - how can someone seperate these questions?"

The big bang explains the expanding of our universe and as such falls into the realm of Cosmolgoy, while evolution with only deals with biological living systems falls into mostly biology, genetics, paleontology. these are seperate theories all together.
prodriver »

Mon Mar 10, 2008 1:07 am Agree: 0 Disagree: 0

I made a stupid mistake, by really thinking my words would apply to a change in someones thinking. Would make a change in someone opening his eyes to see what is right before one eyes. I neglected that this discussion is going for years and years now and will ever go on untill that day we all will know.
Especially when talking about the origin of the bible and just taking the predictions pointing towards Jesus and Jerusalem, I find it overwelming that it is true.
When looking at all Creation on this planet, this huge amount of diversity, the accuracy things run and the fact that human kind is about to ruin it all - besides the nature itself that runs out of time - I can not believe how someone sees truth in things evoluting.
All comes together the question where all came from (big bang) and the question how we got it this way today and where this all will go - how can someone seperate these questions?
This is all just trying to deny the God of the bible, also a thing that was predicted more then 2000 Years ago.
The bible says about itself to be foolish to the non believer and life for the believer so my words wont make a change, only God can make this change.
To me the Bible is 100 % accurate and becomes more and more true to me dayly, the more I ask for God the more I get into things. Even though there are plenty of things I don´t understand and can not explain.

Ever heard of expelledthemovie.com? It´s not only christians questioning...also some "blind" non believing cientists...
agentorange20 »

Fri Mar 07, 2008 9:44 am Agree: 0 Disagree: 0

“I´m interested in sites for C14 and other methods, that show that these methods can reach far behind 4-5000 years.“

Got to Wikipedia, or the Online Brittanica. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dating

“If first is true, I don´t care about the second. If second is true, I don´t care about first, because this would say the bible lies.”

Well, hate to break it to you, but the bible is hardly 100% accurate with regards to what Science shows, so perhaps you should be more apologetic in that regard and consider from whence the bible came from (3000 YO) and over how many centuries it was written, re-written, edited and compiled before assuming such things. The science we have describes how the universe has expanded (big bang) and how life changes over time (evolution). These are two totally different realms of science entirely and don’t negate the concept of god at all.

"The "proof" that is there is missinterpretated. This is what I strongly believe. God made creature, each of it´s kind. And they did develop and change, yes. But now creature chenged it´s kind. There is no proof. "

Well, like i said consider whece the bible came from and who wrote it and why before assumiing it's some defacto word of imutable truth.

"Why they died out, even though there is a Creator?
Because this earth is just a slight shadow of what is was like when God made it."

Nice rationalization. First you argue all living things are intelligently designed and when I point out how 99% of them are dead you appeal to some notion of a 'fallen world' from your religion.
agentorange20 »

Fri Mar 07, 2008 9:24 am Agree: 0 Disagree: 0

"From icr.org - Institute for Creation Research "

Oh great. ICR, AIG, Dr. Dino (kent hovind) and the like, oddly enough NONE of them publish any of their work under scientific peer review and yet many of you so easily lap up their work.
prodriver »

Fri Mar 07, 2008 6:19 am Agree: 0 Disagree: 0

Two more things I found for the willing reader.

From icr.org - Institute for Creation Research

There are so many strong and clear evidences of the perfect and unique truth of Christianity that those who remain skeptical were said by the great Apostle Peter to be "willingly ignorant" (II Peter 3:5), and by the Apostle Paul to be "without excuse" (Romans 1:20). The great king David concluded that only "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God" (Psalm 53:1), and wise king Solomon asserted that, "The fear of the Lord" is the very "beginning of knowledge" and "wisdom" (Proverbs 1:7; 9:10).

In adition to these claims of the bible you can get deeper into things with this article, from the same source:

http://www.icr.org/home/resources/resources_tracts_scientificcaseagainstevolution/

There´s nothing more I can say to that and no doubt left in my head, Jesus is the way and the truth.
prodriver »

Fri Mar 07, 2008 12:01 am Agree: 0 Disagree: 0

I don´t have that many videos, but this is an interesting one

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wr6uvUNJLww
prodriver »

Thu Mar 06, 2008 11:50 pm Agree: 0 Disagree: 0

Thanks for this big answer agent.

I´m interested in sites for C14 and other methods, that show that these methods can reach far behind 4-5000 years. Obviously ou know more then any scientist I´ve herad before.
I will also check the vids you gave me.

To me evo and big bang relates a lot. If first is true, I don´t care about the second. If second is true, I don´t care about first, because this would say the bible lies.
The bible reveals itself to me to be true. How it was put together, how loads of prediction got fullfilled, especially about Jesus Christ our Saviour and last becasue God reveals himself to the seeker personally as he did to me.
So the only answer I can give is, there are two believe systrems that collide and only one can be true. There can me no mixture, absolutely impossible, for God does not lie.

I´m no educated scientist and I guess you are the same, sorry if I discredit you in this.

The "proof" that is there is missinterpretated. This is what I strongly believe. God made creature, each of it´s kind. And they did develop and change, yes. But now creature chenged it´s kind. There is no proof. They take the proof out of fossiles of creatures they don´t have today and say look here are the gap fillings.
Why they died out, even though there is a Creator?
Because this earth is just a slight shadow of what is was like when God made it.
We destroy it dayly and He will fullfill this destruction totally and rebuild it all perfectly for eternity for those who love and trust him.
This is my believe system and I know, that I don´t represent the majority.

You can mail me more infos about the obove mentioned topics if you like, prodriver[at]email.de - thx in advance
agentorange20 »

Thu Mar 06, 2008 12:38 pm Agree: 0 Disagree: 0

prodriver,

"All Evo-Theorie is based on 1 thing that cause the so called "big bang" and if you want to take that away now, go ahead.”

Noooo. Evolutionary theory only deals with living organics, biologically systems. While the Big Bang is a theory explaining only the evidence that demonstrates the expansion of the our Universe. Two totoally unrelated realms of sciene and both have their own evidence for themselves and will succed or fail based on said evidence. One deals strictly with biology, while the other only deals with cosmology, how hard is that to comprehend?

Science is anything that can be physically tested, using hypothesis based on evidence and using confirming evidence to conform to a given theory. (see Scientific Method) So how does Evolution not work in an evidence based manner?

“C14 can not be used correctly after a period of time longer than approx 4-5000 years, this is fact.”

Actually carbon dating (C-14) is accurate up to about 55,000 years, (however a newer version of Carbon dating will raise that to 75,000 years shortly) however it alone is not precise and is best used alongside other radio metric dating methods. We have nearly 4 dozen dating methods for dating material, so carbon dating is hardly the only method. I will site my claims if you'd like and I would expect you to do the same for yours.

“What was there before anything was able to evolute? Where did it come from?”

Well evolution only deals with life changing over time, it doesn’t deal with origins of life, nor does it deal with the origins of the universe. No wonder you don’t understand it. Where did it come from…well ultimately all matter, it all came from the same source post Big bang.

“EVERYTHING points to a desingner. It simply doesn´t many any senSe why there is this diversity of creatures in this world, knowing that most of creature already died out.”

Ok, well then explain why some 99% of all species have gone extinct, to me that’s not intelligent design at all. When 99% of all the things one could make fail, that’s not proof of any designer that's proof of ineptness. You do realize in Dover in 2005 ID was deemed not a Science right?

Try me, what do you find so hard to understand regarding evolution?

Here are only 2 pieces of evidence out of millions that support evolution. It will help if you have a basic understanding in biology to comprehend these vids, alas educate yourself.

Evidence of Common Ancestry: ERVs
www.youtube.com/watch?v=De-OkzTUDVA

Evidence of Common Ancestry: human Chromosome 2 fusion
www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-WAHpC0Ah0

Ken Miller on Human Evolution as it relates to the Dover trilal.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=zi8FfMBYCkk

I have posted many other links on evidence for evolution on this thread, feel free to go back a page or pages and refer to them and then try to tell me no evidence for evolution exists.
prodriver »

Thu Mar 06, 2008 12:22 am Agree: 2 Disagree: 0

my friend, thanks for the english lesson for free. Well there is life for free, sponsord by Jesus Christ, but I guess you don´t accept that as much as I did your lesson...

All Evo-Theorie is based on 1 thing that cause the so called "big bang" and if you want to take that away now, go ahead.
Sience is what you can see, reproduce and examine. Evolution doesn´t belong to that.
C14 can not be used correctly after a period of time longer than approx 4-5000 years, this is fact.
What was there before anything was able to evolute? Where did it come from?
EVERYTHING points to a desingner. It simply doesn´t many any senSe why there is this diversity of creatures in this world, knowing that most of creature already died out.

Believe what you want - to me it is obvious that true scientific evidence is interpreted falsely when you conclude to evolution. But this is just me
agentorange20 »

Tue Mar 04, 2008 9:23 am Agree: 1 Disagree: 1

"All the rest of evolution doesn´t make any sence to me. "

Like what? fyi , it's sense, not sence.

"All material erose from nothing."

Where in Evolutionary theory is this uses? Nowhere! Besides, it sounds like you're getting the origins of the universe confused with evolution, which are after all 2 totally different realms of science.

"All this diversity came from 1 non existing thing."

Uh, no. Scientists actaully have evidence for a YUCA that existed some 3.85 billion years ago. so that firt life form was certainly existing.
prodriver »

Tue Feb 26, 2008 11:55 pm Agree: 1 Disagree: 0

Yes you are right. This is what I believe. Well there are others that believe different and I can stand that, but the bible that is truth to me says abput 6000 years.
All the rest of evolution doesn´t make any sence to me.
All material erose from nothing. All this diversity came from 1 non existing thing.
Evolutionists explain everything with time - Creationists explain everything with God - and my brain says the God story is the only reasonable to find.
But I can live with you believing different.
agentorange20 »

Mon Feb 25, 2008 11:39 am Agree: 0 Disagree: 1

prodriver,

WHY can't the age be true? what...let me guess, you think the earth/universe are only 6000 years young right?
prodriver »

Mon Feb 25, 2008 5:07 am Agree: 0 Disagree: 0

"He is 1.6 million years old..." well, this can hardly be true but even here on Christianpost we are already told this stuff.
agentorange »

Thu Feb 14, 2008 6:00 pm Agree: 0 Disagree: 0

notw06,

Ok, it's cited well done....but what does this quote prove in terms of supporting your view that evolution is false?

You didn't follow it up with anything, you just cited a small quote, that's about just as meaningless as not citing it at all.

Could you reply to my past links below on such instances of fossils please.

Your citing shows that ordinary DNA cell duplication invariably, but relatively rarely has copying errors....so what? How does this negate evolution? We've known for decades that DNA undergoes regular copying errors (mutations) and this is exactly how new genetic information is added as Hox Genes.

Mutation rates vary greatly between phyla and are affected by environment. Scientifically evaluating whether a mutation is generically harmful or beneficial is going to be almost impossible in the lab except in relation to the environment that the organism is being cultured in. Bacteria seem to come out at around 0.004 mutations per genome per replication.

In bacteria it has been proven that it is possible to stimulate a mutation to protect against predation in around 5-10 days (Gillot 1993 or Van den Ende 1973). Boraas 1998 has demonstrated such adaptions in the green alga Chlorella vulgaris after 100 generations.
Stability of the cultures in the lab certainly indicates that the rate of deleterious mutations is not high enough to damage the long term viability of the species.

So overall analysis of against total numbers of mutations have to rely on comparisons of DNA.

Estimate of the mutation rate per nucleotide in humans
Nachman and Crowell (2000)

175 mutations per diploid genome per generation. Deleterious mutations per generation 3, 1.72%. I've seen a figure of 98% of human mutations being neutral, so maybe 0.28% are beneficial.
notw06 »

Thu Feb 14, 2008 4:59 pm Agree: 0 Disagree: 0

"Generation after generation, through countless cell divisions, the genetic heritage of living things is scrupulously preserved in DNA ... All of life depends on the accurate transmission of information. As genetic messages are passed through generations of dividing cells, even small mistakes can be life-threatening ... if mistakes were as rare as one in a million, 3000 mistakes would be made during each duplication of the human genome. Since the genome replicates about a million billion times in the course of building a human being from a single fertilised egg, it is unlikely that the human organism could tolerate such a high rate of error. In fact, the actual rate of mistakes is more like one in 10 billion."
(Miroslav Radman and Robert Wagner, The High Fidelity of DNA Duplication... Scientific America. Vol. 299, No 2 (August 1988, pp 40-44. Quote is from page 24))

atheist notice--the previous quote is meticulously cited

agent--is it only legit if if comes from the web? is information only legit if it comes from the mouths of atheists who would rather have faith in aliens and accidents that require greater faith than proposed by any religion?
agentorange »

Wed Feb 13, 2008 9:44 pm Agree: 0 Disagree: 1

I know what logos means relax. Again the orgins or how life got here doesn't negate what occurs after it's here. Regardless how it got here it can and does evolve and that's all evolution deals with, it doesn't cover the origins of life.

Well I do agree a little bit that adding some of the clay or what not to produce a skull seems wierd, but it's for representational purposes only. I just wanted to point out that the fossils are there it just requires people to take the effort to recongnize them and understand how they fit in with the theory in the big scheme of things.
s_vawter »

Wed Feb 13, 2008 8:35 pm Agree: 0 Disagree: 0

Sorry, misuse of Logos. II forgot my greek and I am still drawing a blank. So, substitute "origin" for "logos." I do apologize for being a bit belligerent. I am frustrated, no excuse, so I really do appreciate everyone's help in finding some answers to my questions. There are far too many misrepresentation on web resources, academic or elsewise.
My bad. Now, as for the slavery discussion.
Christians Believe Jesus IS God in Flesh. The Bible is the Word of God. Now, IF Jesus is God, THEN every He says must be given precedence over every other command. Now, If the "Love your neighbor as yourself" verse is taken one step further, and contrasted to earlier passages, then you see slavery not condoned, For a little support for this stance, check out what God has to say to Israel when she demands a human king to be like their neighbors. The arguement becomes moot if you remove "love your neighbor" and is even more muddled when not 'tempered by faith. Not very objective in the secular view, I'll grant you, but we're discussing theological ethics, and theology implies faith.
Now, when I looked at the fossils called "transitional",(I'm not sure where our miscommunication lies but I'll assume it is my fault), I find that the fossils that were discovered and deemed so were missing skeletal parts. The missing skeletal parts were conjectured- they were added to complete the fossil. I know that this is common practice, but one that has bitten paleotologists and arthropologists.often enough you know where.
agentorange »

Wed Feb 13, 2008 3:57 pm Agree: 0 Disagree: 1

s_vawter,

I will say in that in the abstract of the bible it’s not for or really against slavery, but there are points that express either side so it's more a mixed bag rather than a well defined qualitative answer. The passages that refer to slavery are easy to see that they condone it, while others later like ‘love your neighbor like yourself’ negate it, thus the mixed bag.
If these don’t demonstrate "transitional fossils" what are they then?
Hominids
www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html
www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/
www.theistic-evolution.com/transitional.html
http://darwiniana.org/hominid.htm
www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/hominids.html
www.becominghuman.org/

Whales
www.talkorigins.org/features/whales/
www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC216_1.html
www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/02/pr0235.htm
www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/11/2/e_s_3.html
www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/
www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/mammal/cetacea/cetacean.html
www-personal.umich.edu/~gingeric/PDGwhales/Whales.htm
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/data/2001/11/01/html/ft_20011101.4.html
www.tolweb.org/Cetacea/15977
“Evolution, as an atheistic account for logos, falls flat on it's face. It requires, at some point, life from lifelessness.”
Actually no, it doesn’t. I’ve said this many times and no offense, many Christians misterpit evolution as meaning the origins of life, but evolution doesn’t deal with origins for life at all. Evolution only deals with life changing over time and that’s all. Regardless if god poofed life here or if aliens engineered it, or if life naturally arose via chemical bonding processes doesn’t negate the fact that once life exists it changes and evolves over time. How life began is another realm of Science, abiogensis.
“but it is a near-impossibility for life from nothing”
Well no scientists are claim life came from ‘nothing’, rather they argue that the chemical bonding process of organic molecules that occur naturally were enough to form the first base amino acids and nucleotide chains required to build RNA and DNA.
s_vawter »

Wed Feb 13, 2008 2:45 pm Agree: 0 Disagree: 0

The most influential passage, in nice Red letters, spoken by God Himself- "Love your neighbor as you would love yourself." (Mt 22:37) There is no modifier for neighbor, with regards to anything (gender, faith, color, sexual preference, et cetera). Disiplinary Laws apply only to those within the "camp," or for modern world, the "Church." The rules for the "Church" to love everybody, including enemies, makes everyone neighbors to the Christian.
Utilizing what we like to call to logic, if you are to love your neighbor as you love yourself, and you aren't willing to subject yourself to slavery , then you aren't willing to subject anyone (neghbors) to slavery. Doing otherwise, ie enslaving someone, is a sin.

I flagged myself
s_vawter »

Wed Feb 13, 2008 2:25 pm Agree: 0 Disagree: 0

I do apologize for my trusting declared ID sites to factually representing ID, BTW. I guess many of those sites are consdered "literal creationist" but are labled as ID.
Agent Orange- are you going to hide behind your "pre-emptive" statement WRT your blatant quote mining? Or, are you going to hide and also redirect by blasting someone else? It is actually really hard to justify your position irt the "slavery is biblically sound" statement- because you failed to take any of those passages in context. It is easy for me to say the "transitional fossils" are mostly lacking, because the skeletal parts that make many to be such aren't present, they are conjectural, either partly or wholly. Evolution, as an atheistic account for logos, falls flat on it's face. It requires, at some point, life from lifelessness. Until someone throws together a periodic table hodge podge into a vaccuum, and then finds a lifeform emerge from some chemical and physical process, then the theistic view cannot be discounted. The math has already been done on that, and I will endeavor to cite it, but it is a near-impossibility for life from nothing. Therefore, because the Atheistic view relies heavily on faith IRT genesis, it is not a valid scientific worldview, but rightly becomes a sort of theolgy.
agentorange »

Wed Feb 13, 2008 2:07 pm Agree: 0 Disagree: 1

Slacker,

“Slavery is NOT condoned when you take quotes in context”

It mentions selling your daughter as a slave, the prices to charge for slaves based on the age and sex of the person, how to ethically beat your slave and how you will be judged if you kill them within 2 days, it cites when to take slaves after vanquishing an enemy that doesn’t submit to you, and so on. These are not passages against the very act of slavery. Where are the messages that say the very act of slavery is ungodly or wrong?
agentorange »

Wed Feb 13, 2008 2:00 pm Agree: 0 Disagree: 1

notw06,

Look who's back, the famous spamming quote miner who never cites his sources. Glad your back.

Are you going to cite any evidence instead of meaningless quotes?

'Is this taken out of context? Hmmm... "

it's hard to know as you won't provide original source..

Also, Mr. Parker is a writer for AIG, hardly a scientifically peer reviewed journal such as Nature or National Geographic, but o well. This guy you're quoting publishes work that isn't scientifically peer reviewed either, what a surprise..

Strangely accord the NCSE he’s never published anything under scientific peer review either (real shocker).
Slacker »

Wed Feb 13, 2008 1:59 pm Agree: 0 Disagree: 0

To AgentOrange

"In the case of the bible, the points where it mentions slavery as an example are hard to quote out of context to make it appear like it doesn’t condone slavery. That said, if I were to post the verses where it mentions slavery, even if someone were to read the parts in which the quotes are taken from it would be clear that the bible, in terms of ethics has no qualms with the principle act of slavery and so it’s hard to quote mine it to deliberately make it appear as it the bible doesn’t support slavery. "

By not reading the entire context of the passage is falsely giving testimony to the Word of God, which is taking it out of context. Just as Slave owners have done to justify the slave trade from the Bible which is false.
s_vawter »

Wed Feb 13, 2008 1:52 pm Agree: 0 Disagree: 0

Uhm, Agent Orange, you are now quote mining. Slavery is NOT condoned when you take quotes in context. The quotes pertaining to slaves in OT can be framed in such a way as to give appearance of an "Godly greenlight," however, when taken in context to "love your neighbor as you would love yourself" (YHWH OT,Jesus/ Yeshua NT), and the passage where Paul of Taursas admonishes a slave owner for not having freed his servant, then the statement of slave owning as being ok loses it's credibility. Furthermore, the two Laws deemed greatest by God in Flesh, Yeshua (Jesus), seem to prohibit slave owning as an ethical,/ permissable practice for all believers.
All paraphrases, summaries. and quotes come either directly or indirectly from the NIV and/ or NKJV translations.
steveh20 »

Wed Feb 13, 2008 12:10 pm Agree: 0 Disagree: 0

Hello notw06

"The intelligent layman has long suspected circular reasoning in the use of rocks to date fossils and fossils to date rocks. The geologist has never bothered to think of a good reply."
(J.O'Rourke in the American Journal of Science)

Actually what the fossils allow geologists to do is "relatively" date rocks in that it can be said a particular strata was deposited before another one and of course vice versa ie If a strata contains Trilobites it must be at least permian or before, in much the same sense that a strata with a chilled margin under a sill must have been deposited before the sill was intruded. Hope that cleas up the circuler reasoning myth. Regards, Steve
notw06 »

Wed Feb 13, 2008 11:30 am Agree: 0 Disagree: 0

"In most people's minds, fossils and Evolution go hand in hand. In reality, fossils are a great embarrassment to Evolutionary theory and offer strong support for the concept of Creation. If Evolution were true, we should find literally millions of fossils that show how one kind of life slowly and gradually changed to another kind of life. But missing links are the trade secret, in a sense, of palaeontology. The point is, the links are still missing. What we really find are gaps that sharpen up the boundaries between kinds. It's those gaps which provide us with the evidence of Creation of separate kinds. As a matter of fact, there are gaps between each of the major kinds of plants and animals. Transition forms are missing by the millions. What we do find are separate and complex kinds, pointing to Creation."
(Dr Gary Parker Biologist/palaeontologist and former ardent Evolutionist.)

Is this taken out of context? Hmmm...
notw06 »

Wed Feb 13, 2008 11:29 am Agree: 0 Disagree: 0

"The intelligent layman has long suspected circular reasoning in the use of rocks to date fossils and fossils to date rocks. The geologist has never bothered to think of a good reply."
(J.O'Rourke in the American Journal of Science)
notw06 »

Wed Feb 13, 2008 11:29 am Agree: 0 Disagree: 0

"The fossil record pertaining to man is still so sparsely known that those who insist on positive declarations can do nothing more than jump from one hazardous surmise to another and hope that the next dramatic discovery does not make them utter fools ... Clearly some refuse to learn from this. As we have seen, there are numerous scientists and popularizers today who have the temerity to tell us that there is 'no doubt' how man originated: if only they had the evidence..."
(William R Fix, The Bone Pedlars, New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1984, p.150)
notw06 »

Wed Feb 13, 2008 11:28 am Agree: 0 Disagree: 0

"Not one change of species into another is on record ... we cannot prove that a single species has been changed."
(Charles Darwin, My Life & Letters)
notw06 »

Wed Feb 13, 2008 11:27 am Agree: 0 Disagree: 0

"The more scientists have searched for the transitional forms that lie between species, the more they have been frustrated."
(John Adler with John Carey: Is Man a Subtle Accident, Newsweek, Vol.96, No.18 (November 3, 1980, p.95)
notw06 »

Wed Feb 13, 2008 11:19 am Agree: 0 Disagree: 0

"The fact that a theory so vague, so insufficiently verifiable, and so far from the criteria otherwise applied in 'hard' science has become a dogma can only be explained on sociological grounds."
(Ludwig von Bertalanffy, biologist)
"Micromutations do occur, but the theory that these alone can account for evolutionary change is either falsified, or else it is an unfalsifiable, hence metaphysical theory. I suppose that nobody will deny that it is a great misfortune if an entire branch of science becomes addicted to a false theory. But this is what has happened in biology: ... I believe that one day the Darwinian myth will be ranked the greatest deceit in the history of science. When this happens many people will pose the question: How did this ever happen?"
(S Lovtrup, Darwinism: The Refutation of a Myth (London:Croom Helm, p.422))

please note citation
notw06 »

Wed Feb 13, 2008 11:15 am Agree: 0 Disagree: 0

"Generation after generation, through countless cell divisions, the genetic heritage of living things is scrupulously preserved in DNA ... All of life depends on the accurate transmission of information. As genetic messages are passed through generations of dividing cells, even small mistakes can be life-threatening ... if mistakes were as rare as one in a million, 3000 mistakes would be made during each duplication of the human genome. Since the genome replicates about a million billion times in the course of building a human being from a single fertilised egg, it is unlikely that the human organism could tolerate such a high rate of error. In fact, the actual rate of mistakes is more like one in 10 billion."
(Miroslav Radman and Robert Wagner, The High Fidelity of DNA Duplication... Scientific America. Vol. 299, No 2 (August 1988, pp 40-44. Quote is from page 24))

atheist notice--the previous quote is meticulously cited
agentorange »

Wed Feb 13, 2008 8:55 am Agree: 0 Disagree: 1

Slacker,

This is why sources are key so they can establish the veracity, and this is why notw06 likely source his quotes as he realizes that I or someone else will verify them and in turn this would perhaps embarrass him again. Using quotes to support a proposition isn’t very convincing anyway; to support or destroy a proposition requires evidence.

Yes, about anything can be quoted out of context. However, it’s important to note that when taking short quotes out of larger bodied text, unless the end meaning that is quoted is contradictory to the intentioned meaning of the larger bodies text, than it’s not a quote mine.

It’s only a quote mine if it’s contradictory to the actual meaning of said body of text.

In the case of the bible, the points where it mentions slavery as an example are hard to quote out of context to make it appear like it doesn’t condone slavery. That said, if I were to post the verses where it mentions slavery, even if someone were to read the parts in which the quotes are taken from it would be clear that the bible, in terms of ethics has no qualms with the principle act of slavery and so it’s hard to quote mine it to deliberately make it appear as it the bible doesn’t support slavery.
agentorange »

Wed Feb 13, 2008 8:27 am Agree: 0 Disagree: 1

Seedplanter,

Dembski has said in his own book the Intelligent Designer is god, this is why he holds an except of common descent to man. The only main difference between creationism and ID is that creationism adheres mostly to the literal interpolation of the bible, while ID doesn’t. The main reason for this is even the ID folk realize how horrid the arguments are for creationism and considering it’s been repeatedly shot down in court and deemed unscientific it can’t be taught in schools.

The ID folk know the science behind all other realms of evolution regarding dating and such that refute creationism are solid and well tested, so they opt for a realm where less is known and in sake of ignorance deem anything IC is the result of a designer.

Seedplanter, do you find hurricanes an example of increased complexity?
Slacker »

Tue Feb 12, 2008 11:27 pm Agree: 2 Disagree: 0

"Quote mining is intentionally cherry picked bits and pieces of writings, taken out of context to miislead and make it a appear the person being quaoted is against what generally they believe or support."

Really, sounds alot like what most people do to the bible to support some rediculus claim against it or to support some argument against christians....
JonnyBlad »

Tue Feb 12, 2008 7:39 pm Agree: 0 Disagree: 0

Creationism vs. Evolution

http://polemos.net/Creationism.html
seedplanter »

Tue Feb 12, 2008 6:31 pm Agree: 0 Disagree: 0

s_vawter: “ID hasn't helped itself a whole lot by it's young earth claims.”

Allow me to correct your common misunderstanding. IDers do not make a young earth claim. They do not call into question modern scientific methods of determining the age of the earth. As a matter of fact Michael Behe himself actually adheres to complete common decent (evolution of man). William Dembski adheres to common decent with the exception of man. There is a difference between creationism and ID. I am currently reading The Evolution Controversy: A Survey of Competing Theories in which Thomas B. Fowler and Daniel Kuebler explain the different points of view on origins. ID is very much in line with the National Academy of Science, except for recognizing that life is not the consequences of natural phenomena and that its complexity infers a designer.
s_vawter »

Tue Feb 12, 2008 3:20 pm Agree: 0 Disagree: 0

As for quote mining, that's not really true IRT academia- natural science's may have that tendancy, but socialogist's, philosopher's, and literary critic's do not. In fact, most writers attacking some societal norm or taboo set up "straw man" quotes in order to burn them, a la Christopher Hitchinson. Though I may be loathe to call him "academic," his works have quite often made their way into college campuses. There are many other authors I could list, but I honestly have better things to do at this point, and I believe you get my point.Can anyone tell me why there is a green hyper link in one of my earlier posts? Is that something this site does? Thanks again, I've work to do!
s_vawter »

Tue Feb 12, 2008 2:55 pm Agree: 0 Disagree: 1

Yeah, there is a huge amount of ID groups that claim a 6,000 year old earth. They really don't help the theistic argument. In addition to the bad math, they teach an earth of simultaneous habitation of humans and dinosaurs. As for talk origins- Tell me, how does one declare "transitional fossil" because it contains conjectural pedal components- a la sea cow. I am by no means anti-evolution, as I stated before- evolution and Christianity aren't mutually exclusive. Any help in finding some objective data is appreciated, and I will view some of those sites you listed, Agent Orange. Thanks! God Bless you all!
agentorange »

Tue Feb 12, 2008 10:37 am Agree: 0 Disagree: 1

"Quote mining? please define that, because if we cite a quote, it is a practice ALL academics use when writing "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quote_mining

Quote mining is intentionally cherry picked bits and pieces of writings, taken out of context to miislead and make it a appear the person being quaoted is against what generally they believe or support.

Academics use quotes but refer to them and cite them in their works. no one writes a book qouting someone and then doesn't cite the source as to do so lends to notion that the source isn't reptuable or the quote is wrong to begin with.

Academics generally wont quote people when attempting to prove a proposition, instead they refer to evidence or tests that demonstrate a theory in action. This is something notw06 doesn't do. When he did try to, he made a big mistake by saying all mutations are bad and that they always kill the host, but I know science well enough to smell it for what it was and cited where he was wrong and after that all he has done since has been useless quotemines with no sources attached.
agentorange »

Tue Feb 12, 2008 10:26 am Agree: 0 Disagree: 1

s_vawter,

since you conclude that it's all conjecture on talkorigins part, i invite you and others to research them for yourself. This is hardly a full listing.

Hominids
www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html
www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/
www.theistic-evolution.com/transitional.html
http://darwiniana.org/hominid.htm
www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/hominids.html
www.becominghuman.org/

Whales
www.talkorigins.org/features/whales/
www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC216_1.html
www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/02/pr0235.htm
www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/11/2/e_s_3.html
www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/
www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/mammal/cetacea/cetacean.html
www-personal.umich.edu/~gingeric/PDGwhales/Whales.htm
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/data/2001/11/01/html/ft_20011101.4.html
www.tolweb.org/Cetacea/15977

"Aside from the whole "spontaneous generation" need for evoluton to have had happened"

this one too now.sheesh. how many times must this be said, evolution isn't negated by HOW life got here. evolution only deals with life evolving over time. Regardless if god poofed it here, or it aliens genetically engineered it, or if it was the result of chemical bonding processes doesn't negate that once life is around it adapts and evolves.

jesus4me,

"I see an awful lot of flagging done to seedplanter"

Didn't you see where seedplanter said he flagged himself? "(I flagged myself) "

Only bobx2x was flagging anyone and he also flagged me b/c I told him to stop as I was responding to notw and embarssing him for proclaiming all mutations are harmfull.
steveh20 »

Tue Feb 12, 2008 9:05 am Agree: 0 Disagree: 0

s_vawter
I apologise in advance if I am wrong but I am not aware that the ID movement makes claims about a young Earth, as far as I know they are quite happy (and rightly so) with a 4.5 Ga Earth. I hold no truckwith the ID movement but I don't like to see people misrepresented.
Regards, Steve
jesus4me »

Tue Feb 12, 2008 8:45 am Agree: 0 Disagree: 0

why are all the really angry atheists flagging the born again Christians? Could it be that they just can't handle the truth of the Word of God?????? Of course it is. Please give people the courtesy not to flag them just cause you don't agree with what they are saying please. I see an awful lot of flagging done to seedplanter, and I have read his views before, and he is right on.
s_vawter »

Tue Feb 12, 2008 8:19 am Agree: 0 Disagree: 0

I wonder- Do you really think God cares all that much about whether or not we think He made us gradually, or all at once? That was the crux of C.S. Lewis statements in Mere Christianity, and are still true today- I am willing to bank on His lack of care in that arena. If the God I know is the Almightty One True LORD, He cares more that we obey those little red letters, then take the rest in context to those. As for the neo-naturalists, if one was to visit talk origins, and then trace back their "transitional" fossils, you would see that a great deal many of them contain "conjectural" components. They merely "made them up" in order to have that skeleton fit their theory! If memory serves, this practice caused a great deal of embarassment in the early 20th century, when they based a "missing link" discovery on a abnormal pig's jaw. Aside from the whole "spontaneous generation" need for evoluton to have had happened, and the need to make up evidence, ID hasn't helped itself a whole lot by it's young earth claims. Quote mining? please define that, because if we cite a quote, it is a practice ALL academics use when writing
agentorange »

Mon Feb 11, 2008 9:17 pm Agree: 0 Disagree: 0

seedplanter, I wasn't refering to you, moreso notw and his quotes and that is all he does. he hasn't gotten into the ring with me and never mentions evidence for anything so he's harmless.
agentorange »

Mon Feb 11, 2008 9:16 pm Agree: 0 Disagree: 0

seedplanter, why anyone can quote mine. what do mined quotes prove?
seedplanter »

Mon Feb 11, 2008 9:00 pm Agree: 0 Disagree: 0

AgentOrnery, you should be careful hanging around here so much or you’ll be next on my list of former atheists.

(I flagged myself)
seedplanter »

Mon Feb 11, 2008 8:58 pm Agree: 0 Disagree: 0

Prodriver: “When we say there was (and is) evolution, we say the bible is a book full of lies. There is no way around this fact.”

Prodriver , I think that John Polkinghorne and his fellow colleagues would disagree with you.

Francis Collins - Geneticist who was an atheist until age 27, but then converted to Christianity. He is the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) and author of The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, in which he defends evolution.

Alister McGrath - Biochemist and Christian theologian. Founder of 'Scientific theology' and critic of Richard Dawkins in books like Dawkins' God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life and The Dawkins Delusion? I’m guessing that McGrath adheres to evolution, although I can’t be sure.

C. S. Lewis - writer who became an atheist as a young man but returned to Christianity and wrote many books about his faith. C. S. Lewis has been criticized by Ken Ham for advocating evolution in Mere Christianity.

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