Young Earth Creationism Vs. Science (Statler Waldorf Contd)

[Captain Scarlet]

Dodged my question, nice. I can’t accept evolutionary theory because I realize that scientific fact is not established by consensus and information theory has demonstrated that common descent is impossible.

I answered your question perhaps you would like to re-read.

Actually they are not consistent with evolution; evolutionists thought that finding one was impossible until we found one. It would be impossible for one animal like the Coelacanth to not change any in millions of years while all the other animals around it experienced the same selective pressures and all went extinct or change drastically. It’s a fairy tale.

Again argument from incredulity. It is perfectly consistent, just because you don't/won't/can't bring yourself to believe it, doesn't make your argument win out. Stories and myths about gods are fairytales, evolution is a fact.

So finding Coelacanths today is evidence for evolution, but not finding certain plant life today is evidence for evolution? Now that is having your cake and eating it too. Actually many plants we see today such as maple trees and oak trees are found in pre-historic layers of strata, let me guess, this is evidence for evolution too? Lol.

Nope Strawman argument. I said coelocanths are consistent with but not evidence for. If we found dinosaurs tomorrow in Loch Ness that would be a surprise but would in no way undermine the ToE. Why would it?, if the animal is successful and well adapted it has no selective pressure driving it forward, that is consistent. You are starting to sound desparate.

C14 in coal and diamonds is evidence these materials are very young which is evidence that confirms the biblical account of creation. It’s impossible to contaminate a diamond due to their hardness, sorry.

Don't apologise; even though you're wrong again. If you had bothered to look at the research it clearly states there is as yet an untested hypothesis that decay of isotopes within the crystal structures of the material is responsible for the suspected C14 anomolies. I have suggested you suspend judgement, until that hypothesis is tested.

Again, they demonstrate that the dinosaurs died off within a few thousand years, which confirms the biblical account of creation.

You're right on this one Statler. Infact I saw a television programme on this only yesterday. A man had this dinsoaur pet and a wife called Wilma. Must be true. God damn! I think the best thing to do with your statement on dinosaurs is to underline it, and move on. I respectfully disagree with your interpretation and so do those incovenient fossils and facts, you might want to look at again.

Being skeptical of evidence for creation is obviously part of your worldview, so you are applying your worldview.

Red herring fallacy. Besides from not being a worldview, I plead guilty to being skeptical. There isn't any evidence presented yet for Creationism to be skeptical of? Unless I have missed it that is.

Pretty simple model, Creation occurred around 6000 years ago. A global flood occurred around 4,500 years ago. This model is completely confirmed by the evidence. You just won’t accept it because you interpret the evidence using a worldview that already assumes this model is false.

At last a model for us to unpick; although I'd say simplistic rather than simple. Is that it?

Can you use this model to better explain the evidence we have in phylogenetics, taxonomy, bio-geography, stratigraphy, paleontology. Go for it if you can.

Just one specific example the humble sea urchin first appears in the late Triassic, well after the Carboniferous swamps and forests, the warm reefs of the Devonian, the erratic Silurian tempartures, the glaciers of the Ordivician and of course the Cambrian explosion. If a worldwide flood had buried our poor unsuspecting sea urchins, you would expect to see them in the first deposits, the ones at the bottom (that is Cambrian layers). Why? They are ALL bottom feeders. Trouble is we only ever find the them in the late Triassic onwards ie upper middle deposits. To be honest it is one petty example, but your model would need to state far more and then make some predictions which would enable us to falsify it. The lack of specificty in it means you can twist and turn and makes it deeply unimpressive. As for 6k years ago if you are seriously touting the C14 argument then you have already falisfied it yourself. The best dates for YEC n the C14 samples are around 40k years ago (but then I think the C14 argument should wait for the research to follow so I won't use against your argument, but you should really think about it!)

Evolution is not the only natural explanation huh? That’s funny, both Darwin and Dawkins say it is. YEC is the only supernatural explanation that has been held by recent scientists (Newton, Bacon, and Kepler), so it is the best supernatural explanation. Even Darwin believed it was the only viable supernatural explanation because he used disjunctive reasoning to argue against it. Once you admit that supernatural creation had to occur we can discuss why is has to be the God of the Bible and not Woden. Your argument is illogical though, it would be like saying, “well it appears the answer has to be an even number, but I don’t know which one it has to be so I am going to pick an odd number!”.

Fallacies appeal to tradition, appeal to authority. No argument presented here to blunt the attack of bifurcation on your argument.

What evidence would you accept for evolution? Easy, show me that mutations that actually increase the information in the genome not only happen but happen more than mutations that reduce information. Next show how DNA could synthesize naturally since this is part of the General Theory of Evolution. Also show me the millions of transitional fossils we should find if evolution occurred. Also show me how your theory could be falsified. Get there and we may be looking at a plausible theory, you are not even close to there with the theory though.

Regurgitated Gish, Morris and Johnson I'm afraid. But I'll answer your questions (credit to AronRa) so you can at least accept evolution as the best explanation of the facts. You ask for evidence I give you some. I ask you for evidence you come back peripheral stuff about coelocanths and C14, and then go on about how impossible evolution is. Full answer below if you care to read it.

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"Information"

Mutations are degrees of variation which are usually quite subtle but cumulative, normally harmless, and occasionally advantageous. Any change in information is different information, not already present, and therefore can only be considered “new”. But of the many types of mutations known to occur, there are additions and duplications as well as deletions and the rest. So yes, genetic material can be added or taken away. But as to whether “information” has been added as opposed to lost, we can’t really tell because creationists won’t tell us what they think “information” is or how to measure it. They’ll readily state (as if it had somehow been confirmed) that it takes more "information" to make a bird than it does a dinosaur, but if you ask 'em how much more, they’ll shut right up. And if you demand to see the data that justifies how they could even make that claim in the first place, they’ll to change the subject.

Just some of the recent beneficial mutations in just the human species that have increased "information"; they're are many, many others

Residents in the village of Limone Sul Garda in northern Italy have a mutation which gives them better tolerance of HDL serum cholesterol. Consequently this family has no history of heart attacks despite their high-risk dietary habits. This mutation was traced to a single common ancestor living in the 1700's, but has now spread to dozens of descendants. Genetic samples from this family are now being tested for potential treatment of patients of heart disease.

Another example of new variance is the Glycophorin A somatic cell mutation which has been identified in some Tibetans, which allows them to endure prolonged periods at altitudes over 7,000 feet without succumbing to apoplexia, or “altitude sickness”. A different, but similar mutation was identified in high altitude natives in the Andes.

Another example of that is the CCR5-delta 32 mutation. About 10% of whites of European origin now carry it. But the incidence is only 2% in central Asia, and is completely absent among East Asians, Africans, and tribal Americans. It appears to have suddenly become relatively common among white Europeans about 700 years ago, evidently as a result of the Black Plague, indicating another example of natural selection allowing one gene dominance in a changing environment. It is harmless or neutral in every respect other than its one clearly beneficial feature. According to Science-Frontiers.com, if one inherits this gene from both parents, they will be especially resistant, if not immune to AIDS.

Similarly, population genetics is being credited as one reason incidence of sickle-cell genes in African-Americans is apparently decreasing over time.

For another example we’ve also identified an emerging population of tetrachromatic women who can see a bit of the normally invisible ultraviolet spectrum.

There’s also a family in Germany who were already unusually strong. But in one case, one of their children was born with a double copy of an anti-myostatin mutation carried by both parents. The result is a Herculean child who was examined at only a few days old for his unusually well-developed muscles. By four years old, he had twice the muscle mass of normal children, and half the fat. Pharmaceutical synthesis of this mutation is being examined for potential use against muscular dystrophy or sarcopenia.

And then there’s a family in Connecticut who've been identified as having hyperdense, virtually unbreakable bones. A team of doctors at Yale traced the mutation to a gene that was the subject of an earlier study. In that study researchers showed that low bone density could be caused by a mutation that disrupts the function of a gene called LRP5. This clued them that a different mutation increased LRP5 function, leading to an opposite phenotype, that is, high bone density.

Transitional forms (just the Transition from primitive bony fish to amphibians; there are many, many other transitional forms; see talkorigins)

•Paleoniscoids (e.g. Cheirolepis) -- These ancient bony fish probably gave rise both to modern ray-finned fish (mentioned above), and also to the lobe-finned fish.
•Osteolepis (mid-Devonian) -- One of the earliest crossopterygian lobe-finned fishes, still sharing some characters with the lungfish (the other lobe-finned fishes). Had paired fins with a leg-like arrangement of major limb bones, capable of flexing at the "elbow", and had an early-amphibian-like skull and teeth.
•Eusthenopteron, Sterropterygion (mid-late Devonian) -- Early rhipidistian lobe-finned fish roughly intermediate between early crossopterygian fish and the earliest amphibians. Eusthenopteron is best known, from an unusually complete fossil first found in 1881. Skull very amphibian-like. Strong amphibian- like backbone. Fins very like early amphibian feet in the overall layout of the major bones, muscle attachments, and bone processes, with tetrapod-like tetrahedral humerus, and tetrapod-like elbow and knee joints. But there are no perceptible "toes", just a set of identical fin rays. Body & skull proportions rather fishlike.
•Panderichthys, Elpistostege (mid-late Devonian, about 370 Ma) -- These "panderichthyids" are very tetrapod-like lobe-finned fish. Unlike Eusthenopteron, these fish actually look like tetrapods in overall proportions (flattened bodies, dorsally placed orbits, frontal bones! in the skull, straight tails, etc.) and have remarkably foot-like fins.
•Fragmented limbs and teeth from the middle Late Devonian (about 370 Ma), possibly belonging to Obruchevichthys -- Discovered in 1991 in Scotland, these are the earliest known tetrapod remains. The humerus is mostly tetrapod-like but retains some fish features. The discoverer, Ahlberg (1991), said: "It [the humerus] is more tetrapod-like than any fish humerus, but lacks the characteristic early tetrapod 'L-shape'...this seems to be a primitive, fish-like character....although the tibia clearly belongs to a leg, the humerus differs enough from the early tetrapod pattern to make it uncertain whether the appendage carried digits or a fin. At first sight the combination of two such extremities in the same animal seems highly unlikely on functional grounds. If, however, tetrapod limbs evolved for aquatic rather than terrestrial locomotion, as recently suggested, such a morphology might be perfectly workable."

DNA syntehsis

Can you explain in more detail what you are looking for here from an evolutionary standpoint. Your question seems to be more orientated to abiogenesis?

Falsification

Find humans in Cambrian rocks, dinosaurs in the Ordivician, Silurian camp fires, Isrealite tribes roaming Permian deserts. There are a very large number of possible falsifications. You have come up with nothing.

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That’s the way the world works my friend. Evidence requires interpretation, the way we interpret the world around us is because of our worldview. It has nothing to do with your self interest, just an inconsistent worldview.

Nope its a circumstantial ad hominem. You have stated that you are more qualified than I, without knowing anything of my background and that I hold views only to fit in with my "worldview", and have also invented 'goalposts' moved them yourself and then claimed that I moved them. Not once have you reatracted any of this.

Oh brother, I gave you the definition of science; it says nothing about the cause being naturalistic. That’s naturalism; the two are not synonymous. If you believe they are then maybe I was right in questioning your credentials. There are many well educated and well published scientists who believe that explanations do not only have to be natural.

Oh brother indeed! Name one scientist who would argue that a supernatural cause to a natural effect, can be discovered by methodolgical naturalism and evidence gathered in such a way as to reach the level of a scientific theory which predicts results and ones which are repeatable on retesting? If you beleive the supernatural exists fine, good for you just don't waste my time with it nor try to argue that science would be able to uncover it.

[Ashendant]

I think we are kind missing each other on this one. I am not saying that DNA is not replicated and used in biological organisms. However, replicating DNA doesn’t increase the total amount of information present, just like photocopying a book doesn’t double the amount of information present. The original information that is encoded in DNA had to come from a mental source because there has never been an observed natural process that can produce information. Is that a bit more clear?

But Dna isn't replicated, the more basic cells maybe do this but they are not immune to mutation, mutation is the thing that increases the number of information in the DNA, more advanced cells made the method of breeding which is just splicing DNA, besides we already have proof of macroevolution.

First you said you knew the art was man-made because it was artificial, now you say you know it’s artificial because it’s man-made? Still too circular. Rather you could say, “I know this art is man made because I have observed man creating art but I have never observed a natural mechanism painting art, therefore I make an inference to design and say the art is man-made and artificial.”

Yes that would be more accurate description, notice that the point is not that art came from a mental source but that are wasn't painted by nature

Well only if DNA didn’t originate from a mental source, which is the very heart of the debate. I believe it did.

A)you have no proof that
B)There is proof that in certain parts the universe are naturally biased, due to that i often tend to think that the universe maybe naturally biased towards life
C)You accented your point Belief not science
[quote]Nah, based on the fact that this model best explains all the evidence and provides us with the very pre-conditions of intelligibility, unlike any other model proposed.

Explain how that theory fits with the genesis rock, also doesn't explain all the other proof that earth is older than 6000 years

[Statler Waldorf]

Again argument from incredulity. It is perfectly consistent, just because you don't/won't/can't bring yourself to believe it, doesn't make your argument win out. Stories and myths about gods are fairytales, evolution is a fact.

Ugh, not argument from incredibility, it’s pointing to observed evidence that does not fit your theory. A coelacanth is a fish, it’s very similar to other fish we see today, to suggest that there would be millions of years worth of selective pressures that somehow destroyed or altered all the other fish around the Coelacanth is absurd. You are just believing in a theory that is not falsifiable, bad science. Then you say Evolution is a fact, which of course is a canard. Facts are observations, unless you or someone else observed the evolution of all life on earth from a common ancestor then you can’t say it’s a fact.

Nope Strawman argument. I said coelocanths are consistent with but not evidence for. If we found dinosaurs tomorrow in Loch Ness that would be a surprise but would in no way undermine the ToE. Why would it?, if the animal is successful and well adapted it has no selective pressure driving it forward, that is consistent. You are starting to sound desparate.

Again, un-falsifiable theory, bad science.

Don't apologise; even though you're wrong again. If you had bothered to look at the research it clearly states there is as yet an untested hypothesis that decay of isotopes within the crystal structures of the material is responsible for the suspected C14 anomolies. I have suggested you suspend judgement, until that hypothesis is tested.

Untested hypothesis are just that, untested. Accept them all you want but it’s just a matter of blind faith for you, and not science. Shows a lot though that you would rather accept untested ideas than even admit you might be wrong about the age of the earth.

You're right on this one Statler. Infact I saw a television programme on this only yesterday. A man had this dinsoaur pet and a wife called Wilma. Must be true. God damn! I think the best thing to do with your statement on dinosaurs is to underline it, and move on. I respectfully disagree with your interpretation and so do those incovenient fossils and facts, you might want to look at again.

Actually the fossils that contain soft tissue completely indicate that the animal died very recently since soft tissue cannot survive for millions of years. To say otherwise goes against all of the empirical evidence to the contrary. Rather than addressing this issue, you make jokes about a cartoon. Sad, but not surprising in the least.

Red herring fallacy. Besides from not being a worldview, I plead guilty to being skeptical. There isn't any evidence presented yet for Creationism to be skeptical of? Unless I have missed it that is.

Yes you have missed all of it, again sad but not surprising. Too bad you are not as skeptical of those untested ideas that support your worldview than you are of the actual tested ones that do not support it.

Can you use this model to better explain the evidence we have in phylogenetics, taxonomy, bio-geography, stratigraphy, paleontology. Go for it if you can.

I am sure I can, it’s the same evidence we use to support our model. So maybe you need to be more specific about which evidence you are referring to.

Just one specific example the humble sea urchin first appears in the late Triassic, well after the Carboniferous swamps and forests, the warm reefs of the Devonian, the erratic Silurian tempartures, the glaciers of the Ordivician and of course the Cambrian explosion. If a worldwide flood had buried our poor unsuspecting sea urchins, you would expect to see them in the first deposits, the ones at the bottom (that is Cambrian layers). Why? They are ALL bottom feeders. Trouble is we only ever find the them in the late Triassic onwards ie upper middle deposits. To be honest it is one petty example, but your model would need to state far more and then make some predictions which would enable us to falsify it. The lack of specificty in it means you can twist and turn and makes it deeply unimpressive. As for 6k years ago if you are seriously touting the C14 argument then you have already falisfied it yourself. The best dates for YEC n the C14 samples are around 40k years ago (but then I think the C14 argument should wait for the research to follow so I won't use against your argument, but you should really think about it!)

Sea urchins? This is your amazing evidence that contradicts creation? Well it’s obvious that the “fossil record” is not an actual record of time, but rather a record of death and burial. So I would expect some animals to be buried after others and some to not even appear in the record at all. So your little sea urchin story is consistent with a global flood. More consistent than a Coelacanth appearing in the record “65 million” years ago, disappearing completely from the record forever and then being found alive today. If the fossil record is really a history of time, then where were all the Coelacanths for the past 65 million years?

Fallacies appeal to tradition, appeal to authority. No argument presented here to blunt the attack of bifurcation on your argument.

Showing how some of the biggest supporters of your position disagree with you is not an appeal to tradition or authority. I am starting to think you just throw fallacy names out without really knowing much about them. It’s a cute way of not having to address what I actually said though. Maybe you should show how Evolution and Supernatural Creation are not the only two models possible (in spite of what Darwin and Dawkins think I guess).

Regurgitated Gish, Morris and Johnson I'm afraid. But I'll answer your questions (credit to AronRa) so you can at least accept evolution as the best explanation of the facts. You ask for evidence I give you some. I ask you for evidence you come back peripheral stuff about coelocanths and C14, and then go on about how impossible evolution is. Full answer below if you care to read it.

I read your article, and they don’t define information properly. Changing one letter in a book is not an increase in information (unless it happens to change the meaning of the word, or sentence). Copying a book does not increase information either, all the examples in the article were examples of these. The example with the people who have the mutation is an example of a reduction in information happening to benefit a group of people. This does not show how you could gain in over three billion bits of information in humans by mutation in only 4.5 billion years. To the contrary, observed entropy rates in the human genome show that it would completely fall apart in about ten thousand years.

Can you explain in more detail what you are looking for here from an evolutionary standpoint. Your question seems to be more orientated to abiogenesis?

Abiogenesis and chemical evolution belong to the General Theory of Evolution, so you will have to defend them as well if you are going to accept the theory as a whole.

Find humans in Cambrian rocks, dinosaurs in the Ordivician, Silurian camp fires, Isrealite tribes roaming Permian deserts. There are a very large number of possible falsifications. You have come up with nothing.

Uhh sorry. You already said that finding animals that were thought to be extinct alive today does not falsify your theory (the Coelacanth), and finding animals that are alive today (Maples and Oaks) in “ancient” strata obviously doesn’t falsify your theory, so why should finding people in ancient strata? A few years ago when we thought we may have found human tracks alongside dinosaur tracks in Texas one evolutionist was on record saying, “This is evidence for time travel not that the earth is young.” The fact of the matter is you have a theory that is not falsifiable.

Oh brother indeed! Name one scientist who would argue that a supernatural cause to a natural effect, can be discovered by methodolgical naturalism and evidence gathered in such a way as to reach the level of a scientific theory which predicts results and ones which are repeatable on retesting? If you beleive the supernatural exists fine, good for you just don't waste my time with it nor try to argue that science would be able to uncover it.

Methodological naturalism is only used in the operational sciences. Creationists use it too in the operational sciences. We are talking about origins sciences here. A supernatural explanation in origins sciences is completely legitimate.

[Ashendant]

Methodological naturalism is only used in the operational sciences. Creationists use it too in the operational sciences. We are talking about origins sciences here. A supernatural explanation in origins sciences is completely legitimate.

That's arguable

[Anomalocaris]

Methodological naturalism is only used in the operational sciences. Creationists use it too in the operational sciences. We are talking about origins sciences here. A supernatural explanation in origins sciences is completely legitimate.

That's arguable

It's not arguable. It's laughable. Science makes no distinction between origin and operations. If it happened, or could happen, it is in purview of the one unified methodological naturalistic science. If you claim something to be supernatural, it means it never happened, nor could ever happen, but you are pretending it did happen; or it did happen, or could happen, but you are contented with being an ignoramus as far as that part of the methodological naturalistic science is concerned. Pretending something that never happened actually happened is not legitimate in real science. Being contented with being an ignoramus is not legitimate in real science. So a supernatural explanation in science is not legitimate in any circumstances.

What a supernatural explanation is in "origin science" is relevant because "origin science" is bullshit, not science.

[Darwinian]

A supernatural explanation in origins sciences is completely legitimate.

This is quite true. But only because both are the product of a deluded mind.

[Ashendant]

Methodological naturalism is only used in the operational sciences. Creationists use it too in the operational sciences. We are talking about origins sciences here. A supernatural explanation in origins sciences is completely legitimate.

That's arguable

It's not arguable. It's laughable. Science makes no distinction between origin and operations. If it happened, or could happen, it is in purview of the one unified methodological naturalistic science. If you claim something to be supernatural, it means it never happened, nor could ever happen, but you are pretending it did happen; or it did happen, or could happen, but you are contented with being an ignoramus as far as that part of the methodological naturalistic science is concerned. Pretending something that never happened actually happened is not legitimate in real science. Being contented with being an ignoramus is not legitimate in real science. So a supernatural explanation in science is not legitimate in any circumstances.

What a supernatural explanation is in "origin science" is relevant because "origin science" is bullshit, not science.

That was not what i meant, what i meant is that claiming supernatural origins is stupid, because if someone that is supernatural is found to be true, it never was supernatural and always was natural

[downbeatplumb]

That was not what i meant, what i meant is that claiming supernatural origins is stupid, because if someone that is supernatural is found to be true, it never was supernatural and always was natural

EXACTLY.

There is and can be no such thing as the supernatural.

The 'supernatural' is a copout argument that leads to ignorance and the stagnation of thought.

In short. If something seems supernatural more research is required.

[Darwinian]

The supernatural is akin to a non-existent elephant. If such a creature exists then it cannot be non-existent!!

[downbeatplumb]

The supernatural is akin to a non-existent elephant. If such a creature exists then it cannot be non-existent!!

My necks getting sore with the amount of nodding in agreement I'm doing to this one.