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.