Argument #1: Transitional Fossils

[Coffee Jesus]

They no nothing

[Confused Ape]

Just because a source has Christian beliefs doesn't mean that the source should be disregarded.

I hope that means you'll be taking a look at the Old Earth Ministries website, then.

The people who run this website are Christians so they aren't out to turn visitors into atheists. On the contrary, they're hoping that visiting atheists will convert to Christianity because they have this page -

How To Become A Christian

Yes, you can believe in an old earth, and become a Christian. Yes, the Word of God is inerrant, and its account of the creation story in Genesis is perfectly in line with the scientific record. God created the world, and the doctrine of salvation has nothing to do with the age of the earth. The Bible does not say, “Believe in a young earth, or be condemned to hell.

Out of curiosity, why did you decide that Answers In Genesis has the real answers? Did you look at different viewpoints from other Christians and decide that AIG had the right interpretation or was it the first site you came across?

[Bad Wolf]

They no nothing

Please excuse my poor grammar, it was the cumulative result of a lack of sleep and reading Rev's posts.

[Coffee Jesus]

Verily, verily, I forgive you, Bad Wolf.

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I will do him a favor and mention the Cambrian explosion. Lots of missing links there.

It's obvious that what actually happened is God over-poured his coffee beans and had a sudden burst of design ideas. But how do we explain hybrid zones? Why would God place two different species right next to eachother, and program them to mate with eachother when it would only produce infertile offspring?

Understanding the Cambrian explosion. http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles...ion-causes

I didn't ask about the Cambrian explosion. I asked about hybrid zones.

A hybrid zone forms when a reproductive barrier, usually a geographic barrier, separates a population of animals for so long that they evolve into different species or different subspecies. If the barrier disappears, they might mate again, and they might produce hybrid offspring. The area where their territories overlap is called the "hybrid zone".

Most animals of different species cannot impregnate one another, but these animals are closely related enough to impregnate eachother. However, hybrid offspring are often infertile and thus incapable of passing on their hybrid genetics. That's why mules are sterile; mules are donkey-horse hybrids. If the hybrids are infertile, the two populations won't merge back together, and the "hybrid zone" will persist. There are various examples of hybrid zones. I already mentioned the grolar bears (polar bear grizzly bear hybrids). Another example is the the yellow-bellied and fire-bellied toads. Here's a scientific article on them: The mating call of hybrids of the fire-bellied toad and yellow-bellied toad (Bombina bombina (L.), Bombina v. variegata (L.), discoglossidae, anura)

This ties into the broader concept of species distribution. Closely related species tend to be nearby one another. Here is a very shocking example that I have in my notes.
"The Isthmus of Panama is the land bridge that connects North and South America. It started to form 10 million years ago. There are 15 species of snapping shrimp on each side of the Isthmus, and genetic analysis shows that each species is most closely related to another species on the other side of the barrier. The formation of the Isthmus split 15 species into 30."

http://www.creationproof.com/id24.html

probably some of this

And again:

Our primary goal is that God be glorified, that souls be won for Christ, and that God’s Word be shown to be inerrant and pure, while exposing evolution as an atheistic misrepresentation of earth's and mankind's origin.

How about you post sources that aren't outright biased against the truth, where it contradicts with your favorite story book, Rev. I thought you wanted to be honest about this, and yet here you are still presenting the words of liars as if they were truth.

Just because a source has Christian beliefs doesn't mean that the source should be disregarded. I can do the same with atheistic sources.

The source should be dedicated to honest investigation, not dedicated to verifying what they already believe. Read it again. They're primary goal is to show that the Bible be shown inerrant, and that evolution be exposed as a misrepresentation of our true origin. That doesn't sound like honest inquiry to me.

[Angrboda]

Not quite. What we would expect from the particular designer that you believe created it all is for all modern life forms to appear in exactly the same rock strata at the same time, or with very minor gaps (say... 24 hours). The fossil record most definitely does not show this.

I believe this explains it better than I can. http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles...sil-record

That is a nice story, but that is not how fossils form, let alone a layer 50 feet thick. Organisms must be buried quickly in an environment that lacks oxygen in order to be fossilized. If they are not, scavengers and bacteria will quickly decompose the organisms.

Your source is wrong. Creationist sources lie.

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Claim CC363:

• Fossilization requires rapid burial, or the organism will decay. This suggests that a catastrophe is responsible for fossils.
  

Source:

• Whitcomb, John C. Jr. and Henry M. Morris, 1961. <#The Genesis Flood#>. Philadephia, PA: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., pp. 128-129.

Response:

1. Bones can survive for over a year before being buried. Shells can last decades or even centuries. In fact, some fossils that have been eroded or encrusted or bored by other animals have been found, showing that long times passed before they were buried, and discrediting catastrophic burial. Only soft tissues need to be preserved quickly.
   
   
2. Rapid burial is not necessary for rapid preservation. Fossils can also be preserved by falling in a peat bog or on an anoxic lake bottom, areas where decay is slow or nonexistent. Other fossils are preserved in tree sap, which can become amber over time.
   
   
3. Rapid burial is common as a result of processes that are local catastrophes or that can scarcely be considered catastrophes at all, such as
   
   • burial in sediments in a river delta
     
   • burial in sediments from a local river flood
     
   • burial in a small landslide, as along an eroded stream bank
     
   • burial in ash from a volcano
     
   • burial in a blown sand dune
4. Patterns of fossilization are consistent with noncatastrophic processes such as those mentioned above. Fossilization occurs as a result of all those different processes, not as a result of a single catastrophe. And it occurs where we would expect on the basis of commonplace processes. Bison fossils, for example, are found in active floodplains, not in upland areas.

TalkOrigins: Creationist Claims

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[SteelCurtain]

Just because a source has Christian beliefs doesn't mean that the source should be disregarded. I can do the same with atheistic sources.

No, Rev, you're right. If a source is written by a Christian, even a Young Earth Creationist, it is worthy to be read, if they are looking at, testing, and interpreting the available evidence objectively.

If the source is starting out from the standpoint that no other viewpoint but the one they are espousing can possibly be correct, that is what makes it an unreliable source. The very mission statement from AiG is that evolution cannot be true, before they even look at the evidence.

How can you possibly think this is a reliable method for testing the evidence that we see around us?

ETA: If you see any of us post a source from a site with a mission statement along the lines of "Our mission is to disprove religious claims, because no matter what, there are no gods and we seek to prove that through our research and bring people to atheism. Atheism is inerrant truth, and everything we look at will be through that lens." Feel free to disregard that source. Just get in line.

[Angrboda]

There are many, many, many transitional fossils. You can see them in museums, you can see them in books, you can see them in peer reviewed, scholarly articles by evolutionary biologists. It is undeniable that transitional forms do exist.

Thank you for the nice response. Check out this article
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles...2/tetrapod

Creationists and evolutionists have observed that many organisms, both fossil and living, exhibit a mosaic distribution of character traits. Parker66 put it this way:

• ‘Each created kind is a unique combination of traits that are individually shared with members of other groups.’

Stephen Jay Gould called such organisms ‘mosaic forms’ or ‘chimeras’67 while Kurt Wise68,69 calls them chimeromorphs. The duck-billed platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus), for instance, has features of both mammals (hair, milk production) and reptiles (egg-laying). Perhaps the best-known fossil example is Archaeopteryx, which combines feathers with teeth and wing claws. In fact, a mosaic pattern of character distribution is seen in many other fossil organisms. For instance, Woodmorappe70 recently drew attention to the chimeric nature of the pakicetids, a group of terrestrial artiodactyls with a whale-like inner ear.

This observation seems to apply to the Devonian tetrapods and fishes considered in this article. For example, Daeschler et al. noted that:

• ‘Devonian tetrapods show a mosaic of terrestrial and aquatic adaptations.’71

Some of the fishes possess tetrapod-like characters while the tetrapods have fish-like features. Evolutionists interpret mosaic organisms like these as evolutionary intermediates linking major groups. However, Wise72 makes an important point against this interpretation:

• ‘Although the entire organism is intermediate in structure, it’s the combination of structures that is intermediate, not the nature of the structures themselves. Each of these organisms appears to be a fully functional organism full of fully functional structures.’

Evolutionary theory might lead us to expect examples of intermediate structures, but there is nothing intermediate about, for example, the internal gills of Acanthostega, its lateral line system, or its limbs. They are fully developed and highly complex. What is unusual is their combination in a single organism. Intelligent design offers an alternative understanding of this widespread pattern. The Devonian tetrapods are thought to have lived a predatory lifestyle in weed-infested shallow water. They were therefore equipped with characteristics appropriate to that habitat (e.g. crocodile-like morphology with dorsally placed eyes, limbs and tails made for swimming, internal gills, lateral line systems). Some of these features are also found in fishes that shared their environment.

Ah yes, ye olde, "They aren't intermediate, they only look like they are."

[Minimalist]

No, Rev, you're right. If a source is written by a Christian, even a Young Earth Creationist, it is worthy to be read, if they are looking at, testing, and interpreting the available evidence objectively.

If the source is starting out from the standpoint that no other viewpoint but the one they are espousing can possibly be correct, that is what makes it an unreliable source. The very mission statement from AiG is that evolution cannot be true, before they even look at the evidence.

How can you possibly think this is a reliable method for testing the evidence that we see around us?

ETA: If you see any of us post a source from a site with a mission statement along the lines of "Our mission is to disprove religious claims, because no matter what, there are no gods and we seek to prove that through our research and bring people to atheism. Atheism is inerrant truth, and everything we look at will be through that lens." Feel free to disregard that source. Just get in line.

That's not what they do, SC. This is what those creatard douchebags are all about.

[Lemonvariable72]

No, Rev, you're right. If a source is written by a Christian, even a Young Earth Creationist, it is worthy to be read, if they are looking at, testing, and interpreting the available evidence objectively.

If the source is starting out from the standpoint that no other viewpoint but the one they are espousing can possibly be correct, that is what makes it an unreliable source. The very mission statement from AiG is that evolution cannot be true, before they even look at the evidence.

How can you possibly think this is a reliable method for testing the evidence that we see around us?

ETA: If you see any of us post a source from a site with a mission statement along the lines of "Our mission is to disprove religious claims, because no matter what, there are no gods and we seek to prove that through our research and bring people to atheism. Atheism is inerrant truth, and everything we look at will be through that lens." Feel free to disregard that source. Just get in line.

That's not what they do, SC. This is what those creatard douchebags are all about.

If evolution isn't true then why does ken ham look like a monkey?

[truthBtold]

If the bible got it right we wouldnt need science, if my aunt had balls, she would be my uncle..