Norman, the latest reports indicate there is a five % difference. "But using percentages hides an important fact. If 5% of the DNA is different, this amounts to 150,000,000 DNA base pairs that are different between them."(David DeWitt). In addition, to get this 5% difference, many pieces of the DNA are not included in the calculation for various reasons. When you include everything, you tend to get a similarity of between 81 to 87%, according to other scientists(CMI). This is what an evolutionary mindset does; it assumes a great similarity and so refuses to consider obvious or potential dissimilarities. Other reported differences: ICR reports that chimp genome is 10% larger than human genome, the y chromosome is less than 70% similar.
The issue in this discussion is not the size of the difference. The issue is the evolutionary a-priori assumption of similarities even when only a small part of the genome was initially studied. The issue is ignoring obvious dissimilarities as if they are inconsequential. The issue is how the research is reported in terms of its bias. How often have you heard that the difference between the chimp and human y chromosomes is as different as between human and chicken? (J.F. Hughes - Nature 463)
Eventually, truth and significance is discovered. But it is in spite of the evolutionary paradigm, not because of it.
Of course, one would also expect genetic similarities even without evolution; that is something not so commonly considered. After all, why would morophological and physiological similarities not be caused by genetic similarities?
Excellent response. Our mission efforts should include muslims for sure! God and the angels in heaven rejoice much over the one in 100 who is lost when he is found! So do we. And we should pray!
The larger question is how we deal with our perceptions of muslim culture, the violence, beheading, shariah, etc., when we must as citizens make decisions about how to deal with it. This is not much different in some ways than how we deal with practicing homosexuals or fornication or abortionists, or adultery by unbelievers, while at the same time witnessing to them and showing Christ's love. Except that this also of course has more serious ramifications in terms of shariah, polygamy, death sentences for dress code violations, "consequences", terrorism, suicide bombing, etc. Well, maybe not more serious than abortionists, but you get the idea... If muslim culture gains more control over more countries, the opportunities to witness for Christ will decrease more and more, don't you think?
As human beings, we are often prone to looking at the problems rather than the opportunities. I wonder whether it is at least as valid for us in north america to look at potential opportunties that climate change might offer us, as well as the increased risks and costs of climate change. For example, we presently have three to eight months of winter in most of north america. Siberia also has long winters, which are costly in terms of heating needs , short growing season for crops, frost damage to roads and equipment, need for additional clothes and housing, etc. Longer summers in some of those areas will allow more crop production to take place, and will reduce heating costs. Other opportunities might be to increase housing in temperate climates, and to reduce winter vacation travel to warmer climates further south.
We are often inundated with the potential problems and hazards of climate change; but can you think of potential opportunities that climate change might offer us?
Okay, I agree Richard is very open, and humble. But authentic? Everyone is authentic, especially here, I think.
I have just gone through a Meyer's Briggs personality analysis, and have found it interesting how people of certain personality types relate to other personality types. It is important to realize that being open to change, and being humble, does not make a person more "real" or authentic. They are just different. The fact that people are different, means they respond differently to different things and to different approaches. Some people react with their feelings, while other people react with their logic and thinking processes. People that are openly emotional are not more "real" than those who control the expression of their emotions; they are just different people. But it is important to realize how you react to something.
If you react to someone's expression of love with cold logic, rather than with emotion, you will fall into the trap of suspicion.
On the other hand, if you react to someone's expressions of details and facts and logic with an emotional reaction or with an expression of "feeling" about the personality of that person, then you will cause suspicion and frustration in the other person.
So the reason I asked why you thought Richard was more real, was not really to discover your feelings so much as to find out how you would substantiate that statement. So I can see he is more real to you in a very subjective sense; it is simply how you "feel", but I cannot see how that applies to the discussion of whether we ought to consider emphasizing teaching more creation alternatives rather than going with and being swallowed up by the general cultural flow of evolutionary teachings. Maybe you could make the connection and clear that up for me.
I do not have scott hozee's book.... and would need a justification for getting it.... I would prefer your synopsis of the idea expressed in it.
Interesting recent news from London is that some scientists have discovered that neutrinos can travel faster than the speed of light, thus putting Einstein's theory of relativity into a non-absolute finality. It is this type of thing that keeps me humble about the state of our knowledge at any given time. The fact that gravity can bend light, and also this new information about things faster than the speed of light demonstrate that theories we hold about "deep time" and past uniformity of present observed processes are always subject to the discovery of new information. In addition, any new information is also subject to subsequently as-yet undiscovered information. (We don't know what we still don't know. But God does know. )
Rinsen, you said, "I mean, how in the world can you argue with his "best" argument against Creationists about shared genes? ""
You didn't specify the entire argument. But the way I normally hear the argument about shared genes is that since genes can be transferred from one species to another, or since genes in some species are similar to some genes in entirely different species, these species must somehow be related, and must have descended from a common ancestor. It is an old argument. (Correct me if I am wrong in this summary of the common genes argument).
It seems to be a good argument since genes are instrumental in formation of structures of organisms. However, all genes are made of the same types of materials; they are just organized in different sequences. If you want to use the argument of shared genes or common genes, it is as valid to say that because all organisms are made of carbon compounds (thus the term "organic" is related to complex carbon molecules), they must have come from a common ancestor.
It would in essence be like saying that all living things on earth must have originated from a common ancestor simply because they are living.
The counter argument to that is that the same creator created all living things because He used a common materials and common genetic patterning process.
The E theory postulates that because a certain type of car looks like another type of car and is made of the same type of metal or plastic, it must have been made at the same factory. We know that isn't true, although we also know it was likely designed in one office.
Shared genes are consistent with evolutionary theory. But shared genes are not inconsistent with creation science.
The biggest problem with evolutionary theory still remains. We do not see it in the fossil record; there is a lack of intermediaries in proportion to existing and fossil species. We also do not see it occurring today in a consistent and dominant way; only we see what we think "might" be evolution occurring sporadically and rarely here and there. Predictions of missing links are consistently proved wrong. There is more speculation than proof about various intermediary species. Conclusions about ancient prehistoric fossils are shown to be wrong when the same type of animals still exist today (such as coelanth). Even radio active dating methods are not determinative, and have been found to be interpreted in various ways (because they rely on certain assumptions), and are made subject to the demands of the theory.
For all these reasons, we can conclude that there is no preponderance of evidence for evolution. The only preponderance of evidence is in the eye of the believer. Say it often enough and you will believe it. Say "preponderance of evidence for evolution" often enough, and you will begin to believe it, but that doesn't make it so.
Often Creation is referred to as a myth. Here is an Ian Juby youtube video, episode 11 or 12 showing how it is actually evolution that is more of a myth. youtube.com watch?v=UB0cjZMVjOo&list=UU23yiJV4Bkagj5dkH-UyHFA&index=1&feature=plcp
Well said, Bert. It reminds us of how all the commandments are so closely connected.
Marie, I would suggest that you try this for war, environmental damage, and poverty and see what happens. I could think of a couple of differences, however, depending on motive, knowledge, and responsibility. For example, war might be defensive to protect the innocent; how would that compare to agressive war to indulge imperialism? Or environmental damage from ignorance or to save lives, vs deliberate destruction with no purpose? Or poverty caused by others, vs poverty caused by sloth and sluggardly behaviour (as Proverbs mentions). Abortion is an action; war is an action; poverty is a result of actions; environmental damage is a result of actions. Hard to compare exactly.
No one, at least not me, is making light of it. But there are indications it has already happened. Growing seasons, frost-free period has already changed/increased in the last 100 years in western Canada. However, only concentrating on the negatives means we are not looking at opportunities. Besides which, our solutions will be found in the opportunities, and not by wallowing in the challenges/negatives.
Rinsen, I do not reject out of hand the geological time scale. I merely question it. There are instances where dating of certain rocks and layers has huge ranges, and where dating is revamped to suit the fossils contained in the layers. I am not a conspiracist, but I have seen the impact of group think.
You said, "we are faced with a God who assembles creatures "as if" they shared the same genetic script but actually, they don't. This is supposed to be an explanation? Just like the various fossil strata appear to be extremely old, and predictably laid down in layers going from more simple to more complex "
Actually creatures do share genetic building blocks, yes. I did not say that they do not share the same genetic script in various parts. They obviously have some similarities and some differences. If they did not have differences they would be the same species, or even identical twins, etc.. What I did say was that these similarities in dissimilar organisms by themselves do not prove inheritance of origin. They may demonstrate a similarity of planning and design.
It is also interesting when looking at genome size, that some fish and amoeba and some plants have a much larger genome than mammals (homosapiens). While other plants, bacteria, insects, and some fish have a smaller genome than homosapiens. For example one measured amoeba genome was 670Gb in size, one fish genome was 130Gb in size, two plant genomes were about 130Gb in size, and the human genome is 3.2 Gb in size. Some bacterium had a genome three times as large as the human genome, while others were much smaller or similar to human genome in size. From a genetic perspective, I'm not sure how that supports the simpler organism vs more complex organism theory.
The fact that some fossil layers are old.... but what is old? Is a thousand years old? Is ten thousand years old? Once a fossil layer is formed it does not visually look older. Neither do the fossils. So they are determined old because of fossils of strange animals we do not see anymore today, and because of radioactive dating.... but radio active dating is based on assumptions about parent rock materials. When carbon material is still discovered in rocks supposedly millions or hundreds of millions of years old, then the carbon dating method is deemed invalid for that rock layer, but.... the carbon 14 is still there in amounts much larger than it should be. When volcanic rocks less than ten years old are measured by Kr-AR methods to be millions of years old, then the method is deemed invalid, because the rocks are obviously too young to be measured.... but why does the method then not date them as young, instead of old? How can we prove the assumptions for radio-active dating are actually right, outside of the previous preconceptions about the age of the rocks.
It is interesting that fossils in the rock layers are generally also sequenced by size to some extent.
When we have fossils that transect layers of rock that are "dated" as millions of years difference between layers, then how do we justify or explain the existence or survival of these fossils (half exposed and half buried) during the layering process?
You also said, " The theory of evolution had NOTHING whatsoever to do with the findings of carban dating ..." Well, you are partly right. Without carbon dating, the theory of evolution was still orginally postulated. But the theory of evolution had difficulty with shorter time frames of time, since mathematically the probability of evolutionary processes based on what we see today, required ever increasing amounts of time. The radio-active dating methods began to give validity to these longer time periods. But, the radio-active dating methods were based on certain assumptions about uniformitarianism for earth processes. For example, one assumption is consistency in the rate of formation of C14 in the upper atmosphere over time.
You might find it oddly liberating if you were to really examine all the fundamental assertions of the E theory.
I assume you believe at least some of scripture. How do you decide when your perception of observable facts trumps scripture? How do you know that your interpretation of observable facts is correct? Would your observation of observable facts lead you to deny that Elijah, Elisha, Jesus and Peter raised someone from the dead? Would it lead you to deny that Elijah's prayer for three years drought was answered; was it going to happen anyway? Would it lead you to deny that Jesus made the lame walk, the blind to see, and deaf to hear?
Norm, I don’t think Magaret misrepresented anything about evolution. She has impaled herself on nothing. You seem to join with a common claim that evolution is misrepresented as if to say, “you don’t really understand it”, particularly when an anti-evolutionist makes a strong position. The fact is that for the present theory of evolution, random processes are foundational, along with natural selection and adaptations. It is by calculating apparently random processes that probabilities are derived and probable ages are attributed to various processes and to various turning points in the process. Furthermore, the idea of virtually unlimited time for these random processes to occur is also a foundational requirement for evolutionary theory to work. This is no misrepresentation at all. Whether Darwin was personally a nihilist or not is irrelevant to this. I note you did not state what in particular was misleading about it, nor did you summarize a contrary position.
If you think she is inaccurate, then do you think the processes are not random; that they are directed, and therefore the use of random probabilities are not appropriate? Do you think then that time is not an agent of creation, or a necessary requirement? Do you think nature does not point to random processes? And do you think that mainstream evolutionists would agree with you?
You make a comment about her bravado; I say she is entitled to her perspective, and it is really irrelevant to the validity of the theory. However, in what I have seen, it appears to be true that creationists often make undeniable and incontrovertible points and arguments about the science involved in “proving” or supporting this theory. Yes, often creationists do "win" the debates.
Todd Wood did not say that evidence for evolutionary theory have outstripped accumulations for creation science. What he said was that he felt there was a certain amount of evidence for evolutionary types of things happening, such as allele frequency changes, evidence of speciation, and universal common ancestry. But he felt there was another explanation for the evidence of common ancestry. So, evidence is just evidence. What is in dispute is what the evidence tells us, and how we understand the evidence. And Todd does not accept a universal common genetic ancestry.
Norman, Margaret is completely right that if all material is presented with only one particular view, then children will be influenced by it. Therefore her comment is completely valid that laymen and children need answers, and need them explained and described in such a way that they can counter the prevailing undesireable way. I don’t think evolutionists go out of their way to hide their publications, or to advocate that no one buy them, or publish them in shoddy inferior ways. There is no reason why creationist scientists need to apologize for promotion of their materials either.
Wendy, I think to a large degree, we have already acknowledged that we probably won't know for sure all the details until heaven. If God wants to tell us. But human curiousity doesn't stop. We may not know exactly what Moses was thinking when he crossed the Red Sea, or when he couldn't enter the promised land, or what the people of Israel did while wandering in the desert for forty years, or what Methusaleh said to Noah. But if information comes that helps us to understand, we seem to appreciate it....
Examining the possibilities of whether the universe has a center or not, or is expanding or has expanded, or whether real time can change in different locations, or the impacts of the "red shift", are very interesting to some people. For other people, it is not interesting at all. But if we look at the world and the universe as a revelation of who God is, then discovering how some of these things work is part of discovering how God works, and how we relate to God. For example, the fact that the solar system is not geo-centric says something about our place in the universe, that we must rely on something other than ourselves for our physical existence. God sends us those messages in various ways, including how he created everything.
It's a bit like studying Greek or Hebrew in order to study scripture better. Is it really necessary? Does it really make much of a difference? Isn't the english translation good enough to get by? Well yes, but.....
Problem is when someone proposes a genesis that excludes God and contradicts scripture, and wants christians to buy into it; perhaps we could regard that the same way we regard theft, or abuse, or atheism, or neglect, or pornography, or materialism, or marxism, or ..... Should we then just cover our eyes and ears and ignore it?
Posted in: Creation vs Evolution: Impact on Witness and Faith
Norman, the latest reports indicate there is a five % difference. "But using percentages hides an important fact. If 5% of the DNA is different, this amounts to 150,000,000 DNA base pairs that are different between them."(David DeWitt). In addition, to get this 5% difference, many pieces of the DNA are not included in the calculation for various reasons. When you include everything, you tend to get a similarity of between 81 to 87%, according to other scientists(CMI). This is what an evolutionary mindset does; it assumes a great similarity and so refuses to consider obvious or potential dissimilarities. Other reported differences: ICR reports that chimp genome is 10% larger than human genome, the y chromosome is less than 70% similar.
The issue in this discussion is not the size of the difference. The issue is the evolutionary a-priori assumption of similarities even when only a small part of the genome was initially studied. The issue is ignoring obvious dissimilarities as if they are inconsequential. The issue is how the research is reported in terms of its bias. How often have you heard that the difference between the chimp and human y chromosomes is as different as between human and chicken? (J.F. Hughes - Nature 463)
Eventually, truth and significance is discovered. But it is in spite of the evolutionary paradigm, not because of it.
Of course, one would also expect genetic similarities even without evolution; that is something not so commonly considered. After all, why would morophological and physiological similarities not be caused by genetic similarities?
Posted in: What Is the Real Impact of Muslim Relations?
Excellent response. Our mission efforts should include muslims for sure! God and the angels in heaven rejoice much over the one in 100 who is lost when he is found! So do we. And we should pray!
The larger question is how we deal with our perceptions of muslim culture, the violence, beheading, shariah, etc., when we must as citizens make decisions about how to deal with it. This is not much different in some ways than how we deal with practicing homosexuals or fornication or abortionists, or adultery by unbelievers, while at the same time witnessing to them and showing Christ's love. Except that this also of course has more serious ramifications in terms of shariah, polygamy, death sentences for dress code violations, "consequences", terrorism, suicide bombing, etc. Well, maybe not more serious than abortionists, but you get the idea... If muslim culture gains more control over more countries, the opportunities to witness for Christ will decrease more and more, don't you think?
Posted in: Climate Change - Wither Now?
As human beings, we are often prone to looking at the problems rather than the opportunities. I wonder whether it is at least as valid for us in north america to look at potential opportunties that climate change might offer us, as well as the increased risks and costs of climate change. For example, we presently have three to eight months of winter in most of north america. Siberia also has long winters, which are costly in terms of heating needs , short growing season for crops, frost damage to roads and equipment, need for additional clothes and housing, etc. Longer summers in some of those areas will allow more crop production to take place, and will reduce heating costs. Other opportunities might be to increase housing in temperate climates, and to reduce winter vacation travel to warmer climates further south.
We are often inundated with the potential problems and hazards of climate change; but can you think of potential opportunities that climate change might offer us?
Posted in: Creation vs Evolution: Impact on Witness and Faith
Okay, I agree Richard is very open, and humble. But authentic? Everyone is authentic, especially here, I think.
I have just gone through a Meyer's Briggs personality analysis, and have found it interesting how people of certain personality types relate to other personality types. It is important to realize that being open to change, and being humble, does not make a person more "real" or authentic. They are just different. The fact that people are different, means they respond differently to different things and to different approaches. Some people react with their feelings, while other people react with their logic and thinking processes. People that are openly emotional are not more "real" than those who control the expression of their emotions; they are just different people. But it is important to realize how you react to something.
If you react to someone's expression of love with cold logic, rather than with emotion, you will fall into the trap of suspicion.
On the other hand, if you react to someone's expressions of details and facts and logic with an emotional reaction or with an expression of "feeling" about the personality of that person, then you will cause suspicion and frustration in the other person.
So the reason I asked why you thought Richard was more real, was not really to discover your feelings so much as to find out how you would substantiate that statement. So I can see he is more real to you in a very subjective sense; it is simply how you "feel", but I cannot see how that applies to the discussion of whether we ought to consider emphasizing teaching more creation alternatives rather than going with and being swallowed up by the general cultural flow of evolutionary teachings. Maybe you could make the connection and clear that up for me.
I do not have scott hozee's book.... and would need a justification for getting it.... I would prefer your synopsis of the idea expressed in it.
John
Posted in: Creation vs Evolution: Impact on Witness and Faith
Interesting recent news from London is that some scientists have discovered that neutrinos can travel faster than the speed of light, thus putting Einstein's theory of relativity into a non-absolute finality. It is this type of thing that keeps me humble about the state of our knowledge at any given time. The fact that gravity can bend light, and also this new information about things faster than the speed of light demonstrate that theories we hold about "deep time" and past uniformity of present observed processes are always subject to the discovery of new information. In addition, any new information is also subject to subsequently as-yet undiscovered information. (We don't know what we still don't know. But God does know. )
Posted in: Creation vs Evolution: Impact on Witness and Faith
Rinsen, you said, "I mean, how in the world can you argue with his "best" argument against Creationists about shared genes? ""
You didn't specify the entire argument. But the way I normally hear the argument about shared genes is that since genes can be transferred from one species to another, or since genes in some species are similar to some genes in entirely different species, these species must somehow be related, and must have descended from a common ancestor. It is an old argument. (Correct me if I am wrong in this summary of the common genes argument).
It seems to be a good argument since genes are instrumental in formation of structures of organisms. However, all genes are made of the same types of materials; they are just organized in different sequences. If you want to use the argument of shared genes or common genes, it is as valid to say that because all organisms are made of carbon compounds (thus the term "organic" is related to complex carbon molecules), they must have come from a common ancestor.
It would in essence be like saying that all living things on earth must have originated from a common ancestor simply because they are living.
The counter argument to that is that the same creator created all living things because He used a common materials and common genetic patterning process.
The E theory postulates that because a certain type of car looks like another type of car and is made of the same type of metal or plastic, it must have been made at the same factory. We know that isn't true, although we also know it was likely designed in one office.
Shared genes are consistent with evolutionary theory. But shared genes are not inconsistent with creation science.
The biggest problem with evolutionary theory still remains. We do not see it in the fossil record; there is a lack of intermediaries in proportion to existing and fossil species. We also do not see it occurring today in a consistent and dominant way; only we see what we think "might" be evolution occurring sporadically and rarely here and there. Predictions of missing links are consistently proved wrong. There is more speculation than proof about various intermediary species. Conclusions about ancient prehistoric fossils are shown to be wrong when the same type of animals still exist today (such as coelanth). Even radio active dating methods are not determinative, and have been found to be interpreted in various ways (because they rely on certain assumptions), and are made subject to the demands of the theory.
For all these reasons, we can conclude that there is no preponderance of evidence for evolution. The only preponderance of evidence is in the eye of the believer. Say it often enough and you will believe it. Say "preponderance of evidence for evolution" often enough, and you will begin to believe it, but that doesn't make it so.
Posted in: Creation vs Evolution: Impact on Witness and Faith
Often Creation is referred to as a myth. Here is an Ian Juby youtube video, episode 11 or 12 showing how it is actually evolution that is more of a myth. youtube.com watch?v=UB0cjZMVjOo&list=UU23yiJV4Bkagj5dkH-UyHFA&index=1&feature=plcp
Posted in: The Law of God and Abortion
Well said, Bert. It reminds us of how all the commandments are so closely connected.
Marie, I would suggest that you try this for war, environmental damage, and poverty and see what happens. I could think of a couple of differences, however, depending on motive, knowledge, and responsibility. For example, war might be defensive to protect the innocent; how would that compare to agressive war to indulge imperialism? Or environmental damage from ignorance or to save lives, vs deliberate destruction with no purpose? Or poverty caused by others, vs poverty caused by sloth and sluggardly behaviour (as Proverbs mentions). Abortion is an action; war is an action; poverty is a result of actions; environmental damage is a result of actions. Hard to compare exactly.
Posted in: Climate Change - Wither Now?
No one, at least not me, is making light of it. But there are indications it has already happened. Growing seasons, frost-free period has already changed/increased in the last 100 years in western Canada. However, only concentrating on the negatives means we are not looking at opportunities. Besides which, our solutions will be found in the opportunities, and not by wallowing in the challenges/negatives.
Posted in: Creation vs Evolution: Impact on Witness and Faith
Rinsen, I do not reject out of hand the geological time scale. I merely question it. There are instances where dating of certain rocks and layers has huge ranges, and where dating is revamped to suit the fossils contained in the layers. I am not a conspiracist, but I have seen the impact of group think.
You said, "we are faced with a God who assembles creatures "as if" they shared the same genetic script but actually, they don't. This is supposed to be an explanation? Just like the various fossil strata appear to be extremely old, and predictably laid down in layers going from more simple to more complex "
Actually creatures do share genetic building blocks, yes. I did not say that they do not share the same genetic script in various parts. They obviously have some similarities and some differences. If they did not have differences they would be the same species, or even identical twins, etc.. What I did say was that these similarities in dissimilar organisms by themselves do not prove inheritance of origin. They may demonstrate a similarity of planning and design.
It is also interesting when looking at genome size, that some fish and amoeba and some plants have a much larger genome than mammals (homosapiens). While other plants, bacteria, insects, and some fish have a smaller genome than homosapiens. For example one measured amoeba genome was 670Gb in size, one fish genome was 130Gb in size, two plant genomes were about 130Gb in size, and the human genome is 3.2 Gb in size. Some bacterium had a genome three times as large as the human genome, while others were much smaller or similar to human genome in size. From a genetic perspective, I'm not sure how that supports the simpler organism vs more complex organism theory.
The fact that some fossil layers are old.... but what is old? Is a thousand years old? Is ten thousand years old? Once a fossil layer is formed it does not visually look older. Neither do the fossils. So they are determined old because of fossils of strange animals we do not see anymore today, and because of radioactive dating.... but radio active dating is based on assumptions about parent rock materials. When carbon material is still discovered in rocks supposedly millions or hundreds of millions of years old, then the carbon dating method is deemed invalid for that rock layer, but.... the carbon 14 is still there in amounts much larger than it should be. When volcanic rocks less than ten years old are measured by Kr-AR methods to be millions of years old, then the method is deemed invalid, because the rocks are obviously too young to be measured.... but why does the method then not date them as young, instead of old? How can we prove the assumptions for radio-active dating are actually right, outside of the previous preconceptions about the age of the rocks.
It is interesting that fossils in the rock layers are generally also sequenced by size to some extent.
When we have fossils that transect layers of rock that are "dated" as millions of years difference between layers, then how do we justify or explain the existence or survival of these fossils (half exposed and half buried) during the layering process?
You also said, " The theory of evolution had NOTHING whatsoever to do with the findings of carban dating ..." Well, you are partly right. Without carbon dating, the theory of evolution was still orginally postulated. But the theory of evolution had difficulty with shorter time frames of time, since mathematically the probability of evolutionary processes based on what we see today, required ever increasing amounts of time. The radio-active dating methods began to give validity to these longer time periods. But, the radio-active dating methods were based on certain assumptions about uniformitarianism for earth processes. For example, one assumption is consistency in the rate of formation of C14 in the upper atmosphere over time.
You might find it oddly liberating if you were to really examine all the fundamental assertions of the E theory.
I assume you believe at least some of scripture. How do you decide when your perception of observable facts trumps scripture? How do you know that your interpretation of observable facts is correct? Would your observation of observable facts lead you to deny that Elijah, Elisha, Jesus and Peter raised someone from the dead? Would it lead you to deny that Elijah's prayer for three years drought was answered; was it going to happen anyway? Would it lead you to deny that Jesus made the lame walk, the blind to see, and deaf to hear?
Posted in: Creation vs Evolution: Impact on Witness and Faith
Norm, I don’t think Magaret misrepresented anything about evolution. She has impaled herself on nothing. You seem to join with a common claim that evolution is misrepresented as if to say, “you don’t really understand it”, particularly when an anti-evolutionist makes a strong position. The fact is that for the present theory of evolution, random processes are foundational, along with natural selection and adaptations. It is by calculating apparently random processes that probabilities are derived and probable ages are attributed to various processes and to various turning points in the process. Furthermore, the idea of virtually unlimited time for these random processes to occur is also a foundational requirement for evolutionary theory to work. This is no misrepresentation at all. Whether Darwin was personally a nihilist or not is irrelevant to this. I note you did not state what in particular was misleading about it, nor did you summarize a contrary position.
If you think she is inaccurate, then do you think the processes are not random; that they are directed, and therefore the use of random probabilities are not appropriate? Do you think then that time is not an agent of creation, or a necessary requirement? Do you think nature does not point to random processes? And do you think that mainstream evolutionists would agree with you?
You make a comment about her bravado; I say she is entitled to her perspective, and it is really irrelevant to the validity of the theory. However, in what I have seen, it appears to be true that creationists often make undeniable and incontrovertible points and arguments about the science involved in “proving” or supporting this theory. Yes, often creationists do "win" the debates.
Todd Wood did not say that evidence for evolutionary theory have outstripped accumulations for creation science. What he said was that he felt there was a certain amount of evidence for evolutionary types of things happening, such as allele frequency changes, evidence of speciation, and universal common ancestry. But he felt there was another explanation for the evidence of common ancestry. So, evidence is just evidence. What is in dispute is what the evidence tells us, and how we understand the evidence. And Todd does not accept a universal common genetic ancestry.
Norman, Margaret is completely right that if all material is presented with only one particular view, then children will be influenced by it. Therefore her comment is completely valid that laymen and children need answers, and need them explained and described in such a way that they can counter the prevailing undesireable way. I don’t think evolutionists go out of their way to hide their publications, or to advocate that no one buy them, or publish them in shoddy inferior ways. There is no reason why creationist scientists need to apologize for promotion of their materials either.
John z
Posted in: Creation vs Evolution: Impact on Witness and Faith
Wendy, I think to a large degree, we have already acknowledged that we probably won't know for sure all the details until heaven. If God wants to tell us. But human curiousity doesn't stop. We may not know exactly what Moses was thinking when he crossed the Red Sea, or when he couldn't enter the promised land, or what the people of Israel did while wandering in the desert for forty years, or what Methusaleh said to Noah. But if information comes that helps us to understand, we seem to appreciate it....
Examining the possibilities of whether the universe has a center or not, or is expanding or has expanded, or whether real time can change in different locations, or the impacts of the "red shift", are very interesting to some people. For other people, it is not interesting at all. But if we look at the world and the universe as a revelation of who God is, then discovering how some of these things work is part of discovering how God works, and how we relate to God. For example, the fact that the solar system is not geo-centric says something about our place in the universe, that we must rely on something other than ourselves for our physical existence. God sends us those messages in various ways, including how he created everything.
It's a bit like studying Greek or Hebrew in order to study scripture better. Is it really necessary? Does it really make much of a difference? Isn't the english translation good enough to get by? Well yes, but.....
Problem is when someone proposes a genesis that excludes God and contradicts scripture, and wants christians to buy into it; perhaps we could regard that the same way we regard theft, or abuse, or atheism, or neglect, or pornography, or materialism, or marxism, or ..... Should we then just cover our eyes and ears and ignore it?