Richard Simons
Posts: 425 Joined: Oct. 2006
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Quote (Ftk @ Sep. 19 2008,22:44) | We don’t know yet what discoveries will be made from this find. I don’t think Haile-Selassie and team are finished interpreting exactly what this jawbone is and how it benefits our understanding of evolution. The ID inference says nothing about how we‘d interpret this fossil...it‘s irrelevant to the theory, and many ID theorists agree with evolutionists about the fossil record. |
There is no theory of ID so it is not appropriate to refer to 'ID theorists'. Quote | So, we have to turn to Creationists. |
For what? Quote | Why wouldn’t Creationists have been able to come up with a system that compared similarities and relatedness between organisms? They certainly realized that it was an important area to consider in hopes of advancing research and scientific discovery. We know that Linneaus started work on developing a starting point for the taxonomy of a species. He was mapping organisms according to there similarities before Darwin‘s claim to fame, and he didn’t need to believe that all organisms evolved from a common ancestor to do so.
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They could indeed come up with a system for comparing similarities and differences. However, what they have at the end is nothing more than a catalogue, useful for identifying species but nothing more. It would not even be useful for putting everything in its 'proper place' in nature, because there would be absolutely no reason to suppose that anything had a proper place. Quote | In the same manner, creationists (if they had been as heavily funded as evolutionists have been) might have come up with a system of there own that would have also compared the similarities and relatedness between organisms.
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Hold on! I thought a major tenet of creationism is that there is no relatedness between organisms, just that some happen to share similar parts and processes.
I think the above slip is a giveaway that, in your heart of hearts, you know that evolution is correct and that creationism is unsupportable.
Quote | Bear in mind that the geologic column was also originally devised by creationists before 1860 who believed more so in catastrophism rather uniformitarianism. The so-called "periods" and "eras" were later added to fit the evolutionary theory. So, already we find that creationists had a good start on both classifying organisms and understanding sedimentary layers and what we might find in them as far as fossils are concerned. |
And since then they have made absolutely no progress. Quote | How would we’d predict where to find a particular fossil? Considering the sedimentary layers, obviously Creationists feel that a catostrophic flood took place. Some believe that sedimentary layers and the fossils within them were laid due to the way liquefaction works.
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Could you give a single example of any fossil that has been discovered using only creationist concepts? Quote | Fossils don’t provide us with information like living organisms do. So, other than historical benefit for those who adhere to molecule to man, how would these fossils benefit us other than to provide us with information about extinct creatures or morphological changes within species that could have occured through microevolutionary means? Tom pointed out one way, but like I said, I’m not sure that creationists wouldn’t have been able to discover these “driver” genes by researching similarities between living apes and men.
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But they have not the slightest reason to suppose that there should be any non-obvious similarities between humans and chimps, given that we are, supposedly, made in God's image and chimps are not. As a side issue, does this mean that God has a pseudogene for vitamin C? If not, just what does the statement mean? Quote | What we are trying to get to is the “truth” about our ancestry. Digging up fossil will help us learn about our past, and we are *all* interested in that. But how can we trust that paleontologists have come up with the correct interpretation about various fossil finds? Obviously, there’s an a priori commitment to Darwinism in that field of science. We’ve seen time and time again how fossils have not been what they initially thought they were, and in some instances, scientists have gone so far as to tamper with the fossils in order to present a particular viewpoint. |
Dawson may have tampered with the evidence (or he may have been the unwitting victim of a hoax). I cannot think of any other examples of deliberate tampering with fossils. Oh, wait a minute, there was the addition of human footprints to the dinosaur tracks along the Paluxy River and at various other places. There is more dishonesty and lying to be seen on creationist and ID sites in any week than there has been in the entire history of paleontology. Quote | Darwinists cannot even fathom anything other than molecule to man...from a naturalists perspective there is no other theory that can even be considered.
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Challenge us. Give us another theory. Quote | If molecule to man *is* the way life arose, evolutionists have to at least consider that front loading makes more sense than what the “modern synthesis” currently provides us.
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Two minutes of thought was enough to tell me that 'front-loading' is complete and utter baloney and still gave me time to decide what to have for dinner. Quote | Just as Creationists have their creation story, Darwinists have their own. The only neutral party would be ID theorists, IMHO.
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IDists are just creationists who try to pretend their religious beliefs are unimportant. Quote | Neither the biblical creation story or the warm primordial pond is helpful in the science classroom, because neither can be supported with scientific experiments.
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Oh, but the pond can be. Not yet to the extent of producing life, but a start has been made. Quote | Scientists have been banging on trying to answer questions in regard to abiogenesis, and I *encourage* them to keep on doing so. |
What form does this encouragement take? Quote | But, as yet we know no more about how life *began* than we did before Darwin teh genius arrived on the scene, . . . |
Where have you spent the last half century? There is a considerable body of evidence that has been accumulating. Quote | In other words, we don’t know <how life arose>, and we may never know. He <Dawkins> said this same thing at a lecture I attended in Lawrence. So why is the notion of some sort of higher power so unthinkable, given the general lack of understanding that Dawkins admits is part of this issue? |
It is not unthinkable, but it is unsupportable by any evidence.
-------------- All sweeping statements are wrong.
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