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What Evolution really is. Pseudo Science.
xpowderx
Member UncommonPosts: 2,078
Genetics is Not Evolution’s Friend
Some words you need to know
- Genome – the total genetic structure of a species or kind or its gene pool.
- Mutation – a mistake in the copying of the DNA, can be caused by radiation, or chemicals.
- Recombination – the genetic mixing in sexual or asexual reproduction
- Gene – the stuff of life, the sequence of amino acids in the double helix of DNA
- Allele – variants of genes in the Genome that are for the same structure but that express a characteristic differently, such as brown eyes vs. blue eyes.
- Taxon – Category in classification such as species, phylum.
- Phylogeny – The (supposed) evolutionary history or family tree of a species or other group.
As we stated before evolution depends on beneficial mutation, natural selection and enormous amount of time for it to occur. Therefore we will now look at genetics and see if this is true.
But first let us look at the comments of an amateur evolutionist.
“EVOLUTION IS NOT RANDOM, FOR (probably not) THE LAST TIME. Variety is there because evolution causes random mutation, hence the variety.” From a debate on talkorigins.org
Ummm a little double talk. Well it also appears this is perilously close to evolution being an intelligent designer. But it is also a tautology or circular reasoning to say that “evolution causes random mutation” because evolutionists say random mutation causes evolution.
But to correct, evolution is a religious philosophy that operates with a lot of faith. So evolution isn’t necessarily any more random than the person’s thoughts and it certainly cannot be some kind of force driving the random mutation. Nor can it cause mutations random or otherwise.
But mutation and natural selection is the engine of evolution. Creationists believe in natural selection but we doubt the role mutations play in evolution and know if we can show that mutations cannot be part of the engine, then evolution will have lost its’ power.
Genetics and evolution have been enemies from the beginning. Gregor Mendel and Charles Darwin were contemporaries. Mendel is the father of modern genetics and Darwin is the father of evolution. In Darwin’s day genetics was just starting and Darwin knew really very little about how genetics worked. His idea of change in species was based on erroneous and untested ideas of inheritance. Mendel’s ideas were based on careful experimentation and showed that individual characteristics were surprisingly resilient and constant.
Darwin believed in the idea that variations caused by environment could be inherited. Thus the giraffe’s long neck was a result the “inherited effects of the increased use of parts”. The Origin of Species, 6th ed, London 1902, p 278. Darwin believed that if parent giraffes strained their necks to reach the top leaves then the progeny would inherit longer necks. While even evolutionists today would see this a patently false, they still accept the apparent ease the change in the genetic structure it represents and throw that change to the magic of mutation. It wasn’t until much later that mutations were used as the change agent in evolution because it became apparent this idea of Darwin didn’t work.
But in reality there are multiple mutation processes that can impact a genome but evolutionists only choose one. I will explain why in a bit. First the types of mutations:
- Duplication or Amplification of a segment of DNA
- Inversion of a segment of DNA
- Deletion of a segment of DNA
- Insertion of a segment of DNA
- Transposition of a segment of DNA from one place to another.
- Point Mutation of a single nucleotide.
The first five are interesting genetic processes. Each is a complex and precise process that have much biochemical signaling and purpose. We don’t really know much about why the genes do this as we are still very weak in our knowledge of how our genome really works. But none of these processes can add any data to the genome, they just move data around. I must add another point here and some evolutionists place recombination in this list, but recombination is sexual mixing and once again cannot add any data to the genome. Recombination just takes the genome and mixes what is there. There are tens of maybe hundreds or trillions of combinations in our genome to recombine. We are wonderfully and fearfully made.
The type of mutations called point mutations are the only genetic process that can actually add information to the genome and that is why evolutionists have chosen point mutations as the mutational driver of evolution. We will hereafter call point mutations simply mutations to simplify the writing.
Was Darwin's Galapagos Finches Evolution?
What does happen in a population as the genome reacts to the environment? Darwin looks at the finches on the Galapagos Islands He thought that the harder seed in the dry time was causing the beaks of the finches to grow stouter from the use of the part. But, what was happening was that natural selection or a long term drought in the islands was causing the seed cases to harden. The heavier beaked finch allele in the in the genome was favored and the lighter beaked finch allele was not. The heavier beaked finch became more dominant because it passed on the heavy beak alleles. The heavy beak was not the result of a mutation! It was already an allele in the genome and was just brought out as a result of the environment. When the rains came back the lighter beak became the more efficient beak and the number of heavy beaks reduced. This is microevolution at its best. But there was no change in the genome of the finch and certainly no new species has arisen from this. The genome expresses its variety by recombination of the alleles and causing the phenotype to show its wonderful God given types. and notices variations in beak size.
But what about mutations then, what are they and how can they be beneficial? Mutations are mistakes in the genetic copying process. They effect one nucleotide base at a time and are called point mutations. Once in every 10,000 to 100,000 copies there is a mistake made. Our bodies have a compare – correct process that is very efficient in fact it is 1016 better than the best computer code, but once every 1,000,000,000 or 10,000,000,000 copies a mutation “gets out” so to speak. That is equal to a professional typist making a mistake in 50,000,000 pages of typescript. You see mutations are predominately bad and the cell tries to make sure they don’t happen.
The Neo-Darwinists made random mutations the engine of evolution. They claim that many very small mutations are the basis of the “goo to you” hypothesis of evolution. For mutations to be the driver of the massive amount of information there must be two things true of those mutations.
1. The mutations must be positive and allow the organism to procreate and pass them on.
2. The mutations must add information to the genome of the organism.
To date no evolutionist has pointed out such a mutation and if they exist they must be exceedingly rare
The smallness of the point mutation is also in question. Dawkins seems to think that the mutation can be as small as needed to make the hypothesis work, but it appears that one nucleotide base is as small as you can get. So a positive mutation cannot add but a single bit of information to the genome or one nucleotide’s worth. But is that enough? And if that truly does occur will natural selection grab and go with it?
Population Genetics show that a positive mutation in a population has a poor chance of surviving the “noise” of random events in the population. In a stable population of organisms each organism must reproduce one of itself to keep the stability of the population. But we see in nature that animals must produce many more than one for themselves because of the randomness of death. Even elephants produce 5 to 10 offspring to overcome this random noise factor. Some organisms produce thousands or even millions to assure replacing themselves. Evolutionists want many mutations to occur so positive mutations can be captured by natural selection but a high mutation rate for a population is not good as the overwhelming number of mutations are not good and can destroy a population.
But let’s say that one point mutation occurs and gives an individual a positive value of 0.1 percent for survival and passing on that positive gene. Let us also say that this population needs 5 offspring to keep the population stable or 20 percent growth. The survival rate increase would be 20.02 for the mutation. Sir Ronald Fisher was a mathematician and one of the world’s experts on the mathematics of evolution and one of the founders of the field of population genetics. He was also one of the architects of the Neo Darwinian Theory. He calculated that most mutations with positive survival values would not survive, and he believed that the answer was many positive mutations. He said: “A mutation, even if favorable, will have only a very small chance of establishing itself in the species if it occurs once only.” Fisher R.A. (1958). The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection, Oxford, Second revised edition, New York: Dover.
Let us continue our example above with Fisher’s calculations. Our organism with a 0.1% survival factor would have one chance in 500 of surviving. If there were 500 organisms with the mutation their odds would be about 5 out of 8. With 1000 with the same mutation their odds would be about 6 out of 7 and with 2500 organisms with the same mutation the odds are about even. What are the odds of 2500 organisms having the same point mutation (it has to be the same for that particular information to get into the genome) in a population? The chances that 500 organisms would have the very same point mutation in the very same nucleotide is 3.6 x 102,738. Lee M. Spentner, Not By Chance – Shattering the Modern Theory of Evolution, The Judica Press, New York, p. 103.
A mutation almost always involves a loss of information or just a copy of information. They have never added new information to the genome, so it appears that they can never bring that genome added complexity. Are there beneficial mutations? Yes there are for certain environments. Blind cave catfishes are the result the mutation that lost the information of an eye. This mutation caused the eye, which was useless and prone to disease and injury in the cave to be lost and it actually helped the catfish survive in the cave. But the catfish genome did not have any new information added for it to become a perch genome or any other genome. In fact the eye genes were lost to the genome. If that blind fish were to be swept out of the cave by a flood, and that does happen, it won’t survive to pass on those no eye alleles. So natural selection, working in the cave worked to keep the eyeless going, outside the cave will kill it quick. The important thing to keep in mind is that we all along were only working with the genome of the catfish and at no point was there any new information to change that genome to another. Genomes are like rubber bands that you can stretch out very far, but they will always snap back to the original when released.
If we look at the accelerated fruit fly experiments that used radiation to accelerate the copying errors of DNA to try to produce another species have only seen fruit flies with parts missing or dead flies or flies too crippled to pass on its genes. They never got a house fly out of the deal, why? Because the mutation lost information in the fruit fly genome and did not add the information to become a house fly.
Comments
Beneficial verses Positive Mutations
How do we define “beneficial” mutations? It is interesting that a mutation such as an orange without seeds is considered useful, that is to orange eaters like me, but to oranges it is not such a good idea, for the seedless orange cannot pass on its genes. It is a useful mutation, but not a positive mutation. A positive mutation would enable the species to pass on its genes more efficiently and would add information to the genome. Evolutionists get this definition confused too.
Another problem is that evolutionists confuse mutations with recombination and alleles. They are not the same. Some variant alleles in a genome are the result of mutation, but most are from recombination and were there at the beginning of that species. All alleles that arise from mutation are either neutral or excessively deleterious. There are not really any positive mutations in literature today, even evolution literature. In one instance the single nucleotide substation in a genome was responsible for the resistance to a weed herbicide. This herbicide was made to attach and deactivate a protein needed by the weed. A single change in the genetic code for this protein, in the sector used for defining the herbicide attachment, deprived the herbicide of its attachment point and nullified its effectiveness.
Was this a positive mutation? We have no way to know if this was the result of a mutated allele or the expression of an allele in the genome that was already there. It may have been a, very rare, neutral mutation of an allele that had been in the genome too. But it was specific to the man made herbicide and had no selective value outside of that. It did not create another function and did not help the weed to adapt any other way. It added no information to the genome and thus no new complexity. There was no evolution here.
So you see, mutations can produce an allele of a gene that is neutral (rarely) or produce alleles that are dangerous, but cannot, be the driver of massive amount of change that needs to occur to change one species into another. Most people don’t appreciate the massive amount of point change that must occur. For that to occur we should be seeing many positive mutations in the population. Instead we are seeing massive information loss mutations in the population. The X-Men just couldn’t happen outside of the movies.
Molecular Biology and Irreducible Complexity
Even molecular biology has not helped as the evolutionists have hoped. Molecular genetics have found that genomes have supported Taxonomy and not Phylogeny. It has also been found in molecular genetics that genomes have multiple copies of genes or of noncoding sequences that are very homogeneous within species, but heterogeneous between species. Such ‘repeats’ could not have been formed by random mutations acting on a common genome of a postulated ancestor. Evolutionists suggest an unexplained ‘molecular drive’ to account for these copies. It is simpler to assume there is no common ancestral genome.
Michael Behe in his book “Darwin’s Black Box” speaks of the irreducible complexity of several biological systems that cannot be created in a manner where there are non-functional intermediates because they wouldn’t exist long enough to pass on their structure. He uses the common mousetrap as his analogy, none of the parts can catch a mouse, and they all have to be present and functionally joined together to work. The cell is an example that had to be created in situ and not from an intermediate that couldn’t function much like the parts of the mousetrap.
There have been arguments from evolutionists that the parts of the mousetrap could be used for other uses, like fish hooks or paperweights, but that is missing the point entirely. That cellular systems are useful in other places does not say they would be useful in the cell by them selves, just as a paperweight won't catch a mouse! It is a MOUSETRAP we are interested in, not a paperweight! One even said that a simple spring could catch a mouse. Ummmm yeah, right!
Do Hox (Homeotic) Genes Save Evolution?
Another microbiological issue is the Hox genes that seemed to fit in the “punctuated equilibrium” of Gould, because a small mutation in a Hox gene could have a profound effect on the organism. But further research on the Hox gene proved this not to be Evolution’s Saviour. Dr. Christian Schwabe, a non-creationist critic of Darwinian evolution said this:
“Control genes like homeotic genes may be the target of mutations that would conceivable change phenotypes, but one must remember that, the more central one makes changes in a complex system, the more severe the peripheral consequences become. … Homeotic changes induced in Drosophila genes have led only to monstrosities, and most experimenters do not expect to see a bee arise from their Drosophila constructs.” (Mini Review: Schwabe, C., 1994. Theoretical limitations of molecular phyolgenetics and the evolution of relaxins. Comp. Biochem. Physiol. 107B: 167-177
In the eleven years since this quote research has born out this quote. Changes to homeotic genes cause monstrosities; they do not change an amphibian into a reptile. And the mutations do not add any information; they just cause the existing information to be misdirected to create fruit fly legs where fruit fly antenna needs to be for instance.
And still, it is by far the best description we have of life as we know it.
Fairly certain it is the ONLY theory the overwhelming majority of the science community is going by.
I have not heard of any other.
And no, ID or creationism are not scientific theories, they are philosophical or theological theories, not the same thing.
/edit
The huge difference between the two is that science has always been open to change, wereas the other will embrace, or create anything, just as long as it involves a super being in there somewere.
Science changes to fit the world around it.
Religion tries very VERY hard to change the world to fit it.
To me that is not a good ground to base anything on, as you allready know the outcome, and you dont really care what it is just as long as it contains what you want it to.
With an agenda like that you will never find the truth, you arent even looking for it.
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Originally posted by Jerek_
I wonder if you honestly even believe what you type, or if you live in a made up world of facts.
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I see someone's trying to fill the hole in our forums since outfctrl has dissapeared again
Thats incorrect Umbrood, What I.D does say is that a intelligence greater than our own had a influence in the makings of our universe. What form that intelligence is, is still undecided. Religion embraces I.D because it gives a scientific explanation for the premise of a diety or a god.
In practical application I.D is nothing more than a theory to explain the big question that all of man(scientists included) have been trying to answer.
As to Evolution. Its old and is slowly being erased as old school science. Like current science was prior to Newton. Do not get me wrong. I have respect for Evolution. For it has brought about many significant changes and views of our world. It also was the beginning of the newer science types. But soon evolution will play a very little role in modern science. As of right now genetics plays a more apt role than evolution. Polymerization plays a significant role. This is in all aspects of science. Biology,Physics, geology, any of the -ology(the study of) types.
Many people who stick to old programming debunk anything that is counter evolution. Thats a given. But then again these are the same people who think Dawkins is the evolution messiah.
what a virus does is combine itself with DNA in hopes that it'll be able to activate itself inorder to take over the cell, however there is a chance that the virus never activates and permanently becomes part of the genetic material of the cell. a normal adult has 20-50 of such viruses that never activate in them(or stop activating).
radiation can alter DNA, we are talking about particles that are moving at the the speed of light and have the ability to move molecules and change them.
then there is also evolution by various chemicle communications that can supress, or activate various parts of genome.
and finally there is also social evolution in higher level beings of earth.(technically everything is equally evovled just adapted differently)
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even if you are a staunch believer in a god that started/created everything, he made a good decision in allowing it to have the free will to change as a species.
isn't a basis of Christianity about free will, by denying evolution you are denying one of the freedoms god has given us.
I find it amazing that by 2020 first world countries will be competing to get immigrants.
Why can't people come up with their own arguments without cutting and pasting someone else's?
Look, just because some guy puts up a web page saying he is challenging evolution does not mean that scientists consider what he has to say or even take him seriously. Even if this guy has Phd's galore hanging on his wall does not mean that other scientists look at what he has to say and go, "Hmmmm..."
Yes, there is a movement to discredit evolution. Yes, there are people that put up web pages stating their "case". And these sites are open to other scientists for peer review. And to put it bluntly, the overwhelming majority of scientists have reviewed this opposition and see it as nothing.
Someday you may get your magic wish and evolution will be modified or proven to be the wrong direction for scientists to follow. But no scientist is going to lose a single nights sleep if that does happen. They're scientists and they accept the scientific method, which includes long held theories being blown apart or changed. To them finding new evidence and having to look in a different direction would be a happy day for them because it would prove the scientific method works.
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</OBAMA>
Interesting thought, but then you could say that by denying unaided human flight or denying an inate telepathic ability you are denying a God given freedoms.
I admire your faith in scientists.
Interesting thought, but then you could say that by denying unaided human flight or denying an inate telepathic ability you are denying a God given freedoms.
another basis is following the teachings in the bible, which in theory boils down to not hurting people and respecting God.
if you happen to have those abilities go ahead and use them, they'd be the possessors responsibility not mine unless they hurt me with them.
(just have lots of children so the genes get passed on)
(this part is the edit)
I find it amazing that by 2020 first world countries will be competing to get immigrants.
Statistics and probability are great enemies of Evolution. Because Evolution utilizes random mutations as the main engine of their postulate, we can then use the laws of probability to exam their claims. Many evolutionists cry foul here, but they have no reason to do so as they also use probability to lay out their claims.
Here is another quote from an amateur evolutionist.
“All this complexity can easily come about through evolution, as is explained in ‘The Blind Watchmaker’ (a book by neo-Darwinist Richard Dawkins). This is because it is often cumulative, and so more likely and more efficient. . . . Nothing betrays a lack of understanding of natural selection quite like saying that the chance (of Evolution being correct) is too small. Natural selection is an algorithmic process, it the complete OPPOSITE of chance. The author states that there hasn’t been enough time. This is all too human thought of our own significance. The Earth was formed; it is estimated around 4,600,000,000 years ago. In comparison, Homo Sapiens are thought to have emerged around 100,000 to 200,000 years ago. Four and a half billion years ago seems more than enough.”
I am really intrigued by evolutionist’s ideas of natural selection. As we discussed above natural selection cannot operate on something that is not there. It has no intelligence to drive anything. It is a predator, it is a storm, it is a drought it is a thousand other things that will either destroy an animal that has the wrong alleles in its’ phenotype. In fact natural selection is not algorithmic but it is digital. Either alive or dead. Natural selection is not the opposite of chance, it just makes sure the good alleles last and the bad ones disappear, that is all. But natural selection is also blind and may also just snuff out a really good allele that had its’ head down at the water hole too long as well. As we spoke above in the genetics section the mutations are decidedly bad and loose information and lead to bad alleles so natural selection usually limits their existence in a population. But natural selection is also "noise" in a population that doesn't allow a single point mutation a very good set of odds for surviving and passing on those genes. Evolutionist speak of natural selection like it is intelligent or something and can spot a mutation that it needs to save.
Short Primer on Probability
Now we will look at the “cumulative” idea and see if that is a go or not. For Evolution to be true there has to be a large amount of cumulative organization of positive mutations. In fact Evolution says that all life came out of prior non-life. Darwin’s warm pond or the lightening charged primordial soup of other evolutionists. Could that really happen? What do statistics say?
The amateur evolutionists above, thinks that four and a half billion years seems to be enough, but is it?
We will give the not the 4.6 billion years for life but the whole supposed age of the universe of 20 billion. We will even assume that ALL of the 20 billion years are good and that all the precursors to life are in some warm primordial soup (we will discuss this in the Biochemistry section below) somewhere just waiting to do their thing.
Let’s talk briefly about probability which is a subset of Statistics. What is the chance if you toss a coin you get heads. Assuming the coin is equally weighted, and not a trick coin it is 1/2. On a die the probability of rolling a six is 1/6. The probability of tossing a coin and getting heads and rolling a die and getting a six is 1/2 x 1/6 = 1/12. Now this doesn’t mean that in twelve tosses and throws you will get simultaneously a head and a six, it means that if you throw long enough 1/12 of all throws will have both a head and a six.
Now let us get a little more complicated. Let’s figure the odds or probability of randomly spelling the phrase “the theory of evolution”. There are 26 letters and one space possible adding to 27 possible selections. There are 20 letters in the phrase and 3 spaces. Therefore the odds, on the average spell out the phrase correctly only once in 2723 outcomes! That is only one success in 8.3 quadrillion, quadrillion attempts or 8.3 x 1032. Now suppose ‘chance’ uses a machine which removes, records and replaces all the letters randomly at the fantastic speed of one billion per microsecond (one quadrillion per second). On the average the phrase would happen once in 25 billion years by this method.
Whoops! We ran out of time just trying to randomly recombine correctly a 23 letter and space phrase. You see the probability multiplication rule is not so kind to the randomness of evolution thought.
But let’s look at biological beginnings. You see in that warm pond or primal soup we just assume that there were amino acids there and we will assume that there were all the L type necessary for life. We will look later at Biochemistry and see it those assumptions are safe, but for now we will just assume them. One thing we will have to turn off is natural selection, because natural selection won’t work here. We are just trying to polymerize a self replicating organic structure like a DNA or RNA molecule and natural selection assumes that a good allele will be safe and a bad allele won’t and we don’t have any good or bad alleles yet. We are just trying to get the genes now in the right sequence. If they are not in the right sequence they won’t work and if they are they will. And there is no way for evolution or natural selection or whatever other magic driver the evolutionists can come up with to know if the sequence is right until it replicates. There is no cumulative process here as a partially correct complex molecule won’t work and would be discarded until one does.
The odds of forming a chain of 124 specifically sequenced proteins of 400 amino acid bases is 1 x 1064489! Now that is just one complex molecule and life requires much, much more. Mycoplasma genitalium has the smallest known genome of and the free living organisms, containing 482 genes comprising 580,000 bases. A human DNA molecule can contain three billion amino acid bases. That is not counting all the other enzymes, proteins, hormones and other life chemistry needed. This odd is utterly impossible and shows that evolution being the source of life’s beginning is not even remotely possible.
Fred Hoyle stated this: “Two thousand different and very complex enzymes are required for a living organism to exist. And random shuffling processes could not form a single one of these even in 20 billion years. I don’t know how long it is going to be before astronomers generally recognize that the arrangement of not even one of the many thousand of biopolymers (Life molecules) on which life depends could have been arrived at by natural processes here on earth.
“Astronomers will have little difficulty in understanding this because they will be assured by biologists that it is not so; the biologists having been assured in their turn by others that it is not so. The ‘others’ are groups of persons who believe, quite openly, in mathematical miracles.
“The advocate the belief that, tucked away in nature outside of normal physics, there is a law which performs miracles (provided the miracles are in the aid of biology). The curious situation sits oddly on a profession that for long has been dedicated to coming up with logical explanations. . . The modern miracle workers are always found to be living in the twilight fringes of thermodynamics.”
Fred Holye, “The Big Bang in Astronomy,” in New Scientist, November 19, 1981, pp 521-527
Weasely Dawkins
We will now look briefly at a case of weaseling by a master weasel Richard Dawkins of “The Blind Watchmaker” and “The Selfish Gene” etc. (Yes I have read them both!). Richard Dawkins is a neo – Darwinist who has championed the Evolution of random mutations and natural selection which was falling awry in evolutionary thought in recent years. Mr. Dawkins in “The Blind Watchmaker” developed a program on computer to generate the phrase “methinks it is like a weasel” in about 164 supposedly random iterations. This computer program was quite a novelty in the early 80’s when it was written, but today it is quite primitive.
But the program has some problems.
1. The outcome is known and targeted, whereas in life chemistry there is no target, there is only something that may work when the sequence is right and there is no way of knowing it might work until you get it complete. No near guesses allowed.
2. Correct guesses are saved. In life chemistry there is no way of knowing if any iteration has protein sequences that will be useful later as the only way of knowing they are right is when the whole complex molecule works.
3. It is a computer program with the parameters carefully chosen by Dawkins to make sure the outcome is what he wanted. If the parameters are tweaked another way the real probability comes back normally. Dawkins sped up the random mutation rate to accelerate the evolution rate and tried to use these figures to prove evolution could happen with a mutation rate that would destroy a population. Weak thinking in a weasly mind.
Ah, the probability arguement. "It Couldn't have happened, because it isn't likely".
Well, lets look around you. Your computer desk. What the hell is the probability that all of the random shit on your desk happens to be placed, at this very exact moment, at their very exact places? Its extremely small, when you take into account all the components involved in making them, and even when you go smaller to all the exact molecules, and microrganisms in there. Every single one of them have somehow made their way to this exact point, your computer desk. When you think about it, its a really huge, but everyday wonder. All of this happened from an incalcuably small probability, but you don't debate it, now do you?
Sometimes, thats just the way the cookie crumbles. And when you think about it, on the near extreme infinite space in this universe (Shrinking, enlarging, whatever the hell anyone says it does, its big, mmkay?) It is suprising that a configuration at all like your desk ever happened. It is no more suprising that the gift of life happened. Be it through a creater or just that random spark of life.
We barely remember who or what came before this precious moment;
We are choosing to be here right now -Tool, Parabola
I think that things evolved, but I don't believe in the theory of evolution and adaptation as if driven by some sort of god mechanism.
I think that it is a convenient hypothesis that was formulated out of a lack of understanding at that time. Don't get me wrong: I think Darwin was definitely brilliant for his time. but now that we have formalized physics and mathematics it seems kind of silly to step away from formalization when talking about evolution.
The more we learn about the universe, the more we step away from intelligent conjecture (hypothesis testing) and step into logical derivation as we have in classical mechanics, electromagnetism, etc. (although I understand that the aformentioned are still trying to be understood at a smaller level and are being revised). If we really are capable of understanding everything (assuming that we could), then we could find a unifying theory and would not have to rely on ridiculously broad assumptions like in evolution and I.D..
That being said, I still don't agree with evolution being a pseudo science: The theory might seem invalid to a statistician because of the small P values, but it is no more logically invalid than any other empirically derived hypothesis, since in order for it to be invalid a logical basis for everything would be required. We do not have a logical basis that can describe all of physics yet and it might not even be possible for us.
I don't understand why people are getting worked up about these things: Why are you trying to understand how the whole picture was drawn when you don't even know how to draw a point?
This is a sequence of characters intended to produce some profound mental effect, but it has failed.
True science is empirical. Our ability to observe, faithlessly test, and prove/disprove through means that can be replicated infinitely, is true science.
Anything that falls beneath that, is not within true science, and as a phrase that was used within the OP's thread title, is "Pseudo Science". In other words, bullshit scientifically speaking.
Even if something makes sense, but can not be proven empirically, it does not make it scientific.
To billions of people, it makes sense that there is a God. To the majority, it is the only sensible and logical thing instead of a chaotic and random universe.
But has God been proven empirically and proof of His being able to be replicated infinitely? NO!
Does that make me a faithless man? NO!
As many on this board know, I'm a Christian. I respect my own faith, and I respect the whole prospect of faith in general. If someone wants to have faith in something, that is all peachy.
Things like evolution, and the big bang theory, are faith based "scientific" beliefs. I use scientific in quotations, because I do not consider it a science when by many minds it is considered fact. If people truly did believe of it as a theory, a research in progress, with no more validity than brain eating martians scientifically speaking, I would find no qualms with evolutionists/those who believe in evolution.
Because they would recognize it as a faith, and quit being so obnoxiously hostile to others of a likemind(Likeminded in faith bearing a large part on their life).
Evolution is a PSUEDO SCIENCE. There may be some scientific research that supports it, but it is NOT fact. It is unexplained and unobserved. Treating it as scientific fact, is crap.
If scientists wish to pursue research into evolution, and pose it as a possible theory to earth's life & origins, be my guest.
But many scientists do not do that, they treat it as a faith, and view those that do not subscribe to their faith, as lesser beings. Thus causing a chain reaction, and all the peons of those who worship scientists as god's, in turn create a similar mindset to their peers.
This is nothing more than the big bang theory all over again. A theory that many scientists are starting to turn away from. It was treated as fact, and any who did not subscribe to this belief, were ridiculed as ignorant.
Pseudo science is nothing more than the philosophical ponderings of arrogant and usually ignorant men who deny the *science* of their own makings, that what they're doing, is in fact, philosophy.
"The greatest trick the devil played on humanity in the 20th century was convincing them that he didn't exist." (Paraphrasing) C.S. Lewis
"If a mother can kill her own child, what is left before I kill you and you kill me?" -Mother Teresa when talking about abortion after accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979
Nice wall of words.
Anyway, the DNA evolves and that's undeniable.
An easy example to understand.
An African man has far less chances to get skin cancer than an Irish man, because he is more protected from the UV rays.
That's because the DNA changed and adapted to the environment by making the right changes in production of Melanin which protect the skin from UV rays.
An African man has lots of Melanin while a nordic man has almost none, that's why they are darker than nordic person (the melanin givess the dark color).
Or maybe your theory is that black people is black because God decided that was a color that suited them?
Or maybe you want us to believe that God gave African people the ability to produce more melanin so they could be protected by UV rays.
In that case God should have avoided to create UV rays so everyone could have been the same color and we would spared hundred of years of discrimination against black people due to the color of their skin.
How about that?
It is undeniable that Evolution is a reaction of the changes in the environment we live in.
Changes like the color of the skin can occur in few thousand years, other major changes like the growth of fins or legs take millions of year to happen, but they do happen eventually.
If you don't want to see that, because that would undermine your religion and everything it stands for, fair enough.
You are free to believe everything you want. Faith don't need explanation.
But please don't try to justify the existence of your faith by discrediting something that all the scientist agree with.
Nice wall of words.
Anyway, the DNA evolves and that's undeniable.
An easy example to understand.
An African man has far less chances to get skin cancer than an Irish man, because he is more protected from the UV rays.
That's because the DNA changed and adapted to the environment by making the right changes in production of Melanin which protect the skin from UV rays.
An African man has lots of Melanin while a nordic man has almost none, that's why they are darker than nordic person (the melanin givess the dark color).
Or maybe your theory is that black people is black because God decided that was a color that suited them?
Or maybe you want us to believe that God gave African people the ability to produce more melanin so they could be protected by UV rays.
In that case God should have avoided to create UV rays so everyone could have been the same color and we would spared hundred of years of discrimination against black people due to the color of their skin.
How about that?
It is undeniable that Evolution is a reaction of the changes in the environment we live in.
Changes like the color of the skin can occur in few thousand years, other major changes like the growth of fins or legs take millions of year to happen, but they do happen eventually.
If you don't want to see that, because that would undermine your religion and everything it stands for, fair enough.
You are free to believe everything you want. Faith don't need explanation.
But please don't try to justify the existence of your faith by discrediting something that all the scientist agree with.
Macro evolution is the addition of code. Micro-evolution is the changing of the code already there.
It's the difference between 101 being changed to 5101. And 101 being changed to 010.
Did you know there is an amino acid called l-tyrosine that increases melanin production?
"The greatest trick the devil played on humanity in the 20th century was convincing them that he didn't exist." (Paraphrasing) C.S. Lewis
"If a mother can kill her own child, what is left before I kill you and you kill me?" -Mother Teresa when talking about abortion after accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979
Religion throughout history is a man-made idea. When you really break it down, it has never been anything more that a human response to the unknown. When people didn't know why something happened, they said it was God. And in a lot of ways they still do. However, just because you don't KNOW what causes something doesn't mean the cause has to be some sort of higher power. If someone saw a nuclear explosion before the 1930s they would have had no clue how to explain it, and they probably would have said it was God punishing the world. But that couldn't be farther from the truth. As new science comes out we'll slowly begin to give logical explanations for many things long accredited to religion. I'm not saying that evolution is THE right way of explaining things, but creation really has no more reliability.
As a side note (and I really need to wear a flame-proof suit here), no religious text is a completely reliable source of information for a religion. We know for a fact that several entire books were removed from the Bible by the early Christian leaders. Many of these were lost to the world, never having been told to the public. We'll never know what they said, and who knows what that could have been.
Schutzbar - Human Warrior - Windrunner Alliance - World of Warcraft
Nihilanth - Kerra Paladin - Blackburrow - EverQuest II
XBL Gamertag - Eagle15GT
DNADIDIT!!
Macro evolution is the addition of code. Micro-evolution is the changing of the code already there.It's the difference between 101 being changed to 5101. And 101 being changed to 010.
Did you know there is an amino acid called l-tyrosine that increases melanin production?
What is commonly called..............getting a tan.
That aminoacid basically increase the level of melanin in your skin when it's under constant exposure to the sun light (or UV rays).
That's a defensive measure that mainly white people body uses aginst abnormal and prolongued exposure to the UV rays.
In black people the melanin is alredy set to maximun, it doesn't need the aminoacid to increase the melanin levels, it is set primarly by the DNA itself (and that's why they don't become white when they live in Sweden........).
An Irish person will never become black in it's lifetime, the amino acid won't be able to rise the level of melanin more than a set level decided by the DNA code, not even if he stays 12 hours under the sun, what he will get instead is cancer.
That's because the DNA code set a maximun amount of melanin which is far inferior to what the DNA of a black person allows.
That's evolution.
Also the Macro evolution is a sequence of micro evolutions, you ll never get from 101 to 5101 without going throug the 101.1 - 101.2 and so on.
It takes thousands of years for a micro evolution and millions of years for a macro evolution to happen.
The gene for a heavy beak can''t be a mutation because it wasn't a mutation!. such stunning logic!
While it’s true that natural selection works on the existing variation in the genome, genetics tells us mutation is the root of this variation. If there were no mutation there would be no variation but as fact would have it both exist.
Mutation is a constant process. Some mutations inevitably allow for a predisposition to a softer beak some inevitably create a predisposition to a harder beak and of course some do neither. All accumulate in the genome over time and are selected for when an appropriate condition exists.
I won’t quote your argument about it being impossible for mutations to survive in the genome because it's longwinded and there is little point debating the detials when the outcome is so clearly at odds with real world observations.
The fact that mutations do occur and are transmitted is well documented. We can for example track the genetic drift of mutations to the migrations of humanity as it spreads around the globe. We can even track know rates of mutation to account for the differences in genetic material of different species and arrive at divergence dates that are exactly in accordance with the fossil record. Mutations do occur , they do accumulate and they do change the genome over time, end of story.
The argument that evolution is a theory, not a fact, has often been made against the exclusive teaching of evolution.[52] The argument is related to a common misconception about the technical meaning of "theory" that is used by scientists. In common usage, "theory" often refers to conjectures, hypotheses, and unproven assumptions. However, in science, "theory" usually means "a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena."[53]
Exploring this issue, paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould wrote:[54]
As a means to criticise mainstream science, creationists have been known to quote, at length, scientists who ostensibly support the mainstream theories, but appear to acknowledge criticisms similar to those of creationists.[72] However, almost universally these have been shown to be quote mines (lists of out of context or misleading quotations) that do not accurately reflect the evidence for evolution or the mainstream scientific community's opinion of it, or highly out-of-date.[73][74] Many of the same quotes used by creationists have appeared so frequently in Internet discussions due to the availability of cut and paste functions, that the TalkOrigins Archive has created "The Quote Mine Project" for quick reference to the original context of these quotations.[73]
Creationists have long argued against the possibility of Macroevolution. Macroevolution is defined by the scientific community to be evolution that occurs at or above the level of species. Under this definition, Macroevolution can be considered to be a fact, as evidenced by observed instances of speciation. Creationists however tend to apply a more restrictive, if vaguer, definition of Macroevolution, often relating to the emergence of new body forms or organs. The scientific community considers that there is strong evidence for even such more restrictive definitions, but the evidence for this is more complex.
Recent arguments against (such restrictive definitions of) macroevolution include the Intelligent Design arguments of Irreducible complexity and Specified complexity. However, neither argument has been accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, and both arguments have been rejected by the scientific community as pseudoscience.
The level of support for evolution is a topic that frequently arises in the creation-evolution controversy. This is particularly true in the United States, but it is becoming more important in other countries as creationists are making inroads in the public discourse about education and research. Although there is undeniable evidence of evolution and the scientific consensus supporting modern evolutionary synthesis is nearly absolute,[1][2] some creationists have asserted that there is a significant scientific controversy and disagreement over the validity of evolution.[3][4][5]
Creationists in the United States also claim that because there is a significant lack of public support for evolution, that public schools should "teach the controversy". Nearly every scientific society, representing hundreds of thousands of scientists, has issued official statements disputing this claim[2] and a petition supporting the teaching of evolution was endorsed by 72 US Nobel Prize winners. Additionally, US courts have ruled in favor of teaching evolution in science classrooms, and against teaching creationism, in numerous cases.
The vast majority of the scientific community and academia supports evolutionary theory as the only explanation that can fully explain observations in the fields of biology, paleontology, anthropology, and others.[15][16][17][18][19] One 1987 estimate found that more than 99.84% of almost 500,000 US scientists in the earth and life sciences supported evolution over creation science.[20] An expert in the evolution-creationism controversy, professor and author Brian Alters, states that "99.9 percent of scientists accept evolution".[21]
Additionally, the scientific community considers intelligent design, a neo-creationist offshoot, to be unscientific,[24] pseudoscience,[25][26] or junk science.[27][28] The U.S. National Academy of Sciences has stated that intelligent design "and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life" are not science because they cannot be tested by experiment, do not generate any predictions, and propose no new hypotheses of their own.[29] In September 2005, 38 Nobel laureates issued a statement saying "Intelligent design is fundamentally unscientific; it cannot be tested as scientific theory because its central conclusion is based on belief in the intervention of a supernatural agent."[30]
The most important part of reading is reading between the lines.
I actually feel a bit sorry for you Powder...
Because when your brain's ability to reason finally activates, you will look back on your inability to seperate facts from beliefs with embarassment.
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"MMOs, for people that like think chatting is like a skill or something, rotflol"
http://purepwnage.com
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"Far away across the field, the tolling of the iron bell, calls the faithful to their knees. To hear the softly spoken magic spell" Pink Floyd-Dark Side of the Moon
It's gonna be okay powder. Smile, Satan loves you.
BTW, most creationists are right about evolution being a theory and not a fact. Theories are not fact. Theories are SUPPORTED by facts. If creationism had any validity at all, the scientific community would have already integrated it into their current theories. The fact that creationist have to pass their ideas through political process rather than scientific review should be heads up that something ain't stir in the Kool Aide.
I've posted this before...but it bears repeating.
Which arguments should definitely not be used?
“Darwin recanted on his deathbed.”
Many people use this story; however, it is almost certainly not true, and there is no corroboration from those who were closest to him—even from Darwin’s wife Emma, who never liked evolutionary ideas. Also, even if it were true, so what? If Ken Ham renounced the Bible, would that disprove it? See Did Darwin recant? and Did Darwin Renounce Evolution on His Deathbed?
“Moon-dust thickness proves a young moon.”
For a long time, creationists claimed that the dust layer on the moon was too thin if dust had truly been falling on it for billions of years. They based this claim on early estimates—by evolutionists—of the influx of moon dust, and worries that the moon landers would sink into this dust layer. But these early estimates were wrong, and by the time of the Apollo landings, NASA was not worried about sinking. So the dust layer thickness can’t be used as proof of a young moon (or of an old one, either). See Moon-dust argument no longer useful and Moon dust and the age of the solar system (Technical).
“NASA computers, in calculating the positions of planets, found a missing day and 40 minutes, proving Joshua’s “long day” [Joshua 10] and Hezekiah’s sundial movement [2 Kings 20].”
Though this story is not promoted by major creationist organizations, it is a hoax in wide circulation, especially on the internet.
Essentially the same story appeared in the somewhat unreliable 1936 book The Harmony of Science and Scripture by Harry Rimmer. Evidently an unknown person embellished it with modern organization names and modern calculating devices.
Also, the whole story is mathematically impossible—it requires a fixed reference point before Joshua’s long day. In fact, we would need to cross-check between both astronomical and historical records to detect any missing day. And to detect a missing 40 minutes requires that these reference points be known to within an accuracy of a few minutes. It is certainly true that the timing of solar eclipses observable from a certain location can be known precisely. But the ancient records did not record time that precisely, so the required cross-check is simply not possible. Furthermore, the earliest historically recorded eclipse occurred in 1217 BC, nearly two centuries after Joshua. So there is no way the missing day could be detected by any computer. See also Has NASA Discovered a “Missing Day”? for historical and scientific documentation that this alleged discovery is mythological.
(Note that discrediting this myth doesn’t mean that the events of Joshua 10 didn’t happen. Features in the account support its reliability—for example, that the moon was also slowed down. This was not necessary to prolong the day, but this would be observed from Earth’s reference frame if God had accomplished this miracle by slowing Earth’s rotation. See Joshua’s long day.)
“Woolly mammoths were flash frozen during the Flood catastrophe.”
This is contradicted by the geological setting in which mammoths are found. It’s most likely that they perished toward the end of the Ice Age, possibly in catastrophic dust storms. Partially digested stomach contents are not proof of a flash freeze, because the elephant’s stomach functions as a holding area—a mastodon with preserved stomach contents was found in the western USA, where the ground was not frozen. See also The extinction of the woolly mammoth: was it a quick freeze?
“The Castenedolo and Calaveras human remains in ‘old’ strata invalidate the geologic column.”
These are not sound examples—the Castenedolo skeletal material shows evidence of being an intrusive burial, that is, a recent burial into older strata, since all the fossils apart from the human ones had time to be impregnated with salt. The Calaveras skull was probably a hoax planted into a mine by miners. For the current AiG view on human fossil stratigraphy, see Where are all the human fossils? from the Answers Book.
“Dubois renounced Java man as a ‘missing link’ and claimed it was just a giant gibbon.”
Evolutionary anthropology textbooks claimed this, and creationists followed suit. However, this actually misunderstood Dubois, as Stephen Jay Gould has shown. It’s true that Dubois claimed that Java man (which he called Pithecanthropus erectus) had the proportions of a gibbon. But Dubois had an eccentric view of evolution (universally discounted today) that demanded a precise correlation between brain size and body weight. Dubois’ claim about Java man actually contradicted the reconstructed evidence of its likely body mass. But it was necessary for Dubois’ idiosyncratic proposal that the alleged transitional sequence leading to man fit into a mathematical series. So Dubois’ gibbon claim was designed to reinforce its “missing link” status. See Who was ‘Java man’?
“The Japanese trawler Zuiyo Maru caught a dead plesiosaur near New Zealand.”
This carcass was almost certainly a rotting basking shark, since their gills and jaws rot rapidly and fall off, leaving the typical small “neck” with the head. This has been shown by similar specimens washed up on beaches. Also, detailed anatomical and biochemical studies of the Zuiyo-maru carcass show that it could not have been a plesiosaur. See Live plesiosaurs: weighing the evidence and Letting rotting sharks lie.
“The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics began at the Fall.”
This law says that the entropy (“disorder”) of the universe increases over time, and some have thought that this was the result of the Curse. However, disorder isn’t always harmful. An obvious example is digestion, breaking down large complex food molecules into their simple building blocks. Another is friction, which turns ordered mechanical energy into disordered heat—otherwise Adam and Eve would have slipped as they walked with God in Eden! A less obvious example to laymen might be the sun heating the earth—to a physical chemist, heat transfer from a hot object to a cold one is the classic case of the Second Law in action. Also, breathing is based on another classic Second Law process, gas moving from a high pressure to low pressure. Finally, all beneficial processes in the world, including the development from embryo to adult, increase the overall disorder of the universe, showing that the Second Law is not inherently a curse.
Death and suffering of nephesh animals before sin are contrary to the biblical framework above, as is suffering (or “groaning in travail” [Rom. 8:20–22]). It is more likely that God withdrew some of His sustaining power (Col. 1:15–17) at the Fall so that the decay effect of the Second Law was no longer countered. See Did the 2nd Law begin at the Fall?
“If we evolved from apes, apes shouldn’t exist today.”
In response to this statement, some evolutionists point out that they don’t believe that we descended from apes, but that apes and humans share a common ancestor. However, the evolutionary paleontologist G.G. Simpson had no time for this “pussyfooting,” as he called it. He said, “In fact, that earlier ancestor would certainly be called an ape or monkey in popular speech by anyone who saw it. Since the terms ape and monkey are defined by popular usage, man’s ancestors were apes or monkeys (or successively both). It is pusillanimous [mean-spirited] if not dishonest for an informed investigator to say otherwise.”
However, the main point against this statement is that many evolutionists believe that a small group of creatures split off from the main group and became reproductively isolated from the main large population, and that most change happened in the small group which can lead to allopatric speciation (a geographically isolated population forming a new species). So there’s nothing in evolutionary theory that requires the main group to become extinct.
It’s important to note that allopatric speciation is not the sole property of evolutionists—creationists believe that most human variation occurred after small groups became isolated (but not speciated) at Babel, while Adam and Eve probably had mid-brown skin color. The quoted erroneous statement is analogous to saying “If all people groups came from Adam and Eve, then why are mid-brown people still alive today?”
So what’s the difference between the creationist explanation of people groups (“races”) and the evolutionist explanation of people origins? Answer: the former involves separation of already-existing information and loss of information through mutations; the latter requires the generation of tens of millions of “letters” of new information.
“Women have one more rib than men.”
AiG has long pointed out the fallacy of this statement, which seems to be more popular with dishonest skeptics who want to caricature creation. The removal of a rib would not affect the genetic instructions passed on to the offspring, just as a man who loses a finger wouldn’t have sons with nine fingers. Any skeptic who tries to discredit the Bible with this argument must be a closet Lamarckian, i.e., one who believes Lamarck’s thoroughly discredited idea of inheritance of acquired characteristics! Note also that Adam wouldn’t have had a permanent defect, because the rib is the one bone that can regrow if the surrounding membrane (periosteum) is left intact.
“Archaeopteryx is a fraud.”
Archaeopteryx was genuine (unlike Archaeoraptor, a “Piltdown bird”), as shown by anatomical studies and close analysis of the fossil slab. It was a true bird, not a “missing link.” See Q&A: Dinosaurs.
“There are no beneficial mutations.”
This is not true, since some changes do confer an advantage in some situations. Rather, we should say, “We have yet to find a mutation that increases genetic information, even in those rare instances where the mutation confers an advantage.” For examples of information loss being advantageous, see Q&A: Mutations
“No new species have been produced.”
This is not true—new species have been observed to form. In fact, rapid speciation is an important part of the creation model. But this speciation is within the “kind,” and involves no new genetic information. See Q&A: Speciation.
“Earth’s axis was vertical before the Flood.”
There is no basis for this claim. Seasons are mentioned in Genesis 1:14 before the Flood, which strongly suggests an axial tilt from the beginning. Some creationists believe that a change in axial tilt (but not from the vertical) started Noah’s Flood. But a lot more evidence is needed and this idea should be regarded as speculative for now. Furthermore, computer modeling suggests that an upright axis would make temperature differences between the poles and equator far more extreme than now, while the current tilt of 23.5° is ideal. The moon has an important function in stabilizing this tilt, and the moon’s large relative size and the fact that its orbital plane is close to the earth’s (unlike most moons in our solar system) are design features.
“Paluxy tracks prove that humans and dinosaurs co-existed.”
Some prominent creationist promoters of these tracks have long since withdrawn their support. Some of the allegedly human tracks may be artifacts of erosion of dinosaur tracks obscuring the claw marks. There is a need for properly documented research on the tracks before we would use them to argue the coexistence of humans and dinosaurs. However, there is much other evidence that dinosaurs and humans coexisted—see Q&A: Dinosaurs.
“Darwin mentioned the absurdity of eye evolution in The Origin of Species.”
Citing his statement at face value is subtly out of context. Darwin was talking about its seeming absurdity but then said that after all it was quite easy to imagine that the eye could be built step-by-step (in his opinion, with which AiG obviously disagrees—see Darwin vs. The Eye and An eye for creation).
“Earth’s division in the days of Peleg (Gen. 10:25) refers to catastrophic splitting of the continents.”
Commentators both before and after Lyell and Darwin (including Calvin, Keil and Delitzsch, and Leupold) are almost unanimous that this passage refers to linguistic division at Babel and subsequent territorial division. We should always interpret Scripture with Scripture, and there’s nothing else in Scripture to indicate that this referred to continental division. But only eight verses on (note that chapter and verse divisions were not inspired), the Bible states, “Now the whole earth had one language and one speech” (Gen. 11:1), and as a result of their disobedience, “the LORD confused the language of all the earth” (Gen. 11:9). This conclusively proves that the “earth” that was divided was the same earth that spoke only one language, i.e., “earth” refers in this context to the people of the earth, not planet Earth.
Another major problem is the scientific consequences of such splitting—another global flood! This gives us the clue as to when the continents did move apart: during Noah’s Flood. See also comments on plate tectonics below.
“The Septuagint records the correct Genesis chronology.”
This is not so. The Septuagint chronologies are demonstrably inflated, and contain the (obvious) error that Methuselah lived 17 years after the Flood. The Masoretic Text (on which almost all English translations are based) preserves the correct chronology. See Some remarks preliminary to a biblical chronology.
“There are gaps in the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11, so the earth may be 10,000 years old or even more.”
This is not so. The language is clear that they are strict chronologies, especially because they give the age of the father at the birth of the next name in line. So the earth is only about 6,000 years old. See Biblical genealogies for exegetical proof.
“Jesus cannot have inherited genetic material from Mary, otherwise He would have inherited original sin.”
This is not stated in Scripture and even contradicts important points. The language of the NT indicates physical descent, which must be true for Jesus to have fulfilled the prophecies that He would be a descendant of Abraham, Jacob, Judah and David. Also, the Protevangelium of Gen. 3:15, regarded as Messianic by both early Christians and the Jewish Targums, refers to “the seed of the woman.” This is supported by Gal. 4:4, “God sent forth His Son, coming (genomenon) from a woman.” Most importantly, for Jesus to have died for our sins, Jesus, the “last Adam” (1 Cor. 15:45), had to share in our humanity (Heb. 2:14), so must have been our relative via common descent from the first Adam as Luke 3:38 says. In fact, seven centuries before His Incarnation, the prophet Isaiah spoke of Him as literally the “Kinsman-Redeemer,” i.e., one who is related by blood to those he redeems (Isaiah 59:20 uses the same Hebrew word goel as used to describe Boaz in relation to Ruth). To answer the concern about original sin, the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary (Luke 1:35), preventing any sin nature from being transmitted.
“The phrase ‘science falsely so called’ in 1 Timothy 6:20 (KJV) refers to evolution.”
To develop a scriptural model properly, we must understand what the author intended to communicate to his intended audience, which in turn is determined by the grammar and historical context. We must not try to read into Scripture that which appears to support a particular viewpoint. The original Greek word translated “science” is gnosis, and in this context refers to the elite esoteric “knowledge” that was the key to the mystery religions, which later developed into the heresy of Gnosticism. This was not an error by the KJV translators, but an illustration of how many words have changed their meanings over time. The word “science” originally meant “knowledge,” from the Latin scientia, from scio, meaning “to know.” This original meaning is just not the way it is used today, so modern translations correctly render the word as “knowledge” in this passage.
Of course AiG believes that evolution is anti-knowledge because it clouds the minds of many to the abundant evidence of God’s action in creation and the true knowledge available in His Word, the Bible. But as this page points out, it is wrong to use fallacious arguments to support a true viewpoint. On a related matter, it is linguistically fallacious to claim that even now, “science really means knowledge,” because meaning is determined by usage, not derivation (etymology).
“Geocentrism (in the classical sense of taking the earth as an absolute reference frame) is taught by Scripture and heliocentrism is anti-scriptural.”
AiG rejects this dogmatic geocentrism, and believes that the biblical passages about sunset and sunrise, etc., should be understood as taking the earth as a reference frame, but that this is one of many physically valid reference frames; the center of mass of the solar system is also a valid reference frame. See Q&A: Geocentrism and Geocentrism and Creation.
“Ron Wyatt has found much archeological proof of the Bible.”
There is not the slightest substantiation for Wyatt’s claims, just excuses to explain away why the evidence is missing. See Has the Ark of the Covenant been found?
Some of Carl Baugh’s “evidences” for creation.
We are sorry to say that, while AiG thinks he’s well meaning, Baugh unfortunately uses a lot of material that is not sound scientifically. So we advise against relying on any “evidence” he provides unless supported by creationist organizations with reputations for biblical and scientific rigor. Unfortunately, there are talented creationist speakers with reasonably orthodox understandings of Genesis who continue to promote some of the Wyatt and Baugh “evidences” despite being approached on the matter.
“Missing solar neutrinos prove that the sun shines by gravitational collapse, thereby proving a young sun.”
This is about a formerly vexing problem of detecting only one-third of the predicted number of neutrinos from the sun. Also, accepted theories of particle physics said that the neutrino had zero rest mass, which would prohibit oscillations from one “flavor” to another. Therefore, consistent with the data then available, some creationists proposed that the sun was powered one-third by fusion and two-thirds by gravitational collapse. This would have limited its age to far less than 4.5 billion years.
However, a new experiment was able to detect the “missing” flavors and seems to provide conclusive evidence for oscillation. This means that neutrinos must have a very tiny rest mass after all (since experimental data takes precedence over theory). Therefore creationists should no longer invoke the missing neutrino problem to deny that fusion is the primary source of energy for the sun. It cannot be used as a young-age indicator—nor an old-age indicator, either.
“Einstein held unswervingly, against enormous peer pressure, to belief in a Creator.”
Using the normal meaning of these terms, Einstein believed no such thing. See also Physicists’ God-talk.
What arguments are doubtful, hence, inadvisable to use?
Canopy theory.
This is not a direct teaching of Scripture, so there is no place for dogmatism. Also, no suitable model has been developed that holds sufficient water, but some creationists suggest a partial canopy may have been present. For AiG’s current opinion, see Noah’s Flood—what about all that water? from the Answers Book.
“There was no rain before the Flood.”
This is not a direct teaching of Scripture, so again there should be no dogmatism. Genesis 2:5–6 at face value teaches only that there was no rain at the time Adam was created. But it doesn’t rule out rain at any later time before the Flood, as great pre-uniformitarian commentators such as John Calvin pointed out. A related fallacy is that the rainbow covenant of Genesis 9:12–17 proves that there were no rainbows before the Flood. As Calvin pointed out, God frequently invested existing things with new meanings, e.g., the bread and wine at the Lord’s Supper.
“Natural selection is a tautology.”
Natural selection is in one sense a tautology. Who are the fittest? Those who survive and leave the most offspring. Who survive and leave the most offspring? The fittest. But a lot of this is semantic wordplay, and depends on how the matter is defined, and for what purpose the definition is raised. There are many areas of life in which circularity and truth go hand in hand. For example, what is electric charge? That quality of matter on which an electric field acts. What is an electric field? A region in space that exerts a force on electric charge. But no one would claim that the theory of electricity is thereby invalid and can’t explain how motors work; it is only that circularity cannot be used as independent proof of something. To harp on the issue of tautology can become misleading, if the impression is given that something tautological therefore doesn’t happen. Of course the environment can “select,” just as human breeders select. But demonstrating this doesn’t mean that fish could turn into philosophers by this means. The real issue is the nature of the variation, the information problem. Arguments about tautology distract attention from one of the real weaknesses of neo-Darwinism—the source of the new information required. Given an appropriate source of variation (for example, an abundance of created genetic information with the capacity for Mendelian recombination), replicating populations of organisms would be expected to be capable of some adaptation to a given environment, and this has been demonstrated amply in practice.
Natural selection is also a useful explanatory tool in creationist modeling of post-Flood radiation with speciation (see Q&A: Natural Selection).
“Evolution is just a theory.”
What people usually mean when they say this is “Evolution is not proven fact, so it should not be promoted dogmatically.” Therefore people should say that! The problem with using the word “theory” in this case is that scientists use it to mean a well-substantiated explanation of data. This includes well-known theories such as Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and Newton’s Theory of Gravity, as well as lesser-known ones such as the Debye–Hückel Theory of electrolyte solutions. It would be better to say that particles-to-people evolution is an unsubstantiated hypothesis or conjecture.
“There is amazing modern scientific insight in the Bible.”
We should interpret the Bible as the author originally intended, and as the intended readership would have understood it. Therefore we should be cautious in reading modern science into passages if the original readers would not have seen it. This applies especially to poetic books like Job and Psalms. For example, Job’s readers would not have understood Job 38:31 to be teaching anything about the gravitational potential energy of Orion and Pleiades. Rather, the original readers would have seen it as a poetic illustration of God’s might—that God, unlike Job, could create the Pleiades in a tightly-knit cluster, which is what it looks like, while God created Orion as a well spread-out constellation, again something well beyond Job’s ability. Similarly, Job 38:14 is not advanced scientific insight into the earth’s rotation, because the earth is not being compared to the turning seal, but to the clay turning from one shape into another under the seal.
“The speed of light has decreased over time.”
Although most of the evolutionary counter-arguments to this idea, known formally as c-decay, have been proven to be fallacious, there are still a number of problems with it (many raised by creationists). AiG currently prefers Dr. Russell Humphreys’ explanation for distant starlight, although neither AiG nor Dr. Humphreys claim that his model is infallible. See How can we see distant stars in a young universe? from the Answers Book.
“There are no transitional forms.”
Since there are candidates, even though they are highly dubious, it’s better to avoid possible comebacks by saying instead: “While Darwin predicted that the fossil record would show numerous transitional fossils, even a century and a half later, all we have are a handful of disputable examples.” See Q&A: Fossils.
“Gold chains have been found in coal.”
Several artifacts, including gold objects, have been documented as having been found within coal, but in each case the coal is no longer associated with the artefact. The evidence is therefore strictly anecdotal (e.g., “This object was left behind in the fireplace after a lump of coal was burned”). This does not have the same evidential value as having a specimen with the coal and the artifact still associated.
“Plate tectonics is fallacious.”
AiG believes that Dr. John Baumgardner’s work on catastrophic plate tectonics provides a good explanation of continental shifts and the Flood. See Q&A: Plate Tectonics. However, AiG recognizes that some reputable creation scientists disagree with plate tectonics.
“Creationists believe in microevolution but not macroevolution.”
These terms, which focus on “small” vs. “large” changes, distract from the key issue of information. That is, particles-to-people evolution requires changes that increase genetic information, but all we observe is sorting and loss of information. We have yet to see even a “micro” increase in information, although such changes should be frequent if evolution were true. Conversely, we do observe quite “macro” changes that involve no new information, e.g., when a control gene is switched on or off.
“The gospel is in the stars.”
Though this is an interesting idea, it is quite speculative, and many biblical creationists doubt that it is taught in Scripture. Therefore, we do not recommend using it.
Your argument is like a two legged dog with an eating disorder...weak and unbalanced.