Chance or Design (Evolution or Creation)

[Lon]

Science writer Jonathan Weiner ("The Beak of the Finch", 1994) says beak changes in Galapagos finches during a severe drought (1977) is "evolution in action", even though the changes were reversed after the drought ended, and no net evolution occurred.

https://www.trueorigin.org/evomyth03.php

:noway:

 

[The Barbarian]

Barbarian observes:
I understand that you believe your new revision of Genesis. But that's never been Christian orthodoxy; it's no older than the 20th century

Your dishonesty on that

There's really no point in accusations. Everyone here has already seen the evidence.

Ronald Numbers The Creationists
Praised by both creationists and evolutionists for its comprehensiveness, the book meticulously traces the dramatic shift among Christian fundamentalists from acceptance of the earth's antiquity to the insistence of present-day scientific creationists that most fossils date back to Noah's flood and its aftermath. Focusing especially on the rise of this "flood geology," Ronald L. Numbers chronicles the remarkable resurgence of antievolutionism since the 1960s, as well as the creationist movement's tangled religious roots in the theologies of late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Baptists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, and Adventists, among others. His book offers valuable insight into the origins of various "creation science" think tanks and the people behind them. It also goes a long way toward explaining how creationism, until recently viewed as a "peculiarly American" phenomenon, has quietly but dynamically spread internationally--and found its expression outside Christianity in Judaism and Islam.



St.Augustine, when he wrote De Genesi Ad Litteram, had not a single Christian theologian contradict his claim that the creation week was not a literal six days.

Saint Augustine of Hippo (/ɔːˈɡʌstɪn/; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430 AD)[1] was a Roman African, early Christian theologian and philosopher from Numidia whose writings influenced the development of Western Christianity and Western philosophy. He was the bishop of Hippo Regius in North Africa and is viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers in Western Christianity for his writings in the Patristic Period. Among his most important works are The City of God, De doctrina Christiana, and Confessions.

According to his contemporary, Jerome, Augustine "established anew the ancient Faith".[a] In his youth he was drawn to Manichaeism and later to neoplatonism. After his baptism and conversion to Christianity in 386, Augustine developed his own approach to philosophy and theology, accommodating a variety of methods and perspectives.[2] Believing that the grace of Christ was indispensable to human freedom, he helped formulate the doctrine of original sin and made seminal contributions to the development of just war theory. When the Western Roman Empire began to disintegrate, Augustine imagined the Church as a spiritual City of God, distinct from the material Earthly City.[3] His thoughts profoundly influenced the medieval worldview. The segment of the Church that adhered to the concept of the Trinity as defined by the Council of Nicaea and the Council of Constantinople[4] closely identified with Augustine's On the Trinity.

Augustine is recognized as a saint in the Catholic Church, the Eastern Christian Church, and the Anglican Communion and as a preeminent Doctor of the Church. He is also the patron of the Augustinians. His memorial is celebrated on 28 August, the day of his death. Augustine is the patron saint of brewers, printers, theologians, the alleviation of sore eyes, and a number of cities and dioceses.[5] Many Protestants, especially Calvinists and Lutherans, consider him to be one of the theological fathers of the Protestant Reformation due to his teachings on salvation and divine grace.[6][7][8] Protestant Reformers generally, and Martin Luther in particular, held Augustine in preeminence among early Church Fathers. Luther himself was, from 1505 to 1521, a member of the Order of the Augustinian Eremites.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustine_of_Hippo

Not in the entire history of the church from the Apostles on, has there been any agreement that the creation story is a literal six days. You can dredge up stories of men who thought so, but again, it's telling that no one thought to argue with Augustine when he showed that the six days of Genesis could not be literal days.

Augustine did think the world was young, because he had no evidence to the contrary, and he rejected the pagan notion of an eternal Earth. But he did also point out that no one should hold to such ideas not firmly stated in scripture, if new knowledge should show otherwise.

And Christians have generally agreed. The great Charles Spurgeon, a Baptist theologian in the 1800s acknowledged the fact of millions of years of Earth time. Even into the 20th century, most creationists were YE creationists. Until the visions of an Adventist "prophetess", that remained true.

During the first two thirds of the twentieth century, during which most Christian fundamentalists accepted the existence of long geological ages, the leading voice arguing for the recent creation of life on earth in six literal days was George McCready Price (1870-1963), a scientifically self-taught creationist and teacher. Born and reared in the Maritime Provinces of Canada, Price as a youth joined the Seventh-day Adventists, a small religious group founded and still led by a prophetess named Ellen G. White, whom Adventists regarded as being divinely inspired. Following one of her trance-like "visions" White claimed actually to have witnessed the Creation, which occurred in a literal week. She also taught that Noah’s flood had sculpted the surface of the earth, burying the plants and animals found in the fossil record, and that the Christian Sabbath should be celebrated on Saturday rather than Sunday, as a memorial of a six-day creation.

Shortly after the turn of the century Price dedicated his life to a scientific defense of White’s version of earth history: the creation of all life on earth no more than about 6,000 years ago and a global deluge over 2,000 years before the birth of Christ that had deposited most of the fossil-bearing rocks. Convinced that theories of organic evolution rested primarily on the notion of geological ages, Price aimed his strongest artillery at the geological foundation rather than at the biological superstructure. For a decade and a half Price’s writings circulated mainly among his coreligionists, but by the late 1910s he was increasingly reaching non-Adventist audiences. In 1926, at the height of the antievolution crusade, the journal Science described Price as "the principal scientific authority of the Fundamentalists. That he was, but with a twist. Although virtually all of the leading antievolutionists of the day, including William Jennings Bryan at the Scopes trial, lauded Price’s critique of evolution, none of them saw any biblical reason to abandon belief in the antiquity of life on earth for what Price called "flood geology." Not until the 1970s did Price’s views, rechristened "creation science," become fundamentalist orthodoxy.Ronald L. Numbers, The Creationists (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992), pp. 72-101. On Ellen G. White, see Ronald L. Numbers, Prophetess of Health: A Study of Ellen G. White (New York: Harper & Row,...
https://counterbalance.org/history/floodgeo-frame.html

Even at the Scopes Trial, the creationism presented by creationists was old Earth, although Bryan, realizing that the Bible does not give an age for the Earth, did not make it a doctrine:

If you will take the second chapter — let me have the book. [Reaches for a Bible.] The fourth verse of the second chapter says: "These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth, when they were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens," the word day there in the very next chapter is used to describe a period. I do not see that there is any necessity for construing the words, "the evening and the morning," as meaning necessarily a 24-hour day, "in the day when the Lord made the heaven and the earth."… I think it would be just as easy for the kind of God we believe in to make the earth in six days as in six years or in 6 million years or in 600 million years. I do not think it important whether we believe one or the other. … My impression is they were periods, but I would not attempt to argue against anybody who wanted to believe in literal days.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Jennings_Bryan

You already know this, although you continue to deny the fact. You can't serve God by fighting the truth. Set your pride aside, and let it be God's way, not man's way.

 

[The Barbarian]

I understand why Christians wish the Earth to have been made in six days. That’s what I meant.

PS. And that I understand why Christians don’t like evolution.

Most of the world's Christians do not think the 6 "Yom" mean literal days. Nor do the vast majority of the world's Christians think that evolution is contrary to our faith.

Even in the United States where YE creationism first took hold, it's a dying belief:

In U.S., Belief in Creationist View of Humans at New Low

https://news.gallup.com/poll/210956/belief-creationist-view-humans-new-low.aspx

It's dying hard, but it's dying.

 

[The Barbarian]

:noway:

Science writer Jonathan Weiner ("The Beak of the Finch", 1994) says beak changes in Galapagos finches during a severe drought (1977) is "evolution in action", even though the changes were reversed after the drought ended, and no net evolution occurred.

Of course. Evolution tends to make a population more fit for the environment. When it became drier, birds evolved to meet the challenge. When it became wetter and the conditions changed, natural selection then led to the populations changing back to forms adapted to wetter conditions. That's what evolution is.

If the climate had shifted permanently, then the changes would have persisted. If it became even drier, the population would have evolved even further.

The example, of lizards moved from wet conditions to a drier island in the Adriatic shows this phenomenon. In the continuing dry conditions, the lizards adapted to more plant food, evolved a stronger bite and less territorial behavior, and within two decades evolved a new digestive organ to deal with the less nutritious plant diet.

If that island should become wetter, there's no doubt that the population would again become adapted to wet conditions. That's how evolution works. But it's a good point to remember; there's nothing magical about the process; it merely is a change in alleles that tends to make populations more fit for their environment. Darwin wrote about this in On the Origin of Species.

This illustrates another issue, the failure of most creationists to even understand what it is they think they are fighting.

 

[Stripe]

We understand that you believe your revision of Genesis, but the Bible says what it says, and it says: "Six days."

Barbarian observes:

It's a pity he won't think.

There's really no point in accusations. Everyone here has already seen the evidence.

Not in the entire history of the church from the Apostles on, has there been any agreement that the creation story is a literal six days.

Darwinists love it when the discussion is over who believed what. They think it is evidence.

Meanwhile, the Bible says "six days."

You can dredge up stories of men who thought otherwise, but it's telling that you refuse to engage over the evidence.

Christians have generally agreed.

Darwinists love it when the discussion is over the popularity of an idea. They think it is evidence.

You already know this, although you continue to deny the fact. You can't serve God by fighting the truth. Set your pride aside, and let it be God's way, not man's way.

Most of the world's Christians do not think the 6 "Yom" mean literal days.

Darwinists love it when the discussion is over the popularity of an idea. They think it is evidence.

Nor do the vast majority of the world's Christians think that evolution is contrary to our faith.

Darwinists love it when the discussion is over the popularity of an idea. They think it is evidence.

Even in the United States where YE creationism first took hold, it's a dying belief:

Darwinists love it when the discussion is over the popularity of an idea. They think it is evidence.

They die hard, but they're dying.

Evolution tends to make a population more fit for the environment.

Nope. As you've seen, the evidence shows that creatures adapt to their environment without time for random mutations and natural selection to have any part.

The example, of lizards moved from wet conditions to a drier island in the Adriatic shows this phenomenon. In the continuing dry conditions, the lizards adapted to more plant food, evolved a stronger bite and less territorial behavior, and within two decades evolved a new digestive organ to deal with the less nutritious plant diet.

Nope. As you've been shown, the "new" structure was always there, just not expressed.

That's how evolution works.

Darwinists love asserting their religion as fact. It's their only play.

There's nothing magical about the process. It is God's design that organisms be able to adapt to their environment. However, it comes at a cost. Diversification lowers genetic integrity. We thought you would have acknowledged this after being shown it so many times. :idunno:

A change in alleles that tends to make populations more fit for their environment.

Nope. Evolution is the idea that all life is descended from a universal common ancestor by means of random mutations and natural selection. Darwinists want to protect their religion from challenges, so they call it "change," because who would argue that things do not change?

Darwin

Your apostle.

This illustrates another issue, the failure of Darwinists to even understand what it is they think they are fighting.

Evolutionists say mutation, migration, genetic drift, and natural selection produced new life forms. Why then are there so few examples — if there are any at all — of mutations building brand new organs? Some evolutionists point to a study of Italian wall lizards (Podarcis sicula). From the abstract: "Here we show how lizards have rapidly evolved differences in head morphology, bite strength, and digestive tract structure after experimental introduction into a novel environment." The study mentions cecal valves — muscles between the large and small intestine — that "slow down food passage and provide for fermenting chambers, allowing commensal microorganisms to convert cellulose to volatile fatty acids." (A. Herrel et al., "Rapid large-scale evolutionary divergence in morphology and performance associated with exploitation of a different dietary resource," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 105.) http://www.pnas.org/content/105/12/4792 But anatomist David Menton noted the original lizards had the ability to digest plant material; they simply preferred insects for roughly 95 percent of their diet. Menton added: "The 'new' muscular valve they found between the small and large intestine is simply an enlargement of muscles already present in the gut wall at this juncture." So, far from being a truly new feature, the shift in available food allowed lizards with larger muscles at the juncture to be more successful at feeding and reproducing. The "rapidly evolved" cecal valves are possibly just natural selection acting on pre-existing genetic information, helping a population adapt to its surroundings. http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2009/06/06/news-to-note-06062009

https://www.trueorigin.org/evomyth01.php

 

[Stripe]

View attachment 26846

 

[Stripe]

Why do textbooks claim the 1953 Miller-Urey experiment shows how the cell's building blocks may have formed on the early Earth, when repeated experimentation has never demonstrated this claim? Efforts to replicate the supposed origin-of-life events have produced embarrassingly small amounts of only some required cellular building blocks (eg. trace amounts of amino acids, sugars) with the majority of the mixture being a toxic tar. Unless the researcher is present to immediately remove and preserve these short-lived compounds, then those water-based side reactions will make a biochemical hash of them. To make matters worse, our current understanding supports an early Earth with an oxidizing (not reducing) atmosphere, making the synthesis of these cellular compounds even more unlikely, as oxygen would quickly oxidize the traces before they could have a chance to "self organize". And as ICR's Frank Sherwin writes in his 2009 article: "If and when Venter's team artificial life, it will only have been a product of purpose and applied power and intelligence. And its life-likeness will have been almost entirely copied from pre-existing life in bacterial cells." http://www.icr.org/article/what-will-artificial-life-demonstrate http://www.icr.org/article/historic-primordial-soup-study-yields

https://www.trueorigin.org/evomyth01.php

 

[Stripe]

Phillip Johnson writes: "If somebody asks, 'Do you believe in evolution?' the right reply is not 'Yes' or 'No.' It is: 'Precisely what do you mean by evolution?' My experience has been that the first definition I get will be so broad as to be indisputable — like 'There has been change in the course of life's history.' Later on a much more precise and controversial definition will be substituted without notice. That one word evolution can mean something so tiny it hardly matters, or so big it explains the whole history of the universe. Keep your baloney detector trained on that word. If it moves, zap it!" ("Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds", 1997)

https://www.trueorigin.org/evomyth03.php

 

[Stripe]

In May 2000, Michael Ruse (philosopher of science) wrote: "Evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. Evolution is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion--a full-fledged alternative to Christianity, with meaning and morality. I am an ardent evolutionist and an ex-Christian, but I must admit that in this one complaint--and Mr. Gish is but one of many to make it--the literalists are absolutely right. Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today." If religion cannot be taught in science classes, why is evolution taught in science classes? Ruse, M., "How evolution became a religion: creationists correct? Darwinians wrongly mix science with morality, politics", National Post (May 13, 2000). http://www.omniology.com/HowEvolutionBecameReligion.html http://www.arn.org/docs/orpages/or151/mr93tran.htm

https://www.trueorigin.org/evomyth03.php

 

[Stripe]

Jonathan Sarfati explains the typical Darwinist tactic of bait and switch.

"My car is a lemon. A lemon is a citrus fruit. Therefore my car is a citrus fruit. The definition has changed halfway through."

Part 2

 

[Stripe]

You've mentioned some things that are actually not part of evolutionary theory, but are misconceptions causes by "evolutionism":[COLOR="#800000"]ev·o·lu·tion-ism/ˌevəˈlo͞oSH(ə)n/izmnounnoun: evolutionism;1. 1.the stories creationists tell about evolutionary theory, to avoid discussing the real theory."evolutionism is calling God a liar" 2. 2.the numerous misconceptions reationists have about evolution"evolutionism is about the origin of life"synonyms: straw man, diversion, misconception [/COLOR]For example, the creationist idea of "junk DNA" is based on lumping things like the damaged GULO gene in primates, with "non-coding DNA" that actually has other functions. There are indeed "junk" genes that no longer work (which is why we can't make our own vitamin C, for example), but even when I was an undergraduate, a half-century ago, scientists were discovering functions of non-coding DNA. The "useless appendix" story comes about from a confusion of "vestigial" with "useless" (which is another part of the creationist belief in "evolutionism." Vestigial organs are those that no longer serve their original purpose, like the appendix, but may serve a new purpose. And it's been that way from the start; Darwin discussed this in his book. And yes, the vertebrate retina is "wired backwards" of necessity, since in vertebrates, the retinal is actually derived from the brain. The receptors are beneath blood vessels and other tissue. It does reduce acuity somewhat, but various adaptations overcome that in various ways. Would you like to learn about those? Here's a good description as to how evolution took a liability and through mutations and natural selection, made it useful:[COLOR="#800000"][B]Look, your eyes are wired backwards: here’s why [/B][/COLOR][url]https://theconversation.com/look-your-eyes-are-wired-backwards-heres-why-38319[/url]You won't find many scientists who are racists, since evolutionary theory has shown that there are no biological races. However, among creationists...[COLOR="#800000"]Yet the prophecy again has its obverse side. Somehow they have only gone so far and no farther. The Japhethites and Semites have, sooner or later, taken over their territories, and their inventions, and then developed them and utilized them for their own enlargement. Often the Hamites, especially the Negroes, have become actual personal servants or even slaves to the others. Possessed of a genetic character concerned mainly with mundane matters, they have eventually been displaced by the intellectual and philosophical acumen of the Japhethites and the religious zeal of the Semites. [/COLOR]Institute for Creation Research Director Henry Morris, discussing the alleged intellectual and spiritual inferiority of black people in his book [I]The Beginning of the World[/I] p. 148. This is why creationists were such eager followers of Eugenics, while Darwinians like Morgan and Punnet denounced the idea as wrong and scientifically invald. Even Darwin, in [I]The Descent of Man[/I], denounced the idea.Retroviruses are, of course, a documented phenomenon,often called "RNA viruses." Would you like to learn about them?

The ‘inverted’ arrangement of the vertebrate retina, in which light has to pass through several inner layers of its neural apparatus before reaching the photoreceptors, has long been the butt of derision by evolutionists who claim that it is inefficient, and therefore evidence against design. This article reviews the reasons for our having the inverted retina and why the opposite arrangement (the verted retina), in which the photoreceptors are innermost and the first layer to receive incident light, would be liable to fail in creatures who have inverted retinas. I suggest that the need for protection of the retina against the injurious effects of light, particularly with the shorter wavelengths, and of the heat generated by focused light necessitates the inverted configuration of the retina in creatures possessing it.

https://www.trueorigin.org/retina.php

 

[6days]

Iunderstand that you believe your new revision of Genesis.

As you were shown, the early church fathers were young Earth creationists, and they argued against apostate old Earth beliefs.

Ronald Numbers The Creationists

It is telling that for your support you use a person who describes himself as an agnostic and has rejected Christianity.

St.Augustine, when he wrote De Genesi Ad Litteram, had not a single Christian theologian contradict his claim that the creation week was not a literal six days.

Augustine using a Latin Bible, thought God might have created in an instant, (not billions of years). Augustine understood that death did not enter our world until Adam sinned, was foundational to virtually every Christian doctrine. Augustine said "Unbelievers are also deceived by false documents which ascribe to history many thousand years, although we can calculate from Sacred Scripture that not 6,000 years have passed since the creation of man." Augustine City of God Book 12 ch 10

Luther himself was, from 1505 to 1521, a member of the Order of the Augustinian Eremites.

Luther also understood the Gospel and said "We know from Moses that the world was not in existence before 6,000 years ago.

Not in the entire history of the church from the Apostles on, has there been any agreement that the creation story is a literal six days.

As pointed out earlier, the early church fathers were young earth creationists. They made a point of arguing against old Earth beliefs which placed death before sin, contradicting the Gospel and compromising the purpose of the cross.

.

 

[Guyver]

Sorry, but 14 billion is way too high a number.

https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/scienc...younger-we-thought-scientists-are-ncna1005541



Stripe says 6000. I say around 7000, but no more than 10,000.

I wasn't asking about a specific person or group.

My question is about which side claims those skeletons are older than 6-7,000 years old.

The answer is that it's the side that says "the universe is billions of years old."

Which raises the question of whether the evidence is leading to the forming of their beliefs, or

if their beliefs are causing them to interpret the evidence because of their dedication to their beliefs (ie, confirmation bias).

We have dinosaur fossils that are no more than 100,000 years old, which brings into question their ability to accurately date remains of long-dead creatures.

If you admit that you have dinosaur skeletons around a hundred thousand years old, how can you maintain that the Earth is 7,000 years old? You’re saying dinosaurs existed upon the Earth prior to it’s creation. That’s not possible. So, it’s a terrible belief because it is contrary to observable facts.

 

[Guyver]

No, we don't.

Yes we do.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_first_human_settlements#Middle_Paleolithic

 

[JudgeRightly]

If you admit that you have dinosaur skeletons around a hundred thousand years old,

That's not what I said.

I said they are no more than 100,000 years old.

They're a lot younger than that.

how can you maintain that the Earth is 7,000 years old?

Because 7000 years is consistent with "no more than 100,000 years old."

You’re saying dinosaurs existed upon the Earth prior to it’s creation.

I'm not.

That’s not possible. So, it’s a terrible belief because it is contrary to observable facts.

Please pay closer attention to what I say, and not what you wish I said.

I said "no more than 100,000 years old" because Carbon-14 doesn't last longer than that, yet we find significant amounts of it in at least 10 different dinosaur fossils.

Also, soft-tissue has been found in nearly every fossil that has been looked at recently. We're talking original biological material found inside of every single fossil that has been looked at so far, which confirmed two predictions made by https://rsr.org/predictions (also http://kgov.com/soft):

- Dinosaur Soft Tissue Is Not Rare But Common.
- Dinosaur and Other Biological Material Exists Regarless of Alleged Age.

Which means that it CANNOT be millions of years old.

 

[User Name]

Extinctions due to mutations...likely tens of thousands of species.

Name just one species that went extinct due to mutations.

 

[Lon]

If you admit that you have dinosaur skeletons around a hundred thousand years old, how can you maintain that the Earth is 7,000 years old? You’re saying dinosaurs existed upon the Earth prior to it’s creation.

He doesn't.

That’s not possible. So, it’s a terrible belief because it is contrary to observable facts.

Again, he doesn't believe this. You may be referring to gap theorists who believe God had a world and then recreated it. Ideas are fine within the Evangelical community as long as none of them damage any given scripture truth. So while among ourselves, we may discuss whether something is a biblical problem or not (like the age of the earth) it isn't a huge problem. In this thread, the age of the earth is debated among us and most of us are fine with the disagreement. Rather, the important united front is against whatever is clearly inconsistent with scriptures.

On this, ask for verses, or try other ways to discover why it isn't a terrible belief. I think, it'd be worth your time and effort :e4e:

 

[6days]

Name just one species that went extinct due to mutations.

I'm not sure you are noticing... But you aren't defending the video you posted. The question I asked you was how your video guy explains the way the evidence. Geneticists are concerned about increasing genetic load, but it seems your guy waves it away somehow?

Re extinctions..... About 100 species go extinct every month. Of that number 83 have gone extinct due to loss of genetic diversity. (Maybe it's 59? ...maybe 99?) Lack of genetic diversity often means the species can't tolerate a changing environment..or a certain disease. Or, the small populations can go extinct due to mutation meltdown.,. Or, error catastrophe. Why does a species lack genetic diversity? Often, it is because the species is highly adapted to a specific environment and are a small population. For example, Island populations are often highly adapted or speciated, sometimes due to a favorable mutation or 2, and natural selection that has eliminated genetic information that parent populations had.

Genetics shows us the common ancestry system is impossible (without hypothetical, and unrealistic rescue devices) . Genetic load increases in all populations that have a high mutation rate in relation to a low birth rate. Because the data is not consistent with evolutionary beliefs, evolutionists call it a paradox.

 

[User Name]

I'm not sure you are noticing... But you aren't defending the video you posted.

Have you watched the whole video yet? It's like 12 minutes long.

Re extinctions..... About 100 species go extinct every month. Of that number 83 have gone extinct due to loss of genetic diversity. (Maybe it's 59? ...maybe 99?)

Interesting. Can you name one species that has gone extinct due to mutations i.e. genetic entropy?

 

[6days]

Have you watched the whole video yet? It's like 12 minutes long.

the question is have YOU watched the video... And if you have then why can't you answer the question? You are the one who posted it.

Interesting. Can you name one species that has gone extinct due to mutations i.e. genetic entropy?

How about an entire genus such as shrub frogs. Your question WAS answered before. Genetic erosion likely plays some part in all extinctions. Google 'genetic erosion'.

Now... What was the magic bullet in your video that prevents genetic load from increasing?