Again, if they are inconsistent, then God is Hoaxing us. And I agree with Shadow, such a concept is untenable, both for a person of faith, or person of Empiricism (or a person of both ).

Precisely! We're in agreement! (hears symphony music playing overhead somewhere).

Since we both know and admit God never lies and, short of intervening in miracles directly where He temporarily alters the physical laws (such as Joshua's "long day"), this means that the dating methods we're using are probably being interpreted the wrong way. Far be it for humans to misinterpret or make mistakes when doing any number of things on the average day, eh? Why just last night I put a Red Baron frozen pizza in the oven too long, which resulted in some burnt edges (I hate those...cheese should never taste like charcoal). I think sprinkling some extra mozarella on the top probably helped this crisping process, but still...

At long last, my friend, we have reached agreement! Let's go celebrate!

Climate change is the issue at the moment, and what we are to do to clean up our act if we don't want to frizzle any more than we are doing. Those journalists who are most sceptical of climate change typically are conservative voters who will quote the economic reasons why climate change should not be considered possible but will not quote any scientific facts at all from any scientist that doubts that the world is getting warmer. In other words, those sceptics feel their hip-pocket nerve might be threatened.

And they have perfectly valid reasons to be concerned about the economy. I don't know about you, but I rather dislike the idea of our electric bills going up over a thousand dollars a year because people like Al Gore claim it will "save" the environment. Considering the fact that thanks to some computer screw-ups, we've learned that a ton of the data global warming fans have been tossing around has either been manipulated or made up completely, I'm more than a little skeptical of these plans to "save" the world that involve the US giving up billions of dollars while countries like India and China get to keep doing whatever the heck they want.

Well, couldn't we be looking at alternate sources of electricity, such as Solar Power?

Hm, I have a couple questions.
1. Are you guys defining creationism as "God, not a random string of events, created the universe" or as "God created the universe in 6, 24 hour Earth days"?
2. When you all are talking about evolution, do you mean the scientific theory or evolution as the philosophical system used by Atheists to explain how the world came to exist?
I'm asking #2 because one of my aunts is very firm in her belief that God, not a string of chance occurrences, created to universe. She also is very firm in her belief that (the scientific theory of) evolution was the mechanism by which God created the world.Just wondering.

Thank you, thank you, Avra. Because in the case of 1. I think "God created the universe in 6, 24 hour Earth days", is what is meant by Creationalism, and not "God, not a random string of events, created the universe". In the case of #2, I do agree most emphatically with your aunt.

I just don't understand why many Christians believe God would use a method (eg. evolution) that goes a long way to disapprove his existence, to create the world. It just doesn't make sense to me. That's like God is messing with his creations to make belief in him even harder than it already is.

No I don't see that at all. I see that a perfect God wouldn't waste raw materials that could be recycled. Also, I don't think that Evolution can be used to deny the existence of God, any more than so-called 'Creationalism' can be used to deny the truth of Evolution.

Did anyone notice my avatar? It was a joke, but since we all agree that the 'Big Bang' theory sounds suspiciously like 'Let there be Light', the same might be said of whichever scientific formula could have produced the 'Big Bang'. After all, God speaks through mathematics, chemistry etc, having made the rules. And the language of maths and science with all those equations and symbolism, is beyond my comprehension, whether simple or complicated. So let's keep it simple and say, 'Let there be light'.

But that light leads not only to masses of stars, but also to a nondescript little star on the edge of a star-studded galaxy, which has the 'Right chemical, gravitational etc mix'. This lovely little Star, AKA Sol, or Solis, has given us light, heat, and life for yonks, though capable of causing disruptions if we get too close and friendly with it. Is this really a co-incidence, or more likely, the right star for the right occasion?

And there is the moon. Our star threw out up to nine planets, some of which weren't even recognised until the 18th and 19th centuries, let alone when the Chaldeans measured the length of a day, and calculated it to be 24 hours. At that stage in history, it was believed that the Sun, like the Moon and the other planets, orbited the Earth, and that sort of thinking persisted for centuries. That is why in many languages it is the Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn which name the days of the week.

So when the 17th century Galileo confirmed the sightings of Copernicus, a Polish astronomer, he got hauled off to the Inquisition for saying that the Sun was at the centre of the Solar system not the Earth. Long before Evolution was even thought of, old ideas of the heavens and the passage of time have been under question.

But our Earth is the only planet in our solar system with a moon capable of interacting with it to form tides, mystery and all sorts of magic. Venus doesn't have a moon, whilst those of Mars are a bit funny. How would you measure a month on Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus or Neptune, not discovered until 1846? Why is it that Venus, roughly the same size as the Earth, does not rotate once every [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth's_rotation]24 hours or so[/url], unlike the Earth? And why, if a certain combination of chemicals is necessary to start life, has life not started elsewhere in the solar system, say on Mars?

Now that is just for starters. Astronomers have found other planets outside of our own star system. But none yet that might be able to support life. Could it be that Life is something that has to be set in motion under the right circumstances by God himself? Or maybe there is no randomness in Evolution, in the formation of an Earth capable of sustaining life?

Oh and before an Earth can be made in a day or six days, it first needs to be able to rotate at just the right speed, at just the right angle to get the Sun at just the right time of day and night in sufficient quantities to start life. The sort of life, that if it learns more than to hunt for its food, and to communicate with others, which will be curious enough to try to figure out what a day of its life might be.

I've got a lot to talk about here so here goes a Dr. Ransom length post.

GB listed a bunch of things as evidence for evolution (and I am not talking about micro-evolution here) so here goes each one. Fossils: What does a fossil tell us? It died. Now you can tell what type of creature it was by its bone structure. We've both mentioned hollow bones vs solid bones (with marrow). You mention skeletons of dinosaurs with hollow bones and bird-like structures. Are you refering to an archaeoptryx or a pteridactyl? Or both? What we have is hollow bones in a bird-like structure. Therefore we have to assume it was a bird-kind creature. We have all kinds of pictures of pteridactyles with lizard-like skin and scales. We have all kinds of pictures of archaeoptryxes with dinosaur-like features and feathers. Who drew them? Artists. An artist can draw whatever he/she wants. Heckel did the same thing with the embryos. He was found to be a fraud by a German (I think it was in Germany) court and yet those fake drawings are still used as evidence in the textbooks.
The fossils are also used heavily for revealing missing links. Archaeoptryx is not a missing link. It was a bird. The evidence gives no reason to believe otherwise. Lucy is not a missing link. She was made starting from a pig's tooth. Fossils also suppossedly tell us whether a creature was a carnivore or herbivore based on the teeth. T-Rex has sharp teeth so we assume it wa a carnivore. But the roots of T-Rex's teeth are so small, if it were to try to chomp its way through the bones and scales of other animals, its teeth would break off. Sharp teeth are used for eating plants as well as flat teeth.

While I am on fossils, let's go to strata, AKA the Geologic Column. The evolutionary standpoint on both of these is circular reasoning. We determine the age of the fossils by the strata they are found in. We also determine the age of the strata by the fossils that are found in them. You are defining two things with themselves and it only works in one case: you start with the assumption that evolution is true. But how does evolution explain the cases of vertical trees, some of which span three strata? I've heard the responses from so-called experts: we don't know. It makes sense with a World Wide Flood. You mix all the sedements found on the earth's crust with water, swish it around and let it settle, it will settle in the order we find them in today. And the pressure of sudden burial of creatures under the water and the weight of these sedements makes ideal conditions to forming fossils. The order of the fossils is easily explained by the order of when they died. Fish and smaller aquatic creatures would be hit first by the waves from the foundations of the deep. The larger animals would be hit later, and eventually you get to the Dinosaurs who were so large, it would take them a while to get buried. It was 40 days and 40 nights of rain and eruptions from beneath the crust according to the Bible. But they were not in the Ark 150 days. They were in just over a full year. Now something else to realize, if something can be considered proof for two opposing sides, that something becomes transparent to the issue. So when it comes to strata and even fossils, unless further evidence is brought in, you can't use them to 'prove' on side or the other.

Half aquatic/half land critters: I assume you refer to creatures like frogs and alligators, right. This doesn't prove anything for evolution. Yes, both of these creatures live on land but also must live in humid, wet climates. But do these creatures have half gills, half lungs? No. Frogs, alligators, and the like have lungs. Whales have lungs. They have to have a complete set of working lungs, along with every other small part required for breathing just to survive a few minutes. The Sperm Whale I understand can hold its breath the longest at 90 minutes. Gills are a completely different mechanism that takes in water, absorbes the oxygen in the water, and expells the water out. Going from fins to fingers is what evolution has for it. But the gills to lungs completely throws it out, and it is never mentioned in the textbooks. You can't go from on to the other gradually. It has to completely work one way or the other or the creature dies.

Rodents, cats, bears, wolves, foxes, etc: That is the standard, textbook response. Start with some obvious micro-evolution and work your way back far enough and you can get macro-evolution. I already explained this one. Going from one species in one kind to another within that kind is micro-evolution. I could see all felines (house cats, lions, tigers, panthers, etc) coming from a common ancestor. I can see the dogs and wolves coming from the same type. Horses and zebras also likely came from a common ancestor. But as I mentioned before, where do these kinds start sharing commonality? A big evolutionary argment is that birds came from reptiles. Two completely different types. The argument is supported by similar genes and bone shape/organization. But going back to the hollow bones, how does it go from solid bone to hollow bone? The textbooks don't give an answer and I've heard the answers from the experts: we don't know. This goes also goes into the issue of genes.

Yes, it is true that humans and chimps have about a 97-98% commonality. But if you follow the evolutionary tree proported by the experts in the field, we have more in common with a banana tree (50% in common) than we do some of our suppossed ansestors. Now let's get into DNA. It is by far the most complex molecule the world has ever seen. What happens when just a little part of that DNA gets messed up? We get mutations. I've mentioned it before, what mutations are actually beneficial to a body? But the commonality goes deeper than that. A human is composed of 23 X chromasomes and 23 Y chromasomes. There are times where one of those chromasomes get messed up and the effects are huge. I'm not a biologist so I don't know how many chromasomes chimps have, but I don't think it's in a close range of 46 combined. Evolutionary charts show the physical progression between chimps and man, but they don't show the genetic progression. And to really throw a wrench into it, you can simply boil it down to these two arguments: the genes can either show a common anscestor or they can show a common creator. So if you ignore or rule out everything else I said in this paragraph, this shows that genes support creation just as much as evolution. And so it becomes transparent to the issue.

Now I was accused of claiming scientific consistency in the Laws and then using an argument that they are not consistant in certain cases. Nothing I said defied the laws of physics or biology or chemistry. It simply mentioned different factors affect rates at which the laws take place. Tell me, does iron rust faster or slower in a humid climate vs a dry one? The chemical reaction is the same, no matter how you look at it. But humidity is a factor that will increase the rate of which rusting occurs. Carbon-14 (and the other dating methods which use the same concepts of half-lives) decays at a particular rate in lab conditions. That is the conditions that evolution uses to justify thier dating. But they don't know all the conditions that could raise or slow the rates of that decay. There are other factors that are not considered such as helium content. Helium is so much lighter than every other element (besides hydrogen) that it can escape by weaving its way through molecule formations. I can't remember the name of this process, but I learned about it in a science and materials class when I was in Civil Engineering. Even under certain pressures, helium can escape faster than C-14 can decay. The helium levels we find in fossils indicate they can't be much more than 10,000 years old. Of course, this too assumes similar rates. I'm not saying the dating methods are wrong, and they are certainly based on scientific data. I'm just saying either the interpretation of the data is wrong or not all the data is being considered into the equation. We don't know what factors were involved back then. And all these factors still work constantly with the Laws we have discovered. Processes are always consistant, but rates of the processes change with given factors. Human population is the same. The human population growth rate was not increasing at the given population in the 1300s as it is today. We had a thing called Black Death that was killing faster than people were reproducing. There were other times, like today, where medicine and health standards, have allowed population levels to explode. Not only that, 3/4 of the world's population live in large cities, another factor that didn't exist 1000+ years ago, which also magnifies the reproductive rate. But if man has been around for 3 million years as evolution depicts, baring significant natural disasters that would affect the entire world population, the estimated population would be at a level equivalent to about 120,000 people per square inch. Whereas today, we can fit the entire world population (albeit not comfortably) within the city limits of Jacksonville, FL, twice. Rates change, but not the process, and so the laws are consistant.

I also love discussions about astronomy. The conditions on Planet Earth are so completely unique it boggles the mind. From the size of the sun, to the distance from the sun, to the size of the Earth, to the angle of axis tilt of the earth, the precision in the numbers is breathtaking. If the sun was any bigger or any smaller, it would give out too much or too little radiation. If the earth was any closer (even by a few degrees) we'd disintegrate, it was any further, we'd freeze. The angle of the rotational axis at 23 degrees, is exactly what is needed to maintain the seasonal shift. Mercury, rotates at the same rate about its axis at it does around the sun. So the side facing the sun is perpetually hot. While the side away from the sun is one of the coldest places in the universe. The rate of roation of the earth (24 hours) provides the exact speed needed for life to sustain without receiving too much sun or too little.

Now here is a really interesting thing to notice. All the stars reveal thier shapes and arrangements from the Earth's POV. It would be very interesting to see what they would appear to be from a different planet in a different galaxy's POV. But we use the stars for navigation (on both land and sea before compasses and GPS). They rotate from our POV with an insane level of precision. I think about this and I can't help but think about what kind of a creator would it take to make this. That doesn't include the reality of the size of some of these stars. Beatleguise is a star that is not twice the size of the sun. It's twice the size of earth's orbit around the sun. And that's a small star in comparison with the true giants like Muceifee or especially Canis Majorus. If the earth were a golf ball, it would take over 7 quadrillion golf balls to compare with Canis Majorus. That more than enough golf balls to completely fill the Louisiana Superdome (where the still unbeated Saints play). Just thinking about these scales screams out to me that there is no way chance could have pulled this off. I look at the world and the universe around me and I can't help but see a super-all-powerful creator designing it.

Now while I am on this, the Bible does say that creation itself declares the glory of God. Going back to genes and molecules. The one molecule that holds everything together is called lamanin. This is the all-purpose adhesion molecule that holds life together. Take a look. http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://windwords.vening.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/lamanin_drawing.jpg&imgrefurl=http://robfreund.wordpress.com/2008/10/19/lamanin/&h=756&w=480&sz=113&tbnid=BVGsJuCAmObQEM:&tbnh=282&tbnw=179&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dlamanin&usg=__fsOp7Hyc7MvthYNBCrIUJMMKbNs=&ei=kiYdS9zFLc7VlAeK3MXyCQ&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=1&ct=image&ved=0CAsQ9QEwAA

Fencer: wow. Thanks for the science lessons, and the lamanin pic! You really know your stuff, don't you? I wish I did. I'm scientifically illiterate.

I don't know the intricacies of C-14 dating, but I thought I'd offer the following. Maybe someone else can interpret it for me. Note the last bit on dating Creation.

Dr. Harold Willmington, “Explore the Message: Great Truths from the Old Testament” [Church Bible Institute]:

1. The imbalance of carbon-14 and carbon-12—It can be shown that it would take a period of 30,000 years to attain an equilibrium between these two. However, at present C-14 still exceeds C-12 by some 50 percent. The above are but five of over 80 facts that would indicate a recent creation date.
2. Another time calendar is known as the radiocarbon method. This method, unlike the first three, is used only in determining the age of organic fossils. Radioactive carbon is formed in the earth’s upper atmosphere resulting from the incoming cosmic radiation and atmospheric nitrogen-14. It then unites with oxygen to form carbon dioxide and is absorbed by all plants and animals. At the moment of death, plants and animals cease to absorb C-14. It then begins to decay back into nitrogen 14. This has a half-life of 5,730 years. Five “half-lives” of C-14 would equal 29,000 years, and would leave only 1/32 of the original C-14 content. Therefore, the C-14 method becomes increasingly weak past a few thousand years. As with the other dating methods, C-14 has its problems. Many living systems are not in equilibrium for the C-14 exchange. It has been found that the shells of living mollusks may show radiocarbon ages up to 2,300 years. The amount of natural carbon may have varied in the past. It is known that the earth once had far more vegetation than today. This is indicated by the vast amounts of coal deposits now known all over the world. Consequently, organisms living at that time would be subjected to only a very small C-14 to C-12 ratio, and their remains now would contain no radiocarbon at all, even if they had lived 6,000 years ago. On the other hand, during the ice age there would have been much less C-12 than during the vegetation age. However, one must exercise care in attempting to pinpoint exactly a recent creation date. For example, the Irish seventeenth-century theologian Archbishop James Ussher and his contemporary Dr. John Lightfoot, stated that creation week occurred on October 18-24 in the year 4004 B.C., and that the creation of Adam took place on Friday of that week, October 23, 4004 B.C., at 9:00 A.M., 45th meridian time.

And here's an article called "Doesn't Carbon-14 Dating Disprove the Bible?"

I discovered this link the other day about why apologetics, especially on creation, is important. It's called "Why do we need to look outside the Bible? Answering questions about creation and evolution is vital for strengthening faith" Enjoy!

Bookwyrm: ditto on the economy.

220 wrote:
And the verse you're thinking of is Romans 6:23.

x 100

I don't know why that one popped directly into mind. The one I was thinking of was "The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ", and I'm not sure how I got em' switched around like that. I'm at work, which is where I always am when interesting topics pop up in here and the IT department has all religious sites blocked (like biblegateway.com) so I can't double-check where I normally do at home. I'm half surprised they allow me to visit NWeb for that matter.

The quote you gave is Romans 6:23. But it's okay. I have to double-check stuff too, which is why I use BibleGateway.com. So why does your dept block religious sites? What's the difference between this and atheistic China's internet policies?

So why does your dept block religious sites? What's the difference between this and atheistic China's internet policies?

Probably the fact that it's a business where he's probably not meant to be on non-work related sites in the first place, as opposed to restricting information to an entire country

Well, couldn't we be looking at alternate sources of electricity, such as Solar Power?

I don't have a problem with pursuing alternate forms of energy. I think it's a brilliant idea. I'd love it if we didn't have to depend on oil and coal for fuel. I do have a problem with crippling Western society and impoverishing the world on the word of scientists who have trashed actual science in favor of emotional hyperbole and manipulation of data.

Probably the fact that it's a business where he's probably not meant to be on non-work related sites in the first place, as opposed to restricting information to an entire country

Good point. BUT ... why single out religious sites? They're just one type of "non-work-related sites." Does SL's department block Facebook or Twitter? They don't block NarniaWeb, apparently, and surely that isn't work-related.

Fencer, I think you brought up the subject of idolatry earlier. Right now, I'm reading a book called We Become What We Worship, by G. K. Beale (2008). Beale's thesis in the book is that "what people revere, they resemble, either for ruin or restoration" (16). He explores this thesis first through a lengthy exegesis and analysis of Isaiah 6. And in the introduction (p 17), this is what he says about idolatry. Italics are his.

Martin Luther's larger catechism discussion of the first commandment ("You shall have no other gods before Me" [Ex 20]) included "whatever your heart clings to and relies upon, that is your God; trust and faith of the heart alone make both God and idol." I might add here, "whatever your heart clings to or relies on for ultimate security." "The idol is whatever claims the loyalty that belongs to God alone."* These are good and basic definitions of idolatry. The word idolatry can refer to the worship of other gods besides the true God, or the reverence of images. According to both the ancient Near East and the Old Testament, an idol or image contained a god's presence, though that presence was not limited to the image.

*J. A. Motyer, "Idolatry," in The Illustrated Bible Dictionary, ed. J. D. Douglas (1980).

Beale then quotes Christopher Wright [The Mission of God, 2006]: "[W]hile gods and idols may be implements of or gateways to the world of the demonic, the overwhelming verdict of Scripture is that they are the work of human hands, constructs of our own fallen and rebellious imagination. [T]he primal problem with idolatry is that it blurs the distinction between the Creator God and the creation. This both damages creation (including ourselves) and diminishes the glory of the Creator" (17).

Draugin, I think you partly defined religion as something "involving devotional and ritual observances." Worship, whether true [Yahweh] or false [i.e. idolatry], precedes religion. Religion is man-made, his imperfect attempt to do what God commands. And worship is a divine command. However, religion usually ends up "involving devotional and ritual observances." But this isn't worship. The Pharisees were very religious but they didn't worship God. In Eden, before the fall, worship consisted of [and still does] a relationship with God, of walking with Him. The first instance of religion? "And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons" [Gen 3]. What they did was inadequate. All religion is inadequate. It doesn’t cover or hide sin. Only God can do that. And He does, in 3 “Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins and clothed them.” This involved blood, the only atonement for sin.

Going from one species in one kind to another within that kind is micro-evolution. I could see all felines (house cats, lions, tigers, panthers, etc) coming from a common ancestor. I can see the dogs and wolves coming from the same type. Horses and zebras also likely came from a common ancestor. But as I mentioned before, where do these kinds start sharing commonality? A big evolutionary argment is that birds came from reptiles. Two completely different types.

You've forgotten one Evolutionary step. Method of reproduction. And the implications of what that might mean for a link between animals and reptiles. On a continent far away, but not so far that Man and his dog, the Dingo, could not get there in the mists of time, all the fauna, whatever they look like and however closely they resemble animals elsewhere, reproduce in marsupial fashion. Consider the differences and similarities between possums (Australia) and opossums (North America)

Echidnas, spiny anteating hedgehog look-alikes, lay eggs and suckle their young. As do platypuses. These are monotremes, the only two creatures left in the world that can do this, other than reptiles and birds, survivors from the dinosaur age. The marsupial is a step up from egg-laying since the live young is nurtured in a pouch.

Whilst fish in general reproduce by laying eggs, just like chooks, most reptiles and amphibians, some species of sharks and snakes do reproduce by giving birth to their live offspring, for preference.

It is the advantage in giving birth to live offspring and nurturing them by secreting milk for a substantial period of time afterwards, that is the crucial step taken by mammalian forms of life elsewhere, and what links dogs, cats, horses etc to whales, humans and elephants. And yes many species of animals have shrunk in size over many centuries with giant size wombats now as much fossils as woolly mammoths.

I don't have a problem with pursuing alternate forms of energy. I think it's a brilliant idea. I'd love it if we didn't have to depend on oil and coal for fuel. I do have a problem with crippling Western society and impoverishing the world on the word of scientists who have trashed actual science in favor of emotional hyperbole and manipulation of data.

Fair point. But maybe Western Society would not have faced crippling so much if it weren't for the greed of oil companies and oil-exporting countries in not even considering developing viable alternatives to oil and coal a lot sooner than the present. Like in 1974, when the first Oil crisis happened.

I actually have to stand corrected on my astronomical data I mentioned above. Beatleguise is still twice the size of earth's orbit, but if the earth was a golf ball, you could fill the Superdome, not once, but 3000 times. That's the earth to star comparison. The next star I mentioned was Mu Cephi. Again, the earth is a golf ball. Compare that with the Empire State Building, six times. Canis Majorus is the ridiculous one. You compare the earth to Canis Majorus and you get a golf ball vs Mt Everest. And we (people in general) tend to think the universe revolves around us. There's no way to truthly fathom these numbers. These are just four stars (including the sun) among millions of billions of stars. If you count the stars in just the Milky Way Galaxy at a rate of one star per second, it would take you several thousand years to do it. That's just one galaxy out of millions. Just try to fathom those numbers and still try to say it came by chance. And the Bible says God holds the entire universe within the span of his hand. I tell you what, I can hear this or say this over and over again and I am completely and totally blown away at how big and powerful God is. And what even gets more crazy than that is that God is a personal, relational God who has a good, pleasing, perfect plan for each and every one of us. I've got no words to express what that means to me.

Wagga, I did not forget about reproduction. How is that done? You take the genes from a mother and from a father and the combination is the offspring. You take green peas and yellow peas and cross breed them. You get four results. Green peas, yellow peas, and a mix of green and yellow peas. Do you get red peas? Do you get corn? Do you get tomatoes? No. You get a combination of data that was already there. If two fish breed, the offspring will have gills. If two frogs breen, the offspring has lungs. If a pair of life forms have no data whatsoever for lungs, no matter how many times they reproduce, they will never get lungs. Reproduction does not hold the key to evolution. It drastically hinders it. Mutations are just bad connections between the data that's already there. They are not new data. It doesn't matter how many generations pass. Cats will still produce cats, dogs will still produce dogs, fish will still produce fish. Varieties may multiply as certain genes grow more dominate over recessive ones, but they all come from the same set of genes. Are you saying that the first bacteria that formed in the primordal soup held every possible gene for every possible life form? That's the only way evolution stands a chance through reproduction. Think about it. Most proponents of evolution don't (I didn't say can't, I said don't). Most of them don't know any better. I've heard the same arguments many times and they sound like they've been taken straight out of a textbook. It's nothing new. Think about what evolution says it full of so many holes and more keep coming. Think about it. Add the numbers together. Evolution doesn't make sense. Creation still does.

Interim species. Lung-fish anyone?

Again Fencer, I think you misunderstand how Natural Selection works. Micro and Macro-Evolution are one and the same process.

Speciation occurs when geographical separation occurs between groups, or when climates change in some areas but not others, or when a certain biological Niche is vacant.

House Cats and Lions clearly have a common ancestor yet they cannot mate. They are different species but their speciation occured more recently than say, the speciation that separates canines from felines.

Indeed it is just as clear from examining biological structures (eyes, skeletons, lungs etc.) and from Genomic variation and similarity that all mammals, indeed all creatures on Earth have a common ancestor.

GB

I’m enjoying this discussion, and offer kudos to our participants for keeping it civil. I’ve seen this topic degenerate quickly on other boards. Keep it up!

As a rule I stay out of the biological aspects of the discussion since I’d quickly be out of my depth. But it’s different when we wander into astronomy or physics. So with little ado, a few thoughts on recent comments:

And not only that, one of the Laws that evolution needs for its basis, the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, is constantly debunking what evolution assumes (that as time allows, life adapts for the better and eliminates 'unneccessary vestigular parts'). The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics states that everything is in a tendency towards disorder and it takes a mechanism to control the chaotic energy and make it useful. Only one such device exists in nature, chlorophyll. Adding energy alone does not help a system. We added a whole bunch of energy at Hiroshima. Did we get a city out of it? Or a spaceship? The only way you can add energy to a system and have it make things better is to have a device control that energy.

Strictly speaking, evolution as commonly described, even on a planetary scale, does not violate the Second Law, which states that entropy – roughly, disorder – will tend to increase in a closed system if it’s not in equilibrium. That italicized disclaimer is crucial – the earth is not a thermodynamically closed system; it receives energy from the sun and radiates it into space.

…it takes a mechanism to control the chaotic energy and make it useful….Adding energy alone does not help a system…

This assertion, while useful in helping us think about this issue, is not itself a necessary outcome of the Second Law (which only concerns that net increase in entropy in closed systems).

Purely natural processes can increase order in nature. I see two examples just looking out my window: ice and snowflakes, both of which represent a more ordered structure for water than either its liquid or vapor forms. (The Second Law requires only that this local decrease in entropy be more than offset somewhere else, and then only if the earth is in a closed system, i.e., the universe in this case).

To be sure, freezing water is not the same as abiogenesis (life from lifelessness) or the incredibly complex processes that would be required for molecules-to-man evolution on a grand scale. I only mention this to point out that the Second Law is not a valid argument against evolution per se.

(An argument could be made, however, that the increase in order hypothesized for the primordial universe – the early development of which is a hot topic in Big Bang cosmology – might be a thermodynamic issue, depending on things like whether the universe is a closed system or if the laws of nature as we now know them were in flux at the time).

It’s noteworthy that some creationist groups (such as Answers in Genesis) have acknowledged this and point out that it’s the increase in information over time (primarily through increasingly-complex DNA and other structures) that is the problem with evolution, not a perceived violation of the Second Law.

The conditions on Planet Earth are so completely unique it boggles the mind.

To be sure, the “Goldilocks” conditions of our solar system are truly impressive and make a good case for a creator (or at least intelligent design). But if I may play devil’s advocate a moment, it can also be asserted that these conditions appear ideal to us precisely because those are the conditions under which life here evolved. That is, we’re here, so the conditions are necessarily ideal to us (this is a variation of Brandon Carter’s Weak Anthropic Principle).

…All the stars reveal thier shapes and arrangements from the Earth's POV.…But we use the stars for navigation (on both land and sea before compasses and GPS). They rotate from our POV with an insane level of precision.

Do you mean the constellations? They are indeed an outcome of where our planet is in relation to the others, so they’re comparatively unique from our POV. (Incidentally computer and planetary programs can calculate what the sky would look like from nearby stars, applying straightforward – but repetitive – calculations. Fun stuff! Way back when I tried it in my spare time with a simple calculator, but quickly tired of it).

The rotation, if I understand your post correctly, is an artifact only of earth’s rotation, which is precisely why the stars work so well for navigation (with rare exceptions, proper stellar motions of the naked-eye stars is detectable only over a long period of time, though the ancients did detect the apparent motion caused by earth’s own precession).

Now while I am on this, the Bible does say that creation itself declares the glory of God.

Indeed! And while I grew up reading scientific texts speculating on a purely naturalistic origin of the universe (this was before Big Bang cosmology – with its indication of a specific “time” of creation – was all the rage. Yeah, I’m that old. ), it was spending time out under the glorious star-studded sky that caused me to search for a Creator behind the creation.

Edit: Thanks for your astronomical clarifications, Fencer; I was about to inquire of them. For Canis Majorus, I suspect you mean VY Canis Majoris, the largest stellar object known – if placed where the sun is, it might extend out to the orbit of Saturn. You’re absolutely right – these things truly boggle the mind.

Fair point. But maybe Western Society would not have faced crippling so much if it weren't for the greed of oil companies and oil-exporting countries in not even considering developing viable alternatives to oil and coal a lot sooner than the present. Like in 1974, when the first Oil crisis happened.

How is that the oil companies fault? They're under no obligation to develop new power sources, that's the scientists jobs. As for the oil-exporting countries, most of them export oil and that's it. The Middle East would be bankrupt if it weren't for oil. It's kind of naive to expect these entities to be so noble and high-minded that they'll destroy their sources of income for the betterment of humanity or whatever when most individual citizens couldn't be convinced to do so.

Probably the fact that it's a business where he's probably not meant to be on non-work related sites in the first place, as opposed to restricting information to an entire country

Good point. BUT ... why single out religious sites? They're just one type of "non-work-related sites." Does SL's department block Facebook or Twitter? They don't block NarniaWeb, apparently, and surely that isn't work-related.

I work in a corporate building with its own corporate IT department, and thus there are many websites that are blocked. The computer blocks out anything it finds that is religious in nature, as well as anything game-related. Facebook is also off-limits, although that was a relatively recent thing (I could access it at work about 3 months ago and then it was gone). We're also strictly forbidden to access online radio stations as apparently the streaming feed one can get for listening to it online soaks up a whole lot of bandwidth and has a bad effect on the whole.

To be honest I'm not sure why NWeb isn't blocked at work, but I'm glad it's not. When nothing is going on I like to peruse it and also spend some time on wikipedia and amazon just perusing.

Interim species. Lung-fish anyone?

Ok, I'll play along . What is is transforming from and what is it transforming into?

I don't have a problem with pursuing alternate forms of energy. I think it's a brilliant idea. I'd love it if we didn't have to depend on oil and coal for fuel. I do have a problem with crippling Western society and impoverishing the world on the word of scientists who have trashed actual science in favor of emotional hyperbole and manipulation of data.

Fair point. But maybe Western Society would not have faced crippling so much if it weren't for the greed of oil companies and oil-exporting countries in not even considering developing viable alternatives to oil and coal a lot sooner than the present. Like in 1974, when the first Oil crisis happened.

As long as there is oil there will be the internal combustion engine. Until then we can all dream of solar powered houses and windmills dotting the landscape and providing cheap, abundant energy. I'm not against these things one bit. But the technology, as it stands now, is largely in its infancy. Solar powered is very tricky at the current time as you need a whole lot of photovoltaic panels to produce just a little bit of electricity, and it's prone to not working at full capacity on non-sunny days (that follows). The windmills that have been put up are a novel concept, but apparently an eyesore to people who live close to them, but even worse, create terrible noise pollution. I've read about several cases online where residents demanded their removal or at least relocation because the noise is constant, day and night.

So we're back to oil and coal. There's nothing wrong with oil and coal in and of themselves...they're plentiful, reliable, and get the job done in a perfectly adequate manner, and there's enough there to continue doing this job for some time to come. The downside, of course, is the pollution it creates, but this can be mitigated by putting in pollution controls. If they can plug a catalytic converter on my car (which roasts any exhaust coming out of the engine to the point where it's not really a factor) then I must admit I'm at a loss as to why so many people are opposed to it.

Eventually, though, oil and coal will run out (I've read that this will occur in a century or two at current rate of consumption) and that is when you'll see things start to change over to alternative fuels. By then they may have figured out how to make a better solar panel, or they could even have invented some new type of energy creating mechanism by then. Necessity is the mother of invention.

What Bookwyrm is saying is that these changes are being forced on us now, and not for the noble reasons that their proponents are suggesting. There is and has never been proof of man-made global warming. We don't know if the current warming trend is a natural function of the Earth, and because regular temperature data have only started to be catalogued about 100 years ago we don't have the necessary data to say for sure what it may have been pre-1900. And that's what makes me leery of the people quarterbacking the current "Green" conversion of popular culture. The current reason is more about control than it is about saving the planet (as though we were capable of destroying it...even after a nuclear war the Earth would eventually return to a state of equilibrium even after we were long gone). Government, in its most pure form, constantly wants to expand. It's a natural effect, which is why most governments have a set of controls which says that the Govt. can do this but it can't do that. If a national government passes this fiasco (and "fiasco" is an understatement) it will literally cripple the economy of that nation and ensure that the government has a means of monitoring every little thing you do which involves energy.

Imagine a cold winter. You run over to turn the heat on to a comfortable setting. With these governement "controls" in place this becomes a thing of the past...the Government will determine what you can set your thermostat to and for how long, all under the guise of "saving the planet". And this after we just saw this e-mail leak in which scientists are "fudging" data openly, leading me to wonder how much of this is truly about "saving the Earth" versus "exerting control". I believe we should be good stewards of this Earth we've been given. I do not believe that we should be forced to be good stewards under a false assumption.

And not to sound like I'm running to the defense of Big Oil, but have we forgotten that the primary reason for a business is to make money? This is the whole reason people go into business. Now I'm not saying Big Oil is completely immune to corruption, but they're out to make a tidy profit and there's nothing wrong with that. What you call "greed" I call "entrepreneurship". Not to ring the Ayn Rand mega-bell too loud, but ya'll need to check your motivations and think of the long range repercussions of making such off the wall judgement calls.

I'm all for small business and entrepeneurship, but I think Big Corporations are the ones "exerting control" and "Fudging the data" all in the name of Greed. I don't think Adam Smith would recognize what's been happening in regards to Market Control by the Big Fish as being what he was on about. And I don't think Rand thought her ideas out to their logical conclusion.

But this whole conversation sounds like Politics to me so that's all I'm saying lest I go on some Narniaweb banned Tirade .

As to Lungfish, I was merely using that as an example to counter this:

Fencer:
Half aquatic/half land critters: I assume you refer to creatures like frogs and alligators, right. This doesn't prove anything for evolution. Yes, both of these creatures live on land but also must live in humid, wet climates. But do these creatures have half gills, half lungs? No. Frogs, alligators, and the like have lungs. Whales have lungs. They have to have a complete set of working lungs, along with every other small part required for breathing just to survive a few minutes. The Sperm Whale I understand can hold its breath the longest at 90 minutes. Gills are a completely different mechanism that takes in water, absorbes the oxygen in the water, and expells the water out. Going from fins to fingers is what evolution has for it. But the gills to lungs completely throws it out, and it is never mentioned in the textbooks. You can't go from on to the other gradually. It has to completely work one way or the other or the creature dies.

In response may i present the Lungfish:

Lungfish (also known as salamanderfish[1]) are freshwater fish belonging to the Subclass Dipnoi. Lungfish are best-known for retaining characteristics primitive within the Osteichthyes, including the ability to breathe air, and structures primitive within Sarcopterygii, including the presence of lobed fins with a well-developed internal skeleton. Today, they live only in Africa, South America, and Australia. While vicariance would suggest this represents an ancient distribution limited to the Mesozoic supercontinent Gondwana, the fossil record suggests that advanced lungfish had a widespread freshwater distribution and that the current distribution of modern lungfish species reflects extinction of many lineages following the breakup of Pangaea, Gondwana, and Laurasia.

All lungfish have two lungs (except for the Australian, which has one) that connect to the pharynx. While other species of fish can breathe air via modified, vascularized gas bladders, these bladders are usually simple sacs, devoid of complex internal structure. In contrast, the lungs of lungfish are subdivided into numerous smaller air sacs, greatly increasing surface area for improved gas exchange. Furthermore, while the aforementioned vascularized swim bladders have arisen independently in several lineages of fish, only in the lungfish are they homologous to the lungs of tetrapods.

Just a few basic facts about lungfish:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lungfish

Just as dolphins and whales are land mammals (one group of tetrapods) that "returned to the sea", and sea lions are also seafaring land mammals, the lungfish represents a species of fish adapting the other direction, from sea to land.

And from another website:

The Dipnoi are a group of sarcopterygiian fish, are are commonly known as the lungfish. Their "lung" is a modified swim bladder, which in most fish is used for buoyancy in swimming, but in the lungfish also absorbs oxygen and removes wastes. Modern lungfish in Africa and South America are able to survive when their pools dry up by burrowing into the mud and sealing themselves within a mucous-lined burrow. During this time, they breathe air through their swim bladder instead of through their gills, and reduce their metabolic rate dramatically. These fish will even drown if they are kept underwater and not allowed to breathe air!

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/vertebrates/sarco/dipnoi.html

This demonstrates an adaptation that allowed fish to survive in drying periods. It made them a succesful enough species that they have survived up to date. But it's not a stretch to see how some species of ancient lungfish could adapt to walking on land just as some Catfish and mudskippers and other "Walking Fish" do:

Most commonly this term is applied to amphibious fish. Able to spend longer times out of water, these fish may use a number of means of locomotion, including springing, snake-like lateral undulation, and tripod-like walking. The mudskippers are probably the best land-adapted of contemporary fish and are able to spend days moving about out of water and can even climb mangroves, although to only modest heights.[1] The Climbing gourami is often specifically referred to as a "walking fish", although it does not actually "walk", but rather moves in a jerky way by supporting itself on the extended edges of its gill plates and pushing itself by its fins and tail. Some reports indicate that it can also climb trees.[1]
There are a number of fish that are less adept at actual walking, such as the walking catfish. Despite being known for "walking on land", this fish usually wriggles and may use its pectoral fins to aid in its movement. Walking Catfish have a respiratory system that allows them to live out of water for several days. Some are invasive species. A notorious case in the United States is the Northern snakehead.[2] Polypterids have rudimentary lungs and can also move about on land, though rather clumsily.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walking_fish

Now I don't know if these websites qualify as textbooks Fencer, but how much do you want to bet all this stuff is in a textbook you haven't read?

If that ain't evidence for Natural Selection AKA Evolution, I don't know what is!!!

Peace and Long Life

Gandalf's Beard