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To: Ichneumon
It's no overstatement to say that to any objective observer who has taken the time to actually view and understand the DNA evidence, the debate over whether life on Earth evolved through common ancestry is *over*. The evidence is just vastly overwhelming that it did.

Ichneumon, Ichneumon...I have skimmed over the lengthy post #76 that you referred to in one of your previous posts. No doubt, it seems impressive, and I freely concede that I do not have the background in these fields of study, not to mention the sheer time it would take, to explore all of the citations, articles, ad nauseum that you list there.

However, it is not necessary for me to go on a fruitless quest to understand the minute details of everything that evolutionists allege in their papers and articles. That would be a tremendous waste of time and energy. The crux of the matter is that it still boils down to some basic questions that must be dealt with up front.

Setting the philosophical questions aside, the two biggest problems for the evolutionists are the absence of transitional fossil forms and the blind-faith assertion that macroevolution has occurred.

Here is a link from True Origins which deals exhaustively with macroevolution. I could see just by the link titles on this page that it deals with many of the issues your post 76 referred to.

http://www.trueorigin.org/theobald1a.asp

Beyond that, there is the basic philosophy of atheism/agnosticism which drives the evolutionist. There are some quotes here which will surprise you. Here is an article from the Answers In Genesis website. Note especially the quotes from Michael J. Behe:

Biblical claim: We are able to recognize evidence of design (intelligent input) when we see it (e.g., Mt. Rushmore, a watch). The evidence of design in the creation is also apparent and implies there is a Designer.

Secular counter-claim: Things have evolved to fit their environment, so of course they will appear “designed.”

The molecule of heredity, DNA, contains the information necessary to build life. Where did the information come from?

The biochemical machines necessary to “read” the information on DNA are also built by the information on the DNA. Both must be in place from the beginning in order to function properly.

Information scientists have found that information and code systems cannot arise from matter on their own, but must be organized by an intelligent source, ultimately. God, infinitely intelligent, is the source for the information and code systems necessary for life.

The evolutionists who deny God have a blind faith—they have to believe something that is against real science—namely, that information can arise from disorder by chance. The Christian faith is not a blind faith, but is logically defensible, and explains the findings of real science.

Quotes

Carl Sagan, Cosmos, p. 4, 1980. The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.

Richard Dawkins (a vehement atheistic evolutionist), The Blind Watchmaker, W.W. Norton & Co, New York, p. 43, 1987. We have seen that living things are too improbable and too beautifully designed to have come into existence by chance.

Michael J. Behe, Darwin’s Black Box, The Free Press, pp. 252–253, 1996. Now it’s the turn of the fundamental science of life, modern biochemistry, to disturb. The simplicity that was once expected to be the foundation of life has proven to be a phantom; instead, systems of horrendous, irreducible complexity inhabit the cell. The resulting realization that life was designed by an intelligence is a shock to us in the twentieth century who have gotten used to thinking of life as the result of simple natural laws. But other centuries have had their shocks, and there is no reason to suppose that we should escape them.

Michael J. Behe, Darwin’s Black Box, The Free Press, p. 243, 1996. The fourth and most powerful reason for science’s reluctance to embrace a theory of intelligent design is also based on philosophical considerations. Many people, including many important and well-respected scientists, just don’t want there to be anything beyond nature. They don’t want a supernatural being to affect nature, no matter how brief or constructive the interaction may have been. In other words, like young-earth creationists, they bring an a priori philosophical commitment to their science that restricts what kinds of explanations they will accept about the physical world. Sometimes this leads to rather odd behavior.

Werner Gitt, In the Beginning was Information, CLV, Bielenfeld, Germany, pp. 64–7. There is no known natural law through which matter can give rise to information, neither is any physical process or material phenomenon known that can do this.

Richard Lewontin (Harvard Geneticist), Billions & Billions of Demons, The New York Review of Books, p. 31, Jan. 9, 1997. Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. (Emphases in original.)

San Diego Union-Tribune, November 5, 1993. Some speculate that alien intelligence might beam vast streams of coded information, a virtual encyclopedia galactica, with insights into the origin of the universe or immortality.

Carl Sagan, The Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective, Anchor Press, Doubleday, p. 224, 1973. At this very moment the messages from another civilization may be wafting across space, driven by unimaginably advanced devices, there for us to detect them—if only we knew how. Or perhaps the messages are already here, present in some everyday experience that we have not made the right mental effort to recognize. The power of such an advanced civilization is very great. Their messages may lie in quite familiar circumstances. The message from the stars may be here already. But where?

Charles Darwin, The Morality of Evolution, Autobiography, Norton, p. 94, 1958. A man who has no assured and ever-present belief in the existence of a personal God, or of a future existence with retribution and reward, can have for his rule of life, as far as I can see, only to follow those impulses and instincts which are the strongest or which seem to him the best ones.

Jeffrey Dahmer (serial murderer) in an interview with Stone Phillips, Dateline NBC, November 29, 1994. If a person doesn’t think there is a God to be accountable to, then—then what’s—what’s the point of—of trying to modify your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges? That how I thought, anyway. I always believed the theory of evolution as truth, that we all just came from the slime. When we died, you know, that was it, there is nothing … .

Here is a link which is one of many from Answers In Genesis that describes the problem with transitional fossils:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/Home/Area/re1/chapter3.asp

1,059 posted on 05/03/2006 7:06:22 AM PDT by music_code (Atheists can't find God for the same reason a thief can't find a policeman.)
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To: music_code; Ichneumon; PatrickHenry
Ichneumon, Ichneumon...I have skimmed over the lengthy post #76 that you referred to in one of your previous posts. No doubt, it seems impressive, and I freely concede that I do not have the background in these fields of study, not to mention the sheer time it would take, to explore all of the citations, articles, ad nauseum that you list there.

However, it is not necessary for me to go on a fruitless quest to understand the minute details of everything that evolutionists allege in their papers and articles. That would be a tremendous waste of time and energy. The crux of the matter is that it still boils down to some basic questions that must be dealt with up front.

Setting the philosophical questions aside, the two biggest problems for the evolutionists are the absence of transitional fossil forms and the blind-faith assertion that macroevolution has occurred.

I really don't know whether to laugh or cry. I suppose this is way too long for "this is your brain on creationism"....

1,063 posted on 05/03/2006 7:34:48 AM PDT by Chiapet (I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me)
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To: music_code
the two biggest problems for the evolutionists are the absence of transitional fossil forms and the blind-faith assertion that macroevolution has occurred.

I'll deal with the transitionals, as you included no information at all on them.

This will involve posting the "skulls" photograph that Mamzelle hates so much, so don't tell her, OK?

Now, the claim that there are no transitionals completely ignores the folks in this photograph. Except for #A, a modern chimp, the rest follow along in a fairly nice progression--which is laid out in the chart which follows the photograph.

Now, which of these are transitionals? Why, all of them! Every population (as evolution works on populations, not individuals) is transitional between ancestors and descendants. The small differences can build up over time into bigger differences.

Look at the similarities between #A (a modern chimp) and #B (Australopithecus). You can also see some differences.

These differences can also be seen in various other traits in the photograph. For example, note from #B to about #G and H the reduction in alveolar prognathism (the forward projection of the lower face). Note also the increase in brain size from #C to #I.

Now, you have see with your own eyes that there are intermediate steps in the process of changing from #B, a very chimp-like early ancestor to #N, modern humans. These intermediate steps can be called transitionals.

OK, skip to the bottom for closing comments.

Figure 1.4.4. Fossil hominid skulls. Some of the figures have been modified for ease of comparison (only left-right mirroring or removal of a jawbone). (Images © 2000 Smithsonian Institution.)



Source: http://wwwrses.anu.edu.au/environment/eePages/eeDating/HumanEvol_info.html

Of course I do not expect you to accept this, because it would obviously go against your already-decided religious beliefs.

But it is disingenuous for you to be entering into the various fields of science with a large stop sign, saying,

STOP! You idiots don't know nothin', I'll tell you how it really was!

based on your religious belief rather than on any scientific evidence.

1,066 posted on 05/03/2006 7:45:19 AM PDT by Coyoteman (Creationists know Jack Chick about evolution.)
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To: music_code
No doubt, it seems impressive, and I freely concede that I do not have the background in these fields of study, not to mention the sheer time it would take, to explore all of the citations, articles, ad nauseum that you list there. . .

Setting the philosophical questions aside, the two biggest problems for the evolutionists are the absence of transitional fossil forms and the blind-faith assertion that macroevolution has occurred.

Let me get this straight. You admit that you don't have the background or the time to study the evidence for the theory of evolution, and then you say that although you aren't qualified to analyze it and you don't know what the evidence is you know that we don't have evidence?? Talk about blind faith!

We have fossil transitional species and we have genetic evidence that "macroevolution" has occurred, and we have observed mechanisms that allow this. Unfortunately as long as you're getting your information from YEC propaganda you will remain perpetually ignorant of this.

1,069 posted on 05/03/2006 7:51:06 AM PDT by ahayes (Yes, I have a devious plot. No, you may not know what it is.)
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