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Evolution is a Lie, and you Skeptics KNOW it! Part 2
By Dr. Mark Purchase, Ph.D.
Posted on: 8/20/2003
All correspondence received by Skeptic Friends Network or its staff becomes the property of Skeptic Friends Network, and may be printed without the consent of the author.
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Tommy Huxley finally responds
Dear Dr. Purchase,
I apologize for taking so long to answer your letter. Judging from the correspondence you reprinted from others, you consider a tardy response a conspiracy of silence.
I think you should take into account the fact that some of the people you''ve contacted are busy professionals with families that have to set aside time to answer lengthy emails from total strangers.
Now, in response to your previous letters:
> What proof is there for atheism? You must
> answer this if you want people embrace atheism.
As others have already pointed out, I''m an agnostic, not an atheist. I accepted Christ and was baptized when I was 9 years old, but later became disillusioned with the convoluted apologetics I was force-fed as an adult. And my transformation didn''t occur overnight. It was a long and painful progression.
> It''s just simply impossible to disprove God.
> To say ''God does not exist'' is a universal negative.
Congratulations. In all your voluminous correspondence, we agree on a single issue.
> The theory of evolution is NOT a scientific proven
> theory or fact. If Sceptics honestly evaluated the
> evidence they would KNOW this.
Since you get all your information from creationist sources, that doesn''t surprise me at all.
> Are we supposed to hate Christians, laugh at
> God and mock the Bible like you people?
Since my wife, children, parents, siblings, grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, and best friends are all Christians, it''s unlikely that I''ll go through life "hating" them.
> I have shown myself completely open and
> ready to read and listen to what you say.
I''m sorry, but judging from the content of everything else you''ve written, you reject all dissenting viewpoints that aren''t your own.
> "Lets face it, students, Hydrogen is a gas which, if
> left long enough, turns into people...."
If you''re going to criticize something, at least don''t misrepresent the position that you''re criticizing. Modern astrophysics suggests that all the elements heavier than hydrogen were fused together in stellar cores after they exhausted their original fuel sources. And these same stars were "born" from heavier elements as well.
> Evolution is not universally accepted.
> Many highly qualified scientists today reject evolution.
Of course! NOTHING is "universally" accepted. You even have creation scientists like Malcom Bowden who deny that the Earth orbits the sun. Click here
http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/geocentr.htm.
Malcom Bowden also writes the for the creationist "True Origins" website.
> I shouldn''t be the one having to provide you with the facts.
Don''t worry -- you haven''t.
> But ask yourself, Why does the scientific community
> have such a wide radius of thought and not united
> on evolution?
If you look at your fifteen creationist book recommendations, I could ask you the same thing: Why can''t creationists agree on whether the universe is six thousand or 14 billion years old when they all appeal to the very same scriptural proof texts? These "Bible believers" disagree by a factor greater than 2.3 million! How can they claim the same authoritative Word?
Furthermore, Michael Behe says that humans and primates share a common ancestor. Phillip Johnson, his colleague in the Intelligent Design movement, says they don''t. Russell Humphrey''s book "Starlight and Time" was regularly trashed in the Creation Research Society Quarterly for its pitiable physics.
How can Bible-believing scientists have such a wide radius of thought?
> Why has the scientific community not found one
> instance of change from one species into another?
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/
faq-speciation.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/
speciation.html
> Where are the missing links in the evolutionary
> chain from primitive to modern plants?
http://www.uni-wuerzburg.de/mineralogie/palbot3b.html#journals
> From single cells to invertebrates?
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/precambrian/proterolife.html
> Invertebrates to fish?
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional/part1a.html#bony
> Fish to amphibians?
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional/part1a.html#amph1
> Amphibians to reptiles?
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/
faq-transitional/part1b.html#rept1
> Reptiles to birds?
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/
faq-transitional/part1b.html#bird
> Reptiles to mammals?
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/
faq-transitional/part1b.html#mamm
> Land mammals to sea mammals?
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/
faq-transitional/part2b.html#ceta
> Non-flying mammals to bats?
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/
faq-transitional/part2a.html#bat
> Apes to humans?
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/
> There should be millions of transitional forms between
> the species. Where are they? If the Stone Age lasted for
> at least 100,000 years as they say, there should be
> millions of skeletons. Where are they?
Why do creationists believe that fossilization is the inevitable fate of all dead animals when, in fact, it''s disintegration? Fossilization requires a carcass to be buried rapidly in malleable silt before scavengers destroy it, and then remain undisturbed for millions (or in the case of dinosaurs, hundreds of millions) of years in an oxygen-free environment with just the right pH and a host of other special chemical conditions, AND avoid pulverization from natural geologic processes like plate tectonics.
The existing fossil record is heavily lopsided in favor of marine invertebrates because terrestrial animals are much less likely to be preserved in their idyllic state. Yet the question we should ask ourselves is not why the fossil record is so spotty, but why is it so darn good? The record we DO possess is nothing short of miraculous!
> Dinosaur bones that are not fossilised have been
> discovered - proving they cannot be millions of
> years old.
Can you cite a specific reference for this claim? Creationists are notorious for perpetuating urban legends. Zoologist Tim Berra from Ohio State University claims that he wrote his book "Evolution and the Myth of Creationism" after he discovered how creationist textbooks frequently cite "The National Enquirer" in their bibliographies.
> Dinosaur blood cells discovered - blood cells
> cannot survive millions of years
In 1995, Scott Woodward of Brigham Young University claimed that he detected pieces of DNA from 80-million-year-old bones. He said they were fragments of the cytochrome b gene from dinosaur mitochondria.
But in the Nov. 30, 1995 issue of Nature, Caro-Beth Stewart and Randall V. Collura explained how human DNA contaminated Woodward''s samples. Stewart and Collura''s findings were confirmed in the May 26, 1996 issue of Science. Hans Zischler of the University of Munich in Germany had identified pieces of the cytochrome b gene in the human nuclear genome and said that these nuclear inserts had contaminated Woodward''s analyses of the dinosaur bone.
If you can cite any other examples of "dinosaur blood cells," please cite specific references.
> Since Darwin the history of science is fill of fake
> discoveries that promised the missing link but never
> delivered [Consider E. Haeckel]
Ernst Haeckel never discussed missing fossils. Haeckel was a 19th century German biologist who proposed the theory of "ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny" where he suggested that human embryos revisit the adult stages of their evolutionary ancestors during development. That is, he thought our embryos passed through an adult fish stage, amphibian stage, reptilian stage, and so on until the fetuses became human. But "non-creation" scientists completely refuted this hypothesis in the 1920s.
Furthermore, Troy Britain wrote a pretty comprehensive article that refutes other creationist exaggerations and misinformation surrounding Ernst Haeckel at http://inia.cls.org/~ae/Haeckels_embryos.htm
> Numerous claims of "clear evidence" of evolution yet all
> failed under examination. Remember "Pithecanthropus Erectus"
> - "Heidelberg Man" - "Lucy" - "Neandlberg Man" - "Pitdown Man"
> - "Little Foot" - "Swanscombe" - "Hisperopithectus" -
> "Hesperopithecus" or "Zinjanthropus"?
I''m not aware of any "frauds" surrounding Lucy. Can you be more specific?
As for the other "frauds," only Piltdown Man (not "Pitdown") genuinely fooled people. The other specimens you cited were only "believed in" by their original discoverers.
Besides, these all occurred between 72 and 112 years ago. And those mistakes were exposed and corrected by other evolutionists! If paleoanthropologists were engaged in a conspiracy to dupe the public about human evolution, why would they publicize their own errors?
Young-earth creationists, in contrast, have a gloomy history of perpetuating their own "Piltdown" hoaxes that they''re loathe to abandon, which are also more recent. Like the Paluxy, Olmo, Calveras, Castenadolo, and Onyate "pre-flood" men. Kent Hovind was fooled by "Onyate Man" only two years ago.
> Children are certainly not born with a natural belief
> in evolution but they are indoctrinated about that. It''s
> sad the way public education systems handle the
> Creation/Evolution debate. They brainwash children
> to go a certain direction.
They''re certainly not "indoctrinated" here in the South. Public schools in the Bible belt steer clear of evolution with a vengeance.
> The media has had a censorship for years regarding
> news ideas that do not support the theory of evolution.
Can you backup that allegation with specific examples, or is this just a rhetorical contention?
> Newspapers, magazines and journals are committed
> to the evolutionary position.
I think they''re more committed to mainstream science, where biological evolution is merely conventional.
> They focus on Darwin and neglect to mention such
> men as Michael Faraday, James Maxwell and William
> Thomson and Lord Kelvin, who at the time the ''Origin''
> was introduced were the true giants of science. These
> men had great credibility among scientists of the day and
> never did accept Darwin''s theory.
The above makes absolutely no sense. Why should the media place an emphasis on the opinions of 19th century scientists over 21st century scientists? Are you living in the past?
Even Darwin''s original writings have since been overturned by new data. "On the Origin of Species" is consulted only for its historical insight, not its scientific information.
> "Christ" has changed drug addicts, cheats,
> murders and liars.
All world religions change the lives of their converts. That''s why their adherents join.
> Little wonder church organizations worldwide
> have done more good than any theory of evolution.
"Good" in what sense? Has the church explained bacterial inherited resistance to antibiotics better than evolutionary biology?
> Consider Hitler''s Germany, the Master Race, the
> stronger and better will survive, while Jews and
> blacks were regarded as inferior.
Although it can be argued that Hitler didn''t act like a Christian, he wasn''t an atheist, either. He was born a Roman Catholic, baptized as an infant in Austria, became an altar boy, and was confirmed as a "soldier of Christ" in that church.
The worst doctrines of that church never left him. He was steeped in its liturgy, which contained the phrase "perfidious Jew." This anti-Semitic statement wasn''t removed until 1961.
In his autobiography Mein Kampf, Hitler wrote, "I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews, I am doing the Lord''s work."
In his speech on signing the Nazi-Vatican Concordat, Hitler said, "Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without religious foundation is built on air; consequently all character training and religion must be derived from faith." (April 26, 1933)
> The atheist Stalin who followed Darwin was
> perhaps history''s greatest mass murder.
The Thirty Years War pitted Catholics against Protestants in the early 1600s and killed more people in Western Europe than World War II did for the entire planet. Of course, this was a war that pitted Christian against Christian, creationist and creationist, which undermines the dogma that only "atheistic evolutionists" slaughter people en masse.
> The proposition that the universe and world is the
> product of pure chance and believing everything
> happens at random without rhyme or reason; is mental
> suicide.
That''s an "Argument from Personal Incredulity." A person need only exclaim, "I can''t IMAGINE how a natural process designed this structure. If I can''t IMAGINE it, then by God, it MUST be a miracle!"
Furthermore, evolution is random only in the sense that it''s not adaptively directed, but it''s NOT random in the sense that each change must start again from scratch.
Heredity in its evolutionary application lends itself readily to quantification and precise reasoning. This is the subject matter of population genetics, a field well established by the 1930s.
Population geneticists can deal with such quantities as mutation rate, frequency of recombination of genes on the same chromosome; expected rate of replacement of alleles by better-adapted mutant forms; expected levels of chance deviations from expected rates as a function of population size and other variables; differences in these rates between recessive and dominant genes; and many other influences on the evolutionary process.
These quantitative variables can be related to one another algebraically, and evolutionary conclusions can be expressed as solutions to algebraic equations. For an introductory course in population genetics, go to http://piopio.school.nz/popgen.htm.
> Think Larry, examine the facts, do some research.
Think Mark, examine the facts, do some research! If you believe that the earth and universe are only 6,000 years old, you''re not just rejecting evolution -- you''re rejecting ALL the natural sciences!
> But what you ignore is the fact that evolutionary
> theory is NOT a scientific proven theory or fact.
A theory, in the scientific sense, doesn''t mean the same thing as a "guess" or a "hunch." Theories must explain a collection of facts, and evolutionary biology has itself evolved to explain that process with greater precision, accuracy, and clarity. To discount a theory, you must instead present an alternative set of facts to falsify it, and to date, creation science has failed to do that on every single solitary count.
For example, young-earth creationists claim that the fossil record is arranged in a stair-step progression from the simple to the complex because Noah''s flood picked up all the dead animals and miraculously sorted and arranged their carcasses that way.
I suppose that would qualify as a "theory," but there is absolutely NO scientific support for such a hypothesis.
> The idea of a time-scale and any evolutionary sequence
> is an utter shambles in the fossil record. And that''s the facts!
To date, the earliest fossils appear in the Proterozoic more than 3 billion years ago. They possess clear microscopic impressions of prokaryotic cells, cells that (like modern bacteria) have no nuclei. Then, about 1.5 billion years ago, the first of a series of new microscopic fossils appear that have traces of what may be nuclei within their cells -- the eukaryotic cells.
From this clear, unambiguous record, life had taken almost 2 billion years to gain a nucleus, then took several hundred million more to become multicellular. That means single-celled organisms dominated the earth during four-fifths of life''s entire collective existence.
The first multicellular animals fossilized almost 700 million years ago appear in the Ediacaran Hills of Australia. Still, these organisms may or may not be directly related to animals alive today.
The next well-documented period, the Cambrian, clearly contains fossilized organisms ancestral to modern phyla. From this point on, new organisms appear in a pattern of historical succession that is very well documented.
Shellfish and corals, for example, date to the Cambrian, more than 550 million years ago. The first true fish appear in the Ordovician, about 480 million years ago. Amphibians appear 380 million years ago, the first reptiles 40 million years later, and the first true dinosaurs nearly 80 million years later in the Triassic.
The first true mammals show up around 210 million years ago; the first birds appear late in the Jurassic155 million years ago; and the last of the dinosaurs vanished at the end of the Cretaceous 65 million years ago.
> THINK Larry. They came out of the sea -- after millions of
> years [no proof for this] turned into cows and then because
> they feed at the waters edge -- after millions of years land
> mammals turned into sea mammals. Come on Larry, if that''s
> the theory sceptics indorse, they should have a little area
> where people can have a laugh at them.
THINK, Mark! We''re all living in a cursed creation because two nude people ate a piece of magical fruit endowed with paranormal powers of "forbidden knowledge," and they did this after being seduced by a talking snake that spoke perfect Hebrew without the benefit of lips or a larynx!
> Evolution is a scientific religion.
Gee, where have I heard THAT before?
When I lookup the word "evolution" in my Webster''s Collegiate Dictionary, it says, "The development of a species, organism, or organ from its original or primitive state to its present or specialized state; phylogeny or ontogeny." There''s no reference to "religion" at all.
And when I lookup the word "religion," my dictionary says, "A belief in a divine or a superhuman power or powers to be obeyed and worshiped as the creator(s) and ruler(s) of the universe or the expression of such a belief in conduct or ritual."
> Sceptics are not theologians and have no expertise
> in determining whats literal or figurative Scripture.
Are you trying to tell me that I''m not an expert, but you, in fact, are?
> Disprove all the prophecies in the Bible.
I doubt I could disprove "ALL" of them, but this essay debunks the most significant:
http://www.infidels.org/library/
modern/farrell_till/prophecy.html
> Evolution is either atheistic or theistic.
Isn''t that a false dichotomy? That''s like saying, "Acoustics is either atheistic or theistic."
> Modern evolutionists are swinging more and
> more to theistic evolution.
That''s a bold claim without a single, solitary piece of substantiation.
> If God used evolution [as you might suggest] then that
> denies the central teachings of the Bible. The Bible
> teaches the creation of the species, not their evolution.
> They were created to reproduce "after their kind", not to
> evolve to some higher form. The Bible would lose its
> authoritative binding truths and be reinterpreted and
> corrected for every era and every situation. God then,
> is not the author of Scripture for it becomes a collection
> of human mythical documents.
Why don''t you go to Kevin O''Brien''s web site and argue over Christianity versus natural theology with a REAL theistic evolutionist? Kevin is an evolutionist and a Christian, yet he thinks the origin of life can be explained through the development of proteinoid microspheres first proposed by Sidney W. Fox in the 1970s.
Kevin''s web site is at
http://biochemborg.50megs.com/KLOB/foyer.htm.
His email address is kevinlob@email.com.
You can also visit Glenn R. Morton''s website. Glenn is a geologist who used to be a young-earth creationist that wrote articles for the Creation Research Society Quarterly, yet he later abandoned YEC because of its garbled, convoluted logic.
Glenn''s website is at http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/dmd.htm. His email address is glenn.morton@btinternet.com.
> And death, killing and suffering, for example become
> an essential prerequisite for evolution. Death becomes
> an invention of evolution. ''Death'' [in contradiction to
> the Bible] would exist before mans fall into sin
> [Gen.3:17-19]. So we find evolution incompatible with
> Scripture.
The Bible does not say that physical death didn''t exist before original sin. The Bible actually implies that death existed before the fall. Examine the following passage from Genesis 1:30:
"''And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground -- everything that has the breath of life in it -- I give every green plant for food.'' And it was so."
If all the animals on Earth ate green plants for food, then death, decay and decomposition occurred before The Fall. How else do digestive processes work? Where does fecal matter come from? Did all the animals before The Fall take in food without eliminating waste? Isn''t waste the byproduct of death, decay and decomposition?
And does that verse really say that God prohibited animals from eating other animals? Although God says, "I give you every green plant for food," does that offer hold an implied restriction? Or is this an argument from silence? Most carnivorous animals are in reality, omnivorous. If you look at the number one ingredient in dry dog or cat food, it''s not meat but ground corn meal.
In Genesis 3:20, the Bible says, "Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living."
Mother of all the living WHAT? People? Apes? Insects? It just says "all the living," period.
If you''re allowed to interject the word "people" here because you think that assumption logically follows, couldn''t I "logically" assume that God placed no restrictions on the animal''s natural diet?
You''re making Genesis chapter three more complicated than it really is. After God reprimands Adam and Eve for sinning, does he then alter the laws of physics over the entire universe? No. He only kicks them out of the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:22-24):
"And the LORD God said, ''The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.''
"So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the East Side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life."
The Bible says that God created Adam and Eve as mortals. They were never immortal because God denied their access to the Tree of Life.
Now, let''s look at the following passage from the Apostle Paul in Romans 5:12, 14, 17-18:
"Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all [men] sinned.
"Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come.
"For if by the trespass of one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God''s abundant provision of grace and the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ?
"Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men."
Notice that the Biblical reference only says that death happens to all MEN because all MEN sin. Nowhere does it mention animals. Furthermore, it says that just as Adam''s trespass condemns all men, Jesus'' resurrection brings eternal life to all men. Did Jesus save all the world''s animals, too? Should I baptize my cats?
Paul repeats this more succinctly in 1 Corinthians 15:21-22:
"For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive."
Again, the Bible makes it clear that Spiritual Death, not physical death, is the result of Adam''s sin. And since most creationists insist that animals have no eternal soul or spirit because only humans are created separately in His image, how can Christ resurrect departed animals from the dead?
Here''s another passage from Romans 8:20-22 that most Christians misinterpret:
"For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
"We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time."
Notice that the passage in Romans is only talking about the future glory that will happen when God creates a new heaven and earth. It does NOT talk about the past. Nowhere, and I mean NOWHERE, are the words sin, trespass, or curse ever mentioned or implied in these verses.
In fact, Paul says that the whole creation has been in bondage to decay since the BEGINNING. It has even been suffering from the pains of CHILDBIRTH right up until the present. There''s an interesting parallel between this verse and Genesis 3:16 where God tells Eve, "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children."
Did you notice that God said he would greatly INCREASE Eve''s birth pains? He didn''t say that he would "introduce" them. How can you increase something that doesn''t exist in the first place? That''s like multiplying by zero! Romans 8:20-22 says that the universe has always been in bondage to decay since its birth.
But since I''m a skeptic, what do I know?
> The Bible "has withstood every test and attack for
> over" 2000 years and remains credible.
The following sites would disagree with you.
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/
theism/christianity/errancy.html
> The powerful 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is a
> serious obstacle for naturalistic evolution.
That''s bullshit. Entropy is only one part of the second law -- which is written in terms of the energy available to do work in an isolated system. Entropy is one way of measuring this availability. Living systems are, by definition, NOT isolated -- they continue to take in additional energy from their surroundings in order to continue to BE living systems
Objections to thermodynamics must be expressed as mathematical formulas, not metaphors. Creationists have not offered any mathematical calculations to explain how genetic variation violates the second law of thermodynamics.
The second law is applicable to biological organisms, but creationists don''t apply it correctly. It restricts possible changes in entropy when a system makes the transition from one state to another. It requires that the initial state, as well as the end state, be in equilibrium, and that throughout this transition, the system must remain thermodynamically isolated.
In turn, this leads to non-equilibrium thermodynamics. This is the proper tool for analyzing the thermodynamic behavior of the earth and its inhabitants, but creationists never address that. They must apply the second law to describe the overall non-equilibrium system as a collection of sub systems, each of which is in thermodynamic equilibrium, but not isolated.
Their analysis must then identify the sub systems that are sources of entropy, and the entropy and energy flow between sub systems. This is an enormous task to apply to living organisms, and it''s no wonder that creationists don''t pursue such a momentous technical challenge. But it''s the only proper way to describe the thermodynamic behavior of plants and animals that change over the course of geologic time.
Creationists also assume that entropy and order/disorder are strictly analogous (they aren''t), and that evolution moves from disorder to order, which they''ve yet to demonstrate.
Frank Steiger has several web pages that thoroughly explain the relationship of the second law of thermodynamics to the Creation/Evolution debate:
1. An explanation of thermodynamics at http://members.home.net/fsteiger/thermo3.htm
2. An examination of creationist claims about thermodynamics at http://members.home.net/fsteiger/thermo.htm
3. A review of thermodynamic arguments in Henry Morris'' book "Scientific Creationism" at http://members.home.net/fsteiger/thermo2.htm
4. Thermodynamics and probabilities of chemical change at http://members.home.net/fsteiger/2nd-law.htm
5. And finally, Frank Stegier answers his creationist critics at http://members.home.net/fsteiger/timwallace.htm
> There are experienced and intelligent scientists who
> find all forms of evolution exceedingly unsatisfactory
> in providing a credible explanation for the origin of the
> cosmos
There are experienced and intelligent scientists who have all sorts of problems with flood geology as well. Especially Christian geologists and astrophysicists. Just ask Glenn Morton, Hugh Ross, and Alan Hayward.
> Note these 6 quotes from evolutionists below:
Note these 6 quotes from creationists below:
[1] It is absurd to think that Adam could name all the animals in part of a single day.... Science requires us to believe that the days of creation week were long ages instead of literal days. (Henry Morris, Adam and the animals, ICR Impact 212)
[2] All living forms have arisen from a single form of life by slow gradual changes. Thus, the time between the origin of life and the abrupt appearance in the fossil record of the many complex invertebrate forms of life is now estimated to have been nearly three billion years. The time required for one of these invertebrates to evolve into the vertebrates, or fishes, has been estimated at about 100 million years, and it is believed that the evolution of the fish into an amphibian required about 30 million years. (Duane T. Gish, Ph.D. (1980). The origin of mammals. ICR Impact 87)
[3] 1. Dinosaurs and many other animals are pre-historic. Most of the earth''s history took place long before the Bible or any other book was written and long before any man existed.
2. It is a scientific fact that the earth is exceedingly old--perhaps 5 billion years.
3. Evolution is a fact. God did not create the world as portrayed in the Bible.
4. There once was a time when the land was inhabited only by reptiles--the Great Age of the Dinosaurs.
5. Dinosaurs and other animals evolved into completely different kinds of creatures. Every creature evolved from lower forms of life, even man. Man is just an animal--a highly-evolved primate.
(Paul S. Taylor (1982). Dinosaur Mania And Our Children. ICR Impact 167)
[4] ...all living things have arisen through a naturalistic, mechanistic evolutionary process from a single source, which itself arose by a similar process from a dead, inorganic world. (Duane T. Gish, Ph.D. Creation/Evolution. ICR Impact 4)
[5] Fact of speciation leads directly to the fact of macroevolution (Kenneth Cumming, Patterns of speciation, ICR Impact 215)
[6] This (radioactive) decay has occurred over billions of years at constant rates. (Larry Vardiman, Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth, ICR Impact 301)
> It''s amazing how Sceptics think they understand
> and read the Bible more correctly than theologians.
It''s amazing how fundamentalists think they understand and read the Bible more correctly than skeptics.
> We don''t see evolution happening. Every living thing
> contains a program [eg. DNA -- information written on
> a long molecule]. Even the simplest-known one-celled
> creatures are mind-bogglingly complex but they never
> accidentally have an increase of information. That is, a
> coding for new structures, functions, greater complexity.
Serine proteinases are enzymes that chop up proteins using serine as part of the chemical reaction. The mechanism of these enzymes is very similar; where they differ is in their specificity. Some had their binding sites altered so that they recognize different amino acid sequences; others attack specific proteins because functional domains have been added to the basic proteinase to allow them to attach to different proteins.
One evolutionary sequence went like this. It started when a trypsin-type proteinase had a signal-peptide (S) domain attached in front of the trypsin-homologue (P) domain. A P domain is simply that part of a proteinase that carries the binding and active sites for breaking the peptide bond; the S domain is used to insert a protein into a membrane. This gave the proteinase the ability to anchor itself to membranes and/or be excreted out of a cell, something regular proteinases cannot do.
Next, a growth hormone receptor (G) domain was inserted between the S and P domains, and then a kringle (K) domain was inserted between the G and P domains. G and K domains are responsible for binding to certain amino acid sequences, thus giving the proteinase protein-specific functions it didn''t have before. All these domains were added to the proteinase gene using exon shuffling via intron recombination.
At this point the proteinase gene underwent three duplication events. In the first event, one copy (duplicon) underwent four sequential duplications of its K domain and became plasminogen. It is secreted into the extra-cellular space of the tissue matrix and into bodily secretions like urine.
Plasminogen is the inactive form of plasmin, which digests fibrin and fibrinogen; in other words, plasmin dissolves blood clots. This is in fact such an important function that experiments with mice have shown that if you have no plasminogen, you live longer and are generally healthier if you make no clots at all. [I have a PDF copy of this paper if you''re interested.]
The other duplicon from this first event then underwent a second duplication event, one duplicon of which then underwent a third duplication. One duplicon of this third event became urokinase. Urokinase is found in urine and it can activate plasminogen to plasmin.
The other duplicon of the second event underwent a duplication of its G domain, then had a finger (F) inserted between the two G domains and a fibronectin type II (FN2) domain inserted between the S and the first G domain.
These domains also bind to specific amino acid sequences, thus conferring additional protein-recognition function to the proteinase. At this point, this proteinase became Factor XII (Hageman factor) of the intrinsic blood-clotting pathway.
XII is activated by kallikrein and in turn can activate more kallikrein from prekallikrein, bradykinin from high-molecular-weight kininogen, more XII, and Factor XI (plasma thromboplastin antecedent). XII activation is itself enhanced when XII binds to collagen in the extra-cellular matrix. XII initiates blood clotting; without it you get a disease similar to haemophilia.
The other duplicon of the third event underwent a different pathway. First, an F domain was inserted between the S and G domain, and then the K domain was duplicated. This proteinase then became tissue-type plasminogen activator. This proteinase is secreted into the extra-cellular matrix where it activates plasminogen. It also can attach itself to collagen.
So here is a summary of what happened. A basic trypsin-type serine proteinase was given the ability to be secreted from a cell by the addition of an S module, an ability that was passed on to all its descendants.
During the subsequent series of events it involved into plasminogen, which because of its multiple K modules and its G module could bind to blood clots to dissolve them once it was activated. It also evolved into urokinase, which because of its one K domain and its G domain could bind to plasminogen to activate it. The urokinase core then acquired the ability to bind to collagen and other extra-cellular matrix structural proteins through the acquisition of F and FN2 modules, and reinforced its ability to bind to other proteinases by duplicating its K or G modules.
This enhanced proteinase then differentiated into Factor XII, which initiated other blood clotting proteinases, and tissue-type plasminogen activator, which also activated plasminogen. Though both XII and plasminogen activator are secreted into the extra-cellular matrix and both bind to structural proteins, the extra K domains make plasminogen activator specific for plasminogen, while the extra G domains make XII specific for other proteinases.
In any event, all this new functional information that these proteinases acquired came from acquiring extra genetic material.
In January 1998, Anthony M. Dean published an article in the "American Scientist" that described, in great detail, the structural and biochemical changes that took place millions of years ago to produce two enzymes essential to the subsequent evolution of life. Both enzymes are known as isocitrate dehydrogenases (ICDH).
To work, an ICDH needs another compound to help it out, a compound known as a cofactor. There are only two known cofactors (NAD and NADP) and all known ICDHs use either one or the other. How could these two different forms of ICDH have evolved from just one ancestral form?
Dean came up with a plausible answer. Using a theoretical framework called the "Neutral Theory" of molecular evolution (fashioned by Japanese scientist Mootoo Kimura), Dean explored how random changes in a few key amino acids could have effected dramatic shifts in enzyme activity.
By further testing the structural adaptations caused by each of these mutations, Dean shows how natural selection could have supported each of the changes necessary to produce one enzyme from the other. Because ICDHs are essential to the metabolism of even the smallest cells, these adaptations were essential events in the early history of life, making it possible to test his ideas against the known structures of ICDHs found in scores of organisms, a test that both his analysis and evolution pass. Score one for the evolution of a true biochemical machine, an important enzyme.
In 1997, John M. Logsdon and Ford Doolittle reviewed in detail how these same mechanisms could have produced, in strictly Darwinian fashion, the remarkable "antifreeze" proteins of Antarctic fish. The novelty of this study is that it contained examples of how evolution could recruit introns, the non-coding regions found in the middle of many genes, to produce dramatic changes in the characteristics of proteins.
In 1998, Siegfried Musser and Sunney Chan described the evolution of the cytochrome c oxidase protein pump, a complex, multi-part molecular machine that plays a key role in energy transformation by the cell. In human cells, the pump consists of six proteins, each of which is necessary for the pump to function properly.
It appears to be a perfect example of Michael Behe''s example of "irreducible complexity." Take one part away from the pump, and it no longer works. Yet these authors were able to produce, in impressive detail, "an evolutionary tree constructed using the notion that respiratory complexity and efficiency progressively increased throughout the evolutionary process."
> Has anyone of your ''Friends'' read the books I mentioned?
Yes, and that''s PRECISELY why I''m an evolutionist.
> I no longer believe scientists who are evolutionary
> are solidly based.
Of course not. They contradict your narrow doctrinal interpretations of sacred scripture.
> More scientists have changing views about evolution.
Of course! The more evidence we gather, the more our understanding improves.
> If truth matters, then we are to competently communicate truth.
EXACTLY!
> Surely the Sceptics purse truth in other matters, why
> not regarding evolution?
Surely Christians pursue truth in other matters, why not regarding evolution?
Best,
From: "Dr Mark Purchase" <mpp@xtra.co.nz>
To: "Tommy Huxley" <tommy_huxley@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: "Sceptic" or Septic Society?
Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2001 02:15:42 +1200
Hi all
How is everyone today -- feeling like apes or men? For those interested [below] my reply to Tom''s last email. All mail is up on my webpage now -- http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/bryanp/index.htm Just follow the link to ''Evolution". Keep the mail coming regards.
Mark
Hi Tom,
You wrote,
>>I apologize for taking so long to answer your letter. Judging from the correspondence you reprinted from others, you consider a tardy response a conspiracy of silence.<<
Not really, how people answer is up to them. No need to apologize I will take my time too. You wrote,
>>I think you should take into account the fact that some of the people you''ve contacted are busy professionals with families that have to set aside time to answer lengthy emails from total strangers.<<
Your exegesis of the Bible [on the website] leaves a lot to be desired -- selecting verses and misrepresenting them to make the Bible sound foolish. While your ''friends'' might think that''s funny, it comes across as childish to someone knows the Bible. Maybe it''s your age, but that dishonest handling of the Bible questions your creditability. You wrote,
>>As others have already pointed out, I''m an agnostic, not an atheist. I accepted Christ and was baptized when I was 9 years old, but later became disillusioned with the convoluted apologetics I was force-fed as an adult. And my transformation didn''t occur overnight. It was a long and painful progression.<<
''Agnostic'', I''m not sure about that. An ''agnostic'' is one who does not know whether God exists. He hasn''t made up his mind. There are two kinds of agnostics, one who searches for God and the other doesn''t. Which are you? You are more like an atheist -- God and Bible has no part with your evolutionary theory. You rule Him out totally, and attack any who take the Bible seriously. Many Christians can testify that once they accepted the billions-of-years of secular rationalism they found themselves on a path of increasing confusion and uncertainty about how to interpret Scripture. Just like you. On the website you make fun of the Bible, or do you really take it seriously? You rubbish it and yet think creationists should listen to what you write. It comes across as a sham. I mentioned evolution is NOT a scientific proven fact. If Sceptics honestly evaluated the evidence they would KNOW this. To this you wrote,
>>Since you get all your information from creationist sources, that doesn''t surprise me at all.<<
I wonder where you get your information from ''God haters'' or ''bible quacks''? I confess 99% of quotes from my last letters were from Evolutionists. I''ve read SFN, other websites and materials and shown myself ready to listen. I have an open mind and willing to read. To this you wrote,
>>I''m sorry, but judging from the content of everything else you''ve written, you reject all dissenting viewpoints that aren''t your own.<<
I''ve read both sides and are no clone. As Prof. L Bounoure [President Biological Society Strasbourg] wrote -- "evolution is a fairy tale for grown-ups. This theory has helped nothing in the progress of science. It is useless" [The Advocate thur,8 March 1984 pg.17]. Many highly qualified scientists today reject evolution. To this you write,
>>Of course! NOTHING is "universally" accepted. You even have creation scientists like Malcom Bowden who deny that the Earth orbits the sun. Click here
>>http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/geocentr.htm. Malcom Bowden also writes the for the creationist "True Origins" website.<<
Yes but if highly qualified scientists reject evolution you should take them more seriously. There must be a reason. I challenge you to read their studies. I''m convinced you haven''t [after reading you letter]. I think many things ARE ''universally'' accepted in science, but evolution is NOT. Reading ''jesus-is-lord'' site I found Bowden receives [quote] "a pretty hostile response from professing Bible believers". If someone believes in fairy tales about little green men and God made the earth, I wouldn''t take too much notice of them. But the majority of creation scientists I know are level headed and sound. Concerning Bowden -- some people believe what they want, and say what they want about the Bible [just like you]. I provided evidence why I reject evolution pointing out the scientific community is not united on it and you replied,
>>If you look at your fifteen creationist book recommendations, I could ask you the same thing: Why can''t creationists agree on whether the universe is six thousand or 14 billion years old when they all appeal to the very same scriptural proof texts? These "Bible believers" disagree by a factor greater than 2.3 million! How can they claim the same authoritative Word?<<
Not all my "book recommendations" are ''creationists''. Some are just scientists who reject evolution. There are three kinds of people who reject atheistic evolution. The scientist without any Christian confession, creationist who take the Bible seriously [these you hate] and the ''progressive creationist'' who believe God used an evolution process. The ''progressives'' you will quote from and they are liberal. They don''t hold the Bible as ''authoritative''. Personal I believe there''s no conclusive evidence the world is over 6,000 years old, the ''progressives'' would agree to 14 or 50 or 12 or 1 or whatever billion years old. But why ignore the serious contradictions among evolutionists as you do? You wrote,
>>Furthermore, Michael Behe says that humans and primates share a common ancestor. Phillip Johnson, his colleague in the Intelligent Design movement, says they don''t. Russell Humphrey''s book "Starlight and Time" was regularly trashed in the Creation Research Society Quarterly for its pitiable physics. How can Bible-believing scientists have such a wide radius of thought?<<
Like I said [above] they don''t all believe the Bible and take it literally. Of the three groups I mentioned above the creationists [take it seriously and literally] are the most consistent, the others guess like evolutionists. You might call the ''progressive creationist'' a bible-believer but their understanding of Genesis [which you quote below] is classic liberalism -- believe, ignore, twist what you want. Can you provide me what was said about Dr Humphrey''s physics? I mentioned the scientific community not found one instance of change from one species into another? And you provided these websites -
>>http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html -- http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/speciation.html<<
These don''t provide what I asked -- "one species into another" Nowhere on those websites is that information given. They say, "We simply cannot know whether two such groups would interbreed freely if they came together under natural conditions. This makes it impossible to delimit the boundaries of extinct groups using the BSC". -- "Dogs beget dogs, they never beget cats!"
You think one species can change into another? Evolution teaches that a comparatively simple creature, ie one-celled amoeba, has become a much more complicated one, like a horse. Even though the simplest-known one-celled creatures are mind-bogglingly complex, they clearly do not contain as much information as a horse. They don''t have instructions specifying how to make eyes, ears, etc. So to go from a simple amoeba to horse requires many steps, each involving an INCREASE in information. Information coding for NEW structures, new functions -- new complexity. If we saw information-increasing changes happening, even if only a few, this could reasonably be used to help support the argument that fish may, indeed, change into agnostics, given enough time. Natural selection is NOT the same as evolution. Living things are programmed to PASS ON information, to make copies of themselves. The DNA of man is copied and passed on via the parents. That information is never improved, unless someone with a huge amount of information knows how to add new information to DNA.
No amount of breeding and selection will produce a variety of species where there has been a total loss of the information required. Natural selection can favour some information above others, and can cause some of the information to be lost, but it can''t create any new information. In evolutionary theory, the role of creating new information is given to mutation -- random, accidental mistakes which happen as this information is copied. We know that such mistakes happen, and are inherited (because the next generation is making a copy from a defective copy). So the defect is passed on, and somewhere down the line another mistake happens, and so mutational defects tend to accumulate.
I asked -- where are the missing links in the evolutionary chain from primitive to modern plants? From cells to invertebrates, to fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals, sea mammals, etc. And you provided a few web pages [which I read]. Apparently you have no appreciation of the missing evidence. Even Darwin wrote, "Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record" [Origin of Species Dent & Sons Lon.1971 pg.292-293].
And today, the transition bones are still missing. Dr Ramp (Curator of Geology Museum Chicago) writes, "The record of evolution is still surprisingly jerky and ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin''s time. By this I mean that some of the classics cases of Darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information" [''Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin'' vol.50(1) Jan.1979 pg.25]. You should have read my last letter this quote was there. Is HE wrong?
Read carefully S.J.Gould? "The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions in organic design, indeed our inability, even in our imagination, to reconstruct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of evolution" [Paleobiology vol.6(1) Jan. 1980 pg.127]. Do you know something Stephen Jay Gould doesn''t? Perhaps you should send him [a hard-line evolutionist] those web addresses. There should be millions of transitional forms between the species. Where are they? If the Stone Age lasted for at least 100,000 years as they say, there should be millions of skeletons. Where are they? To this you wrote,
>>Why do creationists believe that fossilization is the inevitable fate of all dead animals when, in fact, it''s disintegration? Fossilization requires a carcass to be buried rapidly in malleable silt before scavengers destroy it, and then remain undisturbed for millions (or in the case of dinosaurs, hundreds of millions) of years in an oxygen-free environment with just the right pH and a host of other special chemical conditions, AND avoid pulverization from natural geologic processes like plate tectonics.<<
This doesn''t answer the question, where are they? Tom you have NOT read creationist literature because you are ignorant of what they say. They say the fossil record shows signs of rapid burial, not slow and gradual. It''s just what you would expect if taking the Bible seriously about Noah''s flood. There are countless millions of well-preserved fossils but no TRANSITIONAL FORMS. There''s fossil fish even showing scales, fins, and eye sockets [rapid burial]. In nature, a fish is quickly ripped apart by scavengers and decomposes quickly. Unless fish were buried quickly and sediments [mud, sand] hardened fairly rapidly, such features would not be preserved. Perhaps "the existing fossil record is heavily lopsided in favor of marine invertebrates" as you, insist. But rapid burial is a far better explanation than "because terrestrial animals are much less likely to be preserved in their idyllic state". I am amazed at your lack of knowledge of the teachings of those you disagree with. You wrote,
>>Yet the question we should ask ourselves is not why the fossil record is so spotty, but why is it so darn good? The record we DO possess is nothing short of miraculous!<<
The fossil record fits ''Noah''s flood''. But waiting millions of years for dust to cover bones is questionable. The fossil record is not good for evolution [as Darwin said]. We don''t find a series of fossils showing part-limb, part-wing; or part-scale, part-feather. Darwin said this was the "most obvious and serious objection" against his theory. Go back and read my quote from Patterson and Darwin if you don''t believe me. I mentioned that Dinosaur bones that are not fossilised have been discovered -- so they can''t be millions of years old. And you responded,
>>Can you cite a specific reference for this claim? Creationists are notorious for perpetuating urban legends. Zoologist Tim Berra from Ohio State University claims that he wrote his book "Evolution and the Myth of Creationism" after he discovered how creationist textbooks frequently cite "The National Enquirer" in their bibliographies.<<
"Unfossialized dinosaur bone" in 1992 Geological Society of America also, Davies in Journal of Paleonology 61 (1):198-200. ''In Thailand'' [The Times. June 20 1996 -- Nature August 22 1996 pg.709-708 New Scientist]. Also, "The best-preserved dinosaur skin found to date is a recent discover.in New Mexico" [see ''No feathers on Spanish dino'' Sceince 276:1341 May 30 1997] And ''The associated Press release July 1997. DNA found in mammoths [Aust. Science Sept.1999 pg.19-21]. The scientific world was stunned in 1938 when a coelacanth fish was discovered [evolution fossil record 65million] in a fish mall. ABC News <http://abcnews.go.com/sections/science/
DailyNews/coelacanth001201html> 4 Dec.2000. Many of these are on the web. There''s so many references I could include them on a separate email. Or YOU should do some research like you expect of me.
I know about the ''contamination'' story. There are other claims of ''ancient'' DNA (such as that of a 120 million-year-old weevil'' which most evolutionists do accept as real DNA from that creature, not contamination. Since DNA should only last for thousands of years, this is powerful evidence for the fossils'' being young. Have you heard about the mud-springs at Swindon Wiltshire? It''s like a fossil conveyor belt with pristine fossils supposedly "165 million years old". Surprise! Many still have shimmering mother-of-pearl shells, and retain their iridescence, and bivalves still have their original organic ligaments. Even more amazing is the millions of years mindset that blinds hard-nosed rational scientists from seeing what should be so obvious [Evidence for a young earth]. You wrote,
>>Ernst Haeckel never discussed missing fossils. Haeckel was a 19th century German biologist who proposed the theory of "ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny" where he suggested that human embryos revisit the adult stages of their evolutionary ancestors during development. That is, he thought our embryos passed through an adult fish stage, amphibian stage, reptilian stage, and so on until the fetuses became human. But "non-creation" scientists completely refuted this hypothesis in the 1920s.<<
I was referring to his fraudulent embryos not missing links. Interesting how dismissive you are when evolutionist exaggerate, distort or deceive. You overlook their dishonesty and yet use a fine toothcomb on creationists regarding any slight discrepancies. But Haeckel did ''discuss missing fossils ''. He taught about ''speechless ape-man'' "Pithecanthrous" [it was non-existent]. This was certainly about MISSING fossils. You wrote,
>>I''m not aware of any "frauds" surrounding Lucy. Can you be more specific?<<
There''s seems a lot you don''t know. Johnson thought he had a hominid skeleton [about 40% complete]. But without the skull no estimate of brain capacity can be made. The announcement and publicity was carefully orchestrated for maximum effect [for money too]. When ''Lucy'' was formally presented at the Nobel Symposium on Early Man in 1978 the scientific establishment was not impressed because there was no skulls [hence no hard evidence, no proof]. Yet the news continued to circle the world that it was the missing link. "The Beatles" even made a song out of it. It was on all the TV''s and all the Tommie''s [who don''t think] around the world thought evolution is a proven fact. You wrote,
>>As for the other "frauds," only Piltdown Man (not "Pitdown") genuinely fooled people. The other specimens you cited were only "believed in" by their original discoverers.<<
No, not at all. They had many followers. And there will be many more discoveries awaiting their moment for public birth. And the media [and you] will embrace them as the ''missing link''. It happens all the time. The last ''missing link'' I remember was cited by the BBC. A week later, the story changed -- they found similar bones -- in a London zoo [a monkey -- not a hominid]. Alas, the news correction was never given the major place on the news as the first story. Many of these fakes find their way into student''s textbooks and dictionaries, but they disappear from the next edition. No matter how old they say the bones are -- a human bone is still a human bone today -- they haven''t changed. Ape bones claimed to be 400 million years old are still an ape bones today -- they haven''t changed. You wrote,
>>As for the other "frauds," only Piltdown Man (not "Pitdown") genuinely fooled people. The other specimens you cited were only "believed in" by their original discoverers. Besides, these all occurred between 72 and 112 years ago. And those mistakes were exposed and corrected by other evolutionists! If paleoanthropologists were engaged in a conspiracy to dupe the public about human evolution, why would they publicize their own errors?<<
They genuinely fool people like you and those looking for reasons not to believe God created man. They "publicize their" discoveries to get money. The more money, the more field trips, the more bones. The more bones, the more field trips, the more money etc. But the fact remains what I said was true. They were fakes and trying to explain it away as though it all means nothing won''t do. Why endorse a theory we don''t see happening, there''s no proof it has and we don''t know how it has? Since we do not have one iota of fact, evolution is one of the greatest hoaxes ever. And to extent to which it''s been applied, will be one of the great jokes in the history books of the future. ''Big Foot'' ''Minnesota Iceman'' ''Yeti'' etc wasn''t "70 years ago" You wrote,
>>Young-earth creationists, in contrast, have a gloomy history of perpetuating their own "Piltdown" hoaxes that they''re loathe to abandon, which are also more recent. Like the Paluxy, Olmo, Calveras, Castenadolo, and Onyate "pre-flood" men. Kent Hovind was fooled by "Onyate Man" only two years ago.
Really? Can you back this up with better evidence, or is this just a "rhetorical contention"? If you really cared about ''pre-flood'' men go to Genesis. They are mentioned and named already, no need to make anything up. Strange how newspapers have ignored ''young-earth hoaxes'' for years, they just quote the evolutionist who never stop telling us they have found the ''missing link'' yet it never turns out to be anything much at all. To this you relied,
>>I think they''re more committed to mainstream science, where biological evolution is merely conventional<<
They can''t say a word unless its ''we think'' or ''it may be'' or ''perhaps this happened'' etc. They and scientists who accept evolution are prepared to bend their observations to fit evolution. Even though it remains an unproven hypothesis in the laboratories of science and utterly destitute of proof. Like S.J Gould wrote, "Paleontologists (and evolutionary biologists in general) are famous for their facility in devising plausible stories: but they often forget the plausible stories need not be true" [The Shape of Evolution Paleontology vol.3 (1) 1977 pg.34-35]. I mentioned "Christ" has changed drug addicts, cheats, murders and liars. You wrote,
>>All world religions change the lives of their converts. That''s why their adherents join<<
Christ certainly hasn''t transformed your life. There''s many reasons why ''adherents join'' religions, some just get fooled [like evolutionists]. But church organizations worldwide have done more good than any theory of evolution. You replied,
>>"Good" in what sense? Has the church explained bacterial inherited resistance to antibiotics better than evolutionary biology?<<
Giving money and support to the poor. Helping the sick, the homeless, the dieing, spiritual guidance to lost souls. Man is not just a body, he has soul and spirit -- made in the image of God. What hope and meaning to life is there in evolution? The world just becomes an accident and meaningless. Life becomes a sick joke and where''s the absolutes -- nothings right and nothings wrong -- no values. Evolution can''t provide answers; it suggests theirs is no God. Those Christians you dismissed -- Michael Faraday, James Maxwell and William Thomson and Lord Kelvin are the foundation of modern science. You wrote,
>> Hitler was born a Roman Catholic, baptized as an infant in Austria, became an altar boy, and was confirmed as a "soldier of Christ" in that church. The worst doctrines of that church never left him. He was steeped in its liturgy, which contained the phrase "perfidious Jew." This anti-Semitic statement wasn''t removed until 1961. In his autobiography Mein Kampf, Hitler wrote, "I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews, I am doing the Lord''s work.". In his speech on signing the Nazi-Vatican Concordat, Hitler said, "Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without religious foundation is built on air; consequently all character training and religion must be derived from faith." (April 26, 1933)<<
I can''t find those quotes anywhere, what page? Was he a creationist too? Did you see the Lynchburg Story''? How the US evolutionist taught the Nazis. One US evolutionist actually stated ''The Germans are beating us at our own game" [the Lynchburg Story produced B Eadie Worldview Pictures -- Discovery Networks Chan.4 1993]. The beginning of the 1920s many in the USA were sterilized to prevent ''undesirable breeding'' -- for mental retardation -- broken homes [the sort of people the church helps]. There were laws made up. The genetics movement started by Sir F.Galton [Darwin''s cousin] encouraged ''the survival of the fittest''. Hitler campaigned on a platform of naked evolutionism -- ''survival of the fittest'' and eugenics laws became one of his first acts, not ''religious instruction''. Not only did the Nazis copy the US ''unfit'' sterilization idea but went for ''racial hygiene'' policies.
But if your comments are correct, then the Catholic church overall must bear its share of responsibility for been ''bluffed'' by the ''scientific claims of evolutionists [which since have changed and will keep changing]. It should have taken a strong stand on the true history of man and the world. A stand for Biblical reality. You replied,
>>The Thirty Years War pitted Catholics against Protestants in the early 1600s and killed more people in Western Europe than World War II did for the entire planet. Of course, this was a war that pitted Christian against Christian, creationist and creationist, which undermines the dogma that only "atheistic evolutionists" slaughter people en masse.<<
This sounds like ''conspiracy theory'' off the web. From the web page that has all those conspiracies. The Reformation wasn''t anything like WW2. Or do you reinterpret history from a one sided distorted viewpoint. Get yourself some good history books and read. Don''t just believe anything people tell you because some atheist wrote it. You wrote,
>>Furthermore, evolution is random only in the sense that it''s not adaptively directed, but it''s NOT random in the sense that each change must start again from scratch. Heredity in its evolutionary application lends itself readily to quantification and precise reasoning. This is the subject matter of population genetics, a field well established by the 1930s. Population geneticists can deal with such quantities as mutation rate, frequency of recombination of genes on the same chromosome; expected rate of replacement of alleles by better-adapted mutant forms; expected levels of chance deviations from expected rates as a function of population size and other variables; differences in these rates between recessive and dominant genes; and many other influences on the evolutionary process. These quantitative variables can be related to one another algebraically, and evolutionary conclusions can be expressed as solutions to algebraic equations.<<
The talk of "better-adapted mutant forms" is utter nonsense. Professional evolutionists say different. Even most evolutionists know that mutations are overwhelmingly either harmful or just meaningless genetic noise. There are no ''upward'' mutations known which make it easier for an organism to survive in a given environment. Eyeless fish in caves survive better as they are not prone to eye injury. Wingless beetles do better on windy rock in the sea cause they are less likely to be blown away and drown. But the LOSS of eyes and the LOSS or corruption of the information necessary to manufacture wings is, however you look at it, -- a defect -- crippling of a previously functional piece of machinery. Such changes though ''beneficial'' in a purely survival sense, beg the question -- where do we see any real ''upward'' increase in information -- new coding for new functions, new machine programs? We don''t. You wrote,
>>Think Mark, examine the facts, do some research! If you believe that the earth and universe are only 6,000 years old, you''re not just rejecting evolution -- you''re rejecting ALL the natural sciences!<<
"Think" I have, and "examine the facts and research" I have. That''s why I''m correcting you. Perhaps next mail you could use ''all the natural sciences'' and describe to me why the universe is millions of years old. You wrote,
>>A theory, in the scientific sense, doesn''t mean the same thing as a "guess" or a "hunch." Theories must explain a collection of facts, and evolutionary biology has itself evolved to explain that process with greater precision, accuracy, and clarity. To discount a theory, you must instead present an alternative set of facts to falsify it, and to date, creation science has failed to do that on every single solitary count.<<
A ''theory'' in ANY sense, means the same thing as a "guess" or a "hunch". Evolution is not really even a theory. A theory must be workable evolution is not. It doesn''t have a collection of facts [other than Tommy''s webpage]. Evolution might be explained with "precision, accuracy, and clarity" but not proven. Evolution is a scientific religion which people like you believe even though there are vital missing fossils. And genetic information doesn''t add itself to genes. Real science can only deal with things that can be observed or measured. It depends on measuring or watching something happen, and checking it by doing it again. Evolution at least in the sense that Darwin speaks of it, cannot be detected within the lifetime of a single observer. "While its easy to construct stories of how one form gave rise to another, such stories are not part of science, for there is no way of putting them to the test. We can''t make evolution happen and there''s no evidence it has". That''s why I can "discount" it. We know ''planes fly'', if a theory claims ''pigs fly'', I''m happy to ". automatically render [pigs fly] unscientific" because of poor lab evidence. You wrote,
>> For example, young-earth creationists claim that the fossil record is arranged in a stair-step progression from the simple to the complex because Noah''s flood picked up all the dead animals and miraculously sorted and arranged their carcasses that way. I suppose that would qualify as a "theory," but there is absolutely NO scientific support for such a hypothesis.<<
It''s NOT the "young-earth creationist" that "claim that the fossil record is arranged in a stair-step progression from the simple to the complex". Again you have got your facts mixed up. Another sign that you don''t read widely and have ignored what you should read. It''s the evolutionist who advocate a "sorted and arranged" geological column from Cambrian, Ordovician etc up to Pleistocene. Unfortunately for him the fossil column is not uniform or "sorted and arranged". They are not in order, but there are massive fossil graveyards around the world. The fossil graveyards have all the signs of rapid burial and many bones are mixed together. The coal seams and oil deposits are also more evidence of global flood. So once again Tom you have your facts mixed up. Uniformitarian geology is now under attack for the evidence is contrary to the assumption. A "sorted and arranged" fossil record is vital to long-age evolution yet there is "absolutely NO scientific support for such a hypothesis" . Dr.M.Ridley [Zoologist Oxford] wrote, "In any case, no real evolutionist, whether gradualist or punctuationist, uses the fossil record as evidence in favour of the theory of evolution as opposed to special creation" [Who doubts evolution New Scientist vol.90 25Jun. 1981 pg.831]. The idea of a time-scale and any evolutionary sequence is an utter shambles in the fossil record. And that''s the facts! You wrote,
>>To date, the earliest fossils appear in the Proterozoic more than 3 billion years ago. They possess clear microscopic impressions of prokaryotic cells, cells that (like modern bacteria) have no nuclei. Then, about 1.5 billion years ago, the first of a series of new microscopic fossils appear that have traces of what may be nuclei within their cells -- the eukaryotic cells. From this clear, unambiguous record, life had taken almost 2 billion years to gain a nucleus, then took several hundred million more to become multicellular. That means single-celled organisms dominated the earth during four-fifths of life''s entire collective existence. The first multicellular animals fossilized almost 700 million years ago appear in the Ediacaran Hills of Australia. Still, these organisms may or may not be directly related to animals alive today. The next well-documented period, the Cambrian, clearly contains fossilized organisms ancestral to modern phyla. From this point on, new organisms appear in a pattern of historical succession that is very well documented. Shellfish and corals, for example, date to the Cambrian, more than 550 million years ago. The first true fish appear in the Ordovician, about 480 million years ago. Amphibians appear 380 million years ago, the first reptiles 40 million years later, and the first true dinosaurs nearly 80 million years later in the Triassic. The first true mammals show up around 210 million years ago; the first birds appear late in the Jurassic155 million years ago; and the last of the dinosaurs vanished at the end of the Cretaceous 65 million years ago.<<
There''s no proof from science for any of these dates. The dates are guesswork based on evolutionary theory not scientific evidence. They have changed and the stories too over time and differ depending on those talking. Or were you there? If the earth is 550 million years old, how old is the sun? Various measurements by professionals [I have the data] indicate shrinkage calculated 2 feet or 5-6 feet or 0.6 feet or 1-2 feet or 1 foot per hour. That adds up over a year. Applying the most conservative calculation over a year its approx "1 mile per year". We can''t even go back one million years because the sun would be too big for life and 210 million years ago it would touch the earth. You wrote,
>>THINK, Mark! We''re all living in a cursed creation because two nude people ate a piece of magical fruit endowed with paranormal powers of "forbidden knowledge," and they did this after being seduced by a talking snake that spoke perfect Hebrew without the benefit of lips or a larynx!
You are trying to make it sound funny and unbelievable as you do with history and science. The fruit wasn''t "magical fruit" and no mention they even spoke Hebrew. The idea of a perfect and completely difference world [to the one you know] is never given consideration by you. You can''t imagine anything but a suffering, killing wild world, fill with life yet with no explanation. The Bible clearly indicates that this is how evil entered the world and you don''t like it. How do you explain evil death and suffering? Or is there no such thing as ''evil'' or ''good'' in your confused world? What happened in the garden, explains the present earth very well. And indicates there''s meaning to life, that God made us, and what went wrong. Your mocking of Scripture determines the way you apply it. I thought that to you the Bibles a joke? To me it''s ''the Word of Life'' and true. You don''t accept the Bible as true, YET try to use the authority of the Bible, to disprove the Bible. You wrote,
>>Are you trying to tell me that I''m not an expert, but you, in fact, are?<<
Some would say you''re not "a expert" When a person is ''born again'' the Spirit of God enters their life and God reveals Himself to them. We need a Spiritual rebirth to understand God Word. Life then is seen as a miracle not something that occurs independently. You suggest I go to O''Brien''s and Morton''s website and argue "over Christianity". If you don''t want to write evolution to you don''t need to. You wrote,
>>The Bible does not say that physical death didn''t exist before original sin. The Bible actually implies that death existed before the fall. Examine the following passage from Genesis 1:30: "''And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground -- everything that has the breath of life in it -- I give every green plant for food.'' And it was so."<<
One minute the Bible''s a joke, the next you take it seriously. The passage clearly says death came into the world because of sin [Gen.3:3,19 see also 1 Cor.15:21]. Read Gen.1:29-30. God told them to eat only plants. And the beasts and creatures of the ground also are to eat "every green plant" [ vs.30]. The Bible says how death entered the world, "Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned-[Rom 5:12]. And are you saying that when God finished what He made and said "it was good" [Gen.1:25,31] it wasn''t? But there was death, killing and suffering going on all around man? "Behold it was good" was a lie? You wrote,
>> If all the animals on Earth ate green plants for food, then death, decay and decomposition occurred before The Fall. How else do digestive processes work? Where does fecal matter come from? Did all the animals before The Fall take in food without eliminating waste? Isn''t waste the byproduct of death, decay and decomposition? And does that verse really say that God prohibited animals from eating other animals? Although God says, "I give you every green plant for food," does that offer hold an implied restriction? Or is this an argument from silence? Most carnivorous animals are in reality, omnivorous. If you look at the number one ingredient in dry dog or cat food, it''s not meat but ground corn meal.<<
So in other words you blame God for death, not man. So when man was told not to eat the fruit or he will die ["return to the dust"] -- it meant nothing because death was already everywhere. The fact is, God created a perfect world, free from death, and death is the result of man''s rebellion against God. You are in a state of rebellion -- no wonder you don''t WANT to believe the simple truth of the Bible. When creatures ate fruit from the plants, they didn''t die. The "digestive processes" didn''t kill the plants but spread the seeds. God designed it that way. There are thousands of examples of design in nature. Only an infinite wise God could have designed them. Design must have a Designer, or do you have another explanation? [N. Eldredge Ph.D Paleontologist and Evolutionist wrote, "The only competing explanation for the order we all see in the biological world is the notion of Special Creation"] Plants from a Biblical viewpoint are not alive in the same sense as humans and animals. The Bible makes a theological distinction between the life of animate beings [animals and man] and plants. They don''t have the ''breath of life" or spirit. Never said to have mind or emotions they are living organisms but not classified as ''living'' as animals and men. You wrote,
>>In Genesis 3:20, the Bible says, "Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living. "Mother of all the living WHAT? People? Apes? Insects? It just says "all the living," period. If you''re allowed to interject the word "people" here because you think that assumption logically follows, couldn''t I "logically" assume that God placed no restrictions on the animal''s natural diet? You''re making Genesis chapter three more complicated than it really is. <<
It''s clearly written in Genesis that God did place "restrictions on the animal''s natural diet" [see Gen.1:30]. Jesus Christ man''s Creator in the beginning [note Jn.1:1-3 Col.1:16-17 etc], said "Have you not read [that is Gen1:27] that he made them at the beginning made them male and female.?" [Mtt.19:4]. So the creation of Adam and Eve, as the progenitor of the human race, was "at the beginning", not after millions of years of evolution of a pre-human population of animals. You wrote,
>>After God reprimands Adam and Eve for sinning, does he then alter the laws of physics over the entire universe? No. He only kicks them out of the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:22-24)<<
But the laws of nature are valid through the entire physical universe according to astronomical findings. They are not restricted to a certain limited space or time. They are also valid on the moon. The laws of energy and of gravity were used to compute the quantities of fuel required, and when man landed on the moon, the assumption of universal validity was found to he justified. All creation has been effected. What you missed out in your selective quoting was that creation receives a curse Gen.3:14-15 creatures, ground [earth] and man are cursed [3:17-19]. Now things die, now the earth will wear out. Creation has gone down hill since that day, many creatures have died out. And man is a mess spiritually [he doesn''t know God, himself, or understand good or evil or live as he should] and his body is dieing. Read the whole passage first and hopefully you won''t misunderstand it. You wrote,
>>Now, let''s look at the following passage from the Apostle Paul in Romans 5:12, 14, 17-18. Notice that the Biblical reference only says that death happens to all MEN because all MEN sin. Nowhere does it mention animals. Furthermore, it says that just as Adam''s trespass condemns all men, Jesus'' resurrection brings eternal life to all men. Did Jesus save all the world''s animals, too? Should I baptize my cats?<<
What made you take this verse seriously? Is Tom now a literalist? The ''Progressive Creationist'' uses all the words and verses you use to argue ''millions of years''. From Roman we learn that sin and death are interwoven. Sin entered the world and had universal effect. It does emphasize death of men, but it does not preclude death from the animal kingdom. "Sin entered the world" can refer to all creation. Other passages tell us of sins effect on nature and this is also intended in Romans as well. And the fossil record, more than anything else, is a record of death -- in fact, of sudden death -- and on a worldwide scale!
The first death was when God killed an animal to clothe Adam and Eve. [Gen.3:21]. In those days men lived to over 700 years old before death. Death was not commonplace. The flood resulted in yet another curse on the earth and there is a change in diet and animals became wild, death increased. [Gen.9:1-16]. Earth changed because of the flood. Creation is running down, not getting better. Paul wrote, "the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now" [Rom.8:20-22]. Sin results in the innocent suffering. Sorry about you cat. Man is unique among the animals made in God''s image. This "likeness" to this Creator is metal, moral & spiritual. So instead of being essentially like the lower animals, man is essentially different. Animals don''t know God, love, reason, speech, moral judgment, accountability or humor. Nor conscience-reflection, imagination, nor do they have power to preserve thoughts with the same recollection. And, no appreciation of beauty, design, order and complex mathematical laws of nature and universe. Man is undeniable unique in this world and clearly different from any animal. He resembles in form but not related in nature. You wrote,
>>Paul repeats this more succinctly in 1 Corinthians 15:21-22: "For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive." Again, the Bible makes it clear that Spiritual Death, not physical death, is the result of Adam''s sin. And since most creationists insist that animals have no eternal soul or spirit because only humans are created separately in His image, how can Christ resurrect departed animals from the dead?<<
Physical death is certainly a consideration of Rom 5:14. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come. Paul says the existence of physical death [prior to the giving of the law] demonstrated humanity''s sinfulness. Perhaps that''s why the phrase "and he died" is repeated over and over again throughout the genealogy of Genesis chapter 5, a confirmation that sin has brought the unnatural state of death into our world. It says physical death came through sin [Gen.3:19]. It''s said to be "an enemy".
You think Adam was created on top of a graveyard, yet he never would have died if he didn''t disobey God [Gen2:16-17 3:22]. He was expelled from the Garden so not to thwart death [Gen.3:22-23]. You keep trying to tell me God created an imperfect creation. Why say "very good" [Gen.1:31] if it wasn''t? Genesis provides us with a brief but tantalizing paradise wonderfully designed. Far unlike our pain-filled, sin-worn world of degeneration we have today. A place of no catastrophes, diseases, parasites, plagues, degenerative mutations, damage to skin and eyes due to the sun''s ultraviolet radiation, no animals preying on man or animals. You wrote,
>>Here''s another passage from Romans 8:20-22 that most Christians misinterpret: "For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. "We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time." Notice that the passage in Romans is only talking about the future glory that will happen when God creates a new heaven and earth. It does NOT talk about the past. Nowhere, and I mean NOWHERE, are the words sin, trespass, or curse ever mentioned or implied in these verses. In fact, Paul says that the whole creation has been in bondage to decay since the BEGINNING. It has even been suffering from the pains of CHILDBIRTH right up until the present.<<
You say Rom.8:20-22 doesn''t refer to God''s "curse" on creation and then you say, but it does refer to "decay" from the "beginning". Contradictory? But I understand what you are trying to say. Here''s the problem. In evolutionary thought death plays a fundamental role; it is a necessary precondition for the succession of postulated events. No life could have existed if there were no death. Death as such was not caused by evolution but the death of individuals is required to unsure the development of the tribe. There is no way past this precept, this axiom of the doctrine of evolution. Without death of individuals there would have been no evolution of life on this earth. If we regard evolution as a positive creating factory, then our own death is positive. The strong contrast with the Bible becomes clear, it clearly characterizes death as a hostile power [1 Cor.15:26 Rev.6:8]. Evolutionists regard death as the creator of life [that is anti-biblical]. You wrote,
>>There''s an interesting parallel between this verse and Genesis 3:16 where God tells Eve, "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children." Did you notice that God said he would greatly INCREASE Eve''s birth pains? He didn''t say that he would "introduce" them. How can you increase something that doesn''t exist in the first place? That''s like multiplying by zero!<<
Eve didn''t have children till after the fall, the first Cain and Adel, so as such there was no pain. Are you arguing this verse is true [and God is real] and pain has been increased in childbearing? Then why take this verse literally, defend it and ignore others? I take the Bible literally and believe it has withstood every test and attack for over 2000 years and remains credible. You disagreed,
>>The following sites would disagree with you. http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/
theism/christianity/errancy.html<<
The fact is it''s been translated into over 1200 languages, its the number one seller. No other ancient book is attended by such a vast number of MSS. There are thousands of MSS and they prove God has preserved Scripture. The result is that men have less excuse today than ever before in history when rejecting the Bible. Instead of modernism destroying the Bible by unbelieving claims, it has caused men to fervently study and research MSS and new discoveries. And thus verify the faithfulness of God in giving us and preserving for us an infallible Word of God. So God has preserved the Bible by its enemies and friends, by circumstances and calamities as no other writing has ever been preserved I mentioned the powerful 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is a serious obstacle for naturalistic evolution. You replied,
>>[rubbish]. Entropy is only one part of the second law -- which is written in terms of the energy available to do work in an isolated system. Entropy is one way of measuring this availability. Living systems are, by definition, NOT isolated -- they continue to take in additional energy from their surroundings in order to continue to BE living systems Objections to thermodynamics must be expressed as mathematical formulas, not metaphors. Creationists have not offered any mathematical calculations to explain how genetic variation violates the second law of thermodynamics. The second law is applicable to biological organisms, but creationists don''t apply it correctly. It restricts possible changes in entropy when a system makes the transition from one state to another. It requires that the initial state, as well as the end state, be in equilibrium, and that throughout this transition, the system must remain thermodynamically isolated. In turn, this leads to non-equilibrium thermodynamics. This is the proper tool for analyzing the hermodynamic behavior of the earth and its inhabitants, but creationists never address that. They must apply the second law to describe the overall non-equilibrium system as a collection of sub systems, each of which is in thermodynamic equilibrium, but not isolated. Their analysis must then identify the sub systems that are sources of entropy, and the entropy and energy flow between sub systems. This is an enormous task to apply to living organisms, and it''s no wonder that creationists don''t pursue such a momentous technical challenge. But it''s the only proper way to describe the thermodynamic behavior of plants and animals that change over the course of geologic time.<<
This sounds like I hit a raw nerve. Evolution demands an upward trend -- increasing order and complexity and the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics has a serious obstacle for naturalistic Evolution. No laws of nature can be proved. They are only identified and formulated through observation. It''s often possible to formulate conclusions in exact mathematical terms ensuring preciseness and generality but this is not the case for the laws of nature. Mathematical formulation of an observation should not be confused with a proof. The laws of nature are nothing more than empirical statements. They cannot be proved, but they are nevertheless valid. The law of conservation of energy for example has never been proved -it''s unproveable as all other laws of nature. So why is it universally valid? Answer: Because it has been shown to be true in millions of experiences with reality. It has survived all real tests.
World-renowned Evolutionist and avid anti-Creationist Isaac Asimov confirmed that -- "Another way of stating the second law then is, ''The universe is constantly getting more disorderly!'' Viewed that way we can see the second law all about us. We have to straighten a room, but left to itself it becomes a mess very quickly and very easily. Even if we never enter it, it becomes dusty and musty. How difficult to maintain houses and machinery, and our own bodies in perfect working order: how easy to let them deteriorate. In fact, all we have to do is nothing, and everything deteriorates, collapses, breaks down wears out, all by itself- and that is what the second law is all about." [Isaac Asimov, "In the Game of Energy and You Can''t Even Break Even", Smithsonian (June 4970), pg.6]. S Gasstone Ph.D writes, "The total amount at entropy in nature is in increasing" [Textbook of Physical Chemistry (NY Nostrand 1946]
Obviously evolution involves transformation, and natural transformations. Ad nature transformations require energy. Such a description of evolution would require tremendous quantities of energy and many energy transformations. The process of evolution requires energy in various forms, and Thermodynamics is the study of energy movement and transformation. The two fields are clearly related. Scientific laws that govern thermodynamics must also govern evolution. Has the 2nd Law Been Circumvented? No, says expert Frank A. Greco: "An answer can readily be given to the question. ''Has the second law of thermodynamics been circumvented?'' NOT YET" [On the Second Law of Thermodynamics. USA Lab. Vol.14 (Oct 1982), pg.80]
"No experimental evidence disproves it", say physicists G.N. Hatspoulous and F.F. Cyftopoulos: "There is no recorded experiment in the history of science that contradicts the second law or its corollaries..." [EB. Stuart, B. Cal-Or, and A.J. Brainard eds; Deductive Quantum Thermodynamics in a Critical Review of Thermodynamics (Baltimore: Mono Book Corporation, 1970), pg.8]. You listed Frank Steiger''s web pages that explain the relationship of the second law of thermodynamics to the Creation/Evolution debate. To that I reply in the words of D.Gish Ph.D biochemist [and he knows more about it than Steiger] -- "Of all the statements that have been made with respect to the theories on the origin of life, the statement that the Second Law of Thermodynamics poses no problem for an evolutionary origin of life is the most absurd."
I mentioned there are experienced and intelligent scientists who find all forms of evolution exceedingly unsatisfactory in providing a credible explanation for the origin of the cosmos. And you replied,
>>There are experienced and intelligent scientists who have all sorts of problems with flood geology as well. Especially Christian geologists and astrophysicists. Just ask Glenn Morton, Hugh Ross, and Alan Hayward.<<
Name one "Christian geologist" to confirm this. Ross [the one you quote] is astronomist -- long ager. There are people [like you] who don''t want to take the Bible literally and believe what it says. They believe parts they like and ignore parts they don''t like. When the Bible says the flood covered the whole earth and every living thing died [Gen.7:19-23] they reject it. The evidence for a worldwide flood however is very convincing! Another reason why the Bible can be trusted and believed. Let me go through your quotes from creationists -
>>[1] It is absurd to think that Adam could name all the animals in part of a single day.... Science requires us to believe that the days of creation week were long ages instead of literal days. (Henry Morris, Adam and the animals, ICR Impact 212)<<
What''s the problem? The naming of the animals occurred after the creation days were over. Next -
>>[2] All living forms have arisen from a single form of life by slow gradual changes. Thus, the time between the origin of life and the abrupt appearance in the fossil record of the many complex invertebrate forms of life is now estimated to have been nearly three billion years. The time required for one of these invertebrates to evolve into the vertebrates, or fishes, has been estimated at about 100 million years, and it is believed that the evolution of the fish into an amphibian required about 30 million years. (Duane T. Gish, Ph.D. (1980). The origin of mammals. ICR Impact 87) " ...all living things have arisen through a naturalistic, mechanistic evolutionary process from a single source, which itself arose by a similar process from a dead, inorganic world. (Duane T. Gish, Ph.D. Creation/Evolution. ICR Impact 4)<<
Gish is describing what evolutionists believe, not stating what he believes. He has faced almost 300 debates on evolution. He is an expert in the major arguments for and against creation and evolution, and defends creation science against the distorted inaccurate and often vicious attacks of evolutionists. Next quote -
>>[3] 1. Dinosaurs and many other animals are pre-historic. Most of the earth''s history took place long before the Bible or any other book was written and long before any man existed. 2. It is a scientific fact that the earth is exceedingly old--perhaps 5 billion years. 3. Evolution is a fact. God did not create the world as portrayed in the Bible. 4. There once was a time when the land was inhabited only by reptiles--the Great Age of the Dinosaurs. 5. Dinosaurs and other animals evolved into completely different kinds of creatures. Every creature evolved from lower forms of life, even man. Man is just an animal--a highly-evolved primate. (Paul S. Taylor (1982). Dinosaur Mania And Our Children. ICR Impact 167)<<
Once again you have been selective in your quoting. Taylor is not an evolutionist he states what they believe. If you read "The Illustrated Origins" [Eden Com. 1954] I doubt very much you would have such a distort view regarding creationism and evolution. Taylor is not a long ager but clearly the opposite. Next quote -
>>[5] Fact of speciation leads directly to the fact of macroevolution (Kenneth Cumming, Patterns of speciation, ICR Impact 215) "This (radioactive) decay has occurred over billions of years at constant rates. (Larry Vardiman, Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth, ICR Impact 301)<<
Sorry I don''t know who they are. When you misrepresent people as above [ie Gish/Taylor/Morris], and suggests by selective quotes that they taught evolution, it comes across as dishonest and suggests all your other quotes could be dishonest. I wouldn''t be surprised that this is the case here. All your quotes are from "ICR Impact" in other words, you have not gone to the books themselves and read a single word. I mentioned it''s amazing how Sceptics think they understand and read the Bible more correctly than theologians. You replied -
>>It''s amazing how fundamentalists think they understand and read the Bible more correctly than skeptics.<<
After reading the way you misquote people and how you misquote the Bible no wonder skeptics or agnostics are criticized. Fundamentalists take the Bible more seriously. But what formal Bible training have you had? If I prescribed medicine without qualification or license would you take it? Who in their right mind would go to you for help understanding the Bible?
I mentioned that we don''t see evolution happening. Every living thing contains a program [eg. DNA -- information written on a long molecule]. Even the simplest-known one-celled creatures are mind-bogglingly complex but they never accidentally have an increase of information. That is, a coding for new structures, functions, greater complexity. And you quoted a lengthy article that hid behind ambiguous words. I confess not have understood the details. But can I say this. I base what I believe on what I DO know not on what I DON''T know. Is it the explanation how information is added to DNA? Information is added to the DNA and all it needs is a "finger (F) inserted between the two G domains" and evolution will work. Although too lengthy to quote here I''m convinced after reading it, the chances of evolving the DNA molecule [crucial to all life] without an outside controlling designer of some kind appears to be practical impossible. And that''s an understatement. Or do you have the secret to life?
The human DNA stores an immensely complex code long enough to fill 1,000 books -- each with 500 pages of small, closely printed type. That''s a lot of information to come together by chance. Nowhere else can a higher statistical packing density of information be found. The major flaw in your quote, is no matter how chemicals are mixed they do not create DNA spirals or any intelligent code whatsoever. Only DNA produces DNA. There is not enough chances or time for life to be formed by natural processes. No laboratory in the world has yet succeeded in creating living organism from inanimate organic matter and even if they could the key factor is having information to start with and with a huge amount of information [skillfully, carefully with expertise] bring life about. Which proves my point, someone with a huge amount of information and extremely Wise made life. Yet even with a simple cell, it must go up the extremely complicated pathway to more complexity. I asked if any of your ''Friends'' read the books I mentioned? And you replied,
>>Yes, and that''s PRECISELY why I''m an evolutionist.<<
Are your friends the ones who tell you what to believe? Why don''t you read yourself? I''m convinced you haven''t or you wouldn''t misquoted or misunderstand the issues. The rest of your remarks in your letter appear childish rather requiring attention, so I''ll leave them. I''m not perfect either, that''s why I need Christ as my Saviour. Looking forward to hearing from you next.
Best, Mark
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