RTB: Serious Problems with Evolution

Discussion about scientific issues as they relate to God and Christianity including archaeology, origins of life, the universe, intelligent design, evolution, etc.
abelcainsbrother
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Re: RTB: Serious Problems with Evolution

Post by abelcainsbrother »

Nicki wrote:
abelcainsbrother wrote:My point stands still though that if normal variation amongst a population is evolution? The whole evolution tree is wrong and is not possible. What ya'll are calling speciation is just normal variation amongst a population and you're claiming it evolved when we get normal variation. Just think of all of the different dog breeds but ya'll are claiming speciation when a new kind of dog is produced by the normal variation of reproduction amongst a population and not all dogs can breed but it matters none because you still get dogs with what they can breed with. So it is not important at all like evolutionists claim about not being able to breed. It is a myth made up that a new kind of dog is produced that cannot breed with all other kinds of dogs to claim it has evolved. It does not lead to another kind of life above the species level and its not just because I say it,we have examples that show it doesn't. I'm just using dogs for this example,but it applies to other populations also.

The whole evolution tree of life must be totally redone to show only horizontal variation instead of verticle evolution.Perhaps evolutionary scientists and creationists can come together now and come up with a better tree of life.
I don't think different dog breeds are different species though. It's possibly true that some dog breeds can't interbreed, but what's the reason for that? It's probably not because their reproductive cells (egg and sperm) won't combine anymore but for a purely practical reason, the dogs being very different sizes.

The idea in evolution (by my understanding) is that different populations of a species become separated (physically or just because of a slight difference) and then gradually become more and more different, as they adapt to their environments, until they're no longer reproductively compatible - from which point they could become more different still and end up as obviously separate species.
If you don't think different dog breeds are a new species then how come in every case of life tested by evolutionists,in every case they don't get a new species? This is my point that keeps getting overlooked.

OK but what happens when they do get separated? What does the evidence show? The evidence shows it still cannot and does not evolve above the species level. It still produces the same kind of life with normal variation. This is my point. If the evidence showed it does lead to a new species above the species level? I would accept evolution,but the evidence shows it doesn't even after life has adapted too. This is because they are simply documenting normal variation amongst a population and using it for evidence life evolves. This keeps getting overlooked and ignored for some reason.

I'm just a person who focuses on evidence and the evidence shows life does not evolve and so I reject evolution and cannot accept the idea that God used evolution to produce all life on earth. The evidence is just not there and not even close. People mostly believe evolution based on the scientific preaching and explanation and they don't focus on what the evidence shows.
Hebrews 12:2-3 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith;who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross,despising the shame,and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

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Re: RTB: Serious Problems with Evolution

Post by Nicki »

abelcainsbrother wrote:
Nicki wrote:
abelcainsbrother wrote:My point stands still though that if normal variation amongst a population is evolution? The whole evolution tree is wrong and is not possible. What ya'll are calling speciation is just normal variation amongst a population and you're claiming it evolved when we get normal variation. Just think of all of the different dog breeds but ya'll are claiming speciation when a new kind of dog is produced by the normal variation of reproduction amongst a population and not all dogs can breed but it matters none because you still get dogs with what they can breed with. So it is not important at all like evolutionists claim about not being able to breed. It is a myth made up that a new kind of dog is produced that cannot breed with all other kinds of dogs to claim it has evolved. It does not lead to another kind of life above the species level and its not just because I say it,we have examples that show it doesn't. I'm just using dogs for this example,but it applies to other populations also.

The whole evolution tree of life must be totally redone to show only horizontal variation instead of verticle evolution.Perhaps evolutionary scientists and creationists can come together now and come up with a better tree of life.
I don't think different dog breeds are different species though. It's possibly true that some dog breeds can't interbreed, but what's the reason for that? It's probably not because their reproductive cells (egg and sperm) won't combine anymore but for a purely practical reason, the dogs being very different sizes.

The idea in evolution (by my understanding) is that different populations of a species become separated (physically or just because of a slight difference) and then gradually become more and more different, as they adapt to their environments, until they're no longer reproductively compatible - from which point they could become more different still and end up as obviously separate species.
If you don't think different dog breeds are a new species then how come in every case of life tested by evolutionists,in every case they don't get a new species? This is my point that keeps getting overlooked.

OK but what happens when they do get separated? What does the evidence show? The evidence shows it still cannot and does not evolve above the species level. It still produces the same kind of life with normal variation. This is my point. If the evidence showed it does lead to a new species above the species level? I would accept evolution,but the evidence shows it doesn't even after life has adapted too. This is because they are simply documenting normal variation amongst a population and using it for evidence life evolves. This keeps getting overlooked and ignored for some reason.

I'm just a person who focuses on evidence and the evidence shows life does not evolve and so I reject evolution and cannot accept the idea that God used evolution to produce all life on earth. The evidence is just not there and not even close. People mostly believe evolution based on the scientific preaching and explanation and they don't focus on what the evidence shows.
It's true that evolution (from one species to another) has not been able to be demonstrated in action in the limited time we've had, and it's true that scientists make an assumption based on adaptation and so on - but it's just the best they can do if they want to look to purely natural causes for the variety of life on earth.
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Re: RTB: Serious Problems with Evolution

Post by abelcainsbrother »

Nicki wrote:
abelcainsbrother wrote:
Nicki wrote:
abelcainsbrother wrote:My point stands still though that if normal variation amongst a population is evolution? The whole evolution tree is wrong and is not possible. What ya'll are calling speciation is just normal variation amongst a population and you're claiming it evolved when we get normal variation. Just think of all of the different dog breeds but ya'll are claiming speciation when a new kind of dog is produced by the normal variation of reproduction amongst a population and not all dogs can breed but it matters none because you still get dogs with what they can breed with. So it is not important at all like evolutionists claim about not being able to breed. It is a myth made up that a new kind of dog is produced that cannot breed with all other kinds of dogs to claim it has evolved. It does not lead to another kind of life above the species level and its not just because I say it,we have examples that show it doesn't. I'm just using dogs for this example,but it applies to other populations also.

The whole evolution tree of life must be totally redone to show only horizontal variation instead of verticle evolution.Perhaps evolutionary scientists and creationists can come together now and come up with a better tree of life.
I don't think different dog breeds are different species though. It's possibly true that some dog breeds can't interbreed, but what's the reason for that? It's probably not because their reproductive cells (egg and sperm) won't combine anymore but for a purely practical reason, the dogs being very different sizes.

The idea in evolution (by my understanding) is that different populations of a species become separated (physically or just because of a slight difference) and then gradually become more and more different, as they adapt to their environments, until they're no longer reproductively compatible - from which point they could become more different still and end up as obviously separate species.
If you don't think different dog breeds are a new species then how come in every case of life tested by evolutionists,in every case they don't get a new species? This is my point that keeps getting overlooked.

OK but what happens when they do get separated? What does the evidence show? The evidence shows it still cannot and does not evolve above the species level. It still produces the same kind of life with normal variation. This is my point. If the evidence showed it does lead to a new species above the species level? I would accept evolution,but the evidence shows it doesn't even after life has adapted too. This is because they are simply documenting normal variation amongst a population and using it for evidence life evolves. This keeps getting overlooked and ignored for some reason.

I'm just a person who focuses on evidence and the evidence shows life does not evolve and so I reject evolution and cannot accept the idea that God used evolution to produce all life on earth. The evidence is just not there and not even close. People mostly believe evolution based on the scientific preaching and explanation and they don't focus on what the evidence shows.
It's true that evolution (from one species to another) has not been able to be demonstrated in action in the limited time we've had, and it's true that scientists make an assumption based on adaptation and so on - but it's just the best they can do if they want to look to purely natural causes for the variety of life on earth.

Well much of the point I have been making is they cannot use normal variation amongst a population for evidence life evolves,which is what they have done. If life evolves? This is not evidence. But it is really bad because of all of the myths they have made up and how they teach and explain how life evolves based on this evidence. It really,really hurts their credibility where you must consider that much of what they have produced for evidence for evolution is based on myths. Such as speciation and how they have made up myths about what happens if they cannot breed and are separated as I have explained.
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Re: RTB: Serious Problems with Evolution

Post by hughfarey »

Nicki wrote:It's true that evolution (from one species to another) has not been able to be demonstrated in action in the limited time we've had, and it's true that scientists make an assumption based on adaptation and so on - but it's just the best they can do if they want to look to purely natural causes for the variety of life on earth.
You don't need to be any kind of scientist to know that evolution occurred. You can even be a Young Earth Creationist. The argument goes like this:

1) A species is a group of organisms which cannot interbreed with each other.
2) In the beginning, God created an animal called a "dog"
3) Noah took two "dogs" onto the ark.
4) These dogs were a single species, as they could breed.
5) All modern canids are descended from these two.
6) Modern canids include foxes and wolves, which cannot interbreed.
7) Therefore from one ancestral species, at lest two modern species are derived.
That's what evolution is.
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Re: RTB: Serious Problems with Evolution

Post by Audacity »

abelcainsbrother wrote: If you don't think different dog breeds are a new species then how come in every case of life tested by evolutionists,in every case they don't get a new species? This is my point that keeps getting overlooked.
You do understand don't you that a species classification is an assigned designation; that organism X is species Y is a decision we make. Up until 1993 dogs were classified as Canis familiaris, a species that sat next to the wolves, Canis lupus, and the coyote, Canis latrans. But in that year, the American Association of Mammalogists having taken a closer look at the dog's relationship to wolves, reclassified them as a subspecies of wolf Canis lupus familiaris . The wolves being assigned several subspecies designations; e.g. Canis lupus lupus, Canis lupus arctos, and Canis lupus floridanus. Dog breeds, like the breeds of any other animal, are not different species.
OK but what happens when they do get separated? What does the evidence show? The evidence shows it still cannot and does not evolve above the species level.

Well, there's nothing to say a breed cannot evolve into a new species, but under the present circumstances---humans control its development----it won't happen. Breeds are artificial, not natural, variations of an animal, and evolution is a natural process. This is why although the chihuahua and Saint Bernard are extremely different looking dogs both still belong to the same species: Canis lupus, and subspecies familiaris . Each having been bred away from the same ancestral wolf form.
It still produces the same kind of life with normal variation. This is my point. If the evidence showed it does lead to a new species above the species level? I would accept evolution,but the evidence shows it doesn't even after life has adapted too.
Species of a particular genus don't evolve "above the species level," that is, into a species of another genus. And just so there's no mistake, ALL organisms are species of some genus.
I'm just a person who focuses on evidence and the evidence shows life does not evolve and so I reject evolution and cannot accept the idea that God used evolution to produce all life on earth.
Evolution isn't only a matter of a species evolving into another species, but includes any change that reflects some kind of adaptation. It involves change within a species, and it may be nothing more than a slight increase in neck length, or more acute hearing. It's called microevolution, an evolutionary change within a species, especially over a short period. Evolution wherein a new species emerges, is a called Macroevolution, a very long term process that involves many microevolutionary events.
The evidence is just not there and not even close.
Yes it is. The peppered moth is probably the best known example of natural selection, a key mechanism of evolution.
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Re: RTB: Serious Problems with Evolution

Post by hughfarey »

Hi Audacity,

I think the difficulty many 'creationists' have with evolution is that they do not understand that 'macroevolution' is merely an emergent quality of 'microevolution'. Many of them have no problem with a mother fish some of whose offspring have marginally fleshier fins than she, but they think that evolutionists postulate that one day a mother fish gave birth to a duck, which they naturally deride. What they cannot bring themselves to contemplate is that although not a single offspring has ever been a different species from its mother, yet the accumulation of tiny physiological differences over thousands of generations leads to descendants of that mother being wholly different species from each other, even to the extent of being as different as a goldfish and a goldfinch.

Because of this, examples like the peppered moth, or breeds of domestic dog, are not convincing, as nobody thinks they are different species, and, since thousands of generations are required for speciation, it is difficult to come up with persuasive examples of it happening as we speak. The development of cichlid fish is the best I can think of off the top of my head, and any study of the variety of frogs endemic to particular groups of recently emerged islands, but even these are unlikely to persuade the more obdurate, since "they're still fishes". Or frogs. As both fishes and frogs are very unlike humans, creationists assume that they can almost all be clumped into a very few 'kinds', such that their staggering diversity is all "normal variation", without any consideration of the extent of the genetic alteration.
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Re: RTB: Serious Problems with Evolution

Post by Audacity »

hughfarey wrote:Hi Audacity,

I think the difficulty many 'creationists' have with evolution is that they do not understand that 'macroevolution' is merely an emergent quality of 'microevolution'. Many of them have no problem with a mother fish some of whose offspring have marginally fleshier fins than she, but they think that evolutionists postulate that one day a mother fish gave birth to a duck, which they naturally deride. What they cannot bring themselves to contemplate is that although not a single offspring has ever been a different species from its mother, yet the accumulation of tiny physiological differences over thousands of generations leads to descendants of that mother being wholly different species from each other, even to the extent of being as different as a goldfish and a goldfinch.

Because of this, examples like the peppered moth, or breeds of domestic dog, are not convincing, as nobody thinks they are different species, and, since thousands of generations are required for speciation, it is difficult to come up with persuasive examples of it happening as we speak. The development of cichlid fish is the best I can think of off the top of my head, and any study of the variety of frogs endemic to particular groups of recently emerged islands, but even these are unlikely to persuade the more obdurate, since "they're still fishes". Or frogs. As both fishes and frogs are very unlike humans, creationists assume that they can almost all be clumped into a very few 'kinds', such that their staggering diversity is all "normal variation", without any consideration of the extent of the genetic alteration.
I agree. Many creationists are willing to recognize microevolution, but because of their intractable position that species evolution just - can't - happen, they absolutely refuse to admit it. It's like a mental roadblock they've erected to keep their beliefs intact.

What's worse is that the evidence is so obvious. Unless one has very good reason to believe that microevolutionary changes can't be cumulative, the question is: why can't they culminate in a population of organisms that is so different from the original parent population as to constitute a new species?
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Re: RTB: Serious Problems with Evolution

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Because life happens one generation at a time -- there Might be small modifications , an extra toe for a couple of generations -- but that 'extra toe' won't develop into a fin rather than a foot.

As a 'side note' -- a catapilar that develops the cocoon and then a beautiful butterfly emerges after a while. Last I've heard, scientists have No clue how That happens.

And, no, we Don't believe that a mother fish gave birth to a duck. Total nonsense -- and it's Also not plausible that over thousands of generations that a Different mother developed. Because Life - reproduction happens One generation at a time. The original 'mother' will look like the same 'mother' -- the same 'duck' will keep on producing other ducklings who will grow up and reproduce after It's kind.

It's observation and common sense.
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Re: RTB: Serious Problems with Evolution

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crochet1949 wrote:Because life happens one generation at a time -- there Might be small modifications , an extra toe for a couple of generations -- but that 'extra toe' won't develop into a fin rather than a foot.
Please realize that life is comprised of more than two or three generations. Take wolves. Wolves are ready to reproduce at the age of two, so in 5,000 years it's possible that close to 2,500 generations will have occurred. Now, within these 2,500 generations it's very possible that through the process of natural selection the 2,500th generation may look quite unlike the first generation. This obviously isn't an overnight change, as you seem to understand it, but a very slow transformation. And given even more time, say 50,000 years and 25,000 generations, the 25,000th population of wolves will look so different from the first generation that they will no longer be recognized as the same species. But what the hey! According to some Christians evolution has taken far, far, less time than that to produce new species. Some say less than 4,500 years when the few thousand animals on Noah's Ark evolved into millions of species. Now that's evolution with a capital "E."
As a 'side note' -- a catapilar that develops the cocoon and then a beautiful butterfly emerges after a while. Last I've heard, scientists have No clue how That happens.

Then you heard wrong. Scientists know exactly how caterpillars turn into butterflies. Look it up. Google and your local library are your friends.
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Re: RTB: Serious Problems with Evolution

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Audacity wrote:
crochet1949 wrote:Because life happens one generation at a time -- there Might be small modifications , an extra toe for a couple of generations -- but that 'extra toe' won't develop into a fin rather than a foot.
Please realize that life is comprised of more than two or three generations. Take wolves. Wolves are ready to reproduce at the age of two, so in 5,000 years it's possible that close to 2,500 generations will have occurred. Now, within these 2,500 generations it's very possible that through the process of natural selection the 2,500th generation may look quite unlike the first generation. This obviously isn't an overnight change, as you seem to understand it, but a very slow transformation. And given even more time, say 50,000 years and 25,000 generations, the 25,000th population of wolves will look so different from the first generation that they will no longer be recognized as the same species. But what the hey! According to some Christians evolution has taken far, far, less time than that to produce new species. Some say less than 4,500 years when the few thousand animals on Noah's Ark evolved into millions of species. Now that's evolution with a capital "E."
As a 'side note' -- a catapilar that develops the cocoon and then a beautiful butterfly emerges after a while. Last I've heard, scientists have No clue how That happens.

Then you heard wrong. Scientists know exactly how caterpillars turn into butterflies. Look it up. Google and your local library are your friends.

My point was that life happens one generation at a time -- usually animals keep on reproducing after their kind for years and years. You use the phrase "it's very possible that..... " isn't it just as possible that in That process it May look very much Like the first generation. Sounds like some speculation on your part. The wolf will probably always resemble the wolf family. Wolves Can mate with dogs -- those animals of the same kind. Whatever they would normally mate with in the wild. The wolves are Not going to Gradually take on the look of a cow or horse. They would have to be naturally mating with..... Maybe zebras are a mixture of 'something'. Or are they unique amongst other animals.

Okay -- you brought up Noah's ark. There were Not a few thousand animals on Noah's ark. You might want to read up on that in Genesis. A male and female of a 'kind'/ specie that normally mate together. And some other specifics. And , actually, in Genesis we aren't told how many of various kinds of animals / birds/ water/ land there were that He created.

People have had a lot to do with breeding various animals together , but they are Still dogs/ cats/ cattle. Just various sizes and shapes.

But, -- animals after the flood simply continued to reproduce after their kind. Just like they can be observed to do Today.

Yes, I know that Google is my friend. So is the Library.
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Re: RTB: Serious Problems with Evolution

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crochet1949 wrote:
Audacity wrote:
crochet1949 wrote:Because life happens one generation at a time -- there Might be small modifications , an extra toe for a couple of generations -- but that 'extra toe' won't develop into a fin rather than a foot.
Please realize that life is comprised of more than two or three generations. Take wolves. Wolves are ready to reproduce at the age of two, so in 5,000 years it's possible that close to 2,500 generations will have occurred. Now, within these 2,500 generations it's very possible that through the process of natural selection the 2,500th generation may look quite unlike the first generation. This obviously isn't an overnight change, as you seem to understand it, but a very slow transformation. And given even more time, say 50,000 years and 25,000 generations, the 25,000th population of wolves will look so different from the first generation that they will no longer be recognized as the same species. But what the hey! According to some Christians evolution has taken far, far, less time than that to produce new species. Some say less than 4,500 years when the few thousand animals on Noah's Ark evolved into millions of species. Now that's evolution with a capital "E."
As a 'side note' -- a catapilar that develops the cocoon and then a beautiful butterfly emerges after a while. Last I've heard, scientists have No clue how That happens.

Then you heard wrong. Scientists know exactly how caterpillars turn into butterflies. Look it up. Google and your local library are your friends.

My point was that life happens one generation at a time -- usually animals keep on reproducing after their kind for years and years. You use the phrase "it's very possible that..... " isn't it just as possible that in That process it May look very much Like the first generation.

Yes it is, but this doesn't preclude the chance of significant change among other organisms.
Sounds like some speculation on your part.

To speculate that change happens within a species? Not at all because we know it happens: see link on the peppered moth I provided.
The wolf will probably always resemble the wolf family.
So what is it they now resemble in the "wolf family"? I assume you're unaware that the "wolf family," Canidae, contains not only wolves, but other species such as the foxes, jackals, African wild dogs, dholes, bush dogs, racoon dogs, and coyotes. Some of which look nothing like a wolf.
Wolves Can mate with dogs -- those animals of the same kind.
Yes they can. One reason being they're the same species: Canis lupus.

Okay -- you brought up Noah's ark. There were Not a few thousand animals on Noah's ark. You might want to read up on that in Genesis. A male and female of a 'kind'/ specie that normally mate together. And some other specifics. And , actually, in Genesis we aren't told how many of various kinds of animals / birds/ water/ land there were that He created.

Answers in Genesis, one of the most prominent creationists organizations in the world, disagrees.

"Recent studies estimate the total number of living and extinct kinds of land animals and flying creatures to be about 1,500. With our “worst-case” scenario approach to calculating the number of animals on the Ark, this would mean that Noah cared for approximately 7,000 animals."

source

But, -- animals after the flood simply continued to reproduce after their kind. Just like they can be observed to do Today.
Do you not understand that the number of animals aboard the ark were significantly far less than the number of species now roaming the earth, which means that in order for there to be this many there would have to have been a whole lot of evolution going on since the ark docked?
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Re: RTB: Serious Problems with Evolution

Post by crochet1949 »

Look at Genesis 1:20- 24 -- not once is there a mention of numbers only that God created them. So there's Also no way for Anyone to say how many animals existed at the time of Noah's ark. 'Recent studies estimate.....' 7,000 small or large animals? A male and female pony would be smaller than full grown horses, etc. We're not told Anything specifically. So, in reality , we - including 'Answers in Genesis' -- Don't have any real idea. Only speculation based on.....

I don't really believe that Any evolution had to be going on since then. If our definition of evolution is the same. If you mean that in the process of .....that animals were able to cross boundaries from one kind to another, then, no. I stick by my thought that a 'horse' will Not change to become a 'whatever else' that is discovered to exist centuries later. There Are a lot more of the same kinds because they Have reproduced generation by generation. And People have gotten into the picture and experimented with animals.

Hummingbirds and those really big birds -- are all in the bird family -- but they certainly Won't mate much less reproduce anything. Pelicans, etc.
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Re: RTB: Serious Problems with Evolution

Post by neo-x »

Actually Crochet, you are seeing it backward in a way. The branches you see divided, before. They will only produce now what they have unless there is a mutation that has an advantage, until then everything will be the same. The sharks and crocs are a good example. There have not been enough environment pressure+mutations, so they remain largely unchanged.

E.g. Humans have been swimming in oceans but that doesn't mean they have evolved into sea-dwelling creatures. Nor will they until there is a such a change required which pushes us to live there more than we do on land, say a radiation breakout which makes land impossible to dwell on...and a rare mutation that results in someone having a nose significantly higher on their head comes which makes it easier for them to go underwater and come up only slightly to breathe through the hole on top of their head. Then if that mutation is passed into a population and the resulting number of humans with noses significantly higher on their heads are more than normal ones, is when they have a higher chance of living in the oceans and survive and breed more than the normal human variety until at a point where normal humans go extinct or are forced to go some other evolutionary path and are no more. And all you see are the higher nose creatures living in the oceans, still mammals, but may have different limbs, atrophied muscles, have hair and give birth in a non-egg form and produce milk as well.

E.g whales which have gone through the same evolution. Look up whale evolution, the evidence is undeniable. Just to give a small example:
Whales limbs and in the first diagram, see how the nostrils went higher.

Image
Image
Image
Image
Image

You see, eventually, you will get something different given, NS, mutations, pressure, etc.
It is just a crude rough example but I hope you get the idea.
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Re: RTB: Serious Problems with Evolution

Post by hughfarey »

crochet1949 wrote:I don't really believe that Any evolution had to be going on since then. If our definition of evolution is the same. If you mean that in the process of .....that animals were able to cross boundaries from one kind to another, then, no. I stick by my thought that a 'horse' will Not change to become a 'whatever else' that is discovered to exist centuries later.
Well, that's OK, I suppose, as long as you acknowledge that your belief is nothing more than a personal, irrational, conviction. There are plenty of others who think the same. However, note the word 'irrational'. Any simple conviction, if used as the basis for rational thought, gives rise to logical corollaries. If those corollaries conflict with the premise, then rationally the premise must be wrong (although, irrationally, of course, people sometimes do believe in two irreconcilable premises). So, if we begin with a personal conviction that God created any particular kind, a very few of which (two or seven, depending on whether the animal is 'clean' or not) entered the ark, then we have a rational right to ask which modern animals are descended from this tiny group.

As it happens, there are only a few species of horse around today, all of which can interbreed to some extent, so it is possible that they could all have descended from Noachian ancestors. But the same cannot be said for 'dogs', 'cats', or any of the smaller mammals, let alone the vast diversity of birds and invertebrates, and in spite of some quite scientific attempts (and other quite dishonest attempts) to group together even remotely interbreeding species into 'kinds', the number is far too many to have been accommodated on the ark, even with a generous interpretation of its biblical dimensions, and the assumption that God's 'kinds' were smaller than today's creatures.

This means that the denial of speciation is logically inconsistent with the conviction that every 'kind' of animal was taken aboard the ark. To believe that no new species have been created since the ark, and that every species was aboard the ark, is irrational.

Abelcainsbrother has, quite fairly, suggested that speciation itself might not be an issue. So what if there are different species of Salamander, he says, they're still all Salamanders, and might all have descended from an original pair of the 'Salamander kind' on the ark (this is over simplistic, and AnswersinGenesis thinks God actually created 50 or so different 'kinds' of Salamander, and that all modern salamanders are 'normal variations' of them, but his point is still valid). However, once one accepts that a 'kind' might include animals of different genera, or even different families, then one is obliged to come up with some kind of explanation of how 'normal variation' can account for such huge genetic diversity. The answer, of course, turns out to be indistinguishable from evolution, and macro-evolution at that.

OK, some might say, so my beliefs are irrational. Why shouldn't they be? God can do anything. And again, I say, fair enough, believe what you want. But this forum is entitled 'God and Science', and the website is entitled 'Evidence for God from Science', so it is entirely fair to challenge irrational beliefs here. There may be sites called 'Evidence for God from Personal Conviction', 'Evidence for God from Revelation' or 'Evidence for God from Scripture', and I would be loath to criticise anyone's views expressed therein, but here, rationality is supremely relevant.
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Audacity
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Re: RTB: Serious Problems with Evolution

Post by Audacity »

crochet1949 wrote:Look at Genesis 1:20- 24 -- not once is there a mention of numbers only that God created them. So there's Also no way for Anyone to say how many animals existed at the time of Noah's ark. 'Recent studies estimate.....' 7,000 small or large animals? A male and female pony would be smaller than full grown horses, etc. We're not told Anything specifically. So, in reality , we - including 'Answers in Genesis' -- Don't have any real idea. Only speculation based on.....
And I agree. AiG's estimate is ludicrous, particularly in light of the fact that Noah and his small family would have had to provided food and water, and care for this many animals for a year; however, I offered it up as the most favorable estimate to the creationist position I could. Realistically, the number of animals taken aboard would have had to be much, much smaller. The ark simply wasn't that big of a boat.

Image
I don't really believe that Any evolution had to be going on since then. If our definition of evolution is the same.
If you mean that in the process of .....that animals were able to cross boundaries from one kind to another, then, no.
What are these boundaries you have in mind? Put as simply as I can, evolution is a very slow change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. Eventually such changes result in characteristics of a population of organisms so different from the originating population that they can no longer be considered to be the same species.

Gotta ask: If evolution wasn't responsible for the vast number of species we now have on earth, just how did they come from the few that were aboard the ark? What was the mechanism? How did the cat kind produce so many different species?

Lions
Jaguars
Leopards
Tigers
Bay cats
Caracels
Servals
Ocelots
Margays
Pampas cats
Lynxs
Bobcats
Cheetahs
Cougars
Domestic cats
European wild cats

Just to name a few
I stick by my thought that a 'horse' will Not change to become a 'whatever else' that is discovered to exist centuries later.
Not centuries, but many, many millennia.
There Are a lot more of the same kinds because they Have reproduced generation by generation. And People have gotten into the picture and experimented with animals.
Honestly, I don't think you have any idea of what a kind is.
Hummingbirds and those really big birds -- are all in the bird family -- but they certainly Won't mate much less reproduce anything. Pelicans, etc.
Your point being . . . . . . what?
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