I recently wrote an article that provoked some good debates amongst the JU community, while they got slightly heated at times, they for the most part have got your brain churning and asking some serious questions and looking at some serious answers.
Click here to view the article
During the article both sides of the arguement threw up questions natrually, i chose some of the most pertinent and tried to tackle them here in this article.
I'm now going to expand on some of the issues lula raised there.
Firstly id like to start with the following:
lulapilgrim wrote:
Are you seriously suggesting that whales evolved from some other species? And what were snakes before they were snakes?
Yes I’m serious when I assert that whales evolved from other species. You ask for examples where one species becomes another, I’ve shown you two species that have genetic similarities to others.
Many people who dispute evolution turn towards the issue of ‘Macro’ evolution, saying that it itself is flawed, some are even idiotic enough to say that they believe in Micro Evolution (which is essentially the mutation that takes place all the time and can be witnessed in a laboratory and is proven fact), but don’t believe it in Macro evolution.
What people forget is that Macro Evolution and Micro Evolution are the same. Macro Evolution is Micro Evolution over a longer period of time. So this leads on to the following statement:
lulapilgrim wrote:
However, after decades of experimentation (as in fruit flies), we've discovered that mutations cannot produce macro evolution either for they are always harmful. Mutations never produce new species. Sorry about that.
Based on this statement I can only assume that you’re fully endorsing the fact that we have observed mutations in fruit flies (Micro Evolution). Morgan (who carried out the experiment) was a revolutionary and I admire his work fully, he observed mutations (the most obvious being the flies getting different coloured eyes). This concludes that micro evolution is a fact. Agreed? Good.
One of the major contributing factors of natural selection being sexual selection. You take one of your laboratory flies and see if it mates with a normal fruit fly. It can’t, it won’t, their incompatible like me and a pink pokadotted elephant, despite me wanting to mate with it, at the genetic level it just isn't going to work!
This is usually happens in nature after micro evolution has reached the scale where the species in question has now split to the point were the number of copies of chromosomes is different and as such they are unable to mate. At this point the two branches of species only mate with themselves and the genetic differences of the two become more and more observable over time until we have a new type of species.
That’s my understanding of it. We could find out that Darwin was wrong and I’d be just as excited about the prospect as anyone. I’m no Darwinionite, the very notion of standing behind a cause so staunchly and refuting others straight off sort of reminds me too much of religion and as such I try to distance myself from it. I do believe however that it is the most plausible answer so far (and as such should be teached in schools), just like our current understanding of gravity is plausible (but we know for sure it isn’t 100% correct!), yet should we not teach it in schools?
lulapilgrim wrote:
Here, you are buying into the atheistic evolution model assumption that life comes from non-life...that's where the whole thing falters, imo.
Yep we don’t know for sure, and I wouldn’t rule out a creator as such or anything of that notion, but I wouldn’t support the idea either as scientific fact either, there just isn't any evidence.
lulapilgrim wrote:
As far as that goes, we could say humans look like most anything during our various stages of embryology. (What gets me though is the abortionist's lie....that it's only a blob of tissue, when in reality it's a real human person in the womb.) Anyway, the point is from similarities we certainly can't conclude that we evolved from frogs, fish and reptiles.
So your willing to accept that we share common biological functions with other animals but out right refuse to consider the posiblity that we were at one point both the same thing? Why do you and other creationists find this notion so offensive (maybe your not offended, but I know a good few creationists who are!) and hard to believe?
lulapilgrim wrote:
Radio and carbon dating are totally unreliable in ascertaining long ages of time in earth's history. These are special methods used by scientists to date organic materials, not rocks.
Radio dating, which measures the half life of radioactive material (such as uranium). It wouldn’t be very good for measuring the half life of any organic material.
Radio dating can be susceptible to degrading into led and isn’t always accurate, because you have to apply a range technique in order to determine how much led was in the rock initially. So while it's not exactly flawed, it isn't perfect.
Carbon dating can’t be error ours for sure, only because of contamination though.
So what your saying in essence is that both Radio and Carbon data is not able to be used as evidence because their not flawless.
Regardless multiple techniques still exist, most are concrete (heh), you can measure the decay of potassium-40 in a rock into argon-40. This technique only allows us to go back approximately 1-2 billion years (slightly longer than 6,000 though, wouldn’t you say?).
There is also Isochron dating, which measures the decay of a substance called rubidium in to strontium. This has a half life of 5 billion years, so is a highly favourable technique.
There are many more and I’m sure I could go on here for days. I find it disappointing that educated people are still willing to refuse the age of our planet. It is still possible to be a devote Christian and believe it, and so I wonder why you struggle with it. Anyways its not for me to say, I’m defending just gonna stick to defending my arguement here.
lulapilgrim wrote:
Radio active dating proves nothing about the age of the earth whereas the population of the earth, the power of the magnetic field and the saltiness of the ocean suggests the earth is "young".
I’ve only glanced upon the magenetic field theory, something I believe along the lines of that the magnetic field of the earth is far too strong if the world was 4.5 billion years old; due to the natural decay of magnetic fields this shouldn’t be the case? Do you have any material on this you could provide us with, again from scientific journals and sites only please.
lulapilgrim wrote:
Scientists speculating about life on other planets and all is fine....but the reality is so far, all we know for absolute certain is that earth is the only planet in which life exists..
And why is earth the only place where life exists? Becasue it has the exact rotational speed, is the right distance from the sun, with the exact right tilt to give the four seasons upon which so much as nature's interdependence relies...in short, earth is the ONLY PLACE IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE WHERE BIOLOGICAL LIFE IS POSSIBLE.
Creationists assert positively that earth was intended by God to be an abode for the crowning achievement of the physical universe---human beings. The wonders of the universe exist for man to stand in awe at the greatness of the Creator.
Believers in atheistic naturalistic Evolution, Pantheism and Gaia worship teach that everything made itself. This is truly bewildering given the gigantic odds that must have occurred for all this complex life forms to happen by random chance. Believers in Special Creation teach that Almighty God made the universe and everything in it and guides it and will until the end of time.
I think I’ll conclude here, it is interesting that you immediately jump to the conclusion that because we have yet to discover life on other planets, that it doesn’t exist! Sounds familiar doesn’t it? We could apply your same ignorant logic to God no?
God may exist; Life on other planets may exist. We don’t know yet for sure and until we do we shouldn’t go around trying to convince the world otherwise. It’s wrong, it’s foolish and it slows the advancement of our race.
Teach what we know, debate and argue on internet forums what we don’t know!
Regards
Maasu / Scotteh