nahomadis

Ok, thanks. I will get cracking right away.

I am happy to rebutt an article from the TalkOrigins site, on the condition that you chose an article that provides the best evidence for Evolution (and against Biblical creation).

I just clicked on that talkOrigins link and there is too much material. You don't seriously expect me to wage through all that material do you? You choose one article and I will work on it over the next few days and get back to you. Right now it is 1am in the morning in London....and I want to hit the sack mate! Night. Sorry if I upset anyone!

Try using a reputable source.

Perhaps they didn't evolve from pond scum.

Empty statement. Lets see you debunk it.

It is a amusing to read you deflecting the point at hand. The coelacanth is a problem to evolutionists, which they admit, but which you try to ignore. Dicks, L., writing in 'The creatures time forgot', New Scientist, (164(2209):36–39, 1999) says many creatures, including the coelacanth, 'have stayed the same' for millions of years. Story telling should be kept appart from science. Let me amuse you with one interesting fact on the matter. In 1938 Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer alerted the scientific world to the fact that the coelacanth fish was alive and well. Before that time, it had been thought extinct, having died out about ‘the time of the dinosaurs’. The species was named Latimeria chalumnae in her honour. You are guilty of Ad Hominem (against the man)....attacking the opponent instead of the argument. Anyway, the fact that living things can speciate is called 'speciation'. In your case read 'evolution'.

Antibiotic resistance is good evidence against molecules-to-man evolution. See an excellent article by Carl Wieland on this here http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v20/i1/superbugs.asp tens of thousands, including all the founders of biological science.

The Coelacanth is not an intermediate form. It is a fish. It always has been a fish as far back as we can trace it in the fossil record. Evolutionists date Coelacanth fossils to 340 millions old. Yet living ones have been discovered! Think of it, they say it has not changed in 340 millions years! Other examples of 'living fossils' include the Gingko trees (fossil gingko trees are believed by evolutionists to be 125 million years), crocodiles (140 million years), horseshoe crabs (200 million years), the Lingula lamp shell (450 million years), Neopilina molluscs (500 million years), and the tuatara lizard (200 million years). Why have these life-forms stayed the same for all that time? Could it be maybe....just maybe....that they are not millions of years old?

You have comitted a logical fallacy called a priori reasoning (circular reasoning) by assuming what needs to be proved. You need to first show how you arrived at the 10,000 year old date. If molecules-to-man evolution is happening today, we would have been able to observe small scale evolution in the present. Yet no evolution happens of the kind to enable fish to change to philosophers. And all these experiments have yielded results that contradict Darwinian Evolution, and support the creation model. See http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v20/i2/genetics.asp It is disturbing to see willful rejection of scientific findings of this kind.

Actually, the Neo-Darwinian theory today is really two fold: 1 - The Theory of common ancestry. This holds that all living things have a common ancestor. 2 - The Theory of descent with modification. This holds that the multitude of living things we see today have descended from a common ancestor through a process of gradual and successive genetic evolution, demonstrated phenotypically in new body plans, functions and systems. The mechanism of evolution is itself two fold. It is considered to operate due to the information-generating changes in a gene pool (mutations) bringing about new useful information, working alongside the phenotype-sifting process of natural selection. Information (from the Latin, in-(toward)+forma(form)) literally is an arrangement of data pointing towards or leading to form/structure/function. Natural Selection and mutation are observable in the present, but have not been observed to generate a new arrangement of useful data that was not already in the genome. They have, however, been observed to generate a rearrangement of the data. For this reason, some scientists doubt the ability of Natural Selection and mutation to have operated in the past as the mechanism of evolution. I don't think observing natural selection and mutation today (which does not generate new useful information) can be cited as evidence for the Theory of common ancestry or the Theory of descent with modification. Someone has tried to show (satirically) the difference of opinion that results when the evidence today (Natural Selection and Mutation) is extrapolated backwards to account for the origin of living things. See http://www.mollallegn.blogspot.com for the satire which really makes a serious point. All major view points are give a fair voice.

It is neccessary to define what you mean by Evolve in each instance when you use that term. After all, evolve actually means change (evolvere is latin for 'to unroll or to move'). But what type of change? Precisely how do chemicals change? And in what direction do they change?

Charles Darwin: None. But if it could be shown that the bulb entered the socket without a series of clockwise turns, my theory would absolutely break down. ACLU: None! We have separation of church and state in this country. Eugenie Scott: None. To say a Darwinist did it is not a scientific explanation. Panda’s Thumb: None. To say that light bulbs don’t screw themselves in is not a testable proposition. You can’t prove they don’t. That would be an argument from incredulity. You are committing a ‘Darwinist Of The Gaps’ fallacy. Carl Sagan: None. Time and chance are sufficient. Eventually it is inevitable that the bulb will be in the socket. Say, in a billion years. Darwinian College Lecturer: None. The quintessentially non-random process of natural selection is sufficient. Those objects capable of giving off light when screwed into sockets will be in sockets. Those that aren’t will be in the trash. Richard Dawkins: None. A light bulb that gives off 1% light intensity is very much worth having. A bulb sitting on the shelf at the supermarket gives off a certain amount of light. One in the cupboard at home gives off more. One five feet from the socket gives off more, and one two feet away even more. One in the socket gives off the most of all. It is therefore inevitable that the bulb will reach the socket. Stephen J. Gould: None. It’s called punctuated illumination. The bulb jumped into the socket when no one was looking. Gradually. Kenneth Miller: None. The bulb was already serving a function: providing rigidity to its corrugated packaging on the supermarket shelf. Co-option did the rest. Theistic Evolutionist: All of the above explanations are substantially correct. But the more important question is the meaning of the light. Philip Johnson: Is that the right question to ask? Maybe we should ask other questions to subject the status quo to more scrutiny than the scientific establishment would want us to. Michael Behe: The bulb could not screw itself into the socket. A working lightbulb and socket is an irreducibly complex system that begs intelligent agency. Stephen Meyer: Follow the evidence to its logical conclusion. How do you explain the explosion of fully fledged light bulbs everywhere, each fitted into its socket, with no earlier intermediate forms? William Dembski: Who knows? Mathematically, Intelligent Agency is more probable than self-screwing lightbulbs. Answers In Genesis: One. Any more questions? Steve Jones: None. Only stupid people would think otherwise. Stephen J. Gould: We can not say one or more Darwinists did it without violating the law of non-overlapping illuminarium. Discovery Institute: Teach the controversy. Students should be exposed to the scientific evidence for as well as the scientific evidence against self-screwing light bulbs. NUT: We are extremely concerned by fundamentallist sponsors of state schools who teach children to think there is a viable alternative to self-screwing light bulbs. Guillermo Gonzalez: Who knows? But isn’t it interesting that other light bulbs allowed the Darwinist to see what he was doing as he screwed in this light bulb. Darwin Chorus: Oh, yeah? Which Darwinist? What is his name? If you won’t tell us that, you’re being disingenuous, and therefore no one screwed in the light bulb! Flying Spaghetti Monster: Two. But don’t ask me how they got in there. Oh. 'Darwinists'? I thought you said 'fruit flies'. Michael Ruse: Are you trying to create a theocracy? The light bulbs in the reeducation camps will be depressingly dim. Unless they use candles. Do Creationists know how to make fire? Internet Infidel: First answer this: How many priests did it take to burn Galileo at the stake? Huh?!? Panda’s Thumb: If a Darwinist had screwed it in, it would be an efficient fluorescent, not a wasteful incandescent. Therefore no one screwed it in. Talk.Origins: We’ve observed all kinds of light bulbs in all kinds of sockets: flashlights, automobile headlights, Christmas tree lights, Las Vegas marquees. There is nothing special about this light bulb and this socket. Royal Society: We oppose the misrepresentation of lighbulbs in sockets to promote a religious alternative. The evidence for light bulbs in sockets is overwhelming. Richard Dawkins: None. Darwin made it possible to feel fulfilled sitting in the dark. Richard Dawkins: To say that it took a Darwinist to do the screwing in of the lightbulb is to explain precisely nothing. The obvious question becomes: Who did the screwing to create the Darwinist screwer? And who did the screwing to create that screwer? There would have to be an infinite regress of screwers. And if you invoke some invisible, mystical Unscrewed Screwer (for which we have no credible evidence) to start the whole thing off, why not just say that the lightbulb screwed itself in and be done with it? Eugenie Scott: No one doubts that the light bulb got screwed into the socket. The only debate is over the details. Richard Dawkins: Evolution is the study of light bulbs that look as if they’ve been screwed into their sockets for a purpose, but haven't been. Daniel Dennett: Perhaps we should keep fundamentalist light bulb inserters in cultural zoos so future generations can see how “in the dark” they really are! Eric Pianka: If we could just produce a directed surge of destructive electricity which would burn out 90% of the worlds light bulbs thereby conserving energy in the long-run and… …you… you errr… didn’t get that on tape, did you? Judge Jones: The inanity of that question is breathtaking. Sternberg at Smithsonian: I’m not allowed to question how the lightbulb is twisted into the socket now and they took the lightbulb, the switch, circuit and socket from my office. SciAm Editorial: Two MIT researchers have announced the results of a breakthrough experiment, detailed in this month's cover story. To summarize briefly, they first turned on the overhead light in the kitchen. Then one of them donned mittens, got on a chair, and very slowly rotated the bulb in a counterclockwise direction, until it just turned off. The two then proceeded to jump up and down on the kitchen floor, in order to generate random displacement perturbations at the socket site. In an astonishingly short time, the bulb relit. This experimental result powerfully establishes that lightbulbs are capable of screwing themselves into sockets with no intelligent guidance, demolishing the "one Darwinist" explanation of the creationists, which should now join epicycles, phlogiston, vital elan, and the luminiferous ether in the museum of discredited hypotheses. It is perhaps not too much of an exaggeration to say that Darwinists themselves are becoming wholly superfluous to proper scientific explanation. This important result is something to keep in mind as the nation-wide battle over school district science standards continues to rage. Ken Ham: Were you there? Let's be honest, none of us were there. But I know someone who has always been there, who knows everything, and who does not lie. He tells us who screwed-in the light-bulb. Are you interested? Michael Ruse: None. Light bulbs in sockets are a fact, fact, FACT! Richard Lewontin: None. For we take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to self-screwing lightbulbs. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a self-screwing explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to self-screwing causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce self-screwing explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that self-screwing is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Darwinist hand on the bulb. Ken Miller: None, because the bulb could be used as a drinking glass, the filament could be a spring, the screw could be used as an archimedian pump and the contacts could be used to make a dandy tie-clip! Stuart Kaufmann: None. Notice that both the screw pattern on the light bulb's base and the filament itself exhibit the form of a single helix, testifying to powerful, ubiquitous self-organizing properties in nature. Now it's your turn to contribute. How many Darwinists does it take to screw-in a light bulb?

I was not going to reply, but very quickly.... I trust the Bible's account of what I can not see. I would add that I don't distrust what I see. I rely on the bible to guide me through what I can not see, and I trust my observations on things that I can see. The two are complementary, not in opposition. I am not ignoring my own observations ecoli. I am accounting for the limitations of my observation e.g. I did not observe the formation of the first man and woman. But since God did, his observation is going to be correct. Then I add my observation to God's observation to build a more complete picture. That is correct. thanks Nahomadis

Hi there. Found time over lunch to reply. Excuse the spelling mistakes as I had to type real fast! Some of the emperical evidence can, to a measure, be made to fit a Darwinian explanatory framework e.g. mutation and the sifting process of natural selection. It is true that living things Evolve. Evolution simply means change (evolvere = 'to unroll/move'). However, when Darwinists use the term Evolution they imply change in a certain direction: information increasing change. They hold that the Evolution we see today has mounted up, over time, to increase the genetic information in a living thing such it becomes another kind e.g. reptile to birds. So Darwinists use the term Evolution to mean not just the change we see today, but change in a direction that can account for the Origin of new kinds of living things. Creationists hold that Evolution today is happening (some call it 'micro-evolution), but that it is happening in the opposite direction of that required for the Origin of new Kinds: information maintaing/decreasing change. Fact and evidence does not speak for itself. It must be interpreted. I do not reject the fact of Natural selection, mutation, speciation, and adaptation. I think these mechanisms cause variation within kinds of living things. But these changes can not be exptrapolated to account for change from one kind to another. I am not twisting the evidence. That is a false analogy. You have misrepresented the Creationist position by leaving out one piece of legal evidence: the eye wittness account. God tells us the major events in earth's history. Why should it be thought impossible that God can tell us about the past? Jesus confirmed the historicity of the Genesis narrative. When dealing with an issue regarding marriage he said 'He that made them in the beginning made them male and female....'. Jesus, as God and man, can be trusted. Are you willing to trust him? I don't understand. Please explain how I am being dishonest. I am not hiding anything. I graduated from Queen Mary and Westfield in Chemistry with Biochemistry. I am editor for Thomson Scientific. It is fair to say I have a conceptual understanding of sience and a working knowledge of the scientific method. Lewontin is not alone. And he is no crackpot. Michael Ruse, probably the most informed anti-creationist in the US openly acknowledged the philosophical basis of molecules-to-man Evolution before a shocked audience several years ago. Read it at http://www.arn.org/docs/orpages/or151/mr93tran.htm The Genesis account was written by Moses under Divin inspiration such that the final product is the Word of God, without human error. See 2nd Peter 1:v19 Take the origin of man. It took place in history. None of us were there. We have to make assumptions about what took place in history to correctly interpret the present evidence. Molecules to man evolution is not a belief system - true. But Naturalism is. And Darwinian evolution is an explanation that is built from Naturalism, and from a number of the facts. The scientific method can not be used to prove or disprove Darwinian evolution. Darwinian evolutino relies heavily on Naturalism to interpret historical evidence. To refute DE, one would have to refute Naturalism, which can not be done scientifically. No that is not what i meant. I am not blindily assuming God's word to be true. God changed me so I came to know and love him and accept his word. My testimony is on http://www.amyandparkchapel.com/christian_church/christian_testimony_of_milkias_mollallegn.htm What is the evidence that Nature is all there is? What sort of evidence? Then they are being inconsistent. I disagree. If you can show what you believe from the Bible clearly and logically then you can afford to be inflexible. I said show a theoretical framework for justifying the relibility of the scientific method. Why does the scientific method work? Why should you trust it? Take the age of the earth (6000 by bible's dating). But darwinists believe it formed naturally, over billions of years. But the radiometric dating evidence suggests otherwise. The presence of radio-halos in Zircon crystals indicates rapid decay of the radio isotopes. The presence of C14 (half life 7000 years approx.) in diamond means diamond is not millions of years old either. There is not even enough time for evolution to be considered. But factoring in the effects of the flood, research shows the age of the oldest rocks at approx. 6000 years. Give me an example of a mutation working in concert with Natural selection that is evidence of molecules-to-man evolution. Thanks. I may not be able to reply to you again until next week as I am quite busy with stuff. Have a nice weekend. Nahomadis

Hi. Thanks for responding. You have raised some interesting points which I want to try to deal with. Again, do let me know if I am not clear in any area. You are quite right, there is no more evidence for Creation than there is for molecules-to-man Evolution. However, when interprted by starting with Genesis assumptions the evidence makes good sense. On the contrary, when the evidence is interpreted from a Naturalistic starting point it does not makes good sense. So the evidence fits better into a Creationary explanatory framework. Note that it is not the evidence that is controversial. The facts and the evidence are the same to both sides. Creationists do not reject the evidence, but interpret it using Genesis assumpitons, thus rejecting the Naturalistic-based Evolutionist explanation. It is the Evolutionary explanation that I reject, because it, fundamentally, disagrees with what God says. I do not hide this fact from my colleagues who believe in molecules-to-man Evolution so I am not being dishonest. On the contrary, almost all Evolutionists do not disclose the fact that it is their commitment to philosophical Naturalism that compels them to reject the Creationist interpretation of the facts. The honesty of Richard Lewontin, one of the world’s leaders in evolutionary biology, is rare. Lewontin said ' ‘We take the side of science [sic] in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.’ Richard Lewontin, Billions and billions of demons, The New York Review, p. 31, 9 January 1997. I don't know of any reputable Creationist who does that. It is the Genesis framework into which they seek to fit the evidence. That is the way evidence relating to Origins is interpreted. It is good thing that we have the Genesis account. If we didn't have it we wouldn't be able to make the correct assumptions with which to interpret the evidence. That is true of Operational Science. We can build up the answers because we can observe, repeat and measure the phenomena which we are seeking to understand. But we can not build a complete explanation of Historical phenomena because were are not in the past. We must assume certain critical things about the past to fit gaps in our knowledge. In fact, the further in the past the phenomena the more untestable our starting assumption, and thus the more biased our conclusion become. Evolutionary scientists like Richard Lewontin are commited to a Naturalistic starting point and will therefore only embrace a theory of Origins that fits their starting point. They will not accept a theory that contradicts Naturalism. And they will not accept another theory, no matter how well it explains the evidence, if it implies Naturalism is false. It is not the evidence that guides them - but their beliefs. It is not wrong to trust God's word without scientific proof. It is not possible to prove God scientifically. But the problem is not God. The problem is the limitation of science. Science is limited because we are limited. For example we can not observe things outside of the material word. We can not repeat or measure distant events. The scientific method is a wonderful tool for discovery, but we have to acknowledge that it will only take as so far. Darwinists assume Nature is all there. That is why they believe everything must have made itself. You are confusing Operational science with Historical science. Darwinian assumptions do not greatly impact the conclusions of operational science (medicine, computing, space exploration etc) because the assumptions of Operational Sciece are implicitly taken from the Bible. But they do impact Historical science (geology, anthropology, archeology). I take it you are refering to Operational science here. The founders of science discovered the scientific method only when they made the assumption that God's word was true. In fact, the scientific method was established using assumptions taken straight from the Bible. They read that the God of the Bible is the Creator who is ordered, intelligent and dependable. They read from the Bible that the Laws of Nature have an an intelligent and dependable origin. And then they assumed the Laws of Nature are dependable and reliable enough to be used (through observation, repetition, measurement of natural phenomena) to understand the Natural world. Now ask yourself, could such a robust theoretical framework for the scientific method be constructed using a Naturalistic starting point? Tell me, using your Naturalistic starting point, why should the sun rise tomorrow? Why should water boil at 100 degrees C now and then at the same temperature 10 minutes later? I meant to say that molecules-to-man Evolution is simply not true. Since you pointed it out, morality does clashe with our supposed evolutionary heritage. The effect is Darwinists are inconsistent if they love a fellow human being for a non-selfish reason. Lets start with the first one. What evidence/fact in Genetics relating to Origins are you referring to? Tell me how this evidence is interpretted under a Creationist framework. Then please tell me how this is interpreted under an Evoluionary framework, showing how the Evolutionary explanation makes better sense of the evidence. Thanks. It is lovely talking to you. Nahomadis

Hi there. I just thought I would give a short response to one paragraph of yours. Please let me know if I am unclear in any thing I say. That is a false dichotomy. Creationists love science. They do not object to the scientific method or evidence. It is the Naturalistic interpretation of evidence relating to Origins that they reject, chiefly because it does fit into the straight forward interpretation of Genesis 1-11. That is confusing the controversy. In dealing with Origins science one must make a clear distinction between Operation science (scientific study of present phenomena) and Historical science (treatment of evidence available in the present that relates to past events). The evidence relating to Origins falls in the category of Historical science. The evidence is the same for Darwinists as it is for Creationists. They have the same fossils, the same rocks, the same universe. It is in the interpretation of the evidence that they differ. That is false. Evolution is built upon the foundation of philosophical naturalism, which is the belief that nature is all there is. This belief can not be tested or disproved. There is certainly no evidence to support this starting point. With such a poorly established philosophical premise, molecules-to-man evolution is not a valid argument for the origin of biological life, complexity or information. Furthermore, the Bible tells us that 'In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth'. Since God knows everything, and does not lie or make mistakes, his Word is a trust worthy foundation upon which to build our interpretation of evidence relating to Origins. To turn it around, the implication for molecules-to-man evolution is that it realy is without substance. What evidence compells you to conclude Evolution did happen? Yours courteusly Nahomadis