41 minutes ago, Sarae.the.wannabe.chemist2 said:

But I was thinking of the first one- the gaps in fossil records.

That is not a weakness of evolutionary theories, instead it is an expected outcome on how fossils are formed. Fossils require a set of specific conditions to happen to ensure that they are preserved and then they also have to be found. If anything, finding new fossils is the much less likely outcome.

@CharonY so am I overanalyzing it? Do I just ignore it?

1 hour ago, Sarae.the.wannabe.chemist2 said:

@CharonY so am I overanalyzing it? Do I just ignore it?

You have to understand how to contextualize observations. We do not have a full fossil records of all organisms that ever existed (fact), but this is not because there are flaws in evolution. Rather, you will have to understand that only few organisms will ever be preserved until today requiring uncommon conditions (see e.g. this link for examples https://www.nps.gov/subjects/fossils/how-fossils-form.htm). From those that are preserved again only a small fraction will ever be found by humans, e.g. because they are inaccessible or were not recognized as fossils (context). As a consequence we only gain information by what kind of fossils we can find and can make only limited or no inferences regarding those we did not see.

In addition, there is a fundamental flaw in this line of thinking which has been dubbed "fossil fallacy" https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-fossil-fallacy/

So technically speaking, you are underanalyzing things.

We know evolution happened not because of transitional fossils such as A. natans but because of the convergence of evidence from such diverse fields as geology, paleontology, biogeography, comparative anatomy and physiology, molecular biology, genetics, and many more. No single discovery from any of these fields denotes proof of evolution, but together they reveal that life evolved in a certain sequence by a particular process.

One of the finest compilations of evolutionary data and theory since Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species is Richard Dawkins's magnum opus, The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution (Houghton Mifflin, 2004)--688 pages of convergent science recounted with literary elegance. Dawkins traces numerous transitional fossils (what he calls "concestors," the last common ancestor shared by a set of species) from Homo sapiens back four billion years to the origin of heredity and the emergence of evolution. No single concestor proves that evolution happened, but together they reveal a majestic story of process over time.

@CharonY ohhhhh I think I get it.

11 hours ago, Sarae.the.wannabe.chemist2 said:

@exchemist I think I'm starting to understand now just a little, but what exactly do the "other " Christians do to understand these things? Is there a process? I like the point you made about the other sciences and how we connect dots there. Also, I don't think every creationist conversation should be taken down. Some would argue that religion and science don't need to be at odds, we just make it that way. Though I could be a little biased...

Yes, in fact I made exactly that point to you when we touched on it before. The “Conflict Thesis” put forward by Dixon White : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_thesis is now pretty well discredited, even though it still has some hold on the popular perception.

If you like, we can start a thread in the Religion section in which I can explain my understanding at least of how the mainstream Christian denominations accommodate such scientific ideas as the age of the Earth and evolution of life. I can open a thread on the topic to get it started. Shall we do that?

Edited June 11Jun 11 by exchemist

@exchemist yes I would like that.

Update: soooo I just learned about carbon dating and how dating things by carbon actually exaggerates how long ago something was-basically makes things look older than what they are (average 9 year old on the internet lol). Does this mean we may have inaccurate dates or something?

21 minutes ago, Sarae.the.wannabe.chemist2 said:

@exchemist yes I would like that.

Update: soooo I just learned about carbon dating and how dating things by carbon actually exaggerates how long ago something was-basically makes things look older than what they are (average 9 year old on the internet lol). Does this mean we may have inaccurate dates or something?

No. Carbon dating is pretty useless over geological timescales because C14 decays too fast (has too short a half life). Rocks and fossils are generally dated radiometrically using a range of other naturally occurring radioisotopes, with half lives of appropriate length.

I”ll open the thread for you but I do hope you are not just going to use it for drip-feeding more falsehoods about the science of the age of the Earth and evolution. (I’ve got burnt before by creationist trolls masquerading as innocent young people “just asking questions”. For now I’ll assume you are who you say you are and are posting in good faith. ) Excuse the unfriendly tone but this is the internet. We get all sorts .

Edited June 11Jun 11 by exchemist

12 hours ago, Sarae.the.wannabe.chemist2 said:

it was soooo difficult because it's my first time actually doing my own research and teaching myself history because that's just one of a million other things the American school system fails at (but that's another topic). I'm so sorry I'm actually not trying to be difficult I'm just sincerely trying to understand. That's my favorite thing in the world to do: understand EVERYTHING. It's how my brain works. Please help. I'm actually crying out for help it's frustrating to be confused.

Before I offer you some more material, here is a small question for you to think about.

The Bible only refers to a small number of the worlds peoples. What do you think about where the ones it does not refer to came from ?

Here is an interesting quote from a famous archaeologist Professor Andre Parrot

How can we understand the Word unless we se it in its proper chronological, historical and geographical setting ?

Edited June 11Jun 11 by studiot

16 hours ago, CharonY said:

You have to understand how to contextualize observations. We do not have a full fossil records of all organisms that ever existed (fact), but this is not because there are flaws in evolution.

This I remember from previous readings referred-to as "discontinuity of the fossil record", and if I remember correctly, Darwin already was very much aware of it.

42 minutes ago, joigus said:

This I remember from previous readings referred-to as "discontinuity of the fossil record", and if I remember correctly, Darwin already was very much aware of it.

I think that is right. Fossil records were obviously even scarcer back then. Darwin discussed quite the challenges of fossil records quite a bit in the Origin of species and he was actually quite a bit more pessimistic than things turned out to be. I may be conflating different works, but IIRC he mentioned that soft tissue would never be conserved (which turned out to be not true) and he underestimated the number of fossils that would eventually be found and suggested in his book that fossil records would likely not be able to support his theory. Famously, it didn't take long after publishing his book for the discovery of the Archaeopteryx.

@studiot well, I think they came from the same place(s) as the people who were deemed honorable mentions. Maybe I should assume they have the same story as the ones we know of?

38 minutes ago, Sarae.the.wannabe.chemist2 said:

@studiot well, I think they came from the same place(s) as the people who were deemed honorable mentions. Maybe I should assume they have the same story as the ones we know of?

Sarae, one tip: it helps if you use the “Quote” function at bottom left when you reply to a post. Not only does this make it clear which post you are replying to , but it also notifies the person that you have replied.

Just now, Sarae.the.wannabe.chemist2 said:

@studiot well, I think they came from the same place(s) as the people who were deemed honorable mentions. Maybe I should assume they have the same story as the ones we know of?

OK if they are the same, how did they come to be so different ?

How did we come to look pretty similar to the people of the bible lands, but very differnt from say the chinese or indonesians ?

I gave you Professor Parrot's thoughts because his were pretty similar to yours, what did you think ?

2 hours ago, studiot said:

OK if they are the same, how did they come to be so different ?

How did we come to look pretty similar to the people of the bible lands, but very differnt from say the chinese or indonesians ?

I gave you Professor Parrot's thoughts because his were pretty similar to yours, what did you think ?

I think his point was spot on. When you read literature, you need to understand ALL of it, otherwise there's no reason to read it. I also think we look different because of what someone said about branching off. Sometimes people leave the main ancestor to start something new and things change. I could have misunderstood that and accidentally said it wrong though.

Just now, Sarae.the.wannabe.chemist2 said:

I think his point was spot on. When you read literature, you need to understand ALL of it, otherwise there's no reason to read it. I also think we look different because of what someone said about branching off. Sometimes people leave the main ancestor to start something new and things change. I could have misunderstood that and accidentally said it wrong though.

So you are open to some form of evolution.

This is good because I am succeeding in getting you to think.

The 'Bible' is not one book but really like a folder or filing drawer containing many books.
And there are many versions not just the one.
Each version leaves out some books but includes some that others do not so every one is different.

The whole collection was written over the best part of a thousand years.
Furthermore Two separate versions were written - one in Greek and one in Hebrew.
I know this because a late school friend who was a lawyer so retired early and comfortably wanted to read the bible - but in the original.
So after retirement he spent a few years learning Greek and Hebrew.
He then took an Masters in The Bible as a source book - That is not religous but trying to find the meaning and history behind the writing.
We had quite a few conversations about his studies and I must admit that I learned many things about the Bible that I did not know.

For instance Jesus would have spoken Aramaeic.
Because of the scattering of the tribes in that period of writing the old testament there were two centres of Jewish culture, one base in Alexandria where they spoke Greek and one in Jerusalem where they spoke Aramaeic and wrote in Hebrew.
The two centres are 500 miles apart by sea and almost a thousand miles apart by land.

So two versions of the old testament were written, in two different languages and you can imagine the difficulties correlating the histories over that distance, language barrier and the time it took for reports to reach one or the other.

So you can see why it is easy to find discrepancies in those circumstances.

In centuroes past, from Kepler to Galileo to Maxwell to Lyell to Hutton and many others the wise men of the day set out to proove the Bible, not to disprove it
There were suprises when what they found sometimes disagreed with the established churches.

Back to Parrot as you will see from the full introduction to the book by Keller The Bible as History, from which I took the quote, modern scientists in the guise of archaeologists try to see what they can what historic records the Bible has to offer compared with records from other civilisations and what they can literally dig up.

But is it always to be remembered that the authors of the Bible had no concept of The Americas or the thriving very advanced Chinese civilisation; their 'world' was confined to a small area in the Middle East.