Good news: More Americans believe in the devil than in evolution
posted at 2:00 pm on December 12, 2008 by Allahpundit
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Via the new Harris Poll, a long-distance dedication to my pal CJ, the creationist-slayer. Key data points are in yellow. I’m not sure how to explain Catholics’ greater credulity on matters as diverse as evolution, ghosts, and UFOs, but your theories are welcome. As for the top line, we already have theistic atheists. Why shouldn’t we have atheistic theists, too?
One other intriguing data point at the link: More Americans believe the Old Testament is the word of God (55 percent) than the New Testament (54 percent). Presumably the former attracted Jewish votes that the latter didn’t, but that margin should have been more than offset by a subset of Christians — like, say, George Bush — who don’t regard the OT as literally true but surely take the gospels at face value. Here’s David Brody of CBN picking up on that on CNN yesterday. Exit quotation: “Well, hello! It’s the Holy Bible!”
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Maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about. On the other hand, did they explicitly address impact heating? No.
Have you ever even seen Enceladus for yourself?
DarkCurrent on December 15, 2008 at 12:23 PM
simple, look at the prophecies…only God knows the future.
I’ve thought about those, but they invariable sneak in information that is not comparable to evolution…
right4life on December 15, 2008 at 12:25 PM
through pictures, yes, why who cares???
again they explicity said:
“It’s a no-brainer that tidal heating is happening on Enceladus,” said William McKinnon of Washington University in Saint Louis. “I can conceive of no other explanation for the south polar thermal anomaly.”
maybe I’m just dumb, but ‘no other explanation’ RULES OUT impacts..sigh.
right4life on December 15, 2008 at 12:27 PM
the point is, which you miss, is that the multiverse is as likely as the tooth fairy.
but you’re not ‘open’ to the tooth fairy, but you are to the multiverse, because it supports atheism.
right4life on December 15, 2008 at 12:29 PM
I believe in the timecube.
That man thar is smart.
MadisonConservative on December 15, 2008 at 12:34 PM
Don’t just think about it and rely on the conclusions of others. This is something you can try yourself. Experiment! I’ll be interested in hearing about your results.
DarkCurrent on December 15, 2008 at 12:36 PM
Madison, I hope you’re my relief. It’s bedtime in my time zone.
DarkCurrent on December 15, 2008 at 12:38 PM
writing a computer program using intelligent design to prove purposeless, directionless evolution….
don’t you see the irony there???
right4life on December 15, 2008 at 12:39 PM
If there is a multiverse I’d bet there’s a tooth fairy out there somewhere.
DarkCurrent on December 15, 2008 at 12:41 PM
Yeah, I suppose. It is fun to be a little god for a while though.
DarkCurrent on December 15, 2008 at 12:42 PM
Ok, so maybe it’s primarily tidal heating and not impact heating. I wasn’t claiming that it necessarily was impact heating, just posing that as an alternative not directly addressed and not initially presented as a possibility in your argument. What was your point again? Wasn’t it that Enceladus not being thoroughly frozen proved that the universe could not be very old? How do these results support that conclusion? Impact heating, tidal heating, radioactive decay, combination of all above and more, the exact physical mechanism is beside the point. You were seeming to claim that no physical process could account for Enceladus not being already completely frozen if the universe was more than a few thousand years old. Tidal, impact and other various mechanisms exist. You’ve now made that point yourself. Or was that not the point? If not, what was the point?
DarkCurrent on December 15, 2008 at 1:10 PM
Proof there is no God…oh elizabeth..
lolwut on December 15, 2008 at 2:05 PM
The fossil record absolutely destroys evolution. If animals were constantly evolving as originally proposed we would probably never come across two fossils of the same animal. The chances would be too great considering the amount of change needed for evolution to be true. Maybe 1% of all fossils MIGHT match any other if such change were actually occurring. Instead we find clearly delineated steps which cause a simple mind to conclude something like evolution must be taking place. THERE SHOULD BE NO CLEARLY DELINEATED STEPS if evolution were indeed occurring. So now they’ve changed the theory to say that life evolves in spurts. The day will arrive when evolution will be shown for what it is: A religion for atheists to ease their minds from coming judgement.
cjk on December 15, 2008 at 2:18 PM
The fossils are there and can be used by other theories. They don’t prove or disprove the existence of God anymore than small adaptations support or refute God.
dedalus on December 15, 2008 at 2:29 PM
no its not besides the point. the point is there is no explanation other than:
so what caused it? and what caused it to orbit the way it is now? other than that, you have to think its not as old as darwinists claim! but you cannot accept that, because you are so locked into the darwiniac paradigm.
right4life on December 15, 2008 at 2:48 PM
when people find flaws in the theory of evolution, why do they suppose that it strengthens the case for spontaneous creation? if I disprove the easter bunny, that does not mean I prove the case for santa.
If there is am omnipotent god, why would he care, and if there isn’t why should you?
If you raised ants would you care about them? Would you demand that your ants worship you? What would you do to ants that wouldn’t worship you. Do you really need ant worship? It’s all about perspective, religion is just a way to justify behavior in such a way that you don’t have to think about it. Basing your morality on a book, rather than on careful thought leads people to hurt and kill and feel blameless. If you had to think and justify your own actions would you be quite so willing to die for other peoples land or ideals?
Zekecorlain on December 15, 2008 at 2:54 PM
because there are only 2 choices really. its like the anthropic principle v. the multiverse.
do you care about your children?
oh yeah your ‘careful’ thought has led to the Gulags, the killing fields, and Auschwitz. please.
we’ve seen the result of your ‘careful thought’ out morality…
right4life on December 15, 2008 at 3:02 PM
The fossils are not there. We find numerous fossils of the same species, but not what we should find if evolution were true. Is it so hard to understand what we should find? Think about it DUH? I’m not trying to prove God’s existence, I’m showing common sense evidence which disproves classic evolutionary theory. Dedalus, do you understand the point of what you read?
cjk on December 15, 2008 at 3:16 PM
@right4life
yes, religious thought NEVER KILLS, gosh I’d be hard pressed to find just one instance of people killing in a god’s name.
do you care about your children?
not really if they exist in a plane of reality that I can’t even touch. Also not talking for 2000 years might be a sign the relationship has cooled.
because there are only 2 choices really
Really, in an universe of near infinite size, and with all human knowledge summing up say…less than one percent of all knowable fact, there are only two options? What about the fact. I always thought idea that we are a virtual simulation had an decent shot. I mean if it is spontaneous
creation, why have the elaborate fossil record? Which faith are you going to believe? would you still question the evidence if scientist had an air tight case? I’ve talked to many christians and their answer was always yes. If that’s the case why bother arguing at all your not looking at evidence.
Zekecorlain on December 15, 2008 at 3:17 PM
I can’t say, because I’m still not sure what you mean by information.
From one perspective, DNA is a code – a sequence of bases that can be arbitrarily long. I can obtain the code for any living organism by substitution and addition of nucleotides to a simpler organism. That’s indisputable, I can prove it by induction.
e.g. pretend we have two organisms: acca and acaac (this is just for the concept, obviously these wouldn’t code for actual living things). I can get from the first to the second by a substitution and adding a “c.” Do you agree that this would be true of any two genetic codes of arbitrary length?
From the code perspective, what does it mean to add information? I can make the code longer, or change its composition, but have I added information? I say no, and I still say no even if I’ve defined a new species or adaptation by changing the code. The information is constant and external to the organism. The laws of physics completely define whether the code will produce a viable organism or not.
I think it’s fair to ask whether, by the known mechanisms of genetic change, we can find stable evolutionary pathways from the simplest organisms to humans. Let me elaborate on what I mean by a stable pathway. In the simplest terms, according to evolution, each successive organism has to be (1) reached by only a small number of mutations and (2) have a survival advantage over its competitors. But here’s the problem: without knowing in advance every single permutation of DNA that encodes a living organism, we can’t say whether this is possible or not in purely mathematical terms.
That’s how I know creationists are full of crap when they say random changes can’t create knew organisms. They don’t know the sample space, the don’t the probabilities, they sure as hell don’t know every single possible genome. I have to look at the evidence. The evidence looks exactly as you would expect if evolution had occurred. I really want to emphasize this – I don’t believe in evolution because I’m an atheist. If anything, the one thing that makes me wonder if I might be wrong about God is the beauty and ingeniousness of the evolutionary mechanism. I believe in evolution because it fits with all the facts.
RightOFLeft on December 15, 2008 at 3:29 PM
we don’t hold a candle to you atheists.
just cause YOU don’t hear Him doesn’t mean He doesn’t speak…doesn’t Israel tell you anything??
ok what are the others??
that doesn’t show evolution at all. and that fossils exist at all, and are not usually or easily made…except by a catastrophe…perhaps a flood?
you mean the faith of atheism that passes for ’science’ these days? and you let me know when science has an airtight case… I won’t hold my breath!
right4life on December 15, 2008 at 3:39 PM
ok then just show us an example. should be easy. but you can’t..all you have is faith.
right4life on December 15, 2008 at 3:40 PM
you mean the lack of transitional fossils, the lack of lab evidence, etc.
can’t observe it, can’t reproduce, yep its ahhhhh ’science’….
right4life on December 15, 2008 at 3:41 PM
The fossil record has been filled in greatly since the time of Darwin. Many of the finds have shown transitional snapshots of species. Those transitional fossils support the theory of increasing complexity–if they find, say, a few primate fossils in the Paleozoic era that would discount the strength of Darwin’s theories.
You point was that the fossils disprove Darwin. OK. If there is an alternative theory with similar or better explanatory power, great. There are a lot of fossils that have been found and dated since 1859, and competing theories can leverage the knowledge that has been gained from them.
dedalus on December 15, 2008 at 3:42 PM
Is it possible for you to argue in good faith?
RightOFLeft on December 15, 2008 at 3:48 PM
You know damn well there are transitional fossils. If you want to dispute that they are actually transitional fossils, give me a specific example of a specimen that you think is being inappropriately labeled as such, and we can go from there. And let’s just agree to start this fresh. If you can address with respectfully, I’ll extend you the same courtesy.
RightOFLeft on December 15, 2008 at 3:56 PM
“address me respectfully.” never type angry…
RightOFLeft on December 15, 2008 at 3:57 PM
you’re kidding right? you have heard of punctuated equilibrium, right? why do you think that theory was offered in the first place? lack of transitional fossils.
right4life on December 15, 2008 at 3:58 PM
Uh, he was assuming good faith on your part, that you’d be able to back up your words. Mistake.
Akzed on December 15, 2008 at 3:58 PM
no I don’t actually. you have heard of punctuated equilibrium, right? why do you think that theory was offered in the first place? lack of transitional fossils
the latest is that Tiktaalik is not a Missing Link
link
you tell me any that are.
right4life on December 15, 2008 at 4:03 PM
yeah they darwinists are short on anything to back up what they say. they think because they say it, its gospel.
I’m the one offering documentation, from ’scientific’ sources, and I’m a creationist…its rather amusing.
right4life on December 15, 2008 at 4:04 PM
They absolutely disprove Darwin. There should be no such thing as ‘transitional fossils’, everything should be a flow of constant change. If evolution were true, the chance of finding two copies of the same species would be extremely difficult because of the incredible amount of change needed to go from one animal type to the next. Slowly think of the amount of change needed to go from a finned fish to a legged amphibian. The amount of differing fossils would be numerous, but what do we see in the real world: Allot of identical copies of a limited number of so called ‘transitional species’. Evolution doesn’t need a belief in God to fail, it does it to itself kinda like islam and global warming. What’s next coming down the pike.
cjk on December 15, 2008 at 4:12 PM
I don’t even know what he wants an example of. I said that we don’t know every possible genome that encodes a viable organism, which makes it impossible to say statistically that evolution couldn’t have happened. Read what he quoted and tell me what what words need backing up.
RightOFLeft on December 15, 2008 at 4:12 PM
The majority of the conversations on this post against evolution show the true deficiency of public schools, and why other countries are better than us in terms of mathematical and scientific knowledge. Arguing with some of these people is like convincing 9/11 truthers that a bunch of Saudi Arabians perpetrated 9/11 or telling people that *shock* Obama was born in the United States.
lolwut on December 15, 2008 at 4:16 PM
Tiktaalik is a recent find, I’m not surprised there is some dispute about where it fits in the evolutionary history of life. Unfortunately, I don’t have a subscription to nature, so I can’t respond to the article you linked.
Here’s a list of transitional fossils, take your pick.
The chance of an animal’s remains becoming fossilized (and surviving intact to be discovered) are remote, so obviously the record will be incomplete. What I wonder is, if evolution doesn’t happen, why don’t we find fossils of contemporary species with the same frequency as fossils of species that don’t exist? And why are the oldest fossils invariable sea creatures (which fits the evolutionary hypothesis)?
RightOFLeft on December 15, 2008 at 4:19 PM
Most species exist for millions or even hundreds of millions of years. Of course we find duplicates.
RightOFLeft on December 15, 2008 at 4:21 PM
from wikpedia? oh please, nice drawing, thats about it. you need to do much better than this.
how about jellyfish??
link
right4life on December 15, 2008 at 4:30 PM
maybe because it takes something like a FLOOD to create fossils…or some other catastrophe.
right4life on December 15, 2008 at 4:32 PM
right4life on December 15, 2008 at 4:30 PM
It’s not like Wikipedia found the fossils. Somebody compiled a list and put it on Wikipedia. I could have found a link from talkorigins or a university, and it would have been the same list. I don’t see what the problem is.
That’s interesting that they’ve found ancient Jellyfish. Makes sense, they’re simple, elegant, and successful organisms. I’m also happy to see that you apparently accept the age of the remains, which is several hundred million years older than the Biblical age of the earth.
Flooding would be more likely to kill land animals than aquatic animals. So where are the fossils of humans that died along with the dinosaurs in the flood?
I can’t convince you evolution happened, so why don’t you sum up the best evidence for the biblical account? I don’t have time to go link-chasing, I’m just interested if you have an empirical basis for your beliefs. If it’s just based on a refutation of evolution, that doesn’t do anything to support the literalist Old Testament account.
RightOFLeft on December 15, 2008 at 4:45 PM
14 pages of comments so far, but it’s almost worth reading them all for these little points of light.
If I believed evolution was scientifically proven, I would then have to believe in God.* Believing that everything living developed from single-celled organisms by the 0.5 % of genetic mutations that are actually beneficial is a big stretch. Believing all that happened by random chance is too big a thing to be credible. It’s all well and good to believe that beneficial changes are reinforced by the principle of survival of the fittest. But first those changes have to occur. And changes which depend on other changes have to occur together.
Take sexual reproduction. The development of male sexual organs would be useless without the corresponding female. Scientists will point out that sexual reproduction is more productive than asexual because the offspring is the product of two sets of DNA, rather than one. But how did the random process of evolution figure that out? Did it just happen randomly?
There’s a reason why one of the biggest objections to the theory of (macro) evolution is known as Intelligent Design. Evolution was proposed as an attempt to explain how the world came to be without relying on a special creation by God. One of the consequences is the ongoing attempt to explain everything with random processes. The randomness of evolution is one of the biggest weaknesses of the whole theory.
So why not postulate an intelligence that drives the process? Because intelligence is not very subject to theories of natural processes. An intelligence doesn’t blindly react to natural laws. Once you insert intelligence into evolution, it ceases to become a purely scientific model. And, though you’ll never hear anyone admit it, there are those who see any suggestion of intelligence as a backdoor admission of a Creator.
* The reverse, of course, is not true.
tom on December 15, 2008 at 5:04 PM
I’ve already blown the most famous traditional fossil away. please pick just one. I also wiped out jellyfish transitions…because there apparently are none.
thats not the point, and you know it. can you darwinists every stay on topic? point is there is no transition for the jellyfish.
and you cannot address punctuated equilibrium…which Gould created because of the LACK of transitions.
don’t know, maybe you’ll find them with transitional fossils…they have found footprints with dinosaur prints…but of course those are *fake*
look in the mirror. the complexity of you, the environment, the existence of right and wrong, which are clearly impossible with evolution. death. its rather obvious.
right4life on December 15, 2008 at 5:07 PM
if you really want to investigate creationism, the best place would be:
http://www.trueorigin.org/
right4life on December 15, 2008 at 5:11 PM
tom on December 15, 2008 at 5:04 PM
If I’m going to believe in an intelligence great enough to create the universe, I’d obviously prefer one that found the elegant solution of naturalistic evolution to one that has to manually tweak his design with every new generation of life. That’s the ultimate irony of intelligent design – it posits a less intelligent creator than is necessary for evolution.
RightOFLeft on December 15, 2008 at 5:33 PM
Look,
If gravity were merely .000000000001 different than what it was during and after the big bang, no universe even gets off the ground.
For people to not believe in a first cause is complete ignorance.
Evolution is not necessarily wrong, it is just NOT proven yet. It will be once we start creating new species from reproduction over many generations in the laboratory. Until we do, it is just that, a theory.
Darwinism is a narrow system within evolution.
And if you think it is all random as you look at Piper slick back Trig’s hair on TV, you just might be beyond help.
Sapwolf on December 15, 2008 at 5:35 PM
Given that adaptation within a species is well-established, the idea that the Creator would have to manually tweak His design with each new generation seems a little odd to me. Since intelligent design does not argue that no adaptation occurs — except where the adaptation crosses the boundary of “irreducible complexity” — what would be the relevance.
Seems to me the real difference would be between the idea of a one-time special creation, and a continuous creation and development as asserted by evolutionary theory.
tom on December 15, 2008 at 5:55 PM
Caring for an offspring, a mate or sibling is an admirable human quality but one that is shared with other creatures. The grooming example you point to is one of the more common ones shared within a non-human population.
dedalus on December 15, 2008 at 6:31 PM
If you don’t know what information is, then I don’t think I can help you.
Maxx on December 15, 2008 at 6:39 PM
That’s why you believe in the lie of evolution….because of the jumbled, sparse and fabricated “fossil record”?
Clearly you have not studied the “fossil record” or evolution whatsoever, if you have come to the conclusion that the evolutionary propaganda is true because of it..
SaintOlaf on December 15, 2008 at 6:43 PM
i think too what a lot of people are forgetting is the scientific definition of theory vs. the colloquial definition of theory. in the scientific community, a theory means that there are no other acceptable theories or theories that come anywhere near to holding up to the original theory.
look at gravity. Galileo explained some facts of gravity, but Newton explained it better, then Einstein explained it even better. In fact, Einstein’s explanation is called the theory of relativity . Should we go and declare gravity obsolete and scientific nonsense as well?
lolwut on December 15, 2008 at 6:51 PM
If the Bible is a 6000 year history of Earth, including a universal flood, can some one please give me an idea as to when the last Ice Age occurred? The Bible tells us that the flood came before David, and that the ‘time of the snow’ came during the time of David. Was that the Ice Age? If so, it happened around 3000 years ago, right?
OldEnglish on December 15, 2008 at 7:08 PM
Orbits can and do change. They are not fixed eternally on crystal spheres.
From NASA on the subject:
Perturbations change orbits over time. Impacts can also do so, as well as add heat.
DarkCurrent on December 15, 2008 at 7:55 PM
The short answer is that the huge glaciers almost certainly formed as a result of the flood about 4,400 years ago. The Bible does not mention ice or cold weather until after the flood. See Dr. Walter Brown’s explanation called Hydroplate theory. Watch the animation on the page I’m linking you to. There is an enormous amount of information on his site concerning all aspects of the flood.
Maxx on December 15, 2008 at 8:12 PM
Most convenient. Any info on the prior Heat Age?
OldEnglish on December 15, 2008 at 9:00 PM
I don’t know of any temperature reconstruction that go back 4,400 years, but here is a chart that goes back about 2,000 years. It shows the Maunder Minimum (The Little Ice Age) centered around about 1,600AD. It also shows the Midieval Warm Period from 900 to 1,350AD.
Its a pdf file, look about a quarter of the way into the document to see the charts. I’ve seen these charts in lots of places, they seem to be uncontroversial. I have not read this particular document, its just the first place I was able to find the charts, so I’ve linked it.
Maxx on December 15, 2008 at 9:42 PM
I wasn’t saying that at all. I was simply curious to know if RightOFLeft had ever considered a Creator could be involved making DNA because it’s so unbelievably complex. The information in even the simplest organism would take about a thousand pages to write out! Anyone who says DNA happened by chance is brainwashed!
apacalyps on December 15, 2008 at 9:53 PM
That sucks. My above post is only a partial reply. My full reply didn’t go through after pushing send.
apacalyps on December 15, 2008 at 9:57 PM
Huh? You call GOD, sick, comical, cruel, and then get upset with me because I have the impression you’re angry at Him!? ..lol.. give your head a shake bud. And, uh, you better stop and think who you are talking to. Do you have any clue WHO THIS IS? LOL. We’re talking about the GOD of the universe, y’know… lol, and here you are shooting your mouth off. I’m actually frightened for you. “The LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.” Exodus 20:7
Of course I’m terrified at the thought of a universe without my God. If there isn’t a God, we are in trouble, because we are spinning about 66,000 miles per hour around the sun and nobody is in charge. Terrifying thought.
apacalyps on December 15, 2008 at 9:58 PM
I think that’s silly. You are saying that God cannot exist because He should be bound by the same scientific laws that humans are bound by. That is, God should be limited to the same laws of science that He created for us, and if He is not, then the laws of science are not laws of science. Well, I, uh, I just think that’s a silly argument. Sorry. As I said,z2C God made time and space, thus is He outside time and space. He is not governed by the laws that exist on Earth. It is not the year 2008 in heaven right now. The God who created this universe is outside of the universe. He’s unneffected by it. Say you designed your own computer. Assembled the CPU, Motherboard, Hard drive, Memory Card Reader, screwed all the nuts and bolts together, etc, made the whole thing. Now you got a computer. You are not in the computer are you? You’re not running around in there changing the numbers on the screen. You are outside of it. That’s the best way I can explain it. God made time and space, thus is He outside time and space. To be able to create something, you must exist outside of it. So it is an error placing God within time, because God exists outside of time. Time is a creation of God’s, and He is not restricted by it.
No thank you. That is foolish advice. The creationist understands that science was established by God, and thus has a desire to follow the clues God has left us in His creation to help us understand and explore the laws of nature. New discoveries in the world demonstrate how the God of the Bible is true. Your advice mocks the great heritage of early creation scientists like Galileo, Sir Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler, and Robert Boyle. So I’ll take my Creators advice instead of yours, thank you. “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.” Colossians 2:8
apacalyps on December 15, 2008 at 9:59 PM
I was pleasently surprised when I read you found it hard to believe we all evolved from a rock 4.6 billion years ago! That tells me despite what I would consider some “reprobate” behaviour on your part, you are not so fully gone yet that you cannot be reasoned with. My advice to you is give up faith in the silly religion of evolutionism, and trust the God of the Bible (who is the Creator of this universe and will be your Judge, and mine, one day soon). Start looking for evidence for creation instead of reasons not to look. The Bible says if you seek after God, God will see to him, that you find Him. “For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened” (Matthew 7:8). You will be surprised what you may find.
apacalyps on December 15, 2008 at 9:59 PM
In ending, scientific laws do apply to the universe, I’m sorry, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics doesn’t permit evolution. Everything tends toward disorder. Everything is falling apart. Nothing gets better automatically. You leave things alone for a while and they rot, rust, break down, die, they fall apart. That’s the 2nd law. And adding energy to the earth doesn’t overcome the 2nd law either. Adding sunlight the earth is no help at all unless machines (device for using energy) are present that can harness the energy. Life cannot arise without pre-existing coded mechanisms. The sun itself would destroy anything (and it would have to be life from nonliving matter) before it got started. And if the avergae layman cannot understand this then basic science is incapable of being understood. Has to be a Designer involved to get things started.
BTW: I forgot to ask you. What is you opinion on the Bombardier Beetle. You think the Bombardier Beetle evolved? Thank you.
apacalyps on December 15, 2008 at 10:11 PM
Sorry, I should have worded things better. (I know what I meant, but…). I was referring to the warm period before the Ice Age – at the time of the dinosaurs.
OldEnglish on December 15, 2008 at 10:24 PM
That’s a good argument against abiogenesis on planet earth. However, Darwin’s work on common descent and natural selection could still work to explain a billion or more years of species development. Would you agree that once DNA is assumed and biological organisms are absorbing the sun and eating one another entropy need not be evident in this particular local environment?
dedalus on December 15, 2008 at 10:40 PM
I’m not sure what you are asking. Brown’s site talks about how he thinks the Earth’s current tilt of 23.5 degrees came to be (see note 65 and below). If he is right and the flood is also responsible for the tilt in the Earth’s axis then that would have caused dramatic change in the Earth’s climate. In other words, the Earth may not have had seasons prior to the flood. It may have been just nice warm weather all the time but probably still cold at the poles.
Maxx on December 15, 2008 at 11:07 PM
Well, I suppose to me it was like calling Lex Luthor or the Boogeyman cruel. To you it was like calling something real and important cruel and sick, so I suppose I can understand why you might have been offended.
I really and truly apologize.
But you have to admit, it was a little messed up to give the blind mole rat eyes that serve no purpose.
If he doesn’t exist within time, then he doesn’t exist within space, if he doesn’t exist within space, then he doesn’t exist. If it is possible for Him to exist, but not exist within space, then the word “existence” is meaningless.
This is where I think creationists have a major advantage over evolutionists in debate. It’s that only evolutionists have to explain a comprehensible view of the universe. If you posit the existence of a God that does nonsense things like create matter from nothing, exist outside of time and space, make 2+2 = Blue, create circles with four corners, and make Pi equal 45, well, that’s OK, he doesn’t have to make any sense or follow any laws, that’s the nature of God. It’s a special plea fallacy. In order for it to be a truly fair debate, either God would have to make sense or it wouldn’t matter if evolution didn’t make sense. But this idea that you are allowed to believe in things that defy scientific law but I’m not allowed to is just not a level playing field, because it allows you to wave away any apparent inconsistencies while I have to exhaustively explain any gaps in understanding in my own beliefs.
Don’t get too excited. The teleological argument (argument from design) is obviously nonsense because all creators are more complex than their creations. I’m fully aware of how intricate complex the universe is, and the odds of the survival of life. But since all creations are more complex than their creations, adding in a designer makes our being here more unlikely, not less.
You say “The universe is too complex to have happened by itself,” and as an alternative you offer up something that, by necessity, is even more complex, and “happened by itself,” and therefore is even more unlikely.
I can’t wrap my head around the belief that matter was always there is statistically improbable, but the existence of a more complex God being always there makes more sense.
If you try to argue that God is somehow exempt from laws of design, complexity, and odds, it’s just another special plea fallacy.
I’m sorry, it doesn’t. Although the entropy of the universe increases with time, the entropy of any part of the universe can decrease with time, so long as that decrease is compensated by an even larger increase in some other part of the universe.
The whole “irreducible complexity” canard is an argument from ignorance. I’m not quite sure why creationists pick on the poor Bombardier beetle, and not on say, the human digestive system, which also has volatile chemicals that might destroy us were it not for the presence of other compounds.
The fact is that hydrogen peroxide is a normal metabolic byproduct in insects, and various quinones are used to harden (or “sclerotinize”) the cuticle of insects. All kinds of insects therefore secrete these chemicals.
Even though the bombardier beetle is the only carabid beetle to shoot boiling liquid at its enemies, the other carabid beetles, living in different ecological niches, survive very well because, with their thick-walled little sacs, they can poison their enemies but not themselves.
All the pre-bombardier beetle had to do was direct some of that hydrogen peroxide into its collection bladder, develop a little valve between the collection bladder and vestibule chamber, and finally supply the catalase and peroxidase in the vestibule.
http://ncseweb.org/cej/2/1/bombardier-beetle-myth-exploded
I know you will probably dismiss this as conjecture, but the thing about a theory is that it can still be valid even if mysteries remain. That’s how sceintific progress is made: you come across a mystery, and then you try to find a logical, cogent explanation from the natural world. Imagine how stunted medical science would be if people thought that the heart beat because “God did it” and left it at that. The same goes for mysteries such as the beginning of the universe and origin of life. “God did it” doesn’t answer the question. It prevents the question from being answered.
justfinethanks on December 15, 2008 at 11:49 PM
To you it ends…to others it just begins.
How did he do it, what system did he use, why did he do it, and what purpose do we have in this system?
Within us is a spirit to learn and explore, why was that given to us?
So the answer “God did it” stops the lazy intellectual, and stimulates the real intellectual.
right2bright on December 16, 2008 at 12:01 AM
Ah, very good. So you should ask yourself, when god made the first living cell, how did he do it? What natural elements did He use? (God always seems to use the natural world in his creations) What process was done to create it? Work with these questions, and you’ll be thinking like an evolutionist without even realizing it.
justfinethanks on December 16, 2008 at 12:14 AM
Rational people don’t think like evolutionists. You have to set aside your common sense.
Rose on December 16, 2008 at 12:42 AM
Thank you. Most informative.
OldEnglish on December 16, 2008 at 12:52 AM
Thank you, very much for apologizing, but I am not so much offended as frightened for you. You say you don’t believe in the God who gave you life, and that is why you disrespect and use His name in vain. If I don’t believe in a judge and he sentences me to prison it doesn’t matter if I don’t believe in the judge. I’d still go to prison. One day you’re gonna face the God you don’t believe in and give an account of every nasty thing you’ve said about Him. “For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God” (Romans 14:11-12). Not even “death and taxes” is certain for everyone, but meeting God is.
I haven’t studied the blind mole rat, but it is simply in error to think that all the plants and animals we have today are exactly like the original “kind” of plants and animals God created 6000 years ago as part of the normal creation week. We’ve had a lot of gene corruption introduced in both plants and animals since then. Why do you think brothers and sisters shouldn’t marry nowadays? Because there’s a good chance they’d produce deformed offspring. If you inherit the same defective gene from both parents, y’know, you might be born with missing fingers, toes, blindness, etc. Each of us (if I remember correctly) has about a two hundred corrupt genes we are born with, and this is responsible for many of the disease we see today. However, gene corruption was not part God’s original creation. Adam and Eve were genetically perfect. Just like man, animals were created perfect. Nothing died prior to the spiritual fall of Adam and Eve. However, after Adam sinned man and animals began to degenerate and death entered the world. And so began the loss of genetic information, which is the exact opposite of what evolution requires. By the way, I believe this is also when the 2nd Law began as well — everything started tending towards disorder and falling apart after Adam sinned. So there is a good chance that this blind rat you’re talking about isn’t the original rat created in the beginning. Maybe it’s a sub-species with gentic defects. Evidence conclusively reveals that variation within a kind can take place in only a matter of decades. Then again, maybe God had a reason for making this animal that way. I don’t know. I haven’t looked at it, but all sorts of animals seem confusing at first glance, doesn’t mean they don’t have a purpose in keeping nature in harmony. And something else to consider. The Flood. The Bible tells us, “Whereby the world then was, being overflowed with water perished” (2 Peter 3:6). The world was destroyed by a flood 4400 years ago. People don’t realize that today’s earth is completely different than before the flood. We are living in a destroyed world wrecked by a major catastrophe. That is why we have billions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the earth. Proof positive of a world-wide flood. And the oil is down there as a result of the people and animals that drowned in the flood, and it has only been there for about 4,400 years. That is why it is still under pressure. Point is, the world was much different before the flood, including some of the plants and animals. I think it’s the best explanation for some of the things we find today. So no, you have offered no proof God does not exist. Sadly, many use these issues that they don’t quite understand as a reason to reject God. When in truth it’s a very real reason to accept Him because the Bible gives the rational explanation to many of these difficult questions.
apacalyps on December 16, 2008 at 2:10 AM
Dembski’s use of the NFL theorems is complete garbage.
The key to understanding that is understanding what “across all fitness landscapes” means. For all but a vanishingly small fraction of “possible” fitness landscapes, the landscape is completely and utterly random and chaotic… no two adjacent points on that landscape bear any relationship with one another.
That’s WHY blind random search does as well as any other algorithm. It is functionally equivalent to operating in a universe with no physical laws… with pure chaos.
Reality is not like that, which is why the NFL theorem is inapplicable.
If reality were purely chaotic, Dembski would have a point… evolution could not meaningfully occur in such a regime. Since it’s not, and fitness landscapes are largely constructed of smooth gradients (i.e. a creature can get incrementally faster, and gain incremental advantages from it), we live in a universe where evolution can (and clearly does) happen.
Taken across the set of all possible universes (randomly chaotic and ordered ones all lumped together), the “odds” of being in one that allows evolution might be seen as incredibly improbable.
However, there’s no reason to believe that the PROBABILITY of the universe being ordered is evenly distributed amongst every possible imaginable (or unimaginable) combinations.
Since we live in a universe that doesn’t match Dembski’s landscapes, his ideas about them are worse than useless. They are, in fact, totally misleading.
VekTor on December 16, 2008 at 2:13 AM
PIMF. In case the analogy isn’t clear, this is functionally equivalent to saying that since the universe operates by consistent “rules” (i.e. the laws of physics don’t arbitrarily change from moment to moment), that Nature is “cheating” by providing feedback to the organisms that live within it, allowing some to perform better than others.
Under that definition, we live in a “cheating” universe, so it’s fair to use evolutionary algorithms that cheat just like reality does.
You may not like it, and it may contradict scripture, but that’s the universe we live in. If that’s annoying enough, it’s possible to “opt out”.
VekTor on December 16, 2008 at 2:25 AM
Termites chew on wood and they swallow it, but Termites can’t digest it. It goes into their stomach and there’s little tiny critters in their intestines that actually digest the cellulose. Now those little critters can’t live without the Termite, and those Termites can’t live without those critters. Which one evolved first? It’s a fair question.
apacalyps on December 16, 2008 at 2:27 AM
Oh, is that all this little beetle had to do to evolve from nothing? Mix some hydrogen peroxide here and a little catalase there.. make a bladder, and voila! .. lol.. that is not science. You must believe that happened. Like I said, evolution is a religion.
apacalyps on December 16, 2008 at 2:50 AM
Correct, Rose. There’s no scientific reason to reject the Bible, or to accept that stupid theory. But, they walk – they scoff because of their lust. “Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts.” And then it says, “For this they willingly are ignorant” (2 Peter 3:3-5). That means “dumb on purpose.” They scoff at the Bible because they don’t want to submit to it’s rules. I saw a bumper sticker that said, Jesus is coming, and boy is He mad! The Truth is on His Way. He is coming and he is going to be upset about what is going on.
apacalyps on December 16, 2008 at 2:59 AM
Yes, yes. I know what the Bible says very well. I spent my youth at a Lutheran school, spending an hour each day studying the scripture and every Wednesday morning at the school’s chapel. (To this day, I have never encountered an essay more heartbreaking than ecclesiastes ) My teachers loved reminding me that I shared a birthday with Martin Luther. I don’t want you to think that I don’t believe in God simply because I don’t understand Christianity.
If you are curious, and I’m sure you are, I lost my faith as a teenager. It wasn’t even science class that caused me to start questioning my beliefs. It was history class. I was stunned when I learned about the ancient Greeks and their mythology. How, I wondered, could an entire intelligent civilized culture believe something that is as obviously nonsensical as a race of Gods that sit on a mountain? From there, I started wondering if there was anything nonsensical that our own civilized intelligent culture believed.
I know. In a strict sense, I can’t, in the sense that it is impossible to prove a negative statement (usually). Even if some scientist produces some evidence that renders both the old age of the earth and evolution indisputable, to the point that the Discovery Institute disbands, it still won’t disprove God. But you know full well where the burden of proof always lies.
Coevolution isn’t some sort of mystery.
http://www.riken.go.jp/lab-www/library/publication/review/pdf/No_41/41_073.pdf
http://en.allexperts.com/q/Evolution-3839/Termite-evolution-first.htm
Imagining possible natural explanations for mysteries in the natural world actually is science. Without imagining what is possible, there would have never been scientific progress. You obviously believe in “microevolution” (a term that Creationists hijacked for their own nefarious needs). It’s not a huge step for a beetle to use chemicals that are natural to its body for self defense.
I understand that this kind of hypothesis needs to be confirmed by evidence. But you need to understand that stating “I’m not certain how the bombadier beetle evolved” does not logically lead to “The universe was designed,” any more than “I’m not sure where my keys are” leads to “The universe was designed.” Again, this is an argument from ignorance.
It’s bad form to psychoanalyze people who hold opposing beliefs in this patronizing way. If I was more of a prick, I suppose I could suggest that Christians maintain their beliefs out of habit, out of a desire to maintain their social life, or out of a reaction the carrot of heaven and the stick of hell (or in politicians, in a desire to get elected). But I actually don’t think that, as others do. I think you are sincere and believe that you believe your position is rational. I just think you happen to be wrong. All I ask, really, is mutual respect in this regard. You can think I’m wrong. But don’t think I’m not striving for rationality and sincerity.
justfinethanks on December 16, 2008 at 3:37 AM
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/3761269/Spider-as-big-as-a-plate-among-scores-of-new-species-found-in-Greater-Mekong.html
Hmmm…Just wondering why the rat hasn’t evolved in 11 million years.
mwdiver on December 16, 2008 at 8:07 AM
And then you die.
Gee whiz, get a clue.
davidk on December 16, 2008 at 8:41 AM
yes I know, keep the faith, its like the lack of ethane oceans on the other moon, there HAS TO BE some explanation that supports darwnism.
as you have demonstrated all data is interpreted in light of theory…’science’ is a religion that supports the evolutionary world view…alternative thinking is not allowed or even contemplated.
right4life on December 16, 2008 at 9:32 AM
Evolution.
right4life on December 16, 2008 at 9:34 AM
The first time Jesus came to Jerusalem, He was riding an ass. The next time He comes, He’ll be kickin’ ass.
davidk on December 16, 2008 at 9:35 AM
how does this creature get ‘incrementally faster’?? does it just decide, ‘hey I need to speed up, think I’ll just evolve a little here’! so you’re saying evolution is the intelligent designer.
uh yeah, so in other words keep the faith, because evolution HAD TO OCCUR, because it does…its like natural selection, a tautology.
evolution is meaningless. it informs us of nothing. all it is is a worldview, atheism.
right4life on December 16, 2008 at 9:37 AM
this is just laughable. all you darwinists can do is tell a nice ‘just-so’ stories. newsflash: evolution is totally useless in medicine.
link
and its useless in other fields as well, as coyne admits:
link
evolution is nothing more than atheism posing as ’science’.
its also racist as hell. and has given us the wonders of eugenics, the gas chamber, etc.
I don’t understand how anyone can believe in that fairytale.
right4life on December 16, 2008 at 9:47 AM
Wow, I didn’t know about this site. Fantastic! I will enjoy reading all of it as I have time…. Great Stuff !!
Maxx on December 16, 2008 at 10:25 AM
Since mutation and genetic recombination allow parts of genomes to have differences within a species, we get variation. If there are variations in the implementation of a particular system, such as how long a femur bone is, or how efficiently sugar is burned, or how dense muscle fibers are in a particular muscle, there will be incremental variations in how well that system performs.
This means that, within a species, some of these variants will perform marginally better at certain tasks than others.
In a chaotic universe, we wouldn’t see this, because it simply wouldn’t be possible. Without consistent rules of physics, the concept of “incremental improvement” or “variation within a species” makes no sense… DNA or an analog couldn’t code, because there would be no laws of chemistry to make things work the same way each time.
Since we have consistent physical laws in this universe, variations allow a femur bone, for instance, to be increased in length along a whole spectrum of values (hundredths of an inch to many inches), and the advantage that these lengths would give a variant represent a smooth fitness landscape… not the world of pure chaos that Dembski uses in his “across all fitness landscapes” game of misdirection.
VekTor on December 16, 2008 at 10:52 AM
On the contrary, evolutionary processes not only inform us, they can and have been harnessed to solve real-world problems in timeframes with which blind random searching can never hope to compete.
I’ve done it myself, so I recognize the power of such concepts. Does that, in and of itself, prove that Nature uses evolutionary concepts and techniques to cause variation in later generations, leading to the diversity of life? No.
But given how simple and powerful of a mechanism it is, and how it occurs “without effort” as a natural emergent process of heritability of genomes and the effects of non-perfect replication, it’s pretty obvious that these effects should be expected in such a system.
VekTor on December 16, 2008 at 11:00 AM
social darwinism does not equal evolution. theres more to evolution then natural selection. darwinism is the survival of the fittest; evolution is mainly the “fit enough”
lolwut on December 16, 2008 at 11:02 AM
sorry, eugenics is directly related to evolution…its applied darwinism, nothing more.
and how do we measure fitness? it survives. natural selection is a tautology…if its fit, it survives, its meaningless, as is evolution.
right4life on December 16, 2008 at 11:06 AM
don’t believe you, sorry. you use an intelligently designed algorithm to prove ‘evolution’ not a chance.
right4life on December 16, 2008 at 11:07 AM
and how do we measure fitness? it survives. natural selection is a tautology…if its fit, it survives, its meaningless, as is evolution.right4life on December 16, 2008 at 11:06 AM
no, its not. fitness means you reproduce and the species continues.
lolwut on December 16, 2008 at 11:08 AM
we get variation because its built into the genome.
that sounds nice, until you get to Haldane’s dilemma.
another ‘just-so’ story…ok go ahead and explain the tuatara, which has the fastest rate of ‘micro’ evolution…but is a living dinosaur…
right4life on December 16, 2008 at 11:09 AM
yeah if its fit, it survives…natural selection is a tautology. how do you measure fitness?? oh it survives and reproduces…right. tautology…meaningless…evolution…meaningless…and useless
its atheism posing as ’science’
right4life on December 16, 2008 at 11:10 AM
its atheism posing as ’science’
when did I say i didn’t believe in God? Also, what about gravity? Thats a theory as well? Should I call everyone who believes in gravity an atheist because God’s hugging us closer to make sure we stay closer to the ground?
lolwut on December 16, 2008 at 11:12 AM
I didn’t call you an atheist, I said evolution, darwinism, is atheism posing as science.
non-sequitor. and rather strange.
right4life on December 16, 2008 at 11:16 AM
right4life on December 16, 2008 at 11:16 AM
but its true, gravity is a theory as well
lolwut on December 16, 2008 at 11:17 AM
If you jump off a roof you experience gravity. But how to you experience the evolution of a pancreas, or an umbilical cord? These things can only be explained by guessing.
Rose on December 16, 2008 at 11:17 AM
I mean “how do you”
Rose on December 16, 2008 at 11:17 AM
but gravity does not purport to explain all human behavior as evolution does.
right4life on December 16, 2008 at 11:19 AM
very true, it is taken on faith that these things happen.
right4life on December 16, 2008 at 11:19 AM
People experienced gravity before Sir Isaac Newton. His theory didn’t make the sensation of gravity any more discernible.
Since Darwin published his work the field of genetics and discovery of DNA could have disproven his work, but they provide observable mechanisms by which physical traits can change from generation to generation.
dedalus on December 16, 2008 at 11:48 AM
Physical traits, perhaps, but when you talk about internal organs you’re talking about more than height or hairiness. An umbilical chord is worthless without the placenta and the amniotic fluid. And the heart is worthless without the veins and arteries The evolution of the tears needed tear ducts. And on and on. These things cannot be explained by DNA. These are things that couldn’t have evolved in stages. They would have been worthless in intermediary forms. You can observe lower to higher lifeforms, but each life form has complete systems enabling it to survive at that level. It does not have incomplete systems.
Rose on December 16, 2008 at 11:58 AM
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