Subject:
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Re: Evolution vs Scientific Creationism
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Fri, 12 Jul 2002 08:34:34 GMT
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Viewed:
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5616 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Bruce Schlickbernd writes:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Koudys writes:
>
> > Once again, the difference is jumping species. Whether it's 2 years or 2
> > thousand years, or 2 million years, a fish is still a fish. Sure, it
> > adapted over the course of those millions of years to climate changes, grew
> > a new fin to help it swim, but it's still a fish. What tells me something
> > right away is the substansive dismissal of any theory that doesn't fit the
> > required wordview. 'I believe that there is no god so I'm going to
> > interpret what I see today this way to prove there's no god.' Sure, the
> > reverse is true 'Oh there *is* a god and here's why we can say that...'
> > Whatever. I'm not a "Scientific Creationist", nor am I a scientist. I'm a
> > guy who gets paid to fix computers all day.
>
> Of course a fish is still a fish. I mean, what else would it be? If you
> are trying to state (but not quite saying it) that a fish can never evolve
> into another species, that's easy to answer: yes it can. I think you are
> really trying to say it can't evolve into another Genus, or Family, or
> Order, or on up the taxonomic scale (in point of fact, we have bred things
> that can no longer mate and produce viable offspring with the original
> species but can have viable offspring with themselves, forming a new
> species). Anyway, we are talking about millions and millions of years.
> Keep making small changes millenia after millenia after millenia after
> millenia and you end up with something similiar but at the same time quite
> different (say Chimps and Humans).
Also, fish aren't fish. There is no class, subclass, order, family,
genus, or species known as "fish." What we know colloquially as fish
are in fact four (maybe five now) classes of vertebrates that happen to
all share certain features that adapt them for life at sea.
Lines between phylogenic categories are fluid because every member
of a species is slightly different from all other members, and these
divisions are convenient ways for human beings to group observed
populations. Evoution would never suggest that a fish would suddenly
give birth to frogs. That's a major misrepresentation that creationists
sometimes make about evolution.
> As to the rest, evolution does not address God in any way, shape or form, so
> you'll have to be more specific about your complaints. Darwin's major area
> of study in college was theology, by the way.
And, of course, before evolutionary theory everyone was a Creationist!
Darwin et al had to fight the battle against creationism entrenched
in the academy--its evidence was so overwhelming that thinking men
and women quickly came to the realization that special creation was
not a viable scientific theory.
(And, of course, Darwin started out a creationist too--but never
went back; the "deathbed recantation" is a great urban legend.)
> > Chloresterol is good for you--oh wait, it isn't--oh wait it is, but only
> > certain types. Science fudges many many things.
>
> No. Science changes its mind about things as new evidence presents itself.
> Darwin's theories are hardly the state of evolutionary thought.
> Creationists never admit that they could be wrong. They just made up new
> numbers out of the blue (site me why the firm date was changed and how the
> new numbers (which never admit possible wrong with the 6000 year figure)
> were arrived at).
Evolution is a moving target. It's easier for creationists to
attack Darwin's 19th-century work with their own data, which are
often 30 years or more out of date (and proven wrong, like the
moon dust influx data from 1954).
> > Smoking was considered
> > healthy at one time, so was heroin. Getting away from the biological
> > science, up until 1967 it was a scientifically held principle that the inert
> > elements (y'know, the ones at the end of the periodic table) could not,
> > under *any* circumstance, partake in a chemical reaction. That was the held
> > belief until an inquisitive student in some university showed that, well,
> > eys they could react. 1967. The year I was born. Don't go telling me
> > about fudging. Yes science is an evolutionary process, and the more we
> > learn the more we can 'fix' the underlying ideas of how and why things are
> > the way they are. But don't go knocking the 'Christian Scientists' for
> > something that 'regular' scientists have been doing for years.
>
> Give me the specifics as to why, then. You are confusing changing due to
> new information with dodging the bullet.
Also, creationists don't change the theory. They find a new workaround
that allows them to claim Biblically literal truth is unviolated.
(I still love the "water vapor canopy" thing--yes, they now feel they
know where Flood water came from, but they can never quite grapple with
the problem of where all that water *went*...)
> > 'cause the very word 'evolution' infers change. Things don't change, which
> > is contrary to the very concept of evolution. If we were to take the base
> > principles of evolution, that things must change, or adapt, as the world
> > changes--but wait--here's a fish that was supposedly extinct for millions of
> > years swimming around. 'But', the evolutionists say, 'mayhaps some fishes
> > stayed the same and others underwnent the change'. Well, that contradicts
> > the evolutionary process, 'cause if change happens because it *has* to
> > happen, and one thing didn't change, then none of the others would have had
> > to change, either.
>
> If something is successful, it doesn't have to change. Sharks have been
> around for 100 million years, longer than Tyrannasaurus Rex. There is no
> contradiction. You are seizing upon a half-understood concept and
> extrapolating a specious conclusion from it. This is typical of the
> Creationist attempts to denigrate evolution.
Actually, longer. Sharks arose during the early Pennsylvanian,
some 300-325 mya. See my note about the pace of shark and
crossopterygian evolution--they do still modify, just not
visibly and rapidly.
best
LFB
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Evolution vs Scientific Creationism
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| (...) *CRASH*!!! Nobody expects the Taxonomic Scale Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise. Surprise and anal retentiveness.....oo...ooo....two chief weapons are surprise, anal retentiveness, and a ruthless devotion to splitting scales....three! (...) (22 years ago, 12-Jul-02, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Evolution vs Scientific Creationism
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| (...) Of course a fish is still a fish. I mean, what else would it be? If you are trying to state (but not quite saying it) that a fish can never evolve into another species, that's easy to answer: yes it can. I think you are really trying to say it (...) (22 years ago, 12-Jul-02, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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