Evolution vs Creation, Youtube series

[MegaSilver]

I think uniton just likes to get people here mad with is "ignorance"* of the subject.

Uniton, I'm a nerd (though I do not like being called that,), and if you have read my post above it explains the stuff you are trying to "disprove."

If you are really saying that you know more about science than the rest of us, than you are asking for trouble. I'll get out my notes I got from my CP Integrated Science Class and prove to you how "ignorant"* you really are.

MegaSilver

* As to "ignorant," I believe Uniton is faking it. I'm not calling him stupid. (As what some people believe the definition is, which it is not.)

[Gulp]

I ran across a relevant quote from a recent article by Michael Shermer of Skeptic Magazine where he relates the low road tactics of a debate with people from the Discovery Institute (Intelligent Design HQ):

Over a century ago, during the first round of evolution-creation debates in England, Herbert Spencer observed: "Those who cavalierly reject the theory of evolution, as not adequately supported by facts, seem quite to forget that their own theory is supported by no facts at all."

[MegaSilver]

Originally Posted by Gulp

I ran across a relevant quote from a recent article by Michael Shermer of Skeptic Magazine where he relates the low road tactics of a debate with people from the Discovery Institute (Intelligent Design HQ):

Over a century ago, during the first round of evolution-creation debates in England, Herbert Spencer observed: "Those who cavalierly reject the theory of evolution, as not adequately supported by facts, seem quite to forget that their own theory is supported by no facts at all."

Quite true, Gulp. Sounds like someone here, hum?

MegaSilver

[Bannister]

Like my Granny use to say. "Now, now, you boys play pretty."

Bannister

[J-Unit94]

I haven't gotten involved in this thread yet, but I would like to post an interesting article another member of this site, The Silver Surfer, sent me a while back. It's a paper one of his friends wrote about why he believes in Creation over Evolution. I think it's a very good read, and even if you don't believe in Creation, you should take a look at this.

Personally, I believe in Creation over Evolution. Both ways of thinking have their believable parts, and some harder to believe parts, but in my opinion, Creation just makes more sense then Evolution.

Anyway, here's the article:

ORIGIN OF VERTEBRATES

Darwin popularized the theory of evolution in 1859. Some of the greatest thinkers in science also lived around that time–scientists who believed that God was the author of the world. Were Michael Faraday, one of the greatest experimental geniuses of all time in physics and chemistry; Sir William Thomson, also known as Lord Kelvin, one of the greatest physicists of the nineteenth century; James Maxwell, the father of the electromagnetic theory; and many other great thinkers of science all deceived, ignorantly accepting what the Bible taught without examining the evidence? How about creation scientists today? While both theories have faith as their starting point, creation is a reasonable, more sensible viewpoint. This paper will strive to share evidences for this conclusion.
Duane Gish, Ph.D., gave “five reasons an evolutionary origin of life is impossible” (Gish, i). First, the atmosphere would not allow evolution if evolutionists are correct that there was no oxygen in the earth’s early atmosphere. (Evidence supports that there was oxygen.) Everyone knows that oxygen is necessary for life but “free oxygen would oxidize and thus destroy all organic molecules required for the origin of life” (Gish i). Even if there was no oxygen, life could not have developed because the ozone layer could not have existed. Since the ozone layer filters out the harmful ultraviolet rays from the sun, without it “ultraviolet light from the sun would pour down on the surface of the earth unimpeded, destroying those organic molecules required for life, reducing them to simple gases, such as nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and water” (Gish, ii).
Secondly, Dr. Gish states that “all forms of raw energy are destructive” (Gish, ii).
On a beginning earth, raw energy would be from the sun, lightning, and from radioactive decay and heat. These sources could not produce biological molecules as fast as they would destroy them (Gish, ii). The third reason Dr. Gish explains is that if there were a way for “organic, biologically important molecules to have formed,” it would have produced a variety instead of the detailed amino acids, five-carbon sugars, four-carbon sugars, six-carbon sugars, purines, and pyrimidines (Gish, ii). This is amazingly important. The amino acids in proteins are exclusively left-handed; sugars in DNA and RNA are exclusively right-handed. “If just one right-handed amino acid is in a protein, or just one left-handed sugar is found in a DNA or RNA, all biological activity is destroyed” (Gish, ii).
The fourth reason Dr. Gish gives is that “micromolecules do not spontaneously combine to form macromolecules” (Gish, iii). Evolutionists claim that life started with a self-replicating molecule of DNA or RNA. ”There is no such thing as a self-replicating molecule, and no such molecule could ever exist” (Gish, iii). To form DNA or RNA, specific building blocks and energy is needed. Raw energy would not have been effective. It only takes place in a laboratory under controlled conditions or in a living organism.
Fifth, “DNA could not survive without repair mechanisms” (Gish, iii). DNA and
RNA are destroyed by several things, including water. At this point, scientists know of 130 human DNA repair genes (Gish, iii). If it were not for repair genes, DNA could not exist; but for repair genes to exist, there must be DNA genes. These two are so closely linked that it would be impossible for one to exist without the other. This means that they would have had to evolve simultaneously, which is impossible. The complexity of DNA and RNA points to an Intelligent Designer.
Another significant weakness in the evolutionary position on the origin of vertebrates is the absence of support in the fossil record (Patterson, 18. If living organisms evolved over billions of years, there should be many transitional forms; however, only animal fossils that are fully formed are found. “There are billions upon billions of fossils in rock layers over the earth, layers of sedimentary rock that stretch for thousands of miles across continents and in some instances plunge many miles into the earth’s crust” (Bliss, 42). This would imply that a catastrophe buried these animals very quickly, which would be consistent with the Bible’s account of the flood. In these massive fossil graveyards, no transitional fossils have been discovered. As only one example of many—even though there have not even been feather-like impressions found to indicate feathers came from scales, evolutionists’ teach that birds came from reptiles. In the fossil record, feathers appear abruptly (Patterson, 203).
In addition to no support in the fossil record, there is no current evidence of macroevolution. There are no half-formed or transitional forms; all animals fall under various “kinds”. Evolutionists often mention Darwin’s Galapagos finches or peppered moths as examples of macroevolution; but in reality, these animals are examples of natural selection (Parker, 75 & 85). The more “fit” to the specific environment the animal was in, the better it survived.
There is no way for a partially evolved species to survive. There cannot be a partial lung, or heart, or reproductive system. It is either there or it is not. Take the whale for example. A whale’s mouth and blowhole, which acts as a nose, could not be connected like a human’s. If it were, as it opened its mouth and allowed large amounts of water to rush in, the whale would drown. For the whale population to survive, its blowhole and mouth would have to have either evolved at precisely the same time or were always separate. In addition to this vital characteristic, the sperm whale must be able to survive its dive. It can grow to 70 feet in length. It dives 500 feet per minute. For every 12 feet it dives, there is an increase of one atmosphere; during a dive, its body is subjected to 3-5 different atmospheres of pressure. To prevent the whale’s body from collapsing, its giant heart, weighing up to one ton, can pump blood through its body and close off blood vessels to adjust the pressure. While feeding on the bottom, it can close down everything except its heart, brain, and tail to conserve energy (Incredible: II, 3:41-8:40). If any of these abilities were not present, the whale would die.
According to evolutionists, the universe is becoming more complex and highly ordered through mutations. This is in opposition to the second law of thermodynamics which states that things become more disordered and the entropy in a system increases if left alone. For there to be any improvement, rather sizeable quantities of energy must be introduced from an outside system and then directed (Taylor, par. 4 ). Mutations only eliminate genetic information; they cannot produce new genetic information (Sarfati, par. 3-4). Additionally, mutations are random, occur infrequently, and are harmful over 99% of the time (Technical, 55). This strongly negates the possibility that vertebrates originated through mutations.
The complexities of vertebrates support an Intelligent Designer. Mathematically speaking, living systems are so astonishingly complex that there is no way they could have evolved. An organism with only one hundred parts has 10158 ways that those one hundred parts can “link up,” but the probability of it being successful is one (Technical, 60). Dr. Henry Morris gives several other mathematical statistics but he concludes that it “is still an almost infinitesimally small number, actually one chance out of a hundred million billion billion billion billion billion” (Technical, 61). This is especially significant since an organism with only one hundred parts is considered very simple. It is hard to really fathom numbers of this size; instead, I am going to give an example from each of the vertebral groups showing how complex they are, supporting design rather than chance.
There are certain predatory fish that live in the oceans, feeding on smaller fish and shrimp. As they eat, food remains become trapped in their teeth and parasites amass. They are unable to clean their own teeth. “Often, fresh from chasing and eating other small fish and shrimp, a predatory fish may swim over to take its place in line (literally!) at the nearest cleaning station. When its turn comes, it opens its mouth wide, baring the vicious-looking teeth” (Parker, 7. These small cleaner fish and shrimp have no fear of the big fish; they swim around its mouth removing the parasites and feeding off the food remains. The cleaner fish are not threatened during this process and the larger fish never tries to eat them. This symbiotic relationship is necessary for their survival but cannot be explained by evolution.
The woodpecker is a unique kind of bird that defies evolution. It has an industrial strength beak that is used to drill holes in trees. Between the beak and skull there is a special piece of cartilage that acts as a shock absorber. Without the cartilage, the woodpecker would either die of a concussion or split its skull because of the force behind each blow. The force is so great that its eyeballs would pop out if it did not close its eyes when it pecked on the tree. Amazingly, with only a split second between each peck, the woodpecker opens its eyes, focuses on the tree, and aims its beak. The woodpecker also has a special tongue. It can be as long as ten inches to reach insects and then has barbs on the end to stab the insect. If needed, the woodpecker has a glue factory on the end of its tongue to assist in drawing the insect out. The glue will not stick to the woodpecker’s beak. The bird makes exactly the right solvent needed to dissolve the glue so it does not swallow its tongue along with the insect and choke itself to death. The European Green Woodpecker is particularly unique because of its tongue. Its tongue starts in the back of the throat, goes down the throat, out the back of the neck, over the top of its head under the skin, through a hole between the eyes, in one nostril, then out of its beak. Evolutionists say that birds evolved from reptiles, but there is no other animal that has a tongue like this, let alone a reptile (Incredible: I, 9:58-15:45). Evolutionists have no explanation but creationists accept it as another example of the creativity of the creator God.
The horse has an incredibly complex circulatory system. Its body is too large for its heart; however, it has a pump in each of its hooves that acts as an extra heart. As the horse steps, the pumps are compressed, sending blood up the legs so the horse will not suffocate. These extra hearts only work when the horse is compressing them by stepping down. If a horse is left standing still too long, it will sometimes go lame since the pumps cannot work (Incredible: III, 10:27-17:44). If the horse did not have these extra pumps at its genesis, the horse would have quickly died.
The chuckwalla lizard is an amazing reptile. It has two special defense mechanisms. The first is a special layer of skin on its back that changes color. Secondly, when it feels threatened, the chuckwalla can run into a crack in a rock and inflate itself so that it becomes tightly wedged in the crack, making it impossible for a predator to drag it out and eat it. Another fascinating thing about the chuckwalla is that it has a desalination factory in its nose. When there is too much salt in its blood, the lizard can divert the blood through this factory, where the salt is removed and sneezed out in the form of salt crystals (Incredible: I, 36:33-38:49). Without this special ability, death would come quickly from the high salt content in the blood.
The Axolotl is an amphibian that has an astounding ability to repair damaged parts while in its water phase. “Instead of merely forming scar tissue over a wound, as most vertebrates do when healing, the axolotl can regenerate entire body parts, including whole limbs, gills, eyes, kidneys, even large portions of its liver and its heart muscle” (Dykes, 22). Once it becomes a land-dwelling salamander, it loses this ability and often has a short life-span. Evolutionists believe it is caught in between stages of development,
but the alleged advantage is in the larval stage so it would not have been an advancement to leave the water (Dykes 22).
There are many evidences for an intelligent designer, but the greatest argument for creation is that God, who was there in the beginning, said in Genesis 1 that He created by speaking and it was good. Specific to the topic of vertebrates, Genesis 1:20-25 states:

Then God said, “Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens.” So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” So the evening and the morning were the fifth day. Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind”; and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and every thing that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

Some evolutionists will admit as William Bateson said, “Meanwhile, though our faith in evolution stands unshaken, we have no acceptable account of the origin of ‘species’” (Shimmin, 287). “Evolution is unproved and unprovable,” wrote evolutionist Sir Arthur Keith. “We believe it because the only alternative is special creation, and that is unthinkable” (Shimmin, 286). When all the data is in and the evidences laid before us, the real decision each must make is whether the Bible is really God’s Word – preserved throughout history, detailing the beginning of time, prophesying the end, and revealing what God requires of us personally.

[Bannister]

There are literally volumes of work that refute everything Gish has to say.

The assertion that the Theory of Evolution is little more than a Religious dogma is getting really old.

Let's talk about something really interesting. Let's talk about infinity.


Bannister

[Oh Yeah! I'm Here]

Look at this!

[Gulp]

Originally Posted by Bannister

There are literally volumes of work that refute everything Gish has to say.

The assertion that the Theory of Evolution is little more than a Religious dogma is getting really old.

Let's talk about something really interesting. Let's talk about infinity.


Bannister

Agreed on Gish, of course. There's a reason why scientists don't agree with people like Gish.

There are a lot of interesting topics in science that I would like to discuss and learn more about. Topics that probe the deep questions in life have always been appealing to me, but we would have to have a separate thread for non-fundamentalists. When science clashes with a specific interpretation of the Bible, a debate is inevitable.

I'd like to discuss with my Scaper friends concepts like Lawrence Krauss' lecture of how the Universe is infinite and singularities occur on the quantum level. But that would be tough if we constantly get derailed by someone asking us to consider the opinions of ~1% of physicist community.

Obviously I wouldn't oppose or hinder anyone wanting to discuss YEC in a YEC thread.

[Dysole]

Originally Posted by Gulp

I'd like to discuss with my Scaper friends concepts like Lawrence Krauss' lecture of how the Universe is infinite and singularities occur on the quantum level. But that would be tough if we constantly get derailed by someone asking us to consider the opinions of ~1% of physicist community.

Start a thread. I'd be interested.

~Dysole, YEC but not really interested in debating it.