I Get Email
I recently happen to come across your website
www.ooblick.com through the section /text/evoquotes. Actually, I had bookmarked the quotes some time ago and happen to cleaning up some old favorites when I saw them again. I do not know if this website is still being maintained or if you are still interested in any dialogue about it. My first question is are these quotes for real? If so, doesn’t it give you even a small pause regarding your anti-creationist stance? I moved up to your main page and it is quite an interesting collection of works. I particularly like the “ooblick” recipe itself. I didn’t realize that I had been inadvertently making ooblick every time I created a rue to thicken my gravy.In any case, I am a creationists and that is my main concern with your page, in particular the “message to creationists”. It appears the site is quite dated and I’m wondering if it has ever been updated. You may feel you’ve heard every argument before and if you are not interested in any feedback that is perfectly fine. You simply need not respond. Likewise, I don’t want to spend a lot of time on this message if you are not interested in any polite and respectful dialogue.
I will give you this feedback, however, if you are still listening. If you’d like to respond, I would be interested in discussing it in more detail, point by point. There didn’t appear to be a way to respond publicly on your site, so I’m sending you this email. You claim to have heard every anti-evolution argument there is. However, if that were true, you wouldn’t be posting the fallacious comments you have made. To be honest, there is very little if anything that is true on this page. What is surprising to me is that you are critical of creationists for not understanding evolution, yet you have not bothered to even look up creation theory. This is not surprising to me. If you think about it, we are all indoctrinated in evolutionary dogma in school, so there are few people that do not understand at least the basics of evolutionary theory. Since scientific creation theory is not allowed to be taught in school, I’ve never met an evolutionist that had an inkling about what creation theory is actually about.
Throughout the site you appear to want creationist to provide extremely specific detail about the ancient past, yet you do not insist on these same standards for evolutionists. For example, when exactly did the first life form appear? Where on earth did it appear? what did it look like? How many years did it take before it evolved into something else? If it actually happened, why can’t we repeat the event in the lab? Please provide a complete list of transitional forms between this first life and the organisms found in the Cambrian explosion. Where is the Oort cloud (the supposed source of short term comments that demonstrate a young universe)? Really, this list could go on ad infinitum and I doubt you could answer any of them. On the other hand, I can actually answer many, if not most, of the questions on your site.
There certainly are well defined creationists theories regarding our origins and they are backed by substantial POSITIVE evidence in their favor. In no way is creationism simply anti-evolution. However, just as evolutionists point out faults with creation theories, it is natural for creation scientists to do the same. After all, there are only two viable scientific theories of our origins at the moment and any negative evidence against one is evidence in favor of the other. That is because we are talking about historical theories and it is the preponderance of the evidence which matters, since neither can be scientifically proven.
This is already long, but if you would be interested in having me actually respond to your comments point by point, I would be happy to oblige.
…tom
Okay, tell you what. Why don’t you take your “viable scientific” theory of creation, remove all the bits that have been debunked ad nauseam and refuted in the Index of Creationist Claims (such as CA510.1, your assertion that evidence against evolution is evidence for creationism), and see what you have left.
If it’s still a viable scientific theory that can withstand scrutiny, and can be tested through experiment, come back and we’ll talk about it.
tom wrote:
You weren’t. You were making a slurry. And a pretty rueful gravy. What you intended to make was a roux, which consists of equal parts flour and fat (usually butter but I find olive oil works almost as well), cooked to a desired color and used as a thickening agent for gravy. And that’s good eats.
I was trying to be nice with my initial inquiry, but when I see a derogatory response like this, I know immediately it comes from someone who doesn’t have a clue about science or creation theory and can only regurgitate baseless nonsense from evolutionary propaganda sites which have no interest whatsoever in the truth. If you want to take that route, there are numerous creationist sites that have debunked the claims of evolutionists as well such as AIG, ICR or CMI as well as ID sites starting with the Discovery Institute. All these sites base their claims on solid scientific, historical and logical evidence. The fact that the “Index of Creationist Claims”, claims itself to have refuted them, does not make it true. To say you have refuted something is easy; to actually do it is another thing. Refutations to the “index of creationist claims” can be found here: http://creationwiki.org/Index_to_Creationist_Claims which shows that the majority of talkorigins “refutations” to any arguments creationists actually use are nothing but utter nonsense.
Regarding CA510.1, if you’d wish to abandon your belief in evolution in favor of another theory that you find more acceptable, than I would be happy to debate that one instead. Just let me know what you pick. I, of course, will stand firmly behind scientific creation theory.
So now that you’ve finished pounding your chest with question begging epithets, perhaps we can have a real discussion focused on determining the truth? If I didn’t think that creation theory was a viable scientific theory that can withstand scrutiny, as do thousands of scientists and the majority of Americans, then I would not have sent you my email in the first place. While personally I don’t think evolution is a valid scientific theory, I’m sure you do. Perhaps we should honestly explore why we’ve come to these different conclusions instead of making baseless accusations.
So let’s start with your first point – “you don’t have a theory”. I’m not sure why you would have said this as basic creation theory has been around since time immemorial with scientific backing going back to before Darwin’s time. The details of this theory can be found almost anywhere on the internet. By falsely stating that “there is no theory of creationism” when there clearly is, makes it appear that you are being purposely ignorant or are simply intending to provoke.
Now, there are a whole host of evolutionary theories that attempt to explain the origin of the universe and everything in it by materialistic means alone. I will assume you are referring to biological origins, but if I’m incorrect, we can ignore what follows and I can start over with whatever theory you’d like to discuss instead. In addition, it’s been my experience that most evolutionists like to exclude Abiogenesis from the theory of biological evolution, so I will assume you’d like to do the same. Again, if that’s incorrect, I can expound on the comparable creation theory. So that we can compare theories fairly, let’s be sure we are talking about the same thing. The theory of biological evolution states that all the diversity of life on earth arose from a common ancestor over billions of years primarily through the processes of mutations and natural selection.
On the other hand, biological creation theory states that all the diversity of life on earth arose from a set of original kinds over thousands of years primarily through the processes of mutations, natural selection and genetic programming with this variation limited to within each kind. Creation theory fits the known facts, whereas evolutionary theory does not. Creation theory is falsifiable whereas evolutionary theory has already been falsified. Since there are still believers in evolution, this is proof that at its core it is simply a religious belief.
Tom:
Can you give us some examples of this evidence?
I want to believe whatever’s true. If evolution turns out to be wrong and creationism true, then I will, in Tim Minchin’s words, “take a compass and carve on the side of my cock.”
All anyone needs to do is to present sufficient evidence. Let me know when you plan to start.
Then you shouldn’t have any trouble giving me a URL. Preferably one that lists the predictions made by creation theory, and the experiments that have been (and could be performed in the future) to confirm it.
What exactly is a “kind”? How can I tell whether two beings are in the same “kind” or not? I’ve been asking creationists this for years, and never gotten a coherent answer. But perhaps you’ll be the first.
Tom Says:
Which CA510.1 are you referring to? The one that was initially introduced by arensb or the one you reference by implication via your link to creation wiki that purposely misquotes talk.origins?
Wow. All that verbiage, and Tom can’t even give a succinct summary of the fabled “Theory of Creation” — not even a URL. Just a grand handwave in the vague direction of half-a-dozen websites.
Dr. Pepper’s persistently-asked question (from t.o days) remains unanswered.
This is why it is hard to have a rational conversation with evolutionists/atheists whose hypocrisy is dramatically evident from nearly every sentence that comes out of their keyboard:
@Eamon Knight – Are you blind? You need to re-read my last paragraph where I very succinctly define biological creation theory. So your supposed “persistently-asked question” has finally been answered! You are critical of all my “verbiage” (my apologies, perhaps that’s why you were too lazy to read the last paragraph), but then hypocritically complain that I’ve only provided websites. So which do you want – more verbiage or more websites?
@Fez – Here is a perfect example of the dishonesty of evolutionists. Every rebuttal includes a link to the original talkorigins claim and in the case of CA510.1, it is repeated a second time verbatim. So where is the purposeful misquote? On the contrary, it is YOU who is attempting to misrepresent.
@arensb – Thank you for a slightly more respectful response. However, I have one major issue with your stance overall. I have no problem with answering questions about creation theory or educating those that are uniformed about the science behind it (despite the fact that much of this information is readily available on the internet). I have stated previously that unfortunately scientific creation theory is not allowed to be taught in our schools, so it is not surprising that some people are uniformed. However, to then turn around and denigrate creationists to “find out what evolution is all about before you start criticizing it” or “find out what you’re talking about before you make an ass of yourself”, when you yourself have no clue regarding creation theory or “kinds”, is the definition of hypocrisy! If you’d simply approach this from a more humble position of wanting to know the truth, it would be easier to have a respectful discussion where both of us could ask sincere questions about things that may be unclear.
I also have a sincere desire to believe whatever is true, although if I were you, I would not be so willing to sacrifice your private parts. Regarding evidence, I’ll tell you what. I’ve been doing most of the talking here. You provide me with “sufficient evidence” that the theory of evolution is true and I’ll reciprocate. Provide me a list of predictions made by the theory of evolution and experiments that have been (or could be performed in the future) to confirm it and I’ll reciprocate regarding creation theory. And when you give me a coherent answer to what a “species” is, then I’ll provide an explanation for “kinds”.
In the mean time, I’ve demonstrated that the first point on your “message to creationists” is in error from the standpoint that there IS a theory of creation which I’ve stated. Now that we both have theories, we can explore in future posts which one better fits the facts and by doing so, demonstrate that your second point is also in error. I’ve already demonstrated that your third point is really much more applicable to evolutionists, so each of your points are falling like dominoes. I’ll knock the rest of them down in future posts.
Tom sez:
My apologies, and my red face. I apparently mixed up referencing 510 and 510.1.
Your graciousness is noted.
Now that that’s all straightened out and you have obviously definitively checked the references, how about you answer arensb’s question regarding CA510.1 directly instead of lifting the response at creationwiki from CA 510 and using it as a non-response?
arensb:
Strike 1st, confirm 4th, 7th, 8th, double down on 9th, confirm 10th, 12th, add 13th, strike 14th, 18th the second again, implied 23rd, 27th, hat trick on 28th.
Tom:
Cool. Let me know when you intend to start. See my questions above regarding the definition of “kind”, what predictions are made by creation theory, and how it has been tested experimentally.
Well, you’ve certainly being doing most of the typing, presumably in hopes that if you write enough words, we won’t notice that you haven’t said anything.
It occurs to me that if creationists put as much effort into coming up with solid evidence as they do into whining that scientists don’t take them seriously, then scientists might take them seriously.
Wait, what? Where? Surely you don’t mean
do you? As far as I can tell, that basically says that living beings have been evolving for the past few thousand years, and that’s already covered by evolutionary theory, thank you very much.
But since you haven’t defined “kind” or “genetic programming”, it’s possible that there’s more to it.
At any rate, whenever you want to present a scientific theory of creationism, and evidence for it, you’re welcome to do so.
Fez:
No biggie, from where I’m standing, since they’re so closely related. What it really boils down to is that logically, both evolution and creationism can be wrong. And so poking holes in evolution doesn’t help support creationism.
I suppose I should amend that a bit: as long as creationism isn’t a well-defined theory, it can’t be said to be either right or wrong. Maybe that’s what Tom et al. are banking on.
arensb Says:
Eh, if I’ve made a factual error (especially a gross one such at that) I feel an obligation to accept it and hopefully take away a motivation to pay more attention to details in the future.
I still would like to know why Tom’s response vis a vis 510.1 so closely mirrors creation wiki’s verbiage of 510 though. Compare and contrast:
Tom:
CreationWiki:
Probably close enough to support a claim of plagiarism in an academic environment but I presume there are less rigorous standards applied here.
I’m thinking perhaps it’s in part motivated by CreationWiki’s non-responsiveness in 510.1:
which is contradicted by Tom from the starting gate ( with a single sentence encompassing both 510 and 510.1 even ):
I suppose “No source given” can be replaced with “Tom”, although his performance here to date probably doesn’t meet the standard of “solemn source.” Perhaps he’ll enlighten us with the academic work supporting the quoted segment above.
Fez:
I considered the possibility that Tom had edited the CreationWiki page forCA510, so maybe the phrasing was in his mind, but according to the page history, it was last edited in 2007, so that’s unlikely.
As for CreationWiki’s CA510 claim saying that creationists don’t argue that problems with evolution support creationism, well, that’s laughable. They do it all the time, even if not as explicitly as Tom did.
Heck, even the arguments about “irreducible complexity” and “complex specified information” basically boil down to “this couldn’t have evolved, therefore goddidit.”
For goodness sake, what are you guys babbling about? If we can’t agree on such unimportant matters such as the validity of “negative evidence”, how can there be hope for the important ones (as if there ever was)? This started because of your complaint that creationists provide nothing but negative evidence against evolutionism. However, you then turn around and provide nothing but a link refuting creationist’s claims (which itself has been refuted) and focus all of your response on derogatory comments about creationists and their theories. You must feel that there is some important value to refuting someone else’s claims or you would not have spent the entire focus of your response on doing so (and I anticipate more to come). Therefore, it is hypocritical of you to accuse creationists of doing the same. Apparently there is no positive evidence in favor of evolutionism either, since you’ve been unable to provide any. You’re not pro-evolutionism, your anti-creation (down goes your second point).
@Fez – I have no problem with you (or I) mixing up CA510 and 510.1. They are intimately related and to me, make the same point so they could just as well have been combined. The problem I have is immediately jumping to the false conclusion that they have purposefully misquoted. An unbiased person might have thought, “Gee, I’m sure they didn’t purposely misquote, am I looking at the wrong thing or perhaps I should ask for clarification”. But no, you immediately go into this derogatory mode and I find myself returning blow for blow. I am perfectly willing, however, to have a polite and respectful conversation about the facts, if anyone else is. And please, do not accuse me of plagiarism. I referenced the page, so was not attempting to hide anything and was making a valid point – a point that apparently you did not grasp. Besides, this is not a technical article and I paraphrased something I’ve often heard and said. It is how I personally feel and it is not a “non-response”. Many before you have stated that they believe in evolution. Are you plagiarizing when you say the same thing? In any case, I thought I had sufficiently explained my comment regarding the value of “negative” evidence in my initial email, but apparently no one caught that either. So let’s begin from the drawing board:
To start, let’s state what should be obvious – IF there are only two valid historical theories for the cause of some broad identical physical phenomena, then in general evidence contrary to one is going to bolster the other. The reason for this is that no historical theories (like evolution) can be proven since they are based on many un-provable assumptions. Instead, abductive reasoning and the preponderance of the evidence is used to identify the “best explanation” from a set of competing hypotheses. The more evidence there is against one, the better the other one looks. Of course, this is not necessarily true if there are more than two theories, but it still can be if the contrary evidence is contrary to all of the other theories except for one. In addition, evidence can be raised which is contrary to both or support both and it is certainly even possible that a third alternative will become viable, but that does not negate the fact that at this particular moment, truly contrary evidence for one supports the other prevailing theory.
It is worth noting that when I say something is “valid” (or viable) in this context, I mean that there is empirical evidence which can be reasonably interpreted in its favor. In my original email, I stated the same thing by saying that it was “scientific”, although that is another topic altogether. It should also be noted that the theories must be directly competing, that is, they attempt to explain the SAME observed facts. This is important as there is a whole set of evolutionary theories which attempt to explain the origin of the universe and everything in it by naturalistic means including the big bang, stellar evolution, abiogenesis, biological evolution and even cultural evolution. Various theories which compete with these are the ones that need to be compared.
In our particular case, all of this is true even if both evolutionism and creation theory are potentially wrong. At any moment in time, the preponderance of evidence points to one or the other until some other theory takes over. But let’s face it. Evolutionism is a religious belief that is never going to be replaced until atheism is replaced. So it is completely disingenuous to suggest that evolutionism, which is un-falsifiable, could ever be proven wrong. Based on this understanding, the entire list of other possible explanations mentioned by talkorigins completely falls by the wayside. Anyone can come up with an explanation for anything. There could be a million of them and probably are, but none worth considering. How can you even stay straight faced at the ridiculous “refutation” of CA510 by talkorigins? I would be ashamed to be associated with that response. Problems with evolutionism is not evidence of creation theory because it might turn out to be GEOCENTRISM?!!! You have got to be kidding me! And intelligent design has nothing to do with “creationism”. None of these alternatives have a shred of empirical evidence to support them. For example, what empirical evidence do we have that a god guided the evolutionary process? Absolutely NONE. On the evolution side, none of these contradict basic evolutionary theory, only the mechanisms involved and none are widely accepted today.
Bottom line, there are ONLY TWO viable theories of our origins backed by empirical evidence which can be interpreted in their favor. This is precisely why I made (or repeated) the comment that if you are so sure there are other competing and viable theories of our origins, than feel free to abandon your belief in evolution in favor of one of them. This remark recognizes that you know full well that evolution is a belief system that will NEVER be abandoned for anything else regardless of the evidence as long as you maintain your atheistic worldview and it is disingenuous to suggest you might change your mind in favor of something else (as long as you are an atheist).
And as an aside, I don’t disagree with the wiki response to CA510.1. The problem here is that the neither the talkorigins or wiki response are robust enough to know exactly what they are talking about. What exactly is the claim being refuted? Certainly, there are many problems with evolutionary theories that are not cited by creationists as evidence for creation theory. These fall mainly in understanding the mechanisms or competing factions within the theory but do not contradict the theory itself. These are irrelevant and oftentimes they either support both or contradict both theories.
@arensb –
Ok, your slightly more respectful response as gone down the tubes. Many scientists take creation theory seriously because there is solid evidence for it and don’t take evolutionism seriously because of the lack of evidence. Perhaps more people would believe in evolution if it came from somewhere other than an overactive imagination. I’d like to know what you consider evidence, predictions and experimental tests for evolution before I open myself up to unnecessary ridicule from someone who I doubt understands what scientific evidence, predictions and tests are. I’m not going to be goaded into a one sided conversation where I present evidence which is then unjustifiably mocked at for the fun of it. I at least want to reserve the right to critique the false claims of evolutionism at the same time. If you refuse to present any evidence for evolutionism, then neither will I present evidence for creation theory. My original intent was not only to demonstrate that your message to creationists consisted of lies and misrepresentations, but that the points you made were actually representative of evolutionists. That is only fair and I can’t do that if you won’t equally provide evidence for evolution.
Regarding biological creation theory, it does NOT state that living things have been “evolving” for the past few thousand years. Not only does evolution start from a prototype billions of years ago instead of thousands, but according to creation theory, living things have been “adapting”. No evolution has ever occurred except if you are using the word in the general sense to mean change over time (which of course was a word before Darwin used it in his theory). Of course things change (within their kinds). The mechanisms of that change are part of creation theory and do not support evolution. For example, natural selection was popularized by a creation scientist long before Darwin used it to erroneously support his own theory. “Genetic programming” is actually being recognized by both evolutionists and creation scientists. It is known, for example, that some mutations are triggered by environmental conditions. Another example is the immune system which utilizes highly orchestrated mutations to develop antibodies designed for specific pathogens.
I have already presented you with a “scientific theory of creationism”. Do you have some problems reading or comprehending what I have written? This is already very long, so I would be willing to spend the next post providing a contrast between species and kinds, but I suspect I’ll end up defending more of what I’ve already said here instead. We’ll see.
Lastly, since you’ve chosen to make a snide comment about IC and CSI, there is POSITIVE evidence for these things. On the other hand, evolutionist much too frequently use the “evolution of the gaps” argument. That is, for anything they don’t understand, they simply assume it happened by evolutionary means and ignore any evidence to the contrary.
Wow. All that typing, and you still haven’t even tried to present any evidence for creationism. At the very least, you could have defined what you mean by “kind” or “genetic programming”.
Okay, so you need to start by demonstrating that creationism is a valid historical theory. What predictions has it made that were confirmed by experiment?
You mean, like Intelligent Design, which you say “has nothing to do with “creationism””? And of course the many other models that have been proposed to explain the diversity of species.
You must not be familiar with the phrase “rabbits in the Precambrian“.
Okay, what evidence supports creationism?
Like what?
Oh, it’s pretty standard stuff, not anything that would raise the eyebrow of a philosopher of science. But one beautiful recent example is the discovery of Tiktaalik.
By “evolution” (little E: the process, not the theory that explains it) I simply mean change in allele frequency over time in a population of living beings. This is a pretty standard definition, and isn’t controversial at all. As far as I can tell, your statement that “all the diversity of life on earth arose from a set of original kinds” means that life has evolved. I realize that you don’t like the E-word. Too bad. It fits. Put on your big-boy pants and deal with it.
You’ve got it exactly backwards: evolution was already known to have occurred when Darwin came on the scene. His (and Wallace’s) great insight was that it could be driven by natural selection.
Like what?
For starters, how does one calculate CSI?
Tom Says:
Which is a low set bar that you haven’t even made a run at in all your roughtly 2500 words. The most you could be credited with achieving thus far is confirming what’s already been debunked – you believe there are only two possible explanations (demonstrably false), and you believe evidence for one is evidence against the other (a claim you’ve repeated above).
Fine. For the Nth time, please present some of this evidence here so it can be discussed.
This looks like another case of post quantity over detail. I think that there are some very real claims here that could be nailed down and discussed (CSI, testable predictions, the definition of “kind” or how one distinguishes random mutations from “programmed” ones), but what often ends up happening is the type of high level summary that you see in a verbal debate rather than an actual discussion of the facts and ideas.
Personally, I’d like to see a post of that length devoted to one of those topics rather than simply alluding to all of them and moving on.
Also, this isn’t my blog, but it seems to me like Tom has been discussing this in good faith but without a narrow direction to focus on. I’m usually not inclined to be exasperated before at least a few attempts at nailing down a single argument. IMO, patience is warranted here. Tom doesn’t seem to be a run-by troll, and treating him that way is probably counterproductive.
My $0.02.
@Troublesome Frog – Thank you, your points are well taken. The problem here is that people have been making sweeping accusations without evidence but then demanding that I provide it. There have been thousands of books written on evidence for creation theory and I’m supposed to infuse their brains with all of it in one “short” post? So far, I’ve had to spend all of my time defending their misrepresentations. My initial purpose here was to refute arensb’s “message to creationists” for which I’ve gotten a good start. Despite claims that there is a lot of verbiage without substance, I’ve clearly accomplished the following:
1) Exposed the author as hypocritical because he claims to have heard every argument about creation theory and denigrates creationist for not understanding evolution, but then has no idea what creation theory even is!
2) Exposed the author as hypocritical because he demands extremely specific and accurate detail from creationists about the ancient past but doesn’t apply those same standards to evolutionists.
3) Exposed the author as hypocritical since he claims creationists arguments are only “against the theory of evolution”, yet in over 12,000 characters of response themselves have managed to only denigrate creationists without a single “positive” thing to say about evolution including a link to supposedly refuted creationist claims in the very first post!
4) Provided a link which refutes the supposed refutations of creationist’s claims as well as a list of sites anyone can go to look up information on creationist and ID theories.
5) Provided evidence that the list of refuted creationists claims by talkorigins should be discounted as it purposely lies and misrepresents the facts. The stated purpose of talkorigins is to denigrate creationists regardless of the truth and it is an extremely disreputable source of scientific information on creation theory or evolutionary theory.
6) Provided a complete statement of biological creation theory, a theory which supposedly doesn’t exist according to the author.
7) Demonstrated that since evolution and creation are historical theories, that scientific evidence contrary to one naturally bolsters competing theories, particularly if there are only two, since it is the preponderance of the evidence which counts.
So what have my opponents accomplished?
1) Made false and sweeping claims that creation theory has been “debunked” without even knowing what creation theory is or stating any evidence to support the claim!
2) Made false statements that negative evidence for evolution does not support creation theory based on ignorance of how historical theories are investigated and supported by scientists.
3) Claim that it is “demonstrably false” that there are only two viable explanations of our origins, but then fail to demonstrate it!
4) Demanded evidence for creation theory but cannot provide any evidence for evolution.
5) Falsely accused me of writing lots of words but not accomplishing anything (see accomplishments above).
6) Falsely accused me several times of not presenting a “scientific theory of creationism” when I’ve clearly stated a well defined theory in black and white. I don’t know if this because they aren’t paying attention, cannot read, or are simply ignoring the facts (as evolutionists are prone to do).
7) Misrepresented Intelligent design theory by claiming it has something to do with “god”.
I have asked several times to drop unnecessary and unproductive rhetoric and attempt to discuss this topic respectfully in a search for the truth but to no avail. Ok, so I’ll be the better person. I will provide information on species/kinds, evidence for creation theory and predictions in this post and I will do it as respectfully as possible. However, I must first debunk some inaccurate statements made in the last response.
First, there is the classic “rabbits in the Precambrian”. Claiming something will falsify evolution and having that claim be truthful are two completely different things. There is no way that finding a rabbit in the Precambrian would falsify evolution. We have discovered hundreds of thousands of out of place fossils (and lots of other contradictory evidence) that have already falsified evolution and yet it still exists as a theory. This evidence is simply ignored, fossils claimed to not be in situ or the theory is adjusted to accommodate the contradictory evidence. The exact same thing would happen if a rabbit is found where they don’t expect one.
Second, my statement was that there are only two viable theories of our origins. This is not refuted by the dishonesty of talkorigins who list various evolutionary “models”, most of which are old and discredited by the scientific community. They do this simply to disagree with creationist arguments despite the fact that they don’t have a leg to stand on. If these “models” are not discredited, they are simply various mechanisms within evolutionary theory and therefore are NOT competing theories to evolution at all. As was stated in my original response, if they think there is another VIABLE theory of our origins, then they are free to abandon evolution in favor of that one. What? No takers? I guess I’ve just made my point.
Third, creation scientists dispute the THEORY OF EVOLUTION, not various factual scientific processes that are observable in the present, like natural selection or change in the frequency of alleles. A change in frequency of alleles does NOT cause evolutionary change described by the theory of evolution. This is a devious sleight of hand (a logical fallacy) by evolutionist called “bait and switch”. They use one definition of evolution (simple change over time) when describing observed changes in the present and then deceitfully attempt to equate that to unobservable and unsupported “molecules to man” change over billions of years described by the theory of evolution. I realize you like the E-word in order to deceive the uniformed. Too Bad. It doesn’t fit. Put on your big-boy pants and deal with it.
Lastly, regarding natural selection, I do NOT have it “backwards”. It was a creation scientist (Edward Blythe) that came up with the idea of natural selection BEFORE Darwin’s work. The effects of selection in nature have been interpreted properly by creation scientists since. The religious concept of evolution dates back to the ancient Greeks, so of course it was around before Darwin. However, Darwin (and Wallace) came up with the fictitious notion that natural selection was capable of changing one kind of creature into another over vast periods of time. The addition of vast periods of time was necessary as no one had ever observed one creature changing into another despite thousands of years of artificial selection.
OK, because this is already long let’s start with species and kinds. It is important to understand what a species is before we jump to kinds. Like many creation scientists who founded much of the science we enjoy today, Carolus Linnaeus founded the science of taxonomy and laid the foundations of modern biological classification systems. He correctly theorized that the various life forms we observer today could be grouped in hierarchical patterns reflecting the originally designed and created kinds which would have multiplied after their kinds. Species were (and still are) categorized by morphology and Linnaeus identified them in order to determine what the original kinds may have looked like.
While there are dozens of definitions of species in use, it is most often defined as a group of interbreeding organisms isolated reproductively from other groups. However that does not apply to asexual organisms and there are many exceptions to the rule. The bottom line is that it is a completely arbitrary definition and there have been recent attempts to classify species according to their genetic code which could multiply the number of recognized species tenfold.
On the other hand, “Kinds” are the original set of created organisms from which the diversity of life we see today arose. There is nothing arbitrary about this definition since it is a known form we know existed at one time. If there was a similar entity in evolutionary theory, it would be the “prototype” from which all of life supposedly arose by natural means. What is the definition of that prototype? It is simply considered the starting point for evolutionists and they have spent significant time and resources simply trying to figure out what it might have been.
Similar to species, if two animals can interbreed, then they must have originated from the same kind. For example, scientists recognize that wolves and dogs arose from the same dog-wolf created kind. However, some species may have lost the ability to interbreed because of mutations and still may be the same kind. There is, in fact, now a complete field of scientific investigation called “Baraminology” aimed at determining the created kinds and classifying known species by their precursor kinds in accordance with the original purpose of taxonomy. There is a complex statistical formulae used by scientists to help determine if species are the same kind which involved appearance, interbreeding and other factors that make this more exact. I expect that genetics research will significantly help in this effort. However, most of the time for discussion purposes, differentiation of kinds is relatively easy (ie a giraffe is obviously a different kind from a mouse). In the end, the original created kinds (Baramins) are more likely to be at the family level (or sometimes at the order) according to the present classification scheme of kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus and species (I realize this is sometimes further differentiated).
This is already long and I can’t possibly provide all the evidence for creation theory in a single post anyway, so I’ll just pick a single example to start with that is backed by actual empirical evidence. One of the major evidences for creation theory is in line with what we have just discussed. Scientific observations confirm that species change within their kinds. We observe the oscillation of Galapagos finch beaks depending on rain and food supply. After literally millions of observed generations of bacteria (many more generations than supposedly occurred to evolve an ape into a human), bacteria remain bacteria; Fruit flies remain fruits flies, moths remain moths and dogs remain dogs. After thousands of years of artificial selection and experimentation, we have never accomplished changing any creature into another kind. ALL of these observed changes are completely consistent with creation theory and contradictory to evolution. In fact, one of the predictions of creation theory has been the RAPID speciation we have observed in recent years. Evolutionists were shocked to see examples of rapid speciation (like Galapagos finch beaks) since they thought these changes took millions of years. However, rapid speciation was predicted by creation scientists since the great variety of life we see today would have arisen from the original kinds in only 6000 years.
Tom,
You’ve typed quite a lot, so I’m going to be selective in an attempt to productively narrow the scope of things.
I take issue with this claim. I don’t believe that there is a single “creation theory” so much as a hodgepodge of different claims made by a variety of religious groups. That’s why I would like to see a single very narrow claim discussed to see how well it holds up.
For example, how old is the universe? What’s the single strongest piece of evidence for that position?
My experience thus far with creation theories is that they do splendidly well in the high level posts like the ones we’ve seen, but they tend not to do so well once we get out into the deep water on details. The question above, for example, could go any number of directions into some very deep physics, and abandoning the topic for a new one before getting down to the nitty gritty would not be doing the subject justice.
I really don’t think that the discussion has gone anywhere near that far. At best, something akin to opening statements have been made.
That’s a very serious accusation. I assume that you’ll be providing evidence for it.
Was that really a “complete” statement? I think I can understand why arensb was unimpressed. For example, what is “genetic programming” and how does it work? How can we distinguish things that are programmed from things that are not programmed?
I suppose that if you define the “two” theories as, “Evolution + all possible other explanations of biological diversity” that’s accurate. But how does evidence against modern evolutionary theory support, say, flying spaghetti monster theory relative to your creation theory? Are they both equally bolstered by a point of evidence against evolution?
Hundreds of thousands? Really? Rather than address them all, discussing just one would be good. Where was the fossil located? Why was it unexpected? Are there reasonable alternative explanations?
I’ve read the remaining post about kinds, but I’m simply not finding a clean enough definition to work with. You seem to make the following points:
1) Your creation theory states that all current diversity came from a core set of kinds.
2) Your definition of “kind” is something like, “One member of the set of organisms from which modern life originated.” This doesn’t really seem to clarify (1) as we could just as easily have a billion kinds or a dozen. How many were there originally, and how do you know?
3) Evolution from one “kind” to another has not been observed. I suppose that one could say that this is true simply by the definition in (2), but it’s not exactly an easy claim to work with given the vagueness of the definition.
Tom:
And this is the part that I can never get a straight answer to: how can we tell whether two beings are in the same baramin when they can’t or don’t interbreed (or, more broadly, are members of populations that can’t or don’t interbreed)?
To take a trivial example, it seems obvious that a Great Dane penis is too large to fit in a Chihuahua vagina, and a Chihuahua uterus is far too small for Great Dane pups. Yet presumably you’ll say that Chihuahuas and Great Danes are in the same baramin. By what criteria would you make this determination?
And what about cauliflower, kale, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, and kohlrabi? How many baramins do those five vegetables represent? How can we tell? And if it’s less than five, then the “they obviously look different” criterion doesn’t work. (Oh, and I can’t resist sharing this link to a gorgeous Romanesco.)
I’m amused by your “bacteria remain bacteria” comment, given that there’s more variation among bacteria than all the other forms of life. Apparently you have no problem accepting that a being that lives in boiling water at the bottom of the ocean, a being that lives in human eyebrows, and a being that lives inside termites’ guts and helps them digest wood could all be descended from a common ancestor, but you balk at the idea of coyotes and lemurs, or humans and bananas, being related.
Well, if such an event were to occur, how would we be able to tell?
If I understood your definition correctly, “kind” is defined by ancestry: if a being is in baramin X, then its descendants will always be in baramin X, by definition. So if, in principle, we started with salamanders, and after many generations their descendants were three meters long, had wings and feathers, bore live young instead of laying eggs, and could digest styrofoam, they’d still be members of the salamander baramin, because that’s what their ancestors were.
How is this predicted by creation theory? The closest you’ve come to presenting a theory of creationism is:
I don’t see why this should imply rapid evolution: if you had, say, six million baramin ten thousand years ago, you could have 6.01 million species today (still within the original six million baramins), even with slow rates of evolution.
Having said that, if life really is divided into some number of unrelated baramin, and this is a fundamental aspect of any correct theory of biology, then it would seem that biologists should at least agree on what those baramin are. There should be a list of them that everyone can pretty much agree on. I’ve looked, but haven’t been able to find such a list. For that matter, I don’t think I’ve found any estimate of the number of original baramin. Are there ten? A hundred? A billion?
Basically, I agree with Troublesome Frog: the closer you look at the details of creationism, the more it falls apart.
Troublesome Frog:
Agreed. In contrast, when I look at scientific research papers, they tend to be very narrowly focused, and answer a very specific question, such as “here are two galaxies; is one of them closer than the other?” or “here is a species of cicada found only in Australia and New Zealand; where did it originate?”
In The Stuff of Thought, Steven Pinker talks about how he and his colleagues intuitively felt that the sentence “Ted nailed posters onto the board” sounds right to native English speakers, but “Ted nailed the board with posters” doesn’t. But that they still conducted studies to make sure that most English speakers felt the same way.
If you have enough of these tiny conclusions, each one being firmly established, you can start to draw patterns: if you have twenty studies, each showing that a particular species of cicada started in Australia and migrated to New Zealand, you can conclude that cicadas in general migrated from Australia to New Zealand. If studies of other animals bear out similar results, you can conclude that New Zealand fauna originated in Australia. And so forth, until you have a high-level theory of animal migration that’s based on thousands of well-established facts.
Creationists (and crackpots of all stripes) tend to jump straight to the grand conclusions without first doing the tedious legwork of making sure the small results are based in fact.
So this cartoon is spot on.
@Troublsome Frog,
We have obviously had different experiences and have therefore come to different conclusions about our origins.
1) You can take issue with this claim, but it’s a fact nevertheless. Who said there was a single “creation theory”? Is there a single “evolutionary theory”? I believe that the evolutionary theories out there are a hodgepodge of different claims made by a variety of religious groups. My experience with these evolutionary theories is that they may hold up superficially in philosophical discussions but when you look at them in scientific detail they turn out to be deceptive and empty claims as has been the experience of many scientists who dispute or doubt the claims of evolutionary doctrine.
2) The discussion need not go any farther to demonstrate this point. He demands specifics from creationists but cannot answer any of a whole range of questions I have posed to him. He is being hypocritical since there are things both sides cannot explain about our ancient past and yet he puts on a façade that somehow evolutionists have it all figured out which is obviously false. Whether he is also being purposely deceitful depends on whether he actually believes the latter or not.
5) I’ve already provided evidence which demonstrates that two of the related talkorigins claims are misrepresenting the facts (really now, geocentrism is a competing theory of creation? How absolutely asinine!). It would be easy to provide more, but unnecessary since @arensb and his friends appear to be simply regurgitating the propaganda from this site instead of thinking anything through critically (perhaps that will change as I’ve notice his latest response is more reasonable). In addition, here is a quote from the NAS regarding evolutionary theory in their publication “science, evolution and creationism” – “there is no scientific controversy about the basic facts of evolution…[it is] so well established that no new evidence is likely to alter it”. So where does that leave these other supposedly viable competing theories that might take the place of evolution as maintained by talkorigins? It’s simply utter nonsense.
6) Please provide a complete statement of evolutionary theory and then we can compare the two to see which one is most “complete”.
In addition, there seems to be a lot of focus on my use of “programming” in that definition. If that is going to be a stumbling block, then just remove it. It is not a strictly creationist construct. The mechanisms of change (ie mutations, natural selection, genetic drift…) need not be any different then what evolutionists accept at the moment since this represents a “relatively” recent development. As I originally explained (which people don’t seem to have read), there has been evidence that some genetic change is NOT random but rather occurs as a response to environmental conditions. An example is the operation of our immune system which relies on mutations to do its work. The definition is more complete, but does not suffer seriously without it. It can be a separate topic of discussion if it arises.
7) You are making my point. Flying spaghetti monster theory is NOT a viable theory of our origins. It is by its own creator’s admission, an imaginary joke. That is why including these kinds of theories in the talkorigins list is purposely deceitful. Only other VIABLE theories are bolstered by another’s demise.
Alright, you want an example of an out of place fossil. Here you go:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2006/0816dating-game.asp
That is a rather lengthy article, but if you are interested in the truth of how evolutionists fudge data until it is “correct” (that is, until it agrees with their presuppositions), then it is a must read.
Other good examples can be found in the thousands of “living fossils” that have been discovered. Take the Coelacanth for instance. These were touted by evolutionists of walking on their fins as a precursor to movement to land. When the real thing was found, this fairytale prediction turned out to be false (so much for the interpretation of fossils by evolutionists). However, my real point here is something that seems to be lost by evolutionists. This creature was thought to have evolved into land animals or become extinct because it was missing from the fossil record for 80 million years! Not only is this not true, but the obvious conclusion is that just because a fossil is not found in the fossil record at a particular time, does NOT mean it wasn’t living at the time! This utterly destroys the fossil record as a testimony to evolution. Just because rabbits aren’t found in the Cambrian, doesn’t mean they weren’t living at the time! In fact, rabbits must have been living during the Cambrian because we’ve found them today! That is the same logic that Ernst Mayr (called the Darwin of Modern times) used to claim that abiogenesis actually occurred – it MUST have because here we are!
Before I answer your question about kinds, let me ask you a question. How many original kinds of life do evolutionists say there were and how do you know?
@Arensb,
Thank you for your response. While I don’t agree with all of your reasoning, I respect the fact that you have least put some thought into this and have asked reasonable (although leading) questions. I will attempt to answer them. However, let me first address your conclusion. You state that “the closer you look at the details of creationism, the more it falls apart”. However, it only falls apart because you are disputing straw men, are unaware of creation theories and use faulty logic and reasoning which I intend to demonstrate in my answers to your questions.
“How can we tell whether two beings are in the same baramin when they can’t or don’t interbreed? “
As I mentioned in my response, there is a statistical method used by Barminologists to determine if two species are the same Kind (I’ll use capitals to refer to the created Kinds), when breeding cannot be applied, but it is certainly not perfect and it is hoped that analysis of DNA will lend further light. However, the current method is described in the following link:
http://www.creationbiology.org/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=201240&module_id=37891
It should also be remembered that unlike species, if two animals breed in any way, that they are considered the same kind. The evolutionary concept of species demand that this occur purely in the wild. Thus, the parents of a Zorse, liger, wholphin, cama, and cattalo are of the same kind as well as a whole range of hybrids (particularly among birds and plants). Some of those do occur naturally and produce fertile offspring so are a contradiction to the definition of “species”. In your dog and cauliflower example, we know most of these are the same kind because their artificial breeding (or hybridization) can be historically traced back to some original forms. In many other cases, morphology plays a large role (as it does with species).
When two species cannot interbreed, their DNA can also be examined for obvious mutations which may have caused the new species to develop (remember that species is an arbitrary classification). For example, in a cabbage, only one bud produces leaves even though there is a bud at the base of each leaf. In Brussels sprouts, the plant fails to suppress the growth of the other buds (a loss of information) which appears to have occurred through a mutation. Therefore cabbage and Brussels sprouts are likely the same kind. Another way that sometimes works is that if A and B do not interbreed but they both interbreed with C, then all three are of the same kind.
I understand your amusement at the “bacteria remain bacteria” comment. I did not mean to imply that ALL bacteria are of the same Kind. The same methods as above would be used to help determine the different kinds. Bacteria and a whole range of microbes are clearly a special case. They use a whole range of interesting and unique mechanisms to adapt to changing environments, some of which appear to be designed and/or “programmed” into their genetic code. Nevertheless, it is clear that no completely different Kind of bacteria has ever been produced “naturally” or even by genetic re-engineering (yet).
You are correct that by definition the descendents of a particular Kind are part of that Kind so your question as to how we would be able to tell if a new Kind emerged is a good one. However, the answer is actually rather simple, although not always as easy in practice to determine. In your fictitious example of the salamanders, growing wings and feathers is obviously something that would have likely required the addition of NEW genetic information. This would be evidence, although not proof, that evolution can occur. So far, no empirical evidence like this has ever been found.
This goes back to presuppositions of competing hypothesis. Creation theory posits that our original ancestors were of the “highest” genetic level, unmarred by mutations and robust genetically to be capable of producing a wide variety of characteristics in their offspring. Over thousands of years, natural selection and many degrading mutations (de-evolution if you will), have specialized various species within their niches through a LOSS of genetic information which reduces variability and increases the chance of extinction. This is precisely what we observe in the present and in the fossil record, so empirical scientific observations support creation theory.
On the other hand, for evolution to have changed a molecule into a man, vast and incredible amounts of NEW genetic information would have to have been added to our genetic code which is contrary to observations and basic principles of science. As far as I am aware there is not a single uncontested example of a mutation adding new genetic information, even if they turn out to be “quasi-beneficial.” And please, if you actually want to present an example, don’t provide a link with a meaningless and long winded list of supposed information adding mutations from talkorigins. None of these add information. They are trivial examples of Shannon information or gene duplication or other standard mutational mechanisms which clearly do not add anything new.
You scoff at the prediction of rapid speciation because you introduce a completely fictitious and false straw man notion of “six million baramin ten thousand years ago”. Creation scientists estimate that at most 16,000 animals were necessary to preserve all of the land and air dwelling Kinds known at the time of the flood, around 4500 years ago. This probably amounts to around 6-7000 Kinds. This does not, however, represent all of the Kinds, since sea dwelling life, insects and plants were not onboard the ark (or many micro-organisms for that matter). So if 6000 kinds produced the variety of land and air dwelling life that exist today in only 4500 years, some fairly rapid speciation would have needed to occur.
Regarding a complete list of all baramins, I’m not sure one has ever been compiled, nor do we know what all of them were. This is an area of ongoing research. However, I’ve seen and could provide links to many partial lists that do exist of known baramins. I do not think this is at all unreasonable. While I’m aware of some massive projects going on, I’ve not seen a complete list of all species in the world, have you? We don’t even have a workable definition that all scientists agree on or that is applicable to all life.
In order to determine all the different Kinds, hybridization experiments would need to be performed on all sexually reproducing organisms which would be a massive effort and this would exclude extinct species because they are not alive to see them breed (identification of past species has this same problem). However, this is not necessary. The “operational” definition of determining kinds through hybridization criteria mentioned earlier is sufficient in principle to theoretically determine all of the Kinds or the appropriate Kind in any particular case under study. In addition, an estimated list can (and has) been produced which would consist of the number of genera and/or families in our current classification system which for the most part align closely with the created Kinds.
So when you actually look at the details closely (and correctly), creation theories make much more sense of what we actually observe, but evolutionary theory completely falls apart. One thing I will readily admit – the resources to focus on scientific research into creation theories is very much smaller than those that are generously supplied to evolutionary speculations (many times with taxpayer funds) and they have been working on it for less time. So it is not surprising that some details have not been investigated in depth and so may be missing or not well understood. Hopefully this will change as time goes on (and it appears that this is the case). However, this does not diminish the fact that the empirical and historical evidence we DO have points overwhelmingly in favor of creation theories. It should be remembered that we all have exactly the same data, facts, evidence, research and experimental results. It is only the interpretation of the evidence that differs. It is my experience that most evolutionary research is simply embellished after the fact with imaginative stories since the data itself doesn’t really support their position.
@arensb,
As a response to your last snippet, the problem you have is your starting point, that is, your worldview. Most research papers you talk about are just as valid from a creationist standpoint. In addition, there are many papers making just as specific studies by creation scientists which can be linked to a larger picture. You simply chose not to read them. Evolutionists (and crackpots of all stripes), tend to jump right to the grand conclusions without first doing all the tedious legwork of making sure the small results are based in fact (as my quote from Mayr reveals above).
I must have exceeded some character limit, so I’m breaking this into two posts, one to TF and one to arensb. I’m not quite sure why I’m spending all of this time, I guess I must enjoy it, but the holidays are approaching and I’m likely to have less time soon.
@Troublsome Frog,
We have obviously had different experiences and have therefore come to different conclusions about our origins.
1) You can take issue with this claim, but it’s a fact nevertheless. Who said there was a single “creation theory”? Is there a single “evolutionary theory”? I believe that the evolutionary theories out there are a hodgepodge of different claims made by a variety of religious groups. My experience with these evolutionary theories is that they may hold up superficially in philosophical discussions but when you look at them in scientific detail they turn out to be deceptive and empty claims as has been the experience of many scientists who dispute or doubt the claims of evolutionary doctrine.
2) The discussion need not go any farther to demonstrate this point. He demands specifics from creationists but cannot answer any of a whole range of questions I have posed to him. He is being hypocritical since there are things both sides cannot explain about our ancient past and yet he puts on a façade that somehow evolutionists have it all figured out which is obviously false. Whether he is also being purposely deceitful depends on whether he actually believes the latter or not.
5) I’ve already provided evidence which demonstrates that two of the related talkorigins claims are misrepresenting the facts (really now, geocentrism is a competing theory of creation? How absolutely asinine!). It would be easy to provide more, but unnecessary since @arensb and his friends appear to be simply regurgitating the propaganda from this site instead of thinking anything through critically (perhaps that will change as I’ve notice his latest response is more reasonable). In addition, here is a quote from the NAS regarding evolutionary theory in their publication “science, evolution and creationism” – “there is no scientific controversy about the basic facts of evolution…[it is] so well established that no new evidence is likely to alter it”. So where does that leave these other supposedly viable competing theories that might take the place of evolution as maintained by talkorigins? It’s simply utter nonsense.
6) Please provide a complete statement of evolutionary theory and then we can compare the two to see which one is most “complete”.
In addition, there seems to be a lot of focus on my use of “programming” in that definition. If that is going to be a stumbling block, then just remove it. It is not a strictly creationist construct. The mechanisms of change (ie mutations, natural selection, genetic drift…) need not be any different then what evolutionists accept at the moment since this represents a “relatively” recent development. As I originally explained (which people don’t seem to have read), there has been evidence that some genetic change is NOT random but rather occurs as a response to environmental conditions. An example is the operation of our immune system which relies on mutations to do its work. The definition is more complete, but does not suffer seriously without it. It can be a separate topic of discussion if it arises.
7) You are making my point. Flying spaghetti monster theory is NOT a viable theory of our origins. It is by its own creator’s admission, an imaginary joke. That is why including these kinds of theories in the talkorigins list is purposely deceitful. Only other VIABLE theories are bolstered by another’s demise.
Alright, you want an example of an out of place fossil. Here you go:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2006/0816dating-game.asp
That is a rather lengthy article, but if you are interested in the truth of how evolutionists fudge data until it is “correct” (that is, until it agrees with their presuppositions), then it is a must read.
Other good examples can be found in the thousands of “living fossils” that have been discovered. Take the Coelacanth for instance. These were touted by evolutionists of walking on their fins as a precursor to movement to land. When the real thing was found, this fairytale prediction turned out to be false (so much for the interpretation of fossils by evolutionists). However, my real point here is something that seems to be lost by evolutionists. This creature was thought to have evolved into land animals or become extinct because it was missing from the fossil record for 80 million years! Not only is this not true, but the obvious conclusion is that just because a fossil is not found in the fossil record at a particular time, does NOT mean it wasn’t living at the time! This utterly destroys the fossil record as a testimony to evolution. Just because rabbits aren’t found in the Cambrian, doesn’t mean they weren’t living at the time! In fact, rabbits must have been living during the Cambrian because we’ve found them today! That is the same logic that Ernst Mayr (called the Darwin of Modern times) used to claim that abiogenesis actually occurred – it MUST have because here we are!
Before I answer your question about kinds, let me ask you a question. How many original kinds of life do evolutionists say there were and how do you know?
Just testing, my posts don’t seem to be working anymore. Perhaps a character limit?
Oops, perhaps the moderator can delete those duplicate entries. All this while I’ve been on some text based page and it wasn’t displaying my latest entries.
Oops, perhaps the moderator can delete all these duplicate entries (unless I can?). I’ve been on some text based page that wasn’t displaying them properly.
Tom:
I don’t have time to give a full reply, so I’ll just say two things.
First, my poor underpowered web server has been hammered by both Facebook and spammers, so I’ve had to put in various filters to manage the load. Between the caching and the spam-filtering, sometimes annoying thing happen, like comments not showing up immediately.
The spam filter, in particular, seems to have a mind of its own. If your comments haven’t shown up after a few hours, let me know and I’ll see if it fell into the spam trap.
Secondly, since you brought up the notion of information, please explain what you mean by that. I’ve tried in the past to get creationists to explain what they mean, but without success. Perhaps you can answer the question that Michael Egnor wouldn’t.
I think that arensb and others are used to being derided as “ignorant of creation theory” when in reality, arensb doesn’t know what your particular flavor of creation theory claims. That’s the point. Old earth? Young earth? You seem to be young earth. Does speciation occur? You seem to say yes. Etc.
You’re completely missing what is meant by “includes” in that sentence. Let me rephrase it: The claim that there are only two models of origins is absurd as there have historically been many that were considered reasonable at the time. These different models often contained conflicting claims having to do with everything from biology to the nature of the cosmos. The line does not contend that geocentrism is a creation model, but that some historical creation models included geocentrism.
I simply don’t understand what you mean here. Talkorigins never claimed that there were other viable theories. Their claim is that there may be one at some point (unlikely) but there is none now.
As far as I can tell, you’ve inserted the word “viable” here, declared your theory viable, declared all other theories aside from mainstream evolution” nonviable, and are hoping to win by default by picking at the only other theory you have allowed as viable. Why not just declare evolution nonviable and declare victory by default?
I would say that a succinct definition would be that the frequency of alleles changes over time, so much so that modern biodiversity can be traced back to one ancestor. Your reference to the Oort cloud in your email seems to have you reaching for something more grand, but that’s not really how it works. I’m more comfortable talking about physics than biology, but evolution is about biology.
It’s not a “stumbling block” so much as the only thing I could see (apart from the time line that distinguishes your creation theory and standard evolutionary theory–and some other creation theories that you don’t consider viable). It also appears to be an unsupported claim.
I purposefully chose the most nonviable option I could think of to make a point: There are a lot of crazy and mutually exclusive theories out there that have varying degrees of support. How fortunate for you that you have the only other viable one and can thus collect points by default rather than by supporting your own claims.
If I were to posit another theory just slightly different from your creation theory but similar enough to be “viable” in your eyes, would we then have to split the credit for each error in evolutionary theory?
The story here seems to be as follows:
1) They wanted to date a Homo habilis fossil using a volcanic tuff.
2) Before the test was done, the question of whether old rocks that were included in the tuff would result in an artificially high age was raised. The test was run, and the results were extremely high.
Stopping here, this could be explained by either the total failure of the dating method or by the contamination that was suspected in the beginning.
3) The researchers attempted to separate the older chunks from the newer chunks. This seems like a sensible response to the worry in (2).
AiG writes, “The observer can be forgiven if he asks another question, How do they know for sure which components of the rock are undoubtedly young?” That’s an interesting way of phrasing it. It’s almost as though they didn’t actually ask that question. Is it possible, based on an understanding of how volcanic ash is deposited, to determine which pieces of a deposit are likely to have contaminants?
4) An updated date was obtained that made sense, but was surprisingly old. Other dating methods at the time proved roughly concordant with it.
5) Other results were produced. Some agreed, some disagreed. Multiple rechecks were done with different dating methods over time. The results appeared to cluster strongly around two dates: One that was fully concordant with evolutionary theory and one that was not. The concordant date was eventually accepted after a statistical analysis on the older dates and comparison with newer dating methods.
On its surface, it appears to be a case of a particularly tricky piece of data that produces noisy results that don’t support established theory. This is interesting, but not particularly unusual. If I was doing an experiment with electromagnets and got some noisy data that didn’t agree with Maxwell’s equations, it would be interesting and worth examining more closely, but not Earth shattering. This is especially so if the data were bimodal and one of the modes did agree with Maxwell’s equations. The second mode indicates some sort of bias factor, and chasing it down is interesting and worthwhile.
This looks like more or less what happened. You had a “noisy” sample with old and new material mixed together. You had radiometric tests that were fairly new (like, seriously cutting edge at the time). You had results that were older than expected and some that made sense. The later you move in time and the more refined your material separation methods and the dating methods/constants, the closer you get to dates that match another, unrelated but prevailing theory.
This is an interesting piece, and we could once again go in a lot of directions, so I think that we should narrow the scope to one of the points you’ve made in your post. Otherwise, you end up a mile wide and an inch deep, and all ideas look equally viable from a distance.
Which fairy tale? That their fins were a precursor to movement on land? How does the existence of a live coelocanth invalidate this hypothesis?
This is a much better point and logically completely irrefutable. But this isn’t just a question of rabbits. Horses. Apes. Birds. The list goes on and on. Once you pile up enough examples of things that we can’t find in the Precambrian, one starts to wonder whether there were certain things that simply didn’t exist in the Precambrian.
Especially interesting is the fact that not only are there no rabbits (or apes, or horses) in the Precambrian, but that where those records do exist, the they appear to be close to each other in time. It’s not a case of “rabbits everywhere except here” but rather, “no rabbits before this apparently recent point in time, but lots of other stuff at older dates.” It’s a separation that begs for an explanation.
The logic here doesn’t work. The fact that we exist is very strong evidence that life started at some point. The fact that rabbits exist is not evidence that rabbits existed at any particular point in history.
The prevailing theory appears to be one ancestor. The strongest piece of evidence is that we all use the same genetic code–not its contents but simply its mechanism. It’s extremely unlikely that two or more organisms arising independently would happen to share this particular set of molecules. Of course, a creator creating all of the separate ancestors would also be consistent with this. But there really isn’t anything that would be inconsistent with a creator arbitrarily doing whatever it wants as far as I can see.
Tom,
I realize that these posts are growing very rapidly and you’re probably going to be overwhelmed sooner or later. This is why I always recommend digging into one very specific claim. The posts above are starting to get more detailed with points that are actually worth debating, but they’re still very general and broad. I recommend picking something to go deeper into and driving into it. You addressed a bunch of stuff to arensb that also sounds interesting, and I won’t butt in there. Since I’m basically just sticking my head in, I’ll take a step back and see where you guys decide to go.
But…..if you were to ask me, the most interesting path is the “information” question as it should be very quantifiable and lots of fascinating tests can be performed to check claims. Specifically, it should be straightforward to compare the statistical results of baraminology to those of mainstream evolutionary science. I couldn’t find any formulas or sample calculations at your link and I doubt I’ll be able to find a copy of the Wood and Wise book soon, but I’d be interested in seeing the statistical method that includes a quantification of “Scriptural claims of discontinuity.”
Tom:
I wasn’t scoffing; I was merely pointing out that what you had presented as “creation theory” did not require rapid speciation, because you never said anything about how many baramin there were to start with. But now you’ve introduced a new element: Noah’s flood, and a huge genetic bottleneck to go with it.
When I visited AIG’s creation museum a few years ago, I saw a sign saying
I don’t know whether you accept this claim, but it works out to roughly one new species every year or two. According to various sources on the net, rhinos reach sexual maturity around 3 to 8 years, depending on the species and the individual. Assuming 500 years for “the first couple centuries”, and 3 years per generation, that means that over 200 species of rhino appeared in about 170 generations. This seems orders of magnitude faster than the most radical evolutionist would dare to suggest, so forgive me for being skeptical.
Assuming you accept AIG’s claim, do you have any experimental or observational data to show that rhinos (or indeed any mammal) can speciate that quickly?
@Troublesome Frog,
OK, I agree that these posts are kind of long and I agree that we should focus. I also agree with both of you that it would be interesting to explore the “information” issue as I believe this is a key difference between biological evolutionary theory and creation theory. In addition, I personally would like to explore this issue in more depth, so I think it is something we could discuss at a reasonably level playing field, hopefully without a lot of derogatory rhetoric. Although I would predict that it will not cut down on the length of my replies (and yours was rather lengthy too)!
Before we get into that, I’d still like to clear up some misconceptions in the latest posts. Perhaps it is just me wanting to get in the last word, but I cannot in good conscious leave these un-refuted. Maybe we can finish those off, if we don’t introduce anything else new.
I have never derided arensb for being “ignorant of creation theory”, but rather for being hypocritical by accusing creationists of being ignorant of evolution. I wouldn’t expect many evolutionists to understand creation theory because it is not allowed to be taught in school but if you are going to turn around and accuse creationists of being ignorant, then you’d better not be ignorant yourself or you open yourself up to justified criticism.
The various “flavors” of “creationism” and evolutionism are nothing but evolutionist/talkorigins propaganda. It is an attempt to deride creationists for being “religious” and pat themselves on the back for being “scientific” when there is no such demarcation. If anything, the evolutionist’s position is MORE religious.
Regarding evolution, it is claimed to be a “fact” with only disagreement on “mechanisms”. This has been stated numerous times in evolutionist literature and uncountable times in evolutionist blogs (and is the implication of my quote from the NAS). If that is the case for evolution, it is also true for creation theory. It is an absolute fact that there are only two fundamental (and diametrically opposed) models of our origins that are CLAIMED by their proponents to be supported by scientific evidence – evolution and creation and those are the ONLY ones that matter in a scientific discussion. Everything in between is simply philosophical compromise.
At least as far a biological evolution is concerned, “old earth creationists” are nothing but evolutionists! They are certainly more evolutionists then they are creationist and so should be counted in the list of evolutionary variations, NOT creationist ones. And really now, you are being completely disingenuous and buying into the evolutionist propaganda by suggesting a “flavor” of creation theory is fixity of species! There is not a single informed creationist and certainly no creation scientist that would deny the fact that speciation occurs. They may rightly point out that “speciation” is an arbitrary concept and many animals are not really different species as they interbreed and produce fertile offspring in the wild, but nevertheless change in species DOES occur and all creationists recognize this. In addition, the Bible does not teach fixity of species and it has never been promoted by mainstream Biblical creation scientists even in Darwin’s day.
The fact is that there is as many theories of our origins as there are people, but there is a “mainstream” of scientific creationist thought just as much as evolutionists claim that they have a “mainstream” (which normally corresponds to what is taught in school). Some variations of evolutionism are purely philosophical without scientific support. For example, what possible scientific evidence could you provide that a god “guided” the evolutionary process? This is simply a philosophical compromise position for those who have decided that they are going to trust the imagination of fallible humans over God’s own Word.
Regarding the talkorigin claims, it is you who is misunderstanding them. Talkorigins is attempting to refute the fact that there are only two models of our origins, so by implication they are claiming that there are other viable theories that need to be seriously considered! What are they? How does dredging up old (sometimes ancient) defunct concepts (most of which have never been competing theories) refute the fact that there are CURRENTLY two models of our origins and one of them, evolution, is considered a FACT that will never be disposed of according to the NAS?
Here is a quote from their supposed refutation (CA510): “There are many mutually exclusive models of creation…[which] includes geocentrism…”. How could you possibly interpret that as anything but talkorigins making the claim that geocentrism is a competing (mutually exclusive) model of creation! It is there in BLACK and WHITE! I expect an admission of error on your part. Not only this, but then they turn around and falsely claim that creation and evolution are not mutually exclusive when they clearly and demonstrably are! On top of all that they lump scientific ID theory into Biblical “creationism”. This is a pure and simple LIE and there is no other way to state it. Talkorigins spends their life degrading these other theories, but then when it suits them to demean creationists (their mission), suddenly they are all valid! You cannot trust talkorigins any farther than you can throw a potato chip. They are nothing but a bunch of pathetic scheming hypocrites that attempt to deceive the uniformed and unfortunately are more often successful than not. Sorry, but the complete and utter nonsense that comes out of talkorigins with absolutely no regard for the truth whatsoever is a pet peeve of mine. I usually just ignore it, but when it continually comes up, it gets tiring sometimes.
Regarding “viability”, I HAVE declared all evolutionary theories nonviable! That is my prerogative in this debate, just as evolutionists have mocked creation theories as nonviable. I was simply being generous to our host and to evolutionists who consider it to have scientific support so as not to offend. Since you deride me for considering some past theories as non-viable, you must therefore consider geocentrism a viable alternative? If not, then the rest of your comments regarding my choice of what is non-viable are completely hypocritical. Yes, there are a lot of crazy theories out there (people can believe whatever they want), but they do not have varying degrees of support, they have NO support.
So in your statement of the theory of biological evolution, are you including the phrase “so much so that modern biodiversity can be traced back to one ancestor”? If so, you are in disagreement with your colleague, but in any case, let me know and I’ll respond accordingly.
Also, evolution is a complete set of theories which deals with the origin of the universe and everything in it by natural means alone. The encyclopedia will tell you that. Biological evolution is just ONE of its many theories.
Regarding “programming”, I’m only trying to FOCUS per your suggestion. It is no way “unsupported”. I’ve seen a significant number of scientific papers supporting this from the evolutionary camp who want to find an argument against creationists who say that evolution is random because mutations are random. In fact, I debated an evolutionist who INSISTED that mutations were NOT random, but rather were somehow “programmed” to respond to environmental conditions. That is why I say it is not a creationist invention, even though they can use the research to their advantage to demonstrate design. Because of that, I would guess that “mainstream” evolutionists would deny this occurs, but it demonstrates to me that they don’t know their heads from their tails. In other words, they want it both ways as they do with almost everything (ie punctuated equilibrium, convergent evolution, incomplete or complete fossil record, evolutionary change or living fossils etc). Evolution is so flexible it can accommodate any data which is found.
You are again being hypocritical in regards to your flying spaghetti monster example. Let’s cut right to the chase. What competing theory of our origins do you find “viable” enough to abandon your believe in evolution? None? How about one that is 50% as viable? 25%? And don’t talk in generalities – there is no creation theory that exists that is slightly different than mainstream creation theory but still similar enough to make it viable. If you have a suggestion for one, make it and I’ll listen. Differences in theories might disagree on mechanisms, but one is not going to “compete” with the other theory.
I’m beginning to think that this issue is a dead end not worth discussing further. It is plainly obvious that evidence against one theory is often beneficial for another. For example, pictures from space are evidence against flat-earth theory and pro round earth theory at the same time. I believe I have demonstrated conclusively that talkorigins is being deceitful in their refutations. From the evolutionists perspective, they are clearly never going to abandon evolution anyway (which has been stated outright by the NAS and many others), so any evidence against it would NEVER be considered evidence in favor of creation theory even though creationists correctly state that it should. The real reason for this is that evolution is based on an atheist materialistic assumption that cannot be abandoned since the alternative is simply unacceptable to them.
For example, if mutations were completely discredited as a source of novel genetic information for natural selection to act upon (which creationists believe has already occurred), the theory would just continue to be held until another mechanism was discovered (there is no viable mechanism available today or it would have already been used). After all, evolution was considered a valid theory for most of its life without having a valid mechanism for change until genetics came along. Not having one in the future would obviously not make any difference either. However, for the open minded person, according to accepted scientific method of competing hypothesis, evidence discrediting evolution’s essential mechanism of change would add to the reasons to accept the only other viable competing theory – scientific creation theory.
I don’t think you’ve really digested the implications of the out of place skull 1470 fossil. You’ve not only mischaracterized the events, but you’ve repeatedly made the same logical fallacy that the evolutionists during the events did by repeatedly suggesting that the only correct date is one that supports “established” theory. That is why everything in the evolutionist mind agrees with established theory, when in actuality it does not. Every bit of data that is ever discovered is re-worked to fit into a theory which is already ASSUMED to be true or discarded. Nevertheless, there is not room here to dispute all your points as I’ve spent it all on other issues.
The Coelacanth fairy tale I was referring to is that it walked on its fins. I believe evolutionists themselves have already discarded Coelacanth as an ancestor to tetrapods.
I agree that there is more missing from the pre-Cambrian than just rabbits, so it is reasonable to wonder why. However, because of your worldview, you immediately jump to the conclusion that they did not exist (just as was done with the coelacanth) when there are other much better non-evolutionary explanations. In addition, in some sense it IS a case of “rabbits everywhere except” there. If you take a look at the bigger picture, the more fossils we find, the closer in time all of them are becoming and the less time there is for them to have evolved. You can’t get through a year without hearing numerous stories about how this or that is going to “re-write” our understanding of how this or that creature has evolved because it was found “out of place” and closer to its ancestors than previously thought. I could probably dig up dozens of examples, but perhaps you are familiar with a few. THAT is what begs explanation. It seems to me that if one just extrapolates a little like evolutionists love to do, that it makes reasonable sense that nearly all of the creatures in the fossil record lived during the same time, particularly considering that nearly all the different kinds of life we see today are represented in the fossil record essentially unchanged over hundreds of millions of years.
Yes, the fact that we exists is strong evidence that life started at some point, but NOT that it evolved from a single common ancestor! The logic does apply to rabbits, because Mayr is just making a leap of evolutionary faith without evidence which is the evolutionist’s definition of “religion”.
I like your answer about evolutionary “kinds” being a single one. I do think that makes the most sense myself if I were to believe in evolution. However, I’m amused that one of your reasons is the unlikelihood of more than one appearing while ignoring the unlikelihood of even one appearing which has been well documented in the literature as much less than one over the number of elementary particles in the known universe. If you can imagine one, why not 6000? There really isn’t anything that would be inconsistent with an evolutionist’s wild imagination. However, the Creator told us exactly how He did it. So anything contradictory to that would certainly be inconsistent and in fact falsify creation theory.
OK, this is my longest post yet, but one last thing. The “scriptural claims of discontinuity” is actually very simple. The Bible describes various created Kinds, so from this we know they are “discontinuous” or separate Kinds and have not descended from one another. I do have some links to several statistical analyses of Kinds in various genera that have some nice graphical representations. If you are interested, I can post them.
Tom:
Feel free to begin at any time, preferably by defining what you mean by “information”. Or better yet, how we can tell whether one thing has more information than another. See my questions to Michael Egnor.
We know no such thing. Just because it says something in the Bible doesn’t make it true.
Ok, I left a lengthy reply and I’ve waited quite a while and still nothing has appeared. My next post after that was a reply to you arensb. I’m not sure what to do, if I should wait longer or try to chunk it in smaller bits. When I did that yesterday, then the big entry appeared so maybe that will happen with this too.
Tom:
I’m snipping heavily for brevity in an attempt to get into the wonderful world of information. I would have stayed quiet, but when somebody demands an apology, it’s best to explain why they’re not getting one.
Really? Because over the years in the talk.origins newsgroups and elsewhere, I’ve seen enough different versions that it’s very difficult to keep them all straight. Your post would have us believe that people like Hugh Ross at reasons.org or the folks at the Center for Scientific Creation simply do not exist. If you’re trying to push them into our camp, we don’t want them.
The point of this “mutual exclusion” nonsense is simply this: The two (for the sake of argument) prevailing theories can both be wrong. The fact that one is wrong doesn’t mean the other is right. The fact that history is littered with the corpses of failed theories should be evidence enough of that. For a theory to be worthwhile, it should have some positive evidence for it rather than simply not having the same flaws as other theories.
None that currently exist. But by that reasoning, there is always exactly one viable theory: the one you happen to believe is most likely, no? That says nothing about how many viable theories there may be. I would say that the one that makes me abandon my current beliefs would be one that hasn’t been proposed yet that may come along with better evidence.
How about one that’s exactly the same as yours but with slightly more intervention from God?
I’m now assuming that by “mainstream” creationism, you mean exactly, to the letter, the claims at answersingenesis.org? Is that close enough? That would be a helpful clarification on “mainstream” as it would keep me from having to ask whether you’re a fan of hydroplate theory, vapor canopy theory, or the somewhat nebulous explanation of the flood waters at AiG. Hopefully an outsider can be forgiven for asking “Which True Creationism do you mean?” the same way they might ask, “Which true sect of Christianity do you mean?” or, “Which apostate Muslim sect are you referring to, Imam?”
My question is how you go from that wording to mathematics. Is it a 1/0 weighting wherein whatever the other statistics say, you simply classify them separately? If the the two variables disagree, how are they reconciled?
Statistical classification of (non-biological) stuff is part of my day job, so yes, I’d very much like to see the math.
@arensb,
Thank you for your courteous reply. You guys may be showing me up now in that department. I’d like to point out that a statement of a theory need not explain everything about that theory. If you define evolution as simply the change in frequency of alleles (which I object to, by the way), it says nothing about the billions of years it would take, what mechanisms are involved, how many original ancestors were involved or even if this is sufficient to change one kind of creature into another. There is a whole raft of things it doesn’t explain and frankly purposely leaves out.
Biblical creation theory of which scientific biological creation theory is a part (I only add “scientific” to point out that it makes no reference to God and it uses the same scientific techniques of investigation that evolution does), is based on what creation scientists believe to be accurate eye-witness accounts of our history. This is why I consider it more scientific than evolutionary theories which are simply founded on man’s fallible imagination rather than empirical evidence like eye-witness accounts which is the only way to know for sure what happened. The key events in that history is creation of the universe (and the earth along with all life), a catastrophic worldwide flood (that included significant volcanic activity, rapid plate tectonics and even speculation of meteor impacts, followed by the ice age) and then the tower of Babel which separated the various people groups. While we know that these events occurred, the exact methods and mechanisms are what the scientific investigation of creation theories is all about. For example, there is a creationist cosmological model which posits that the universe was stretched out from a white hole with earth near the event horizon. This event can be analyzed using relativity calculations which make better explanations for the evidence we observe than big bang theory which is riddled with so many inconsistencies and problems that a whole list of evolutionary scientists have raised objections.
Regarding the rhinoceroses, I have never heard that claim. You didn’t happen to take a picture of it did you? I know we have discovered at least half a dozen (perhaps more) extinct rhino fossils and around that many living varieties. Do you know of 2-300 species that have been found in the fossil record? If not, why would anyone claim that there were so many? You should realize one thing though; all species did not “evolve”. For example, some people consider all the different varieties of dogs and cats as different species (I think some consider them varieties or subspecies). I happen to have two cats that are brother and sister. One is Siamese and one is Persian (obviously not pure breed). The originally Kinds of life were created with a robust genetic code which provided great variability in offspring that allowed them to easily adjust to changing environmental conditions.
For example, while we know humans are all one “species”, Adam and Eve were probably brown skinned. Their children however, were born white, black, red, yellow and so on merely from genetic variability (like different color of hair, eyes etc). So the offspring of the original rhinoceroses could have been small, large, hairy, bald, long horned, short horned etc (which could be considered separate species). Bottom line, the rate of speciation was probably much higher initially until those genetic features were isolated and variability lost in existing populations today. Again, what we observe is loss and degradation of genetic information over thousands of years, rather than a gain of information required by evolutionary theory.
Tom:
(NB: It looks like your and Troublesom Frog’s comments were being blocked by an over-zealous cache. I’ve cleared the cache, and they seem to be showing up now (at least for me.))
Funny, right now I’m reading the transcripts of the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial, which showed that Intelligent Design was a) nothing more than repackaged Scientific Creationism (which had been found to be religious in Edwards v. Aguillard in 1987), and b) not scientific.
Why do they (or more specifically, you) believe that?
Are you sure you want to say that eyewitness testimony is the only way to find out what happened? That if I see deer tracks in my yard one morning, that I’m not justified in concluding that a deer walked through my yard during the night, even though there were no eyewitnesses?
How about the Hindu milk miracle, which was not only witnessed by thousands (the site says millions, but I’m being conservative), but also documented on video? Does that prove the power of Lord Ganesha?
Um… no. We know no such thing. Please present evidence.
I take it you didn’t follow the link I provided, or else you might have seen this photo of the rhino exhibit and this closeup of the plaque.
Please present evidence that this happened.
Again, what do you mean by “information”, and how can we tell whether it has been gained or lost?
In other words, if I have two organisms (or two populations, or two versions of a gene, or whatever it is that your version of information applies to), how can I tell which one, if any, has more information?
Ok. Information it is. Just a few comments on your latest posts and then we can get started. I’m really trying hard to ignore some things that were said instead of commenting on everything. From my extremely long posts, you know that is against my nature, but I assure you I’ve skipped at least a few things.
@TF,
I didn’t “demand” an apology. All I asked was that you recognize your error. If we make mistakes, we should correct them. I didn’t say you did it on purpose. A “friendly” discussion (which is what I hope this “evolves” into), should allow us all to admit our mistakes freely without undo incrimination and also admit that we don’t know everything. Your response does not even touch upon the error, nor is it an explanation as to why you shouldn’t “apologize”. You made the statement that talkorigins did not contend that geocentrism is a creation model. I provided a direct quote from talkorigins which states that geocentrism IS a creation model (and a mutually exclusive one at that).
The problem I have with their list and apparently your position on the subject as well, is that they hold evolution scientifically supreme above all others but then lump a bunch of crackpot notions in with creation theory in a false attempt to make creation science appear crackpot by association. They do this knowing full well the position of creation scientists, so they are being purposely dishonest and deceitful. The reason you’re confused about “mainstream” creation science is because of efforts made by talkorigins and other evolutionists to disseminate this false propaganda and attempts by atheist organizations to keep alternative scientific theories out of our classrooms and even prevent discussion of problems with evolution (the later borders more on fascism than democracy).
You have attempted the same tactics in your argument probably because you have spent too much time in talkorigins newsgroups. LOL! I actually don’t know where to “push” Hugh Ross. Like many compromisers, his ideas get so screwed up he’s tied in knots. Nevertheless, I certainly don’t want him either. Clearly, however, people like theistic evolutionists DO belong in your camp. Over the years I’ve seen enough different versions of evolutionism that it’s very difficult to keep them all straight. Talkorigins itself provided a list of various evolutionary beliefs. Which one am I suppose to believe? As I pointed out multiple times now, there is as many beliefs about our origins as there are people. Some of those beliefs are widely accepted even though they are not the formal position of creation scientists. Polls indicate the majority of Americans do not believe in evolution. Does that mean evolution is false?
You are also misrepresenting what I have said. I never claimed that if one theory is wrong, it makes the other right. I will repeat again in more detail in hopes that you will catch it this time. Creation and evolution are HISTORICAL theories. Because of that, they cannot use the same scientific methods that are used in OPERATIONAL scientific endeavors. They cannot use the standard scientific method because the object of their studies are ONE-TIME events that have occurred in our ancient past that are NOT observable, NOT repeatable and NOT measurable, which are the three immutable components of the scientific method. Instead, they use abductive reasoning and the scientific method of competing hypothesis. It is the PREPONDERANCE of evidence which counts because ancient historical events cannot be proven. Instead of “proof”, evidence is INTERPRETED based on UNPROVABLE ASSUMPTIONS. The difference between creation and evolution is that there is actual empirical evidence for creationist assumptions in the form of eye-witness accounts which CAN be proven, just not by scientific means.
What this means for our discussion is that if there are only two “viable” SCIENTIFIC theories of our origins (meaning that they are backed by empirical scientific evidence), evidence contrary to ONLY one of them (which often supports the other at the very same time) tips the balance of the preponderance of evidence to the other theory. This is a statement of fact, which really cannot be disputed despite efforts by talkorigins to misrepresent both the argument and the theories involved. I’ve also never stated that evidence cannot be contrary to both or that new theories may someday be proposed. That does NOT alter my argument. The preponderance of evidence remains the criterion that determines which currently viable theory you choose to accept.
History is littered with the corpses of failed “operational” theories, but not theories on origins that supposedly are supported by scientific evidence. Fundamental creation theory has been around since the actual creation of the world, supported by scientific evidence from the very beginning. Evolutionary mythology has its roots from the ancient Greeks and has only been taken seriously since Darwin’s day. There are a lot of philosophical notions, many of which take a compromise position between these two fundamental beliefs, but most don’t even pretend to have any scientific support and in the end none of them do.
Slightly more intervention from God? God has provided us with accurate eye-witness accounts of our history. That is the ONLY way to know for sure what actually happened and is the fundamental basis for the range of scientific creation theories that have been proposed. There is overwhelming scientific evidence in support of those eye-witness accounts. God claims to uphold the universe with consistent, logical laws and rules. If it was not for a consistent and logical creator, science could not be done at all. If we have instead arisen by the random movement of particles, there is no reason to believe that gravity won’t simply reverse itself tomorrow. God has told us exactly when He has supernaturally intervened in our origins. There is no reason, scientific or otherwise, to believe he has done anything more than that. For example, there is not a shred of scientific evidence to support the notion that God guided the evolutionary process. Therefore, it cannot be included in a rational scientific discussion of our origins.
So when we talk about evolutionism, do you mean exactly, to the letter, the claims at talkorigins? Is that close enough? That would help to keep me from having to ask about the myriad of evolutionary theories that have been proposed over the years and scattered around the internet. Or which True Evolutionism you mean, the same way one might ask “which true sect of atheism, do you mean”? It might keep me from having to ask if you’re a fan of Lamarckianism, convergent evolution, hopeful monsters, multiverses, oscillating big bangs, panspermia or nebulous definitions of evolution itself, Oort clouds, abiogenesis, the origin of sex, the origin of consciousness or the origin of morality.
There are literally hundreds of thousands of websites related to creation science, some reliable, some not (just as is the case with evolutionism). There are also tons of books and articles which contain information not found on the web. However, if you are truly interested in scientific creation theory and ID that is readily accessible, this is probably the core set of sites that I reference most often. Many of them are peer reviewed and all offer reliable information on creation science and ID. And of course, that is why they are most attacked by the likes of talkorigins.
http://www.trueorigin.org/
http://www.answersingenesis.org/
http://creation.com/
http://www.discovery.org/csc/
http://biblicalgeology.net/
http://www.crev.info/
http://creationwiki.org/Main_Page
http://www.icr.org/
Perhaps these sites may help with your understanding of Baraminology and their methods. Some are more technical than others.
http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq/articles/43/43_3/2006v43n3p149.pdf
http://documents.clubexpress.com/documents.ashx?key=YErB7ZuitilFliTOkUo6AbzoLiq3UbJl%2fSj%2fA99NBg4%3d
http://documents.clubexpress.com/documents.ashx?key=Fd6v0K0aBVyBoDzvxIA5u8DODr2qj6dwTxG2DjbRP0U%3d
http://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j16_1/j16_1_15-25.pdf
http://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j21_1/j21_1_119-122.pdf
Last thing before we begin with information – you never answered the following question: So in your statement of the theory of biological evolution, are you including the phrase “so much so that modern biodiversity can be traced back to one ancestor”? I need to understand what version of evolutionism you subscribe to before we can have any meaningful discussion of the theories. Or should I just ignore your definition and fall back to what talkorigins says?
OK, on to information. Yeah! This may appear anti-climactic but the fault I see in many conversations, including the one you had with Egnor is that a blanket question is thrown out there that requires prior knowledge and unstated assumptions that cannot be readily communicated in a short thread. Therefore, I think we need to start out slowly and set a foundation. I think there are some simple questions that need to be asked to set some groundwork before we can have a meaningful discussion of information. I will add a caution here though. While I hope our discussion will be interesting, I’m fairly certain we will not come to any final agreement since there is still so much that is unknown about genetics which makes it subject to much interpretation.
Can we begin by agreeing that living things contain information (regardless of how we might define it)? Our genetic code is usually the entity referred to when discussing Information content of living things, although it’s clearly not the order of DNA alone that counts nor the only potential source. Nevertheless, it’s often been referred to as a programming language, computer code and so on by scientists on both sides of the aisle.
Can we also agree that a human contains more information and/or more complexity (also regardless of how we define that) than a microbe, particularly the prototype from which all life supposedly evolved?
If so, can we agree that evolutionists believe that this increase in information and/or complexity was added by the evolutionary processes through various types of mutations resulting in completely new features and capabilities that did not exist before?
If so, can we agree that this is a necessary (but not directed) requirement of the evolutionary process if a molecule is to be transformed into a man? Ernst Mayr (famous evolutionist I’m sure you know who has been called the “modern day Darwin”), argued AGAINST “neutral” evolution as being evolution. We don’t need to get into that discussion. The point I’m trying to confirm is that a requirement for the type of evolution that changes a molecule into a man (whatever type that might be) is that it ADD new information to the genome in order to change a molecule into a man.
Notice that I’ve not been “tricky” or leading with any of my questions since I’m now going to state what I’m driving at so you can see my whole line of reasoning without first knowing what your answers will be to the above (allowing you to adjust your answers so you don’t arrive at a unfavorable conclusion). So if we’ve agreed to everything so far, my question is as follows. If a requirement of the type of evolution that changes a molecule into a man is that it adds new information to the genome, how do evolutionists know that this type of evolution has occurred when they observe changes in species in the present day? I assume a reasonable answer would be when they observe that information has been added (which would seem to intuitively exclude Galapagos finches or peppered moths from this type of evolution). If that matches your answer (or something similar), then how do evolutionists measure this added information?
Tom:
No. I’m specifically asking you to define it. If by “information” you mean “the entropy of a living being’s genome”, then yes. If you mean “the length of the shortest Turing machine that can generate that arrangement of atoms”, then maybe not. If you mean something else, then please say what that is.
That makes intuitive sense, but that’s the whole point of my question: I’m asking you to formalize this intuition in such a way that we can see whether statements are true or false.
So tell us how to calculate the information content of a microbe and that of a human being, and we’ll see whether one is greater than the other.
Evolutionary biologists use a number of measures, depending on circumstances, including Shannon entropy (see the comments in the Egnor thread), but Egnor’s reply is typical of creationists, in that he said that no, that’s not what he means, then refused to say what it is that he does mean.
Tom,
You and I are clearly reading that response completely differently. Suffice it to say that I don’t believe in reading my opponents in the most uncharitable possible light and I certainly wouldn’t call them liars based upon such a reading. I don’t intend to do so with you either. Please call me on it if I do.
I’ll take the rest of your response to mean that the true creation theory is the one that is self-evidently correct to you. That’s fine as we’ve agreed to get to it a piece at a time. As we do that, I will try to clarify my take on things when necessary.
I would say it’s not necessarily the case, but I believe it’s the most likely. It also appears to be the most widely held view. Whether the “tree” has one trunk, two, or even a few more, the critical concept is that our ancestry goes far deeper than simple morphology would say.
I haven’t had a chance to read Douglas Theobald’s paper in Nature that performs a statistical test on those options, but I’m very much looking forward to it. It apparently makes a very strong statistical case for one common ancestor. I’ll be moving closer to a university library in the next few days, so I should have much better access to journals soon. Since Theobald is a TO contributor, arensb may have heard about it through the grapevine and already taken a look.
Thanks, by the way, for the baraminology papers. I’ll withhold comment for now, but I think that some of the points raised will come up very shortly. I need to chase down the original Sternberg reference that they all cite to determine exactly how ANOPA compares to more common methods like PCA or LDA. It’s worth noting that a lot of good books on statistical classification use classification of organisms as an illustrative example for the latter two methods.
As to your information questions, I’ll agree with arensb. Given a good definition for information, the remaining questions become trivial to answer: Just measure and do the math. Without it, information theory and other mathematical tools are powerless.
Troublesome Frog:
I understand the above to mean that bears, brine shrimp, and broccoli all share a common ancestor. But that the unanswered question is whether life arose only once or several times (3 billion years before the common ancestor of bears, shrimp, and broccoli).
Is that correct?
@arensb,
Really now? A liberal activist judge coached by two atheist organizations who lifted many of his comments verbatim from them in his ruling is not going to claim ID is creationism? Who gave the right to federal judges to dictate the merits of scientific arguments? That’s the problem with our new socialist government. Fortunately, judges don’t dictate truth and his ruling has been shown to be littered with errors and bias. The courts have ruled on a lot of things I’m sure you wouldn’t agree with either. Try again. If you knew anything at all about ID theory, you’d know it says absolutely nothing about supernatural intervention or a god. Someone may wish to imply that, but the implication of evolutionary theory is that there is NO god which is just as “religious” (since the courts have ruled that atheism is a religion).
It appears from the rest of your response that we’re going to have to go back to science/religion 101. You have to start thinking for yourself instead of regurgitating juvenile propaganda from the likes of talkorigins. So are you trying to tell me that NO ONE has EVER witnessed a deer walking through their yard? We have no idea what a deer track looks like from our past observational experience? Of course you are justified in your conclusion because we’ve witnessed millions of deer and millions of deer tracks to know. However, concluding that a deer walked through your yard last night because you see deer tracks (something we have already validated in the past from observation) is vastly different than speculating about a onetime event that we have NEVER witnessed, like the big bang, abiogenesis or evolution.
Please provide scientific evidence that George Washington crossed the Delaware that is NOT based on any eye-witness information (which would include verbal and written). Are you going to go out there right now and test the Delaware for DNA samples which match George Washington’s? Tell me. Please provide scientific evidence (like you are repeatedly asking me to do).
You act as if written records are not evidence! The best way to determine historical events is by written records. That is part of historical science. Those records are validated by the potential remnants of things that they describe. We have eye-witness accounts of Jews being slaughtered in Germany. Then we go there and dig up the mass graves or witness the death chambers etc. and this validates that the eye-witness testimony is true. This is also the case with the Bible. Whenever we’ve been able to validate historical or scientific events described in the Bible, it has proven to be accurate. In addition, there is nothing in the Bible that has ever been demonstrated to be false. Based upon this, we have confidence that it can be trusted wherever it touches upon history or science. However, there is more to it than that. The Bible claims to be God’s Word (unlike any other “holy book”), which was proven by Christ’s life and resurrection from the dead. This is the most studied and validated person and event in ancient history. Do you know anyone else that can die and rise from the dead at will?
So as part of their starting “assumption”, creation scientists “assume” that the Bible is accurate, but that assumption is not made without sound scientific, historical, logical and spiritual evidence based on past experience. On the other hand, evolutionists ASSUME that everything we experience today came about by purely natural means without a shred of evidence for this assumption (in fact with much contradictory evidence). They make many other assumptions, including that the Biblical God does not exist and that his record of history is false. So, please present empirical evidence that God does not exist. Please present empirical evidence as to how space, time and matter arose all by itself out of nothing. Please present empirical evidence that galaxies, stars and planets form all by themselves. Please present empirical evidence for the Oort cloud. Please present empirical evidence that life formed all by itself from a rock contrary to known scientific laws. Please present empirical evidence that all the life we see today arose from a single common ancestor. Please present empirical evidence that altruism arose through evolutionary processes.
Regarding the Rhino, your link did not take me to a picture of the sign, nor did you say it would, so I didn’t notice (by the way, I’ve also visited the museum and it is absolutely wonderful). Again, I had not heard that before, but since they’ve made the assertion based on biological research, the research must be there. Remember that it doesn’t make much to differentiate a species. There are some varieties of songbirds, for example, that are identical except for a different song or strip on their tail so that they no longer interbreed and are considered a separate species. There would have been a vast mushrooming of species after the flood, which has subsequently declined through extinctions, since they’ve lost their ability to adapt further due to the loss of genetic information. Therefore their claim makes sense. Of course, I can’t validate that until I look at the research they talk about. However, that would be unproductive at this point since we want to focus on information.
Regarding Adam and Eve, you want evidence that we contain genetic diversity for different hair or eye color? If that’s the case, I guess we need to review some fundamentals. Even today there are cases where two white parents will have a black child or vice versa. So please provide empirical evidence which explains how all the different languages developed. Please provide empirical evidence to explain why there is only one species of mankind. If evolution is all about continuous variation, why don’t we see different species of people like we see with elephants and bears etc.?
And by the way, you made a derogatory comment a while back, stating “Creationists (and crackpots of all stripes) tend to jump straight to the grand conclusions without first doing the tedious legwork of making sure the small results are based in fact.” So you must feel that Darwin was a crackpot then? “Origin” wasn’t a “narrowly focused” research paper. In fact, nearly all reviewers of his work recognize that it was practically devoid of any scientific evidence. He himself recognized this in many statements he made. It was simply a BOOK (not a research paper) which jumped straight to grand conclusions without having any evidence based on facts. For example, no transitional fossils, a contradictory Cambrian explosion, no factual mechanism to introduce novel information etc. Yep, just a crackpot! And we still don’t have any of the facts!
I’ve been criticized for my long responses but they are long because you simply sit back and do nothing but throw out accusations and questions which you are then prepared to pounce upon, but never actually say anything meaningful yourself in defense of evolution. And don’t say my responses haven’t said anything. I’ve answered nearly every question you have posed. You may not accept my answers, but I’ve still answered them. On the other hand, you’ve not explained or even volunteered a single fact about evolution that anyone can even disagree with (except for you last sentence). And then you hypocritically turn around and criticize creationist for doing this? Maybe you should answer a few of my questions for a change and then we’ll see how long your response will be! This couldn’t be more evident in your reply regarding information. You are attempting the same trick on me that you did with Egner who you then turn around and denigrate.
It is evolutionists, not creationists, who claim that a man evolved from a molecule. It is up to them to explain how all of that additional information got into our genetic code. If they can’t explain that, then how to do you expect anyone to take them seriously? That is why so many scientists and creationists (and the majority of Americans for that matter) feel evolution is just smoke and mirrors because they can never get a straight answer, while at the same time, study after study shows that mutations cause degradation (loss of information) not novelty. And just in case you don’t think evolutionist claim that evolution adds information to the genome, Richard Dawkins has stated – “During the billions of years of evolution since that ancestor lived, the information capacity of our genome has gone up about three orders of magnitude…We have an intuitive sense that a lobster, say, is more complex (more ‘advanced’, some might even say more ‘highly evolved’) than another animal, perhaps a millipede… there has been a broad overall trend towards increased information content during the course of human evolution from our remote bacterial ancestors.”
So you don’t accept that living things contain “information”? If so, we probably need to go back to the drawing board since it’s really not worth discussing this further if you are going to deny the history of science. Scientific literature is routinely filled with references by evolutionists to “genetic INFORMATION”. Any emphasis on the following quotes is mine:
• Francis Collins, the director of the Genome project in 2000 described the genome as a “book” and a repository of “instructions”. So you claim that a book does not contain information? I might as well stop posting responses then.
• George Williams (evolutionary biologist) said “The gene is a package of INFORMATION, not an object…the DNA molecule is the medium, it’s not the message”
• Richard Dawkins has said “DNA carries INFORMATION in a very computer-like way… A butterfly’s genome has to hold the complete information needed for building a caterpillar as well as a butterfly”
So if not information, explain what you mean by “entropy of a…genome”. Are you referring to Shannon entropy (or Shannon information) and/or the informational form of thermodynamic entropy?
You say biologists use a number of measures including Shannon entropy to measure information. You seem to be arguing in circles unless I’ve misunderstood something. Didn’t you just say earlier that you didn’t accept that living things contain information? If not information, what are you measuring then? Do you equate entropy with information or are these two different things? Are these other “measures” insignificant enough that we can focus only on Shannon information? If not, can you list the other measures?
@TF,
The subject of “lying” is touchy. I know personally that I would never lie intentionally (is that redundant?) in a debate like this. I assume others will not either (or why even keep going) and I have never accused anyone I’ve debated of lying. Most often, it’s simply a lack of knowledge. However, it goes downhill from there.
Sometimes we are intentionally ignorant because of our worldview bias. This is much more likely in the case of evolutionist because most haven’t a clue as to what creation science is really about and have no desire to, except for when they can denigrate it. I’ve met few who have a sincere desire to understand what it is about and get all of their information from evolutionary propaganda sites instead of creationist sites where they should be getting it from. This results in a lot of misrepresentation of the facts. For example, arensb’s insistence that ID has something to do with the supernatural or god is clearly in error. There is absolutely no debate about that. If he continues to make that claim even after being corrected, when does it become lying?
In your case with geocentrism, I don’t think I accused you of outright lying, did I? I hope not. If so I apologize. I assume you didn’t bother to read the information on their site closely enough or weren’t paying attention. It happens to the best of us. However, now that I’ve pointed it out, I assume your pride is simply in the way of admitting it because there is no interpretation involved here or the possibility of “reading it differently”. It is stated on their site in black and white and your comments are stated in black and white and the two are contradictory.
On the other hand, there is out and out lying and this is what talkorigins often does. If you want more examples, I can probably provide as many as you care to see (this is on top of the misrepresentations and other fallacies they routinely incorporate in their arguments). Now, having said that, I’m fully aware that evolutionists might make the same claim regarding creationist sites and perhaps they’d be correct for some of them, I can’t control what’s on the internet.
I’m certain you guys get some of your information from there and I have no problem with that. After all, the bottom line is that arguments should stand on their own regardless of where they come from. I’m just pointing out that one should think critically no matter where they get their information from and at least consider the other side of the argument. Talkorigins version of the other side of the argument is almost always wrong.
So I’ll take the rest of your response to mean that true evolutionary theory is the one that is self-evidently correct to you? That’s fine as long as I know what it is. We can clarify as we go along. For example, I didn’t ask about the addition to the change in alleles statement to question whether it is one or multiple ancestors. The most widely held view is a single ancestor simply because of the probabilities involved. What I’m questioning is whether you are adding ANYTHING to the frequency of alleles statement. Your definition does not agree with arensb’s since he has not added anything himself. It also does not agree with talkorigins or any other definition I’ve seen on other evolutionary sites. So I’m asking if you want to keep that or if you wish to modify it, particularly since you’ve made sarcastic comments about my definition and the various “flavors” of creation theory.
I do not accept my definition because it is “self evident”. I accept it because it is the most widely held view in the creation science community, because it is based on accurate eye-witness accounts and because it has overwhelming scientific evidence to back up its claims. No other compromise theories (whether you classify them in the evolutionist or creationist camp) come close.
Tom:
Sorry about your comments getting blocked. I’ve whitelisted your IP address, so hopefully this won’t happen as often.
You originally contacted me, complaining about a piece of mine in which I said that creationists attack evolution instead of defending creationism on its own merits. So I’d kinda hoped that you’d prove me wrong by presenting solid arguments for creationism. Toward that end, I’ve been trying to ignore your attacks on evolution and get you to present a solid case for creationism.
Yes, and they usually refer to something simple like genome length, or to a more sophisticated metric like Shannon entropy or Kolmogorov complexity. In a research paper, the definition being used should certainly be defined.
So does this mean that you accept the definitions of information used by those scientists in your argument (e.g., Shannon entropy)? If so, that seems to contradict your earlier statement that a mutation is a loss of information.
The way this type of conversation normally goes is:
Creationist: Evolution requires an increase in information, and there’s no natural mechanism for doing that. Ergo, evolution is impossible.
Evolutionist: What about gene duplication? What about these other mechanisms that have actually been seen in the lab?
Creationist: Ah, but those don’t increase the amount of information.
Evolutionist: Here’s the math that shows how mutation and natural selection increase the amount of Shannon/Kolmogorov/whatever information.
Creationist: That’s not what I mean by “information”.
That’s basically what Egnor did. I don’t want to go down that road again, so I want you to tell me what you mean by “information” and how to measure it. Then we’ll be able to objectively tell whether a given mechanism can increase the amount of information or not.
If you want to define “information” as Shannon entropy or genome length, that’s fine. But that also blows away your assertion that mutations don’t increase information content.
Tom:
Looking back on the thread, I see quite a number of questions you haven’t answered, including:
“Can you give us some examples of this evidence?” [scientific evidence that AIG et al. use to support their claims]
“What predictions has it [creationism] made that were confirmed by experiment?”
“Okay, what evidence supports creationism?”
“how does one calculate CSI?”
“how can we tell whether two beings are in the same baramin when they can’t or don’t interbreed (or, more broadly, are members of populations that can’t or don’t interbreed)?”
“And what about cauliflower, kale, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, and kohlrabi? How many baramins do those five vegetables represent?”
“Well, if such an event [change to another “kind”] were to occur, how would we be able to tell?”
“Assuming you accept AIG’s claim, do you have any experimental or observational data to show that rhinos (or indeed any mammal) can speciate that quickly?”
“Why do they [creation scientists] (or more specifically, you) believe that?” [that certain texts (presumably Genesis) are accurate eyewitness accounts of history.)
“if I have two organisms (or two populations, or two versions of a gene, or whatever it is that your version of information applies to), how can I tell which one, if any, has more information?”
And just in passing, if you’re concerned about your comments being too long, you may want to consider cutting out all the parts where you rail against evolution instead of providing evidence for creationism.
arensb:
Yes. Although it’s important to remember that there’s a subtle difference between saying, “Everything alive on Earth right now has a common ancestor,” and “Life arose on Earth only once.”
Tom:
I think I’m almost finished here.
I don’t think that we’re disagreeing that living things “information” for certain definitions of the word. We simply can’t agree with the statement for your personal definition of information until we know what it is. For example, you stated previously that going from cabbage to Brussels sprouts is a loss of information. How did you come to this conclusion? Was it intuition, or did you do a calculation of some sort?
My problem is that if we go with intuitive definitions of “information” we can’t really resolve our disagreements. We get into semantic arguments like whether a mutation that allows a cow to change color like a chameleon is the “loss of the inability to change color.”
@arensb
References in the literature by evolutionists almost never define what they mean by “genetic Information”. That is one reason I’m asking you to define it. I can’t know whether I agree with it or not until you do. I don’t care how the conversation between a creationist and an evolutionist usually goes. You apparently want to jump right to the conclusion which will simply create more misunderstanding. So let’s put everything out in the open and go through the conversation and be sure you agree with each and every step before going any further.
Tom: “Since evolutionists insist that massive amounts of information would need to be added to the genome in order to change a molecule into a man, can you tell me how evolutionists measure that information gain to validate that evolution can occur?”
Arensb: “Shannon information (of which the genome length is a part) is how evolutionists measure information to demonstrate that evolution has occurred through mutations we have observed.”
Tom: Demonstrates that Shannon information is a totally inadequate measure of biological information since it was developed as part of data transmission theory to determine optimal transmission speed. Shannon information measures only one minor aspect of the nature of information good only for transmission and storage capacity and was never originally intended to be used to measure biological information. Capacity of the genome to hold information (Shannon information) is only one aspect of that information and is NOT the information itself. Many (perhaps most) biologists agree that this is the case.
Arensb: Agrees with Tom.
Tom: “Therefore we can agree that evolutionists have not provided evidence to support their claim that evolution has ever been observed.”
Arensb: “True. But then what is the correct way to measure information?”
Tom: “You are asking me to tell evolutionists how to correctly measure biological information? Since it is their own claim that it has increased, then it is up to them to provide an adequate explanation which they have clearly not done by special pleading to Shannon information. Scientists who do not prescribe to the theory of evolution claim that according to all the laws of science we know it is not possible to increase true genetic information through mutations (at least randomly in sufficient quantity to drive evolution, as we know the vast majority of all expressed mutations are deleterious (come at a cost) in some way). All of the changes we observe today involve a modification (shuffling of existing information) or a LOSS of information. It is not necessary to provide a quantitative measure of total information content to determine whether information has been reshuffled or lost in any particular observed case.
Arensb: So how can we tell information is lost?
Tom: That will be the subject of my next post if we mutually agree to the conversation so far.
LOL! Ok, there are questions I haven’t answered. I’m supposed to be focusing, right? Nevertheless, I have answered all of the questions in your list but you have simply not accepted my answers. That’s not my problem, it’s yours. I have provided evidence for creation theory, a prediction it makes, how you can differentiate between baramins and how various vegetables are of the same kind or not, how we can tell if a change of kind occurred, and why I consider the Bible to contain accurate eyewitness accounts of history. I’d be happy to highlight those answers in the text if you missed them. Regarding Rhino’s, I stated I was bypassing that in order to focus on information. If you’d prefer I answer that one instead of information, I would be happy to check it out. Since your other questions are part of our current topic, I presume they will be answered before we are done. Now, if you want me to list the questions I have asked you that have not been answered, the list will be significantly longer. If you cut out the parts of your conversation that rail against creationists, it would boil down to a pitiful few words. Perhaps if you’d stop making false accusations you’d get a more meaningful response.
@TF,
I asked arensb whether living things contained information and his answer was “NO”. He continued to discuss it further but it was unclear as to whether he was contradicting or supporting that answer. It seems like a relatively simple question that could be answered “Yes” or “No” independent of how you defined it or measured it (which is what I asked). We’ll get into the determination of loss of information, I hope shortly, but that depends on arensb.
However, I CAN say that in most cases it is “relatively” easy to determine whether a change involves a loss or gain of information. I hope to provide more than an intuitive answer (although what’s intuitive to me might not be to you). However, I don’t see why an intuitive answer wouldn’t go a long way to resolve our differences. Your cow example is facetious. Certainly there are cases in microorganisms where a LOSS of specificity accounts for an apparent “new” ability, which is not the same as some generic “loss of an inability”. While it is possible that the originally created cattle Kind had the ability to change color, there is certainly no evidence whatsoever to support that and unlikely that this lost information would be re-gained. Do you have any example in real life where a significant gain in “function” (independent of the question of information) like you describe was expressed in a higher form of life like a cow? If not, you are presenting imaginative roadblocks to our conversation that don’t even exist and misrepresenting creationist’s arguments. A cave fish that has LOST its ability to see because we know fishes already have that ability, is clearly NOT an example of evolution. If anything, it is de-evolution which is consistent with creation theory. What is not intuitive about that?
Deep hurting.
Oh, wow.
Tom, does your doctor know that you carry on lengthy conversations with caricatures of people?
I still don’t see a definition of “information” in all that. Are you planning on ever providing one?
No, you asked if we could agree that living things contain information “regardless of how we define it.” I would absolutely agree with arensb that the answer to that question is no. Whether living things “contain” information depends entirely on how we define and quantify it. It’s like asking if living things contain “funk” without specifying a useful definition for the word.
You seem to be circling around the general argument that information isn’t gained during evolution. We’re asking you to provide a definition for which this claim is true. It’s clearly not true for any of the useful definitions of “information” that I can think of, so my only conclusion is that you must be using a different definition that you have not shared.
Which “laws of science” are you referring to? Does any of them invoke a definition of information that we might find useful in this case?
I’ll believe that claim when I see a definition of information that can be quantified in some meaningful way. Otherwise, we might as well use the word “funk” and let you be the arbiter of how much “funk” is in a given organism.
Or we could ask the Philadelphia Funk Authority. 🙂
Tom:
I basically agree with what Troublesome Frog said. Your claims about information being added or removed depend on the definition of “information”, which you haven’t provided.
So, does George Clinton have more funk than Prince? And how can we tell?
Guys, are we speaking the same language? I don’t know how to make it any clearer. Apparently, you do not understand the question (particularly TF). By answering “NO”, you are stating that living things do NOT contain information, “regardless” of how it is defined! What’s the point of me defining information if you’ve already decided that you are not going to accept ANY definition in the first place? If your answer is NO, then the conversation is simply over, let’s move on to another subject. In addition, you are also being hypocritical in that you berate me for all these “flavors” of creation theory, but then you simply to choose to disagree with mainstream evolutionists who say that living things DO contain information. So now you have your own “flavor” of information-less evolution you are promoting. I’d like to hear more about that one.
And TF, I do NOT have to provide a definition of “funk” for YOU to believe that living things contain “funk”! Our definitions may be completely different and that’s perfectly fine. I didn’t ask whether one believed living things contained information according to MY definition. I said that you could use any definition you wanted because I asked whether you believed it contained information ”regardless” of what definition you personally chose to use.
I am being honest here. I have presented you with my strategy. I’m not trying to be “tricky”. However, apparently you guys don’t want to have an honest conversation about this. You simply want me to voluntarily throw something out there so you can denigrate it like you do with any other viewpoints other than your own. I respect Egnor for not be sucked into a dishonest conversation like that. He was right. You simply want to engage in sophistry, and neither do I have patience for it. You claim that there is no such thing as biological information (contrary to the beliefs of biologists) and then insist that I define it for you. If that’s not being dishonest, I don’t know what is.
Sorry, it’s not going to happen that way. Evolutionists are the ones that state evolution has produced massive amounts of information in living things. Therefore, IT IS UP TO EVOLUTIONISTS TO PROVIDE A DEFINITION and how evolution manages to create it out of nothing, since ID and creation scientists claim that NO SUCH THING HAS OCCURRRED. This is no different than creation scientists claiming there is a God and then demanding that evolutionists PROVE that there isn’t one. Would that be fair? Since creation scientists claim there is a God, it is up to them to provide evidence for one (which they have). So let’s see your evidence for information if you claim living things have produced it! It is supremely obvious that you don’t have any evidence and that’s why you want to take the position of claiming it does not exist (and then turn around and insist others provide the evidence for you). Perhaps I should put up a blog entitled “getting information from evolutionists is like pulling teeth”. This entire conversation is in line with your hypocritical nature I have pointed out from the very beginning. You denigrate ID theorists for not providing information, but I have demonstrated clearly in this conversation that you are just as guilty, if not more so, of that attribute.
Now, I realize that you have been through some of these conversations before and therefore we shouldn’t need to spend a lot of time on the preliminaries regarding things we already know. That’s why I was hoping you’d “approve” of the conversation above so we can get to meat of the issue. It actually sounds like it hit home, otherwise you would have responded.
So perhaps we should start over with something simpler (and more obvious)? Please answer each question. Have you ever read a BOOK before? If so, do you agree that a BOOK contains “information” (by whatever definition you choose to use)? If so, how would you define and measure it?