lpetrich

Continuing from now-closed thread The serious problems of atheism as a worldview? over in GRD.

Ed gripes that macroevolution has never been observed.

But nobody has observed the origins of most of the world's volcanoes; does this mean that they had been specially created at approximately their present size?

jtb: Even if magic is allowed, the theory that evil leprechauns caused the disaster is STILL better than creationism, because there is no evidence AGAINST the existence of evil leprechauns. There is no "Book of Leprechauns" stuffed with contradictions and bogus historical claims, and there are no scientific findings that contradict leprechaunism.

It is hypocrisy of the highest order to claim "insufficient evidence" for evolution while accepting the MUCH more flimsy "Atta theory"!

Ed:
No, evil leprechauns can be eliminated as the cause of the universe using laws of logic.

Ed is being VERY unreasonable here. JtB was discussing the causes of evolution and the Sept. 11 kamikaze hijackings, NOT the origin of the whole Universe. These are separate questions.

LP: Much of the alleged "consistency" that many Xians, like Ed, talk about is a result of theological interpretation. Thus, when they moan and groan about "quoting out of context", they refer to the "context" of a constructed theological interpretation.

Ed:
No, its just that most people treat it like any other book, ie they assume it is a unified whole and make up their mind about whether it came from God. Skeptics chop it up into out of context chunks.

Ed shows his absolute illiteracy in the fields of textual analysis and literary criticism. The Bible is so disjointed that calling it a unified whole is absurd.

Of most relevance to this forum, the Bible clearly has not one, but two different creation stories -- Genesis 1 and Genesis 2.

lp: Also, about that early-evolution stuff, I'm surprised that Ed has not commented on it. I have long been interested in evolutionary relationships, and I find work like this most interesting.

As I stated earlier, evolution does not have an explanation for the Cambrian explosion.

Except that the "Cambrian explosion" was not quite as sudden as it might first seem, as this article explains.

LP: One intriguing conundrum is how echinoderms had acquired their fivefold symmetry; why do starfish have five fat limbs?

Yes, there are no transitions showing a movement from bilateral symmetry to radial symmetry. This is another problem for evolution.

However, if bilateral -> fivefold radial had been done by soft-bodied proto-echinoderms, then the intermediates could have escaped fossilization.

(my patience has worn thin...)

Wounded King

Arguably macroevolution has been observed, there was recently a discovery of a new species of Groundsel which was a hybrid between two species, one of which was only introduced to Britain 300 years ago. No one actually watched as the speciation event actually occurred, perhaps that is what creationists require for evidence, allthough I doubt they would take an evolutionary biologists word for it even then.

Lowe AJ, Abbott RJ.
Routes of origin of two recently evolved hybrid taxa: Senecio vulgaris var. hibernicus and York radiate groundsel (Asteraceae).
Am J Bot. 2000 Aug;87(8):1159-1167.

Doubting Didymus

You're going to drag the other ed thread over here as well?

May leprechauns have mercy on us all.

NZAmoeba

Okay, i havn't read the original post, i'm new and lazy

but by stateing specifically macroevolution, i'm assuming that he's accepted the witnissable evidence of evolution on a microscopic scale in individual cells?

In which case has he ever stopped to think what us macro-organisims are made of??

lpetrich

No, His Eddianness follows the common creationist distinction between microevolution and macroevolution, where microevolution is evolution inside of "created kinds" or "baramins" and macroevolution is evolution from one baramin to another.

And in typical creationist fashion, he accepts that microevolution happens but not macroevolution.

While being diffident about the borders of baramins. Except for the human one, of course, which he thinks includes Homo erectus and the Neanderthals and the like, but not Australopithecus.

Wounded King

So even showing speciation wont be enough to demonstrate macroevolution now? What do they want, to be able to see a new phylum evolve in front of their eyes?

lpetrich

That's right -- speciation they wave away as "variation in created kinds".

NZAmoeba

Ironically, if they saw that, they would not be seeing evolution, just something really freaky.

Sadly, we won't have witness evidence for a few million years, provided our current records remain, hell, provided the planet/humanity lasts that long.