Ed

Function doesnt tell us selection pressure, it just tells us the result of that pressure. I notice that you use linguistic terms when talking about genes, confirming my earlier post about DNA being linguistic in nature.

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lp: This is actually something of an ideal case; rates of molecular evolution do vary, but they can be calibrated by comparing to the fossil record. Ed: And how did you figure this out lp? lp: There's some literature on doing exactly that, such as finding out from the fossil record when horse and rhinoceros ancestors become so much alike that they become indistinguishable. One then sequences some horse and rhino genes with the same functions and compares them and derives an average rate of evolution from them.

You are assuming what you are trying to prove, you need to start with the rate of evolution to
determine the appropriate ancestor. Instead you choose a hypothetical ancestor and then determine the hypothetical rate of evolution.

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lp: What makes such family trees "highly speculative"? Ed: Because they are based on historical extrapolations and disputable "transitional" forms. lp: How are they any more speculative than your ad hoc hypotheses about Noah's Flood?

Noahs flood is a one time event, you are speculating on thousands of historical events, none of which have ever been empirically observed.

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Ed: See above about subject-object correlation. lp: Whatever precisely that is supposed to be.

It is the correlation between what you observe and what is really there.

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Ed on Michael Denton coming to support evolution: Maybe he saw that his career would end if he kept criticizing evolution. Just a hunch! Pantheism opens up whole other can of worms, ie serious problems. lp: Like what problems?

Pantheism denies the existence of individuality, thereby providing no basis for justice
and a host of other ethical and logical problems.

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lp: And maybe he came to understand what mainstream biologists had been talking about.

I think fear is probably a greater impetus to change but I could be wrong.

Ed

I dont think that version is as accurate, but anyway your point is......?

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lp: Big-sediment vs. little-sediment, as it were. A real scientist would try to decide which one, if either of them, is right; Ed instead prefers to use these possibilities to evade criticism. Ed: How am I being dishonest? I am just presenting both Christian views. But as I stated earlier I am not a geologist so I don't know all the evidence for and against the views and like you said I dont consider it of extreme importance. lP: Ed, your advocacy of both big-sediment and little-sediment Flood Geology gives new meaning to the term "two-faced". And you clearly attach enough importance to be worth dragging in little-sediment FG just when you were losing in big-sediment FG. Which gives more new meaning to "two-faced".

No, I am just trying to show you cannot be too dogmatic about totally dismissing the flood.

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lp: However, many places contain alternations of coarse-grained and fine-grained rock, when after a big flood, the coarse-grained sediment would settle first, and then the fine-grained sediment. Ed: Not necessarily. Its a little more complex than that. lp: What a weird miracle flood Noah's Flood was (sarcasm). And I take it that you are currently supporting the big-sediment version.

I am sure a hydrologist could explain why it is not as simple as you portray it.

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Ed: Well I am not a Hebrew scholar but compare the Genesis flood story with the flood story in the Psalms and you will learn the difference between historical narrative and poetry. lp: Being straight narrative doesn't prove anything about historicity.

No, but it does demonstrate that those who write it off as poetic or allegorical are incorrect.


[b] No, see above.

lpetrich

Linguistic terms???

A big mixed load of horse and rhino dung. One follows horses and rhinos backwards in the fossil record until their fossil records merge. Fossils can be dated with the help of the rocks that contain them, and this provides a divergence date totally independent of hypotheses about molecular-evolution rates.

Because we have not been around to watch them happen. Ed, what will it take? A time machine?

Being able to unconsciously model one's environment does not prove nearly as much as Ed seems to think it does, because the capability can be selected for if it can emerge.

I don't see how that happens.

That the Genesis-1 creation story has a serious ambiguity in it.

I don't see how I am more dogmatic about that than you are about the Bible.

Ed, the worldwide version of Noah's Flood was discredited in the early 19th century, well before Charles Darwin published his magnum opus. It was discredited not out of an attitude of "I know that the Christian God is 100% real and I've decided to declare war on It", but because it did not fit the evidence.

And how is that the case, O Ed?

Ed

Cypresses may have only occurred in higher elevation swamps if you accept the young earth model. But if you accept the old earth flood theory then the two trees would also appear where they are now in the strata and the gap would be explained.

Ed

I meant relatively speaking, trilobites are slow footed and slow witted compared to many sea creatures, such as porpoises, even compared to most bony fishes. Yes, they are magnificently made by God though their present life cycles probably have changed since they were originally created. Those creatures are more complex than anything man has ever made.

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Ed: Maybe they [tubeworms and angiosperms] both lived at higher elevations than trilobites. OC: Tubeworms are annelids; annelid fossils are known from as far back as the Ediacaran fauna (eg Dickinsonia). That's Precambrian. Dickinsonia bears a close resemblance to the modern annelid Spinther, which lives on and eats sponges. So annelids were from both higher and lower elevations? Oddly though, there are no Ediacaran trilobites: they don't turn up until the lower Cambrian. Angiosperms are mainly terrestrial, but seagrasses such as eelgrass (Zostera marina) are adapted to seawater. Seagrasses often form lush underwater meadows, and are among the richest and most productive of all biotic communities. According to Thorson 1971 (Life in the Sea), beds of turtlegrass (Thalassia testudinum) in the tropical Atlantic may contain 30,000 individual animals per square metre. Yet none now contain trilobites; the last trilobites are from the Permian. And to repeat, there is no sign whatever of any angiosperms till the late Jurassic, let alone any seagrasses in the same strata as trilobites. If they had existed together, seagrass meadows would have been trilobite magnets. But there's an 85 million year gap. They should be together, but are not. Why did no trilobite get washed up (or down) into the same level as some angiosperms?

Probably because the number of trilobites was small in that area.

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Ed:And probably when a swimming trilobite sensed danger he dove to the bottom like many modern marine arthropods. oc: Haha! Funny how the earliest shrimp-like crustaceans (Eocarida) don't appear till the mid-Devonian (c375mya), and things like lobsters and crabs (Eucarida) don't turn up till the Triassic (no earlier than 245mya), yet trilobites start in the lower Cambrian (c500mya and finish in the Permian), isn't it? How come no eucaridan managed to dive to the same bottom as the trilobites? Every crab missed the same bottom as the pelagic (free-swimming) Ordovician trilobite Opipeuter by at least 200 million years! They must be more slow-footed and slow-witted than trilobites!

No, just the populations were small in those areas.


[b] Of course there are some things we dont know, creationist research does not have the finances and governmental backing that evolution has.

lpetrich

Notice how Ed fails to draw the clear inference that non-Gosse young-earthism is just plain false.

And let's see who knows what I mean by "non-Gosse".

Ed, let's see if you can justify that contention independent of trilobites' position in the fossil record. And why do you seem to be switching to big-sediment Flood Geology for this occasion?

Let's see if Ed has any independent reason to believe that to be the case, instead of a desire to rescue big-sediment Flood Geology.

See above about trying to rescue big-sediment Flood Geology.

However, with all the money that TV evangelists rake in, I'm sure that they could easily afford to finance serious research.

But an indicator of the true priorities of the creationist and ID movements can be indicated by how much of their resources they put into publicity and political pressure as opposed to serious research.

[ June 23, 2002: Message edited by: lpetrich ]</p>

Ed

There is documentary evidence for Moses, ie the Torah. But there is no documentary evidence for the hypothetical authors of JEPD.

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lp: And what internal problems are there?

When you separate out the different authors texts (JEPD), they dont make any sense or flow of story.

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Ed: The different uses of the names of God can be just as easily be explained by the fact that when the text deals with God and his relationship with individuals his name Yahweh is used and when it deals with God and his dealings with the world at large the name Elohim is used. lp: A pointless name shift.

Not for both ancient and present believers.

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Ed: And this is the case with Genesis 1 and 2. Genesis 1 is the overview of creation while Genesis 2 is a telescoping in on the most important event of creation, ie the creation of Man. lp: However, they contradict each other on important details.

Fraid not.

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LP: Yahwist: Seven pairs of each clean animal, one pair of each unclean animal Priestly: One pair of all the animals Ed: As I stated before one is the general plan while the other is when he gives Noah the specifics. No contradiction there. lp: Again, contradictory. A general plan would be "a few" and not "one".

Not if 99% were "one" pair.

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lp: Ed, why do you consider the Gilgamesh flood story to be fantastical? Please be specific; point to features of the text, and compare corresponding parts of the Noah's Flood story. Ed: It talks about visible gods running scared like dogs when the flood comes. The ark is an unstable 180-foot cube which would have rolled over and over in a major flood. The biblical ark is much more seaworthy. The flood only lasts 7 days! A worldwide flood lasting 7 days, you cant get much more fantastical than that. Also, the flood is caused by an irrationally angry god, for no good reason. Those are the major fantastical parts that I can rememeber but I think they are enough. lp: I don't see how that is much worse than the Biblical version; consider that in it, the Biblical God decides to send a flood because he regrets having created humanity. That's not much different from Ea's motive. And toward the end of the story, God relishes the smell of Noah's burnt offerings.

No, God regrets creating humanity because of the evil things that they were doing. Ea just has a hissy fit.

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lp: I wonder if Galileo, Copernicus, and Pasteur make Ed want to convert to Catholicism or if Newton makes Ed want to convert to Anglicanism/Episcopalianism. Ed: Although I admire the orthodox versions of those denominations, I think I will stick with orthodox Presbyterianism. lp: Including the veneration of saints? And what may be interpreted as idolatry?

It depends on what the definition of veneration is. If it reaches the point of worship then yes, it would be idolatry, but most Catholics dont worship saints.

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Ed: No, the scriptures plainly teach that salvation is by faith alone but the evidence of that faith is works. ... lp: Very ingenious. The plain sense of the text is that faith and works are different.

Of course they are different, but one is the evidence of the other.

[b] It is plain when understood in context.

lpetrich

True, the evidence is only indirect, but it's a reasonable hypothesis. However, Moses is yet another heroic founder figure, and heroic founder figures tend to attract mythology to them.

How so? If anything, each one taken in isolation is more coherent. I suggest that you start a thread in Biblical Criticism & Archaeology if you wish to pursue this subject any further.

I can easily show that they do.

I don't see any difference.

Ed

Fraid to disappoint you, that is not trying to say. But as we learn more about the hebrew language and ancient history, we learn more about how to translate the scriptures. So older understandings of non-essentials may be found to be incorrect. The essential teachings have always been obvious.

lpetrich

Except that they aren't. And I don't see what is so great about the Bible -- when one considers all the freethinkers who have become that way by reading the Bible, one suspects that the traditional Catholic practice of keeping the Bible away from the rank and file of followers has a lot of merit.