Ed

As I stated above it is irrelevant what he believes about creation or evolution, my point was NOT to mention some author who was a creationist, my point was the EVIDENCE against evolution that he talked about in the book. As far as I know he has not backed off on the evidence itself.

Ed

I thought that this WAS a tropical forest. I don't presently work in wildlife management so I don't deal with these kinds of situations. I primarily conduct endangered species surveys, wetland delineations and write Environmental Impact Statements. So, sorry, I dont have any examples.

Ed

Actually there are some scholars that point out that the scriptures often use the term "earth" to mean just the inhabited part of the earth and so if that is the correct understanding then the flood may have been just local if it occurred early in man's history when he was only living in a relatively small area. If someone can convince me that that is the meaning of earth in Genesis then maybe I will change to believing it was local.

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Ed: They knew of nothing of microscopic pathogens and even if they did they would have probably considered them not to have the breath of life in them either. Therefore there was not any real reason for Him to mention them. lp: A book that is supposedly full of fulfilled prophecies and miraculous cures might also mention such tiny troublemakers and how to fight them -- that would be an additional indication of superior knowledge.

That is not its purpose.

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RufusAtticus: You keep jumping through hoops and throwing out situations that you think might prove science wrong. Have you ever stopped to think that you might be wrong? Ed: Not usually, because without God science is an irrational leap of faith. And without Christianity modern science probably would have never come into existence. lp: However, the Biblical God is described as a miracle-worker, and there is no explicit concept of regular natural laws in the Bible.

Yes, but a not really very often miracle worker. 99.9% of time God works through natural processes. Natural laws are plainly implied in the books of Job and the Psalms, read them. Also in the New Testament Paul says "God is a god of order."

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lp: Early modern scientists were heavily inspired by classical Greek and Roman authors, some of whom certainly qualify as early scientists. What does one call Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Anaxagoras, Aristarchus, Aristotle, Euclid, Archimedes, Hipparchus, Ptolemy, etc.? And should we consider converting to Hellenic paganism on account of them?

Somewhat influenced yes, but modern experimental science was invented and founded by Christians. And also Christianity was the only major worldview that taught that an objective reality existed that could be studied and operated according to orderly natural laws so that experiments could be repeated. Thereby allowing the formation of modern science. You are welcome to join paganism but if it ever makes a major come back science is dead.


[b] Doesn't bother me a bit. Denton's book deals with biology not geology.

lpetrich

This sort of argumentation seems to me like arguing over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

Also, our species was confined to a relatively small area only before about 100,000 years ago; at that time, our species was confined to Africa (I consider Neanderthals and such to be separate species). Since then, however, our species spread over most of this planet's land area using only Stone Age technology.

The time when humanity only lived in Africa was beyond the reach of the cultural memories of all documented and self-documenting societies; there is no memory of one's ancestors having lived in Africa over 3000 generations ago, complete with getting to see Africa's distinctive fauna, like giraffes.

Even more-recent fauna is not really remembered; there is no cultural memory of hairy elephants in Eurasia or North America, hairy rhinos in Eurasia, giant armadillos or giant ground sloths or horses in North America, and other species that went extinct at the end of the Pleistocene 10,000 years ago.

That's the old claim that one never lost because one was not in the race.

That's absurd triumphalism and projection. The existence of a Universe-controlling superbeing states nothing about how orderly the Universe is. Also, many theologians have fought against various advances in science.

Consider what Copernicus and Galileo had gone through -- they certainly weren't commissioned by the Pope to explore alternate possibilities of the motions of the planets, which is what Ed's scenario suggests.

And did the Pope commission Vesalius to do dissections?

And did the Church of England commission Charles Darwin to study how different species might be related?

And were the various churches eager to install lightning rods?

Where is that number to be found in the Bible? And the Biblical God is described as working lots and lots of miracles.

Who would not have been allowed to be anything else by their governments -- 400-500 years ago was the time of the Wars of Religion, when Catholics and Protestants viciously fought each other over whose religion shall be Europe's religion.

Isaac Newton, for example, was seriously interested in theological questions, but had some beliefs that the Church of England considered heretical, and kept his mouth shut about them.

But Francis Bacon, for example, seemed as if he was trying to cover his rear end about religion.

Again, I wonder if the examples of Copernicus and Galileo make Ed want to convert to Catholicism. Or the examples of Brahe and Kepler make him want to convert to Lutheranism. Or the examples of Bacon and Newton make him want to convert to Anglicanism/Episcopalianism.

I'd be surprised if Ed has ANY knowledge of belief systems other than his, or how much of Christianity has worked out. Consider what one has to do to become a saint -- work miracles. And medieval saints were noted for working LOTS and LOTS of miracles.

I wonder what Ed considers "paganism".

Ed

Just because he foresaw it, doesn't necessarily mean He wanted it to happen. But of course since he knew it would happen, it was incorporated into his plan.

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Ed: And things that were once good including man himself became corrupted. So these organisms may have originally been symbionts or may have only parasitized animals OC: So you agree that a benign creator created phorid flies, ichneumon wasps, beeflies, bacteriophages and the bone-crushing bite of hyaenas?

All the ones that dont attack humans.

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OC: He takes delight in the disembowelling of a gazelle, the slow strangulation of a wildebeest in a lion’s jaws, the eating of a male mantis by the female, and the neurotoxin paralysis of funnelweb venom? When a herd of zebra run from a lion attack, that huhowa-huhowa-huhowa noise they make is as near as they can manage to “halleluiah-halleluiah!”, yeah?

I wouldn't say he takes delight in it, but it is to demonstrate that he is not a manmade tamed god. And show his awesomeness.

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Ed: because of Man's perfect immune system at the time. OC: Funny how it became imperfect in ways that let in things that specifically affect other primates, such as SIV --> HIV...

That is because our morphologies are similar to apes and other animals due to being the result one designer.

[b] [quote]
Ed: But after Man's rebellion they microevolved into more pathogenic versions of themselves

OC: Evolution to the rescue!

1. These things are wonderfully adapted to their lifestyles.

2. According to creation, wonderful adaptations are the result of divine design. If a designer is responsible for the design complexity of the mammalian eye and the fibrinogen clot, he must be responsible for the occlusion of carnassial teeth and the convoluted ways that parasites avoid immune systems.

3. Instead, you say that all the amazing and intricate adaptations of parasites are due to evolution. You say there has been enough time for this because, though we don’t know when the flood was, it may have been 80 million years ago (before the break-up of Gondwanaland). If you throw out literal biblical timescales, then the geological ones give plenty of time for lots and lots of ‘microevolution’.

4. Why, then, do we need a creator to explain any other adaptation? If evolution can explain the coat protein of Plasmodium or how the genome of Rickettsia makes it able to live in human cells, it can explain the rest too. [b][quote]

Nos. 1-3 are true. As far as 4 goes, evolution cannot explain the existence of Plasmodium and Rickettsia.

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Ed: and Man became more susceptible to disease after he could no longer eat of the Tree of Life that protected him from death and disease. OC: In other words, all the nasty diseases date from (started to evolve after) the fall. So they were on the ark (and inside and on Team Noah) too. When was the world created Ed? How long between creation and the flood? Long enough for all these symbionts to become pathogenic?

Not necessarily all of them that we know today. I dont know when it was created or how long between the creation and the flood.

[b] No need for the typical atheist condescending attitude. The only evidence for the TOL is the documentary evidence in the scriptures.

lpetrich

An omnipotent being who allows something to happen is indirectly responsible for it happening. Let's say that you are driving and you hit someone. Would "I didn't do anything" be a valid defense when you could have slammed on the brakes and swerved?

Very ingenious. One is entitled to act wicked, because one shows how awesome one is.

Carefully created with the appearance of the appropriate amounts of genetic drift, of course. Philip Gosse rides again. Would an omnipotent being who considers humanity something special really want to make apes look and act almost human and have almost-human genes?

Ed does not explain why that is the case. Pathogens and parasites have numerous adaptations that Ed has conceded are the result of evolution. These include:

Cold viruses cause their hosts to cough, thus spreading themselves.

Some bacteria that live in the intestines' contents cause their hosts to have diarrhea, thus spreading those bacteria.

The complicated lifestyles of many parasites, often involving 2 or 3 hosts.

A common adaptation by pathogenic microbes is to produce a surface layer that looks like the hosts' own cells; this keeps the immune system from recognizing them as invaders.

Again, Ed recognizes that much evolution occurs, even if he does not consider it real evolution.

Pure evasion.

As is evidence for talking snakes, which suggests that the story is some kind of fairy tale.

Ed, I suggest that you do a lot of growing up. Your whining is childish.

MrDarwin

Ed, are you really and truly making the claim that an omniscient deity can do something that has unintended consequences?

Or are you perhaps claiming that this deity does not have free will, and was therefore unable to come up with another plan in which bad things, like the rebellion of Satan and the fall of man, did not happen?

Or are you suggesting that because things can happen that this deity does not want to happen, that there is a very real possibility that some really awful things that he/she/it does not want to happen, like the ultimate triumph of evil over good, will eventually happen?

Ed

Since most of the host organisms were in a state of torpor then so were the parasites.

Ed

I don't know, some scientists think there was a vapor canopy.

[quopte] OC: 2. How did Noah and co float a heavily laden wooden ark in a constant ultra-world-record downpour? Bear in mind that even ordinary storms are hazardous to modern shipping.[/quote]

From the dimensions given in the scriptures there some evidence that the ark was more of floating box almost completely enclosed therefore it would have been able to withstand storms much better than modern ships.

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OC: 3. What effect would adding at least two miles of extra depth to the seas have on life in it? For all but the deepest ocean trenches, you’re at least doubling the depth. Things to consider include the pressure and silt increase, and light decrease, on the delicate ecologies of coral reefs, and the dilution of the seas with so much fresh water.

One thing I have learned in studying living things, they are more resilient than humans often give them credit for. Other than that I have no answer. I have never claimed to have all the answers unlike most atheists.

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OC: 4. If this water did not come from the fountains of the deep, where did it this at least 8/10ths of a mile -- 2000 feet -- of water go afterwards?

The land masses may have risen dramatically afterwards and maybe some became locked in Antarctic ice packs.

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lp: Check out "29 Evidences for Macroevolution", at <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org" target="_blank">http://www.talkorigins.org</a> for more. Ed: Again, I dont debate websites. Why dont you present a few? OC: This isn’t a link for you to debate, as such; as lpetrich said, it is a link to lots of further information. But we already know you don’t like getting involved in details, since you say you’re here against your will The specific pages you need are The molecular sequence evidence, though you would do well to look at the whole set of 29 Evidences. Read it if you care, or dare.

I did look at the molecular sequence evidence. Things designed by the same designer would have very similar blueprints, so such molecular similarities is predicted by having a creator.

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Ed: Some fish are very sensitive to water hardness, so possibly in the past other organisms were more sensitive to their environment but later on they microevolved "toughness". OC: If they’re so sensitive, what effect would suddenly deepening the seas by two miles have, do you think?

I meant presently fish are sensitive, in the past they may not have been but for land animals the opposite may be the case.

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ED: I don't consider when the flood occurred a critical question. OC: Well you should. If you think there’s evidence for it, we need to know where to look. Also, when it was affects how plausible is all the ‘microevolution’ needed after the flood to repopulate the planet with the diversity we see today. Hence we also need you to define the ‘kinds’ that Noah took with him. If the flood was 3,500,000,000 years ago, well, no problem! If 4,000, then loads of problems.

No, a more critical question is if the Christian God exists, if he does then everything else will fall into place including the flood.

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Ed: How come the theory of evolution is unfalsifiable? OC: That’s curious. I thought there was lots of stuff that falsified it. See my post in this thread for lots of ways that evolution is falsifiable. Do not confuse ‘cannot be’ with ‘never has been despite trying’.

There is strong evidence against it, but I never said it could be totally falsified. Actually your thread proves my point. It appears evolution has an answer for everything. Ie, if there are not enough transitional fossils for a group then they say it happened too quickly for the transitions to be fossilized, "punctuated equilibrium". If it appears to be a perfectly graduated transitional lineage and it is found out some "ancestors" were living at the same time and place then they say well they were slowly being "displaced" and I could go on and on with more "just so" stories that explain nearly EVERY possible scenario.

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ED: I have not decided on which view of the flood is correct. OC: Have you included ‘it didn’t happen’ in your consideration?

No not anymore, Christ taught that it occured. I have found out that Christ cannot be mistaken.

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Ed: And I don't consider it of extreme importance. OC: If you want to try to match the literal bible to reality, you have to see that it is important. The flood is a massive and crucial claim. It either happened or it didn’t. If you don’t want to take the bible literally -- as you don’t with chronologies, Jesus’s “rabbinic hyperbole”, etc -- then why take Genesis as literally correct? Why, exactly, must it be true, rather than metaphor or myth?

See above about what I consider of greater importance. The characteristics of the story of Noah fit historical narrative therefore it cannot be a metaphor or myth according to our understanding of Hebrew.

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lp: Ed, you have no trouble finding the time to post here. And if you don't consider yourself truly competent in geology, then why are you pushing Flood Geology? Ed: If you remember, I was transferred to this thread against my will OC: No you weren’t. You can discuss the existence of god to your heart’s content in the appropriate forum. If you want to discuss evolution and arguments against it, then this is the place, not elsewhere. You don’t have to discuss anything. You are free to leave at any time.

I was exaggerating a little about being transferred against my will. But if you look at my EOG thread you will see that I NEVER initiated a single discussion about the flood and rarely about creation and evolution, I wanted to primarily deal with whether or not the Christian God exists.

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Ed: Read Michael Denton's "Evolution:A Theory in Crisis" for some of the problems in that area. OC: You surely don’t mean Michael Denton, author of Nature’s Destiny: How the Laws of Biology Reveal Purpose in the Universe, who despite still being an IDist, there retracts just about all his anti-evolution claims, do you?

I dont think he has retracted most of the evidence he presented.


[b] Actually cladistics points more toward created kinds then macroevolution.

lpetrich

And what would have kept it in the gaseous state? The upper atmosphere does get very cold, and all that vapor would have condensed and rained down.

A boat bigger than the biggest wooden ships ever made -- which had had questionable seaworthiness. Simply think of the square-cube law and how stresses rise with size.

Like what resilience? I have some very unkind suggestions of ways for Ed to demonstrate his "resilience".

Yet more of Ed's maybes.

So why don't they all have the same sequences, despite having the same function? Why a treelike arrangement of differences in sequences of these workalike molecules? And why do the inferred family trees of different molecules tend to agree? And tend to agree with the family trees derived by examining macroscopic features?

Then, Ed, you are wasting your time talking about Noah's Flood.

Presumably meaning that each new species was a special creation, meaning hundreds of millions of special creations over geological time.

Actually, punctuated equilibrium has been tested by taking some large quantity of fossils and then measuring them. Sometimes it happens, and sometimes it does not.

Such as saying that his listeners would live to see his Second Coming? Ed, what would make you conclude that Jesus Christ had made mistakes?

How, Ed, how???

Cry me a river, Ed. A river as big as the Amazon. You can always argue about the existence of your preferred version of the Christian God in EoG anytime you want to, and you have kept this discussion of Noah's Flood going a long time. Ed, you'll have to take responsibility for your actions here at II.

How so???