Six Views on the Creation/Evolution Debate

[cont. from my post 701]

“Luther insisted that Moses wrote about Creation in normal, literal language.

“He [Moses] calls ‘a spade a spade,’ i.e., he employs the terms ‘day’ and ‘evening’ without Allegory, just as we customarily do we assert that Moses spoke in the literal sense, not allegorically or figuratively, i.e., that the world, with all its creatures, was created within six days, as the words read. If we do not comprehend the reason for this, let us remain pupils and leave the job of teacher to the Holy Spirit.”

REFERENCE
Martin Luther in Jaroslav Peliken, editor, “Luther’s Works,” Lectures on Genesis Chapters 1-5, Vol. 1 (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1958), pp. 3, 6. ” [end of quote from the AIG link]

Compare those quotes to what the Church said about heliocentrism (earth foes around sun) versus geocentrism (universe goes around earth) at the time of Galileo and Copernicus.

“Those who assert that ‘the earth moves and turns’…[are] motivated by ‘a spirit of bitterness, contradiction, and faultfinding;’ possessed by the devil, they aimed ‘to pervert the order of nature.'” John Calvin, sermon no. 8 on 1st Corinthians, 677, cited in John Calvin: A Sixteenth Century Portrait by William J. Bouwsma (Oxford Univ. Press, 1988), A. 72

“People gave ear to an upstart astrologer who strove to show that the earth revolves, not the heavens or the firmament, the sun and the moon. Whoever wishes to appear clever must devise some new system, which of all systems is of course the very best. This fool [or ‘man’] wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but sacred Scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth.” Martin Luther, Table Talk, in “Galileo, Science and the Church”, by Jerome Langford, 3d ed., Ann Arbor Paperbacks, p. 35 [recall that AIG approves of Luther’s opinions and interpretations of the Bible.]

“The eyes are witnesses that the heavens revolve in the space of twenty-four hours. But certain men, either from the love of novelty, or to make a display of ingenuity, have concluded that the earth moves; and they maintain that neither the eighth sphere [stars] nor the sun revolves…Now, it is a want of honesty and decency to assert such notions publicly, and the example is pernicious. It is the part of a good mind to accept the truth as revealed by God and to acquiesce in it.” Melanchthon, famous Protestant Reformer and one of Luther and Calvin’s friends. As quoted in “Man and nature in the Renaissance”, by Allen Debus, Cambridge University Press, p. 98.

“To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim that Jesus Christ was not born of a virgin.” Cardinal Bellarmine 1615, during the trial of Galileo.

[cont.]

You must be a lawyer right John? lol

You present your case well.

Similar to a previous poster, I was curious what “help” you find from ID as oppose to theistic evolution?

From my reading, all it appears to be is a philosophical position against naturalism. It still assumes many parts of evolution and I have a difficutly in seeing the difference between it and theistic evolution (both solve your problem of how life arose from “non-life”; i.e. God started and guided the “spark”).

Curious your thoughts.

Your brother in Christ,

-Josh

#John1453:

Re: your last post (702)

FWIW, Catholic apologist Robert A. Sungenis, Ph.D., disagrees with you:

http://www.catholicintl.com/products/books/gwwprint.htm

Description:
Galileo Was Wrong is a detailed and comprehensive treatment of the scientific evidence supporting Geocentrism, the academic belief that the Earth is immobile in the center of the universe. Garnering scientific information from physics, astrophysics, astronomy and other sciences, Galileo Was Wrong shows that the debate between Galileo and the Catholic Church was much more than a difference of opinion about the interpretation of Scripture.

Scientific evidence available to us within the last 100 years that was not available during Galileo’s confrontation shows that the Church’s position on the immobility of the Earth is not only scientifically supportable, but it is the most stable model of the universe and the one which best answers all the evidence we see in the cosmos.

Readers agree.

“There exists no better exposition of the history and science of geocentrism. Very highly recommended and a must for all those interested in the issues surrounding geocentrism today” (Gerardus Bouw, Ph.D., Astronomy)

“In their over 700-page book, Drs. Sungenis and Bennett make a convincing case for the special and central position of the earth in the cosmos” (Vincent Schmithorst, Ph.D., Physics)

“Galileo Was Wrong is a work of monumental proportion which ranks, in my opinion, on a par with the meticulous observations of the Danish astronomer, Tycho Brahe, and the tireless efforts of Walter van der Kamp” (Neville Jones, Ph.D., Physics)

“In their new book, Sungenis and Bennett take no prisoners…Now that the Enlightenment is over, it was inevitable that the system upon which it was based should come in for the powerful critique which Sungenis and Bennett provide. Not inevitable, however, was the brilliant way they provide it” (E. Michael Jones, Ph.D., ed. Culture Wars)

“Sungenis and Bennett examine the anomalies that arise from the Copernican model…A must read for those who can set aside prejudices and a priori assumptions” (Joseph Strada, Ph.D. Aerospace Engineering)

“The book Galileo Was Wrong forcefully addresses the history, science, theological, philosophical, and worldview implications of our place in the universe” (Russell T. Arndts, Ph.D., Chemistry, LSU)

“It is with pleasure that I remand this volume into the hands of the reader” (Martin Selbrede, Chief Scientist, Unipixel)

“Robert Sungenis and Robert Bennett have done a great service to science and to men of good will. Those who see the universe as the handiwork of the benevolent God need no longer be subservient to fairy tales” (Anonymous, Ph.D., MIT);

“Galileo Was Wrong is a model for the kind of scholarship we need today — intellectual understanding not as an end in itself, but as a commitment to reality, infused with moral passion, love for the earth, common sense and philosophical sensitivity” (Caryl Johnston, M. Ed., Jefferson Medical College).

Galileo Was Wrong: The Church Was Right is one of the most unique and penetrating books you will ever read. Now complete in Volumes I and II, authors Robert Sungenis and Robert Bennett take you on a tour of science and history the likes of which you would have never believed possible unless it were told to you in detailed and graphic form. Has modern science led us down the primrose path and convinced us of something that they cannot prove and that is in actuality false? Were the Fathers, the Medievals, our popes and cardinals of the 17th century correct in believing that the Earth, based on a face value reading of Scripture, was standing still in the center of the universe? Come with an open mind and allow these two authors to show you facts and figures that have been hidden from the public for a very long time. This is a page turner that you will find hard to put down, once you get riveted by the astounding material these authors have assembled for you. Prepare yourself, however. Your world will be rocked, literally and figuratively. Not only will you see from Volume I how modern science has documented for us in bold fashion that the Earth is motionless in space and occupies the center of the universe (yet have done an equally remarkable job in keeping these important facts out of our educational system), you will now see in Volume II how deeply the popes of the 17th century were involved in condemning heliocentrism, guiding the process step-by-step and finally castigating it as “formally heretical.” You will also see how effusive is the data in Scripture that teaches a geocentric universe in the most detailed exegesis of Holy Writ ever presented to the public on this topic. Lastly, Volume II offers detailed and comprehensive documentation of the consensus of the Church Fathers and Medieval theologians on geocentrism. It also covers all the statements and teachings of modern popes and councils, such as Gregory XVI, Benedict XIV, Pius VII, Leo XIII, Benedict XV, The Council of Trent, Vatican I, Vatican II, and a special section on John Paul II in his rexamination of the Galileo case. These are facts and analyses that every Catholic should avail himself. The most important thing you will receive from this astounding study is a very close relationship with God. For once you see that God, his Church, and Holy Scripture have given us the unadulterated truth, proven by modern science itself, you will have no choice but to put yourself completely in His trust and care for everything else in your life.

It’s exactly that ‘evolutionary’ assumption from Mr. Ham and others that dismisses anything but their interpretation of the time line of Genesis. It seems to me that his, and other YEC science, can only be defended by making it an either/or thing: God vs science and OE’s vs the Bible, which is totally ridiculous.

On the other hand, we OE’s can harmonize science and God’s natural order quite easily in the Genesis account, without embracing the evolution of man along with it.

Until YEC’s can separate the age of the earth’s material matter from the origins of life, which I can quite easily do as an OE, there won’t be much basis for their arguments that we in the old earth camp are in cohoots with the Darwin folks.

In fact, if anything, Terry Mortensen, from AIG, refutes his own and Ken Ham’s arguments unintentionally when he says:

“The Bible firmly resists any attempts to marry it with evolution and millions of years.”

Yet, ironically, this is exactly what they attempt to do to refute the OE argument.

[cont. from my post 702]

“The heavens revolve daily, and, immense as is their fabric, and inconceivable the rapidity of their revolutions, we experience no concussion — no disturbance in the harmony of their motion. The sun, though varying its course every diurnal revolution, returns annually to the same point. The planets, in all their wandering, maintain their respective positions. How could the earth hang suspended in the air were it not upheld by God’s hand? (Job 26:7) By what means could it [the earth] maintain itself unmoved, while the heavens above are in constant rapid motion, did not its Divine Maker fix and establish it? Accordingly the particle, ape, denoting emphasis, is introduced — YEA, he hath established it.” John Calvin, Commentary on the Book of Psalms, Psalm 93, verse 1, trans., James Anderson (Eerdman’s, 1949), Vol. 4, p. 7.

So we see that the issue of geocentricity in the time of Galileo was seen by the Church exactly as the YEC church view the old earth view. Back then Luther and Calvin and other protestant leaders as well as the Catholic church held that when read in a straightforward manner the Bible clearly taught that the entire universe revolves around the sun. These church leaders taught that any other reading of the scripture was erroneous, satanically motivated, and contrary to God. That is what YEC teaches today about the young v. old earth views.

The church today is having its Galileo moment, but this time with respect to the age of the earth. Ironically, however, the YEC movement is (in general) taking the position of the OEs (current science is correct) but in regard to the modern geocentrists (who are a subset of YECs). AIG for example, clearly takes a stand against geocentrism and bases it on science. But it is the modern day geocentrists who argue that the literal, straightforward interpretation of the Bible requires the earth to be the centre of the universe! In this regard, examine the following quotes:

““To hear tell, geocentrism, the ancient doctrine that the earth is fixed motionless at the center of the universe, died over four centuries ago. . . . Yet the victory of heliocentrism has been less than total. Over the years geocentrism has had its spokesmen. . . . Astronomers, pastors, and educators in the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church maintained the geocentric truths well into the twentieth century. They, with the reformers such as Luther, saw that the embracing of heliocentrism would weaken not only science, but also the authority of the Bible.

The second of these two concerns: how the Bible’s authority is weakened by heliocentrism; stems from the firm manner in which the Bible teaches geocentricity. Geocentric verses range from . . .”

[cont.]

[cont. from my post 706]

Geocentric verses range from those with only a positional import, such as references to “up” and “down;” through the question of just what the earth was “orbiting” the first three days while it awaited the creation of the sun; to overt references such as Ecclesiastes 1, verse 5:

The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.

Perhaps the strongest geocentric verse in the Bible is Joshua 10:13:

And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.

Here the Moderator of Scripture, the Holy Ghost Himself, endorses the daily movement of the sun and moon. After all, God could just as well have written: “And the earth stopped turning, so that the sun appeared to stand still, and the moon seemed to stay … .” That wording would be no more “confusing” to the reader than anything in Job chapters 38 through 41. There are those who would claim that the language used is phenomenological, that it was not meant to convey the truth of the matter. They like to equate Joshua 10:13 with verses like Isaiah 55:12 where the trees are said to “clap their hands.” The problem with that is that everyone since Adam can understand that Isaiah 55:12 is a literary device; but there is not a clue to tell those before Copernicus that Joshua 10:13 is not to be taken literally.

About the immobility of the earth the Bible seems clear enough. The nineteenth-century mathematician Augustus de Morgan put it quite succinctly when he wrote that those who try to get around the Bible’s wording:

… make strange reasons. They undertake a priori, to settle Divine intentions. The Holy Spirit did not mean to teach natural philosophy: this they know beforehand; or else they infer it from finding that the earth does move, and the Bible says it does not. Of course, ignorance apart, every word is truth, or the writer did not mean truth. But this puts the whole book on its trial: for we never can find out what the writer meant, unless we otherwise find out what is true. Those who like may, of course, declare for an inspiration over which they are to be viceroys; but common sense will either accept the verbal meaning or deny verbal inspiration. [De Morgan, A. 1872. A Budget of Paradoxes, second edition; edited by D. E. Smith, 1915, (Chicago & London: The Open Court Publishing Co.), Vol. 1, p. 36. (Emphasis added.)]

In other words, either God writes what he means and means what he writes, or else he passes off mere appearances as truths and ends up the liar. The ultimate issue is one of final authority: is the final say God’s or man’s? This is brought home again and again by humanists, such as the twentieth-century philosopher Bertrand Russell and astronomer . . . [cont.]

[cont. from my post 707]

This is brought home again and again by humanists, such as the twentieth-century philosopher Bertrand Russell and astronomer Ivan King, who point to the church’s abandonment of geocentricity as having “freed” man from the ancient God-centered outlook on life to the modern man-centered outlook. For complete documentation of the Biblical significance of geocentricity see G. D. Bouw’s book, Geocentricity

The Copernican Revolution, as this change of view is called, was not just a revolution in astronomy, but it also spread into politics and theology. In particular, it set the stage for the development of Bible criticism. After all, if God cannot be taken literally when He writes of the “rising of the sun,” then how can He be taken literally in writing of the “rising of the Son?”

[taken from “Why Geocentricity”, by Gerardus D. Bouw, Ph.D. (he must be right, he has a Ph.D. in astronomy from Case Western Reserve University, and relevant undergrad and graduate degrees) the http://www.geocentricity.com/geocentricity/whygeo.html%5D

Furthermore, we find that Bouw and his supporters make the same complaint about the YECs who don’t agree with him that the YECs make about OEs!

“In examining Faulkner’s [a writer for AIG] case against geocentricity we found that his insistence that the Scriptures do not present a geocentric universe is not founded on any reason other than his opinion. In effect, his view is founded on the assumption that the proper interpretation of the Bible in the realm of science may await future discoveries by science. He is mistaken in his claim that geocentricity rejects relativity, confusing the distinction between the underlying philosophical assumptions with the implementation of the theory. As can be seen in the above references, relativity is a strong, albeit reluctant, supporter of the geocentric paradigm. . . .

In the light of this, his charge that geocentrists “offer a very easy target of criticism for our critics” is revealed as sheer nonsense. Evolutionists, atheists, and agnostics in the know can easily shame creationists on the issue of geocentricity by simply pointing out the hypocrisy of their insistence that the days in Genesis 1 are literal while the rising and setting of the sun is not. Likewise, to insist that the rising of the sun is figurative while the rising of the Son is literal is also hypocrisy. Given that the geocentric model is pure physics, mathematically tractable, and realistic, and consistent with Scripture, we conclude that the creationist’s desire to reject it can only be for the sole purpose of appearing intellectual and acceptable to the world, which desire is enmity with God (James 4:4). [from “GEOCENTRICITY: A Fable for Educated Man?” by G. Bouw, at http://www.geocentricity.com/%5D

Bouw is correct. If YECs want to be consistent in their use of a “straightforward” hermeneutic, then they must also be geocentric.

Hopefully this post doesn’t get lost in the sea of comments…

John:

If you had to pick 5 books to explain/defend an OEC view, what would they be?

Gabriel:

If you had to pick 5 books to explain/defend a TE view, what would they be?

Richard:

If you had to pick 5 books to explain/defend a YEC view, what would they be?

Curious your recommendations.

Your brother in Chirst,

-Josh

Bouw is correct. If YECs want to be consistent in their use of a “straightforward” hermeneutic, then they must also be geocentric.

Yep. It’s turtles all the way down.

http://www.lostgarden.com/gfx/TurtlesAllTheWayDown-small.jpg

Another Testimony about the Ill Effects of YEC

“When I was a child, I was taught that “if you deny 6-day-24-hour creation you might as well throw out the whole Bible!”. Then, when I looked into the issue by taking scientists seriously instead of merely reading creationist assertions against them, and in following Christ’s command to be intellectually honest, I had to deny 6-day-24-hour creationism…and my faith in scripture was fundamentally shaken because that particular interpretation of those particular passages had been improperly wedged into the foundation of my Christianity. That was 10 years ago, and I’m still struggling with the consequences that unwise teaching had for my faith.

As the book of Job famously illustrates, it’s OK to struggle with our faith (or lack thereof), and I think doubt can be quite healthy. But raising particular views about creation to equal importance with the Gospel of Christ is foolish. Beyond that, at this point in history, in my opinion, it violates Christ’s command to love the Lord with “all your mind”. When a particular interpretation (science) of general revelation (the universe) contradicts a particular interpretation (hermeneutic) of special revelation (scripture), we should be wrestling with that. I see ignorance and wishful thinking in many 6-day-24-hour arguments, and sincerity and a high probability of truth in science’s differing conclusions.

from http://moquist.blogspot.com/2008/10/some-logic-about-creationism-and.html

***

So, Richard, are you also a geocentrist? and if not then how does that square with your straightforward hermeneutic, given the verses cited by G. Bouw?

I would also ask any YEC how they can escape a health and wealth prosperity gospel, given that those preachers also use the same “straightforward” interpretation of the Bible.

Lastly, where should we go from here? If Richard or Steve or another YEC responds to the points I’ve made about the Joggins Cliffs or the Green River Formation or geocentricity or the interpretation of Yom or the so-called “straightforward hermeneutic”, I’ll respond to those. I’m also open to suggestions from readers. Should we do some more science that slams the door on YEC? such as ice cores or oceanic sediment or coral reefs or Bristlecone Pines or movements of the magnetic north pole?

Regards,
#John

Here’s where we can “go from here”:

1. YEC’s say that OE’s don’t read the Bible correctly, and their attempt to make the Bible correspond to science reflects a low view of inspiration.

2. OE’s say that YEC’s aren’t consistent in their hermeneutic unless they also believe in geocentrism.

3. Non-Christians probably deride both YEC’s and OE’s because they (i.e., YEC’s and OE’s) hold to a literal first human pair, Adam and Eve.

Or do they?

Must one believe in a literal single pair of humans from whom all subsequent humans descended in order to be a Christian and/or a “Bible-believing” Christian?

Must OE’s believe in a literal single human pair Adam and Eve as the ancestors of all humans that live or have ever lived?

Must they believe that this one literal couple’s literal sin/”fall” resulted in the entrance of sin and (spiritual?) death into the world?

Ice cores would be a good one, especially since the recent discovery and bringing back to life of a bacteria found in an ice core in Greenland that is thought to be 120,000 years old.

You can read about it here:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=bug-resurrected-after-120000-years-2009-06

Gabriel,

Re: #697

Greg, your explanation of the ANE context of Genesis was great – you sound like you’ve been reading John Walton. The link is to some online lectures, one by Walton. Perhaps some might be interested.

Thank you. I do read Walton, and his lectures have been very helpful to me. Several hundred posts back I listed a number of resources from him that others could look into if they wanted to.

I dropped out of this debate because I’d said all I needed to say without much effect, but it’s good to see it still going strong! I haven’t been following it for the last week as I’ve been traveling, but it’s nice to see geocentrism brought into the discussion. YEC are in a tight bind with that one. Either they have to interpret it literally or they have to admit science can be used to alter an interpretation (as I pointed out in post #358 and 417.

Hi John,

I agree that this might not be the place to open up a whole new discussion, but let me make a few points.

Your life/non-life objection is at once an interesting scientific question and irrelevant to evolution. Yes, understanding abiogenesis is important for a consistent philosophical materialist/naturalist position, but TEs do not advocate for philosophical materialism/naturalism. Evolution is about how life changes over time. Abiogenesis is about how life arises from non-life. Evolution gets on just fine describing how living things change even if how life ultimately arose remains unclear (although there is a lot of interesting work being done in abiogenesis too – more so than you give credit for). Claiming that evolution stands or falls with abiogenesis is like arguing American history is meaningless because we don’t understand what happened at t=0 for the big bang.

Josh @ 709:

Good question: Darrel Falk’s Coming to Peace with Science is good, but avoids human evolution until the last page; Francis Collins’ book Language of God is good except he is a better biologist than theologian, and Gordon J. Glover’s Beyond the Firmament is excellent, even though Gordon is not a biologist – he did his homework and had biologists proof his material. Highly recommended.

Gordon also has a video series I recommend heartily (you can watch while you wait for his book to come from Amazon or whatever).

If you want to dig a bit further, here are some recorded lectures that Gordon hosts on his site – dealing with evolution and Christian responses to them, from an evangelical perspective. Scroll down the page, the videos are the big black boxes further down. They’re lengthy (over 2 hours of material), but detailed. They’re from an intro biology class at an evangelical university.

Ice Cores

Studies of naturally deposited ice have revealed that the precipitation and depositions of snow form layers and contain information about the conditions of the earth at the time the deposition was made. The air is squeezed out of these layers, which then become more like solid ice. The ice layers correlate to physically dateable phenomena. Estimates of the ages of some of the ice formations have exceeded hundreds of thousands of years old, much more than the YEC chronology of only 6,000 years for the earth.

Scientists who work on Greenland observe annual summer and winter bands (a band being one or more related layers) being deposited. The summer band is more airy and layered because in the summer snowfalls alternate with frosts. The comparatively (to winter) warmer summer air can hold more moisture and some of the fallen snow vapourizes and then falls to the ground again as frost during the colder night time. The vapourizing and frosting phenomenon rarely occurs in the winter because the day time temperature is usually too low for vapourization. In addition to the distinctive banding resulting from frost layers in the summer, there are a number of other phenomena that distinguish the summer bands from the winter ones.

Oxygen isotopes: Different stable isotopes of oxygen will be found in the precipitation depending on the temperature at the time of precipitation. Scientists have and do observe a summer / winter cycle of isotopes (some isotopes are more common in the summer bands, others in the winter bands).

Conductivity: Summer snow contains more acid impurities than winter snow. The impurities reduce the conductivity of the ice. Again, this variation is annual.

Hydrogen Peroxide: More hydrogen peroxide is present in summer snow because there is a greater level of sunlight producing it. Again, this variation is annual.

Beryllium-10 isotope: This levels of this isotope in the atmosphere, which falls to the surface (i.e. on the snow), correlates to the level of cosmic rays the sun outputs. This amounts of the isotope present in the ice varies with the 11-year sunspot cycle, and with the 1,700 year “Maunder minimum” sunspot cycle. The rises and falls in the isotope levels can be tracked in the ice.

Volcanic Eruptions: Volcanic erruptions leave traces such as greater amounts of acid precipitation that are quite different from the annual layers. These events can be found in the Greenland ice and used to check or calibrate the calculations of the annual cycles. Layers correlating to the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 , among others, have been identified.

Pollen: Certain pollen producing plants favour warmer climates over cooler ones, and vice versa, and pollens found in the ice layers can be correlated to changing climatic conditions.

There are over 110,000 banded layers in Greenland’s ice.

Further to my post 716

Volcanoes: In addition to acid precipitation, volcanoes also spread ash from their eruptions which is deposited on the ice. The ash can also be related to specific eruptions from specific volcanoes and dated.

Seasonal variations in dust: The wind in Greenland blows most strongly in the late winter and early spring, and at those times more dust is deposited over the snow. So one year of snow deposition is equal to one high dust and one low dust pair.

re post 613. Excellent point about the bacteria, mbaker. I was unaware of that.

re post 715

Yes, your point is correct, which is why I specfically referred to materialist evolution–which you picked up on. God can do things however he wants, and I suppose he could put as much information inside an original cell as was needed to start and to direct evolution. However, I’ve seen no indication that such information is present (and I’m aware that not all information that shapes an organisms form and biology is present in the DNA; there is some also in the other components of the cells used in reproduction). In addition, the distinction made in the text concerning Adam’s creration makes it apparent that he would have been created differently from the animals (whether or not the animals were created using evolution). Darwinian evolution (mutation and natural selection) is too improbable for a number of reasons; indeed I would say impossible. I also think that Mendel was on the right track in his opposition to Darwinian evolution and his theory of the stability of species. All species, regardless of “level” of “development” are resistent to change and the error correcting mechanisms in cells are too strong–even at a bacterial level–to be overcome. Moreover, even many materialist scientists have given up on untangling the so-called tree of life (from common origin). So if the animals and plants evolved, then God would have had to have had a hand in it either at the start or along the way or both.

Next up, coral reefs. If I’m hammering the nails into the coffin of YECism, I may as well hammer them all in.

Regards,
#John

John,

By all means, hammer them in. After you dance on the smoking corpse of YECism, perhaps we can talk more thoroughly.

Are you familiar with the story in Acts when Priscilla & Aquilla meet Apollos? You are mighty against YEC my friend, but you need someone to teach you about the evidence for evolution if ye know only the baptism of Mendel (sorry, couldn’t resist mixing my metaphors).

The irony is that you are committing the same fallacies about evolution that you so rightly chastise YECers for. I do not say this with harshness or malice in any way – but your arguments against evolution are as shallow as the arguments for YECism that you so ably dismantle, and are as easily shown up as false by real data.

Do you want to know the truth? It’s time to choose the red pill or the blue pill, my friend. The rabbit hole is deep, but God is still there all the way.

If you’d rather not know, I fully understand.

Best,

gabe

Gabe: “The irony is that you are committing the same fallacies about evolution that you so rightly chastise YECers for.”

Will the peanut gallery please stop their snickering?

“I do not say this with harshness or malice in any way – but your arguments against evolution are as shallow as the arguments for YECism that you so ably dismantle, and are as easily shown up as false by real data.”

I wonder if John will have the same dogged determination to persevere in his arguments against Gabe as he did against Richard.

“Do you want to know the truth? It’s time to choose the red pill or the blue pill, my friend.”

The blue pill is neo-Darwinian macro-evolution (which includes abiogenesis). The red pill is creationism. (The red pill comes primarily in two flavors: Old Earth and Young Earth).

re 718

Gabe, if the YECs stop responding I’d love to take you up on the conversation. Theistic evolution is one of the dishes CMP served up at the beginning of this meal, so it’s very much in line with this thread. I’ve read some literature on the topic, but not as much as on the age of the earth. Science is not scary, because it is just the investigation of what God has done in this universe of His. He can do what He want, how He wants and when He wants to. I don’t know how much of this thread you’ve followed (there is a partial index a few posts up), but I deal with scientists and experts all the time. Like any other group there are bad apples, but I generally find them to be sincere and hard working and not trying to pull the wool over anyone. But they do make mistakes, and plenty of them (good thing too, it keeps me employed). Yet they are still right more often than not.

Cheers,
John

Now, on to . . .

Coral Reefs

YEC websites claim that the oldest living reefs are only 3,500 to 4,200 years old (depends on which website you read). The key issue here is how fast coral reefs grow, because one can measure the vertical thickness (depth) of reefs and divide that by a maximum growth rate to obtain the minimum possible age (i.e., the reef has to be at least “x” years old even if we assume the maximum possible growth rate, given how thick it is).

YEC websites invariably rely on a single anamalously high estimate rate of 414mm(!)/yr. That estimate is based on a single source, a “soundings” done in the early 1930’s and reported in a 1932 paper by J. Verstelle, ‘The Growth Rate at Various Depths of Coral Reefs in the Dutch East-Indian Archipelago’, Treubia 14:117-126, 1932.

An important part of science is public reporting and replication. That is, one reports one’s findings so that others can check one’s work. Errors and mistakes are frequently found this way, and then corrected. Verstelle’s reported growth rate has never been corroborated in the 77 years since he published. Verstelle’s measuring method in the 30s was not only crude because of the available technology of the time, but it was clearly in error. No marine biologist or oceanologist has ever reported such a high growth rate even for individual corals, let alone an entire reef.

That last sentence includes an important point: a reef is composed of a number of different types of corals and other organisms. A reef’s growth rate is therefore not the rate of growth of any one individual species, but the growth rate of the collection of organisms taken as a whole. What are those growth rates?

Hubbard et al. (1990), estimated growth rates of 0.7 tp 3.3mm per year. Davies and Hopley (1983) estimated a *maximum* of 20mm/yr. Smith and Kinsey (1976) listed rates of 2-5mm/yr. Smith and Harrison (1977) listed rates of 0.8-1.1mm/yr, and so on. [cont.]

Before I continue my post 720, I would like to point out that the phrase “peanut gallery” is actually racially offensive to many people. It refers to the fact that in the days of segregation Blacks were restricted to the balconies (galleries) of theatres. Blacks were also derogatively referred to as peanuts because they were often poor and ate a lot of easily grown peanuts. You can figure out the rest.

Back to reefs.

Many additional studies indicate Holocene reef growth histories on the order of 1-15mm/yr, with the upper range only being attained in reefs dominated by the fast-growing Acropora corals (e.g. Aronson et al., 1998; Hubbard, 2001).

To save space and boredom, I provide below only two of the references, but anyone can look this stuff up in journals of marine biology or oceanology.

Hoffmeister, J.E. Growth Rate Estimates of a Pleistocene Coral Reef of Florida, GSA Bulletin, v. 75, p. 353-358.

Hubbard, Dennis K., and David Scaturo. 1985. Growth rates of seven species of Scleractinean corals from Cane Bay and Salt River, St. Croix, USVI. Bull. Marine Science 36, no. 2: 325-38.

This brings us to the reef that gives YECs nightmares: the Eniwetok atoll is a reef in the Marshall Islands. Drill cores show that this reef is about 4600ft thick, and rests atop the surface of a submerged volcanic seamount. In terms of texture and composition, this reef is very similar to buried reef structures in the fossil record (more on that in anohter post). Could this 4,500 foot thick reef form in the 4500 year post-flood period?

No.

Studies of reef growth in the modern Pacific show that even under ideal conditions, the growth of the actual reefs is only on the order of 8-10mm a year. It is true that individual corals can grow a bit faster than this, but this cannot be used to estimate the growth rate of the *reef* itself, since the reef is not one giant coral, but is largely composed of billions of coral fragments that are broken by waves and cemented to the growing mass.

Therefore, assuming an average 10mm per yr growth rate, the Eniwetok Reef would require 140,000 years to grow to its present thickness. This growth rate assumes continuous optimal growth rates and reef subsidence (a major limiting factor, see below), no compaction, no destruction by storms, no temporal breaks in growth, etc. Optimal conditions would not prevail over the entire assumed period of 4,500 years since the Noahic flood, thus any estimate based on extrapolation of optimal reef growth rates is clearly a minimum possible age. Even using the Davies and Hopley maximum of 20 mm/yr., one would still require a minimum of 70,000 years under continuous optimal conditions.

But we know for certain that optimal conditions have not prevailed continuously at Eniwetok reef. There are at least 3 major weathered layers in it, at 300ft, 1000ft, and 2,800ft. [cont.]

I would like to point out that the phrase “peanut gallery” is actually racially offensive to many people. It refers to the fact that in the days of segregation Blacks were restricted to the balconies (galleries) of theatres. Blacks were also derogatively referred to as peanuts because they were often poor and ate a lot of easily grown peanuts.

As a child of the ’50’s (and a Howdy Doody fan), I use the term non-pejoratively:

http://www.tvacres.com/fans_peanutgallery.htm

Peanut Gallery – The nickname of the “forty fortunate” children (originally eight kids) who got tickets to sit in the (ground-level) audience of the popular children’s puppet live-action program HOWDY DOODY/NBC/1947-60.

The show featured a man dressed in a buckskin costume named Buffalo Bob Smith who lived and worked in a circus town of Doodyville with a freckled face marionette boy named Howdy Doody.

At the start of each program, Buffalo Bob asked the children of the Peanut Gallery the popular question “Say, Kids, What time is it?” to which they boisterously replied, “It’s Howdy Doody Time! (see theme song lyrics below).

“It’s Howdy Doody Time.
It’s Howdy Doody Time.
Bob Smith and Howdy too,
Say ‘Howdy Do’ to you.
Let’s give a rousing cheer
For Howdy Doody’s here.
It’s time to start the show,
So kids let’s GO!”

Howdy Doody Theme Song Lyrics
— by Edward Kean

Because the HOWDY DOODY program was a cult happening, the rush for tickets to be a member of the Peanut Gallery was overwhelming. It was rumored that the waiting list for the show was so long that pregnant mothers sent in ticket requests for their unborn children to be sure to get a spot on the show in the future

Unfortunately, the studio audience was limited to forty-fifty members due to a fire department safety rules. So, with some of the seats always going to friends of the staff and notable celebrities with connections, not all the seats went to the tots who requested membership in television’s most exclusive club.

On September 24, 1960 (after 2,343 programs) the kids of the Peanut Gallery bid a fond farewell to the program. In 1971, the syndicated revival THE NEW HOWDY DOODY SHOW had a short run.

In 1987, The Howdy Doody 40th Birthday Special reunited the original cast members as well as grown up men and women who had been a part of the Peanut Gallery in years past.

TRIVIA NOTE: The United Feature comic strip called “Li’l Folks” created by cartoonist Charles Schulz was renamed to “Peanuts” in honor of the kids in the Peanut Gallery.

The term ‘Peanut Gallery’ is American slang dating to the 1880s. It refers to the upper tier balcony section of a theater (the cheap seats where “noisy and irreverent” people watched the performance and ate peanuts). In Britain, the top tier theatres seats are called “the gods” because they are so high up (seemingly near heaven).

I SAID: “Will the peanut gallery please stop their snickering?”

😉

John CT: “Gabe, if the YECs stop responding I’d love to take you up on the conversation.”

Dear Richard and other YECs, may I request a unilateral truce on your part against OEC? I’d like to see how much John would truly “love” to take Gabe up on this conversation as he claims.

Of course, if YECs would like to redirect their arguments against Gabe and other “theistic evolutionists”, that would be fine.

TU… aD:

And per my post #702 (which no one has addressed), I’d like to see the scientific evidence/arguments that all homo sapiens came from a single specially-created homo sapien pair who shared identical DNA (i.e., if the woman was built from the man’s side/rib, her DNA would match his, though I guess YHWH Elohim removed the Y chromosomes from the cells of the parts He took and used).

Well, it appears that what I recalled reading in my class on slang during my days in university is either one of the disputed origins of the phrase or an urban legend. The earliest attested use of the phrase appears in the late 1800s and is not used racially, but in the manner discussed above (I did some quick research). However, given that the seats and snacks in the balcony were cheap, I can see how the legend about a potential origin for that phrase did arise. I’m not black anyway, so what do I know, except that sensitivity policies and training at work has made me (hyper?)sensitive to the potential of language to offend. I did not assume that the user of the phrase meant anything pejorative by it (apologies if it came across that way), and I have learned something new today. The ability of people blogging on this website to make interesting contributions is one reason why I like coming here.

Back to corals.

Regards,
#John

re 702 and 724

I don’t know much about that topic. There is, of course, the Eve Study of mitochondrial DNA, and an interesting review of that can be found at “The Great DNA Hunt”, by Tabitha M. Powledge and Mark Rose, Archaeology, Volume 49, Number 5, September/October 1996, web address: http://www.archaeology.org/9609/abstracts/dna.html

You’d think that starting with just one pair would leave traces of that genetic bottleneck such as we find in modern examples of rare animals descended from a species bottleneck.

And then there is the theory that Adam was one man that God picked out from the many on earth, and then placed into a garden so that he could start from there and extend God’s garden and rule to the entire earth.

What are your thoughts, EricW?

Regards
#John

It appears to me that singular nouns are used in Genesis 1 to refer to plurals – e.g., “tree,” “bird,” “beast,” “cattle,” refer to the creation of “trees,” “birds,” “beasts,” “cattle,” etc.

Wouldn’t the natural reading of Genesis 1:26-30 be that God here created the human race/species/kind – i.e., several or many male and female humans – to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, and not just a single adam (and/or a single male-female pair of adams)?

To what extent is the teaching that Genesis 2 is a “more detailed” retelling of Genesis 1 responsible for people reading Genesis 1:26ff. as telling the creation of only one adam (and/or one male-female pair) on day 6?

– – –

John: My thoughts on this are not clear. My recollection of the “Eve” mitochondrial study is that it points back to 10 or 18 original “Eves” or something like that; I haven’t read the articles for a long time.

Corals

[cont. from my post 721, and the prior 720]

These weathered layers display phenomena indicating exposure above sea level. For example, they show the type of calcite cementation which develops on exposed reef surfaces. These layers are also extremely enriched in pollen, most of which appears to be from Mangrove trees, such as grow on many exposed reefs in the Pacific today. (reference: Leopold, E. B., 1969, “Bikini and Nearby Atolls, Marshall Islands, Miocene Pollen and Spore Flora of Eniwetok Atoll, Marshall Islands,” U. S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 260-II , U. S. Government Printing Office, 53 pp). The upward / vertically thickness growth of the Eniwetok reef was thus disrupted at least three times.

This brings us to the next point: Corals only grow under water and their vertical growth upward is limited by the rate of subsidence (sinking) of the material (e.g. volcano) they are growing on.

Thus, even if a reef could grow at, say, 20 mm per year (double the observed rates of coral reef growth), , the reef can still only grow to the surface of the water. Where rates of subsidence of seamounts have been be measured, it has been found to be only a few mm per year. The Hawaiian Islands, for example, which are similar in most respects to the submerged seamount atop which the Eniwetok atoll rests, are subsiding at only a few mm per year.

Carbon dating of drowned reefs on the side of Hawaii show that it has subsided at this slow rate for hundreds of thousands of years. In fact, one can actually predict the radiometric ages of a drowned coral reef, with considerable accuracy, simply by dividing the depth in mm by the observed subsidence rates in mm per year. Then one can do the radiometric dating. The age predicted from the subsidence predicted estimate will match closely the date obtained from the radiometric testing.

Finally, in 1981 there was a trial of a recently passed Arkansas law which required that creationism be taught in schools (McLean v. Arkansas). The creationist witness Dr. Ariel Roth testified in respect of, among other things, the rate of coral growth:

“Roth, [who was] not a member of the CRS [Creation Research Society], was presented as an expert on coral reefs whose thesis is that corals grow very rapidly and do not need millions of years to form massive reefs. He testified for 70 minutes, but the cross-examination was brief. Q: “What is the last sentence of your article on the growth of coral reefs?” A: “…this does not establish rapid growth of coral development.” Q: “Is there any evidence that coral reefs were created in recent times?” A: “No.” Q: “No further questions.”” (Berra, Tim M. 1990. Evolution and the Myth of Creationism Standford University Press, Stanford, California, pp. 134-5) See also the McLean v. Arkansa Documentation Project, http://www.antievolution.org/projects/mclean/new_site/index.htm

I would really like to hear a well documented and well balanced case for theistic evolution as well, with or without a literal Adam and Eve.

In my opinion, we all need to be more well versed in each of these positions so we can offer more than the present all or nothing view of creation (which generally pits science vs. God) when folks ask the inevitable probing questions.

Perhaps Rob Bowman would be kind enough to share some of the course he is teaching on creation with us on this thread.

TUAD,

What is your take on everything John has been saying? I’m very curious how you deal with the evidence for an old earth. Do you accept it? Ignore it? Do you think John is mistaken, or even lying? Do your eyes glaze over? Do you just skip the posts you’ve decided you don’t agree with?

I know you place great faith on a popular tradition regarding the creation account, but where do you stand when the rubber meets the road finally? When you actually have to deal with the evidence that is not at all friendly to your chosen view?

What if Gabriel bests John? What would you do then? Would you reconsider your current view in light of new evidence? Or would you just recess deeper into your insulated capsule?

What do you do when the evidence opposes you?

I would really like to hear a well documented and well balanced case for theistic evolution as well, with or without a literal Adam and Eve.

Are you interested in the theology or the science? Or both? I’ll be a better source for the science than for the theology. I’m a working biologist, but an amateur theologian, although I’ve read quite widely and audited several courses through a local seminary.

What if Gabriel bests John? What would you do then?

I don’t get the sense that John is adversarial, so I don’t think we need to view this as a contest. How about I lay out some lines of evidence that I see as convincing and we’ll discuss them? I’d rather do this Berean style, if possible.

Note: what follows is cut-and-paste from an ongoing email exchange that I am currently engaged in with a fellow from my local congregation. Getting accosted about evolution is a job-related hazard for Christian biologists. This conversation is still developing, but I might as well exapt the material and not reinvent the wheel.

Ok, on to the evidence: line of evidence #1: biogeography

Biogeography is the study of the distribution of species, and it was one of the first hints that species did not have an independent creation. Independent creation was the working model in biology that Darwin’s ideas would change. (Now, there were some hints before Darwin that evolution happened – Darwin’s work was notable because it provided a testable hypothesis for a mechanism).

Darwin’s famous finches are an example of a biogeographical distribution of species highly suggestive of descent. Why is it the Galapagos have a multitude of finch species found nowhere else? Also, these species vary widely in shape and manner of life – niches filled by non-finch species elsewhere. For example, there are woodpecker-like ones, warbler-like ones, and so on. Darwin didn’t even know they were finches until an ornithologist examined them all after the voyage, and told a surprised Darwin they were all finches.

Darwin also collected fossils on his trips as well as living organisms. He was very delighted to find a glyptodont – an extinct plated animal – in South America. He was struck with its similarity to living armadillos – something new to him – also found in South America. This correspondence between the fossils and the living in a biogeographical area was repeated time and time again, until Darwin came to view it as something of a scientific law.

This evidence, that groups of related species are derived from one another through speciation, is now not even controversial among most creationists – as I discussed last time. Baraminology is a response to the (a) the strong evidence and (b) the need to trim down the species load on the ark.

(cont)

(cont)

Now, the evidence from biogeography stretches past the baramin. The classic example are the marsupials of Australia. Marsupials are mammals found only in Australia and South America (the SA one is the opossum – however, it has has since migrated up even to our area). Why are they found only there? There is very good evidence that SA, Australia were once connected (via Antartica). Based on this evidence, researchers sought out and found fossil marsupials on Antartica in the 1980s, supporting the hypothesis.

As an aside, fossil marsupials are found nowhere else. How YECs deal with this problem (since marsupials should radiate from Ararat about 4000 years ago) is, to put it gently, a humourous stretch. I have seen it argued, in a scholarly publication, that one settler descended from one of Noah’s sons went off to Australia packing breeding pairs of no less than 17 marsupial “kinds” or baramins. These forms then died off without a trace elsewhere, except for the opossum (and the fossil kinds of SA) that somehow made it over the Atlantic, without leaving a trace anywhere else.

These are selected examples, but they are legion; my personal favourite deals with the vast numbers of Drosophila species on Hawaii (a relatively recent volcanic island that has a multitude of plants and animals found nowhere else).

These lines of argument that are needed to support separate creation and preservation on the ark where what began to bother Darwin more and more, and eventually helped lead him to postulate that descent, which was the one biological mechanism known to produce similarity, perhaps explained similarity above the species level.

Sorry, I realized that I omitted a previous email (that I refer to above):

Re: speciation, macro/micro evolution and “created kinds”: here things are a bit muddled – these terms mean different things to creationists and evolutionary biologists. (As an aside, I will probably use the term “creationist” as a technical term that is shorthand for “anti-evolutionist”. There are, of course, folks like me who are creationists who accept evolution as a means of creation, but in general “creationist” = anti-evolutionist unless otherwise specified).

“Created kind” is a technical term used by YEC biologists to describe what they envision as the species related by descent from an original created animal pair described in Genesis. A created kind, or baramin (a term coined using the Hebrew bara and min, “created” and “kind”) is a grouping of species – for example, all equines are one baramin (horses, donkeys, zebras, etc), all felids are one baramin (lions, tigers, jaguars, lynxes, cheetahs, domestic cats, etc), all canines are one baramin (wolves, foxes, coyotes, domestic dogs, etc), and so on. The “study of created kinds” or “baraminology” is a form of taxonomy unique to YECs.

(aside: are you ok with these acronyms? – YEC = Young Earth Creationist; OEC = Old Earth Creationist, ID = intelligent design, TE/EC = theistic evolution / evolutionary creationism).

(cont)

YEC baraminologists agree that related species have diverged from one another (i.e. undergone speciation) within a baramin. They would view this as “microevolution.” Why this approach, you might ask? Why not have a separate creation for lions and tigers, et cetera? The issue is that the abundance of species we see today is beyond what one can squeeze onto Noah’s Ark. If God only created pairs ancestral to groups of related species, then there are less species to accommodate on the voyage (recall: all species, including ones known only as fossils, such as the varied dinosaur species, also were on the Ark according to the YEC view. So, saving space is not a trivial issue). YEC baraminologists hold that divergence / speciation after the flood was rapid and widespread – after all, you need to arrive at present biodiversity from ancestral pairs in less than 4,000 years (!). An aside: even though this is classified as “microevolution”, it is actually a model for extremely rapid and widespread evolution of new species – far, far more rapid than standard biology would even think to suggest. I think YECs hold that God miraculously accelerated the process. (as an aside, the Wood paper is struggling to come up with any logic that might indicate that humans and chimps are in separate baramins. The problem is that there is much more genetic diversity within accepted baramins (felids for example) that exists between humans and chimps. If you split humans and chimps into separate created kinds, then using consistent criteria one would have to split felids, canines, etc etc, and soon you’ve overfilled poor Noah’s Ark. If, on the other hand you want to keep those baramins together, then there is no logical way to split humans and chimps into separate groups. Perhaps now you can appreciate what haunts Wood in that article.

If all this seems a little far-fetched, recall that a dedicated YEC thinks his faith stands or falls with a 6000-10,000 year old earth / cosmos and individual creation of animals.

Mainstream biology views “micro” as within species and “macro” as a speciation event, but holds that these terms are differences in scale, not differences of type. You can have very large physical changes within a species, and very small changes that cause speciation. Most biologists don’t use micro/macro evolution terminology much anymore, although some still do.

Note: the Wood paper (PDF)
is an honest, accurate paper on the human : chimpanzee genome similarity “problem” from a YEC (!) perspective. Highly recommended for YECs!

gabriel:

Wood writes/concludes:

THE FUTURE OF CREATIONIST GENOMICS
The genome revolution, exciting though it is, is not an obvious victory for creationism. Although more data allows for better testing of ideas, the data that we have present significant challenges to creationist theory, particularly in the realm of biological similarity. I am confident that a solution to most of the problems in this article will be forthcoming. How quickly these issues are resolved, however, will depend entirely on our research priorities and how we choose to pursue those priorities. If we wish to be good stewards of our very limited resources, we should avoid projects that are unlikely to be productive (e.g. overemphasizing potentially insignificant differences or trivializing the striking similarities) and focus instead on one of the most pressing problems in biology, biological similarity.

It seems that Occam’s razor favors rejecting Creationist attempts to resolve these issues. I.e., if the simplest and best and most-data-agreeing hypothesis (not including the biblical creation and flood accounts) is common descent, then Creationist theories would likely be examples of unnecessarily multiplying entities, ISTM. (I’m not necessarily saying that Occam’s Razor is a tested and proven scientific principle; in fact, I don’t know to what extent scientists pay attention to it.) From Wikipedia:

Occam’s razor, also Ockham’s razor,[1] is the principle that “entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily.” It is apocryphally attributed to 14th-century English logician and Franciscan friar, William of Ockham. The principle states that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible, eliminating those that make no difference in the observable predictions of the explanatory hypothesis or theory. The principle is often expressed in Latin as the lex parsimoniae (“law of parsimony”, “law of economy”, or “law of succinctness”): entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem, roughly translated as “entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity.” An alternative version Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate translates “plurality should not be posited without necessity.”[2]

When multiple competing hypotheses are equal in other respects, the principle recommends selecting the hypothesis that introduces the fewest assumptions and postulates the fewest entities. It is in this sense that Occam’s razor is usually understood. To quote Isaac Newton: “We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances. Therefore, to the same natural effects we must, so far as possible, assign the same causes.”[3]

To straightforwardly summarize the principle as it is most commonly understood, “Of several acceptable explanations for a phenomenon, the simplest is preferable.” (snip)

eric:

Indeed, YEC and other anti-evolution views run up against Occam’s Razor time and time again. If it happened only once in a while, perhaps this could be excused; as it is, that they do is the rule, not the exception.

I know of no explanation from a anti-common descent perspective that explains the human : chimp genomic comparison data better.

Wood’s paper is intriguing to me because it demonstrates that one can approach the data honestly, even from a YEC perspective. Comparing Wood’s paper with stuff at ICR or AiG is a telling study in contrasts.

More to come soon.

gabe

Second line of evidence: homology, vestigial homology, & nested hierarchies

Note: I am going to avoid DNA evidence for now, and continue to focus on other lines of evidence.

One feature of living organisms that has struck biologists since the 1600s is that life comes to us in nested hierarchies – sets within sets. These sets are based on what are called homologous (or “roughly equivalent”) structures: Off the cuff, this might not seem like strong evidence for macroevolution, and this line of evidence will grow stronger once we consider DNA later, but consider these questions:

Why do only vertebrates have scales?

Why do only mammals have hair?

Why are all land dwelling vertebrates tetrapods (i.e. they have four limbs)?

In a non-evolutionary world, we might expect to see these traits mixed and matched in other groups – fish with hair, perhaps, or mollusks with scales, or squid with four limbs.

A related issue we confront is that some members of defined groups lack features we expect – dolphins, for example, don’t have hair or four limbs yet they are mammals (and thus all should be tetrapods as well). What we see in these cases is evidence for loss – loss of hair and hind limbs in the case of dolphins. The evidence for hindlimb loss in cetaceans (whales, dolphins, porpoises, etc) is discussed in that online lecture; cetacean fetuses also have nascent facial hair in utero that is lost. Thus these “odd” members still have the homologous structure, but it is vestigial – present in a reduced or altered form. It may still have a reduced function, but the function has changed from what the equivalent structure does in other members of the hierarchical group.

Vestigial traits allow biologists to make predictions about what one should find in the fossil record. As an example consider a bird’s wing. Birds are vertebrates, hence they are tetrapods (four limbed) – except the front limbs are present as wings. Is there evidence for a transition between a modern bird and something more recognizable as a four-limbed precursor? You might be familiar with Archaeopteryx and similar fossil reptile-like birds – these species have wings with claws on them (about halfway along the wing). They also have long, reptilian-style tails. These forms, in turn, show great similarity to previous reptiles in the fossil record (small therapod dinosaurs, actually. Did you know that modern birds are a surviving line of dinosaurian ancestry?) A similar line of evidence discussed in that lecture is the vestigial hindlimb bones in modern whales – and the fossil species known that are arranged in the correct temporal sequence leading up to the modern forms. This is also covered in that online lecture I sent you before.

Note: the “online lecture” I refer to is the same one I linked to in comment 715.

It is strange that the original poll for this thread showed so many readers voting for YEC, but only a half dozen or so made significant posts, and only two (Richard and Steve B) contributed substantively over the long term, with Richard doing most of the heavy lifting (TUaD also made some contributions).

After 700+ posts it appears to be established that YECs are incorrect in their speculations and have no adequate response to OE science in the following areas:

1. Radiometric dating
2. Sedimentary rock formation in general
3. The Joggins Cliffs in particular
4. The Green River Formation in particular
5. Ice cores
6. Coral reefs

The YECs are in the same boat with respect to the interpretation of Genesis 1, and cannot prove either that their intrepretation is exclusively correct or that OE interpretations are untenable.

It has been shown that YECs are in the same position now that geocentrics were in the time of Galileo, and that their “straightforward” hermeneutic is not only naive and shallow, but also does not permit them to escape having to defend modern day geocentricity. YEC organizations that do so are acting inconsistently and have no adequate rebuttal to the scriptural arguments of geocentrists.

It has also been demonstrated the YEC beliefs have a pernicious effect on evangelism, faith growth, and faith retention / loss.

I’ll put one more nail in the YEC coffin in respect of ocean sediments, and then turn to dealing with theistic evolution with Gabe (and catching up with my index to this thread, which I will make available as a Word .doc via a hotmail account).

Regards
#John

@Gabe:

You asked:

“Are you interested in the theology or the science? Or both?”

Both, and how they interact, or not, and why, with the Genesis account. Similarities, differences, etc; and weak points, strong points.

Great stuff so far.

@John:

Thanks again for all the work you have put into this thread. There is an enormous amount of information here, and I’d sure appreciate a copy of the index when you’re done. I’ve researched so much of this on my own, but it is so scattered out, and this thread represents an excellent opportunity to bring together a lot of resources and well thought out opinions in one spot.

Wow!

I was out of town for 2 weeks and you guys have written a book while I was gone! Don’t know when I will be able to get caught up on all of these comments. Wonder if this thread could win a spot in Guinness for the longest ongoing comnent thread in history?

I have a question that I wonder if someone can answer for me. Maybe someone else brought it up while I was gone, don’t know. I read Mark 10:6 yesterday. It says, “But from the beginning of creation, {God} MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE.”

It seems to me that Jesus here seems to be referring to a young earth as He says humans were made, “from the beginning of creation.” (The context of the comment was a discussion on divorce.)

Thoughts anyone??

since John continues to state radiometric dates are a coffin nail, I’ll go ahead and repeat myself as well: repeat of post 463 (June 8 9am)

[John wrote] Radiometric dating has been shown to be reliable, and we have been over that ground in this thread.

Only if my posts which document the frequent errors are simply ignored….which is what has occurred so far. What I’ve posted has not been responded to.

Anyone actually interested in this subject should read my post about the dating of the lava dome at Mt St Helens and the articles linked as a starting point. [post 357]

I’ll not comment further on John’s assertions in this matter.

Wonder if this thread could win a spot in Guinness for the longest ongoing comnent thread in history?

No. I think that award goes to the TIME MACHINE thread in the “DVD Movie, Concerts, and Music Discussion and Reviews” forum of AVSForum.com: 6105 posts from 3/9/02 to 5/26/09:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=931711#post931711

EricW,

Guess this thread has a long way to go to catch up then, huh?

re 740

Taken in a straightforward manner, “from the beginning of creation” means from day 1, but it cannot be that because Adam was created on day 6 and Eve subsequent to Adam. So either, it must be an expression like “as old as the hills” which means “very old” and thus mean therefore a way of emphasizing “from the beginning”, or it means from the beginning of the creation of man and woman (using an ellipsis, that is, not stating “of man and woman” but implying it). One must keep in mind the context, Jesus is not dating the origin of mankind, but stressing that the intent for man and woman has never at any time been any different, but always the same. Consequently, that text has no bearing on the age of the earth.

re 742

My reply was (1) that the fact that some stones are difficult to date does not invalidate the dating method for other stones, and (2) some stones are composed of materials made / formed at different times and so give different dates, and (3) subsequent and ongoing research has continued to eliminate more and more of those difficulties, and (4) the trend of all radiometric dating is in one direction: old, and (5) the essential methodology behind the various radiometric dating methods has not been rebutted. Indeed, the last point is so well confirmed that the YECs have been forced to use fanciful and unsupported speculations such as “the rate of radioactive decay of isotopes has changed over the past 6, 000 years”. But we can go back over that ground again if necessary for you.

Oceanic Sediments

As on the continents, sediment from eroded rock has been deposited on the ocean floor. What seems to be overlooked by YECs is that water running off the continents should have taken all or most of the sediment with it and put it on the bottoms of the oceans, where the water was running to as the water levels declined (so the YECs argue, because it was this rapid runoff that dug the deep Grand Canyon). But what do we find instead? The thickest layers of sedimentary rock are found on the continents themselves! Oh, and by the way, where did all the sediment come from in the first place? Did God create the world with several miles of earth and dust on the continents so that when the flood came it could squish it all down into miles of sedimentary rock? The whole concept is speculative and not just wildly improbable but actually physcially impossible.

Anyway, there are other problems.

The thinnest sediment is near the Mid-Atlantic Ridge where new sea floor is currently being generated, while the thickest sediment is on the submerged continental shelves, especially near the continents themselves. Given known and observable rates of erosion and deposition, there are millions of years worth of sedimentary deposits. The variance in the depth of sediment also relates to the observed and measured rate of sea floor spreading. [cont.]

John,

Regarding comments # 740 and # 744:

Mt. 19:4 also says that God made them “in the beginning.” God created the heavens and the earth “in the beginning.” I can’t see any other reading to this except to think that “God made them in the beginning”–at the same time as the rest of the earth and everything on it. I’m sorry, but any other reading seems to me to be very forced and unnatural and like it would only be come to if one is already completely convinced of an OEC position. I guess I just don’t agree with your interpretation on this one.

Are there any other thoughts on this subject out there?

Mt. 19:4 should of read “at the beginning”. I also see that some versions have it saying “from the beginning”. Maybe “from the beginning” doesn’t have quite as strong a connotation of the beginning of the earth as I would think with the other reading. That could possibly be more the beginning of the creation of man and woman. As you can tell, I am thinking as I write here!

From the beginning can be defined in two ways : God’s original plan for mankind, (noun) or in a literal sense of a descriptive passage what we were granted by Him to mean control over animals, plants etc; in the first place (adverb)?

We personally (obviously) do not have control over other humans, and how they act. Nor of the survival instinct of animals. If it was only “from the beginning”, in a literal sense, why would man have been created last and not first if he were designed originally to subdue over all the earth? And why wouldn’t these animals still be subject to our control, simply because they didn’t sin and we did?

And the greater question is: Has man been able to subdue the earth in all ways, i.e. our lack of control over weather, and other catastrophes such as earthquakes, and so on?

Was that as a result of the fall, or the fact that we never had control of those events in the first place?

Good thread. Thanks to all who spent so much time participating and contributing. I did not read it all, but I read a good couple hundred or more.

I’m an old earth Christian. The evidence demonstrates common descent. I accept it. Any lack of understanding of why the creator does what He does is on my part. I find God’s creation discovered through science all the more awe inspiring and indicative of His majesty. I look at the stunning intricacies of cellular biochemistry and genomics with joy. I have believed in empirical, peer reviewed science my whole adult life. I’ve been a Holy Spirit filled Bible loving Christian since I was 16. I feel no spiritual crisis. God has given us the ability to discover the truth of the natural world. His creation can be used as a witness for the Gospel if we let it.

Stop and let what science has discovered sink in for a moment. The magnitude and breadth of the physical reality He has created is beyond words. Watch this video. The best part is at the end when he runs a simulation that visualizes the gross structure of the universe. As you watch this remember this is at a scale where galaxies are points. Enjoy!

http://www.ted.com/talks/george_smoot_on_the_design_of_the_universe.html

This is the macro scale. The micro scale in the world of particle physics is just as stunning.

re 745 and 746

One has to think about Jesus’ listeners and what they thought, not what we think. When Jesus says “from the beginning”, he does not specify “of what”, i.e., “from the beginning of what“. So his listeners have to fill it in. Jesus is talking about marriage and divorce, the relationship between man and woman, and no about the beginning of the universe. As I’ve noted, Adam and Eve were not created on day one, so they were not there, in existence, “from the beginning.” Clearly Jesus is talking about the way God has always intended for the relationship to be. So, from the beginning can refer either to God’s intent (which is eternal), or to the beginning of man and woman.

More on Ocean Sediment

A digital total-sediment-thickness database for the world’s oceans and marginal seas has been compiled by the NOAA National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC). The data were gridded with a grid spacing of 5 arc-minutes by 5 arc-minutes. The following website has the map and provides the sources for its data, which includies (i) previously published isopach maps; (ii) ocean drilling results; and (iii) seismic reflection profiles: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/sedthick/sedthick.html

The distribution of sediments in the oceans is controlled by five primary factors:

1. Age of the underlying crust

2. Tectonic history of the ocean crust

3. Structural trends in basement

4. Nature and location of sediment source, and

5. Nature of the sedimentary processes delivering sediments to depocenters

Before we go further, let’s examine the difference between real science, and the pre-determined pseudoscience of YECs.

Real science actual develops and tests models of current and sediment deposition. For example, in “Experiment on Turbidity Currents and Their Deposits in a Model 3D Subsiding Minibasin” (Journal of Sedimentary Research; September 2005; v. 75; no. 5; p. 820-843) scientists studied an actual observed phenonema: Minibasins on the continental slope. These minibasins “are formed by the movement of salt or mud layers in the subsurface. The north slope of the Gulf of Mexico (GOM), for example, is riddled with salt-withdrawal minibasins ranging in scale from a few kilometers to tens of kilometers. These minibasins are often connected to each other by channels, which have been carved through the compensational ridges between basins by turbidity currents. The same turbidity currents tend to fill the minibasins with their deposits (turbidites). The process of deposition in a minibasin is not directly observable in the field. It can, however, be modeled at laboratory scale.”

So, the phenomena of minibasins was observed, and then a model of the formation and development of those was developed and then tested in the lab.

Contrast that to to YEC flood geology. YECs do not have any testable model of the ocean currents during the flood. YECs do not have a model, or the math, of…

[cont. from my post 748]

YECs do not have a model, or the math, of the currents during the flood, of the direction and speed of the currents at different depths, how they flowed over or around continents, how they would have moved the ark around on the surface, etc. All they have are mere speculation. And what happens when real scientists demonstrate that YEC speculations are wrong, or are rebutted, or are shown impossible? The YECs don’t do science, they retreat to their predetermined answer, “God told us he created the earth 6,000 years ago, we just don’t have the science to back it up, and those godless athiests and their so-called Christian lackeys must be wrong. For example, how about this quote from that YEC hero, J. Sarfati: “We should remember, if confronted with other ‘unanswerable’ challenges to the biblical world view, that even if we don’t have all the answers, God does. And He, in His good time, may raise up godly scientists to discover them.” (Creation Magazine, Volume 21, Issue 2. Published on the web at answersingenesis.org/creation/v21/i2/yellowstone.asp)

In other words, if it doesn’t fit the young earth model, then it must be flawed, and re-evaluated until it does agree. Using that assumption, it is impossible to prove an old earth from their perspective. So much for young earth creation scientists honestly evaluating the evidence without any bias. They have already reached the conclusion that the earth is young, before they examine the evidence.

And remember: The YECs are fallible humans who have reached their fallible interpretation of Genesis using their fallible minds and human reasoning. Well, except for the tiny problem that YECs cannot admit that their interpretation might be fallible; on the contrary, they act as if their interpretation was God given.

Let’s return to the real science, OK?

Oceanic crust covers about 60 percent of the Earth’s surface. Oceanic crust is thin and young—no more than about 20 km thick and never older than about 180 million years. Everything older has been pulled underneath the continents by subduction. Oceanic crust is born at the midocean ridges, where pressure upon the underlying mantle is released and the peridotite there begins to melt in response. The part that melts becomes basaltic lava, which rises and erupts while the remaining peridotite becomes depleted.

The 180 million year age is important, because it is confirmed three ways: (1) radiometric dating, (2) the observed rate of movement of the tectonic plates of the earth’s crust, and (3) the observed rate of sediment deposition in relation to the observed depths of sediment on the ocean floor.

The thinnest sediment is near the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (take at the map of ocean sediments that I posted above) where new sea floor is currently being generated. That is to say, sediment thickness there is zero or near zero. The thickest sediment is…