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→Any Suggestions: Genetics, roos, Darwin, old ages, and more.
:::I have enjoyed this debate, even if I would have liked to establish some more common ground, and I hope I haven't offended you - through my ignorence or otherwise - because that is not my objective. In truth, I am selfishly wanting to learn but selflessly wanting to teach, and I hope you appreciate this and can show the patience you have so far. Thanks for your time.
:::I have enjoyed this debate, even if I would have liked to establish some more common ground, and I hope I haven't offended you - through my ignorence or otherwise - because that is not my objective. In truth, I am selfishly wanting to learn but selflessly wanting to teach, and I hope you appreciate this and can show the patience you have so far. Thanks for your time.
::: [[User:Entheogenicorder|Entheogenicorder]] 11:00, 8 December 2008 (EST)
::: [[User:Entheogenicorder|Entheogenicorder]] 11:00, 8 December 2008 (EST)
=== Any suggestions, part 2 ===
''(Editing section break; discussion continued from above)''
:::: Your post-flood description is reasonable, although I'd make the following comments:
::::* I don't follow the reference to deserts and specialised plants existing without rainfall. There would likely be a relatively high precipitation after the flood, which would mitigate against deserts.
::::* Your description does not address the point that you raised in this regard, that the kangaroos "would have passed through many different environments in getting to Australia".
:::: How many animals there were after the Flood would depend on just how many years after the flood you are talking about. It may have taken kangaroos a few hundred years to reach Australia. In fact, creationists propose that the [[Ice Age]] lasted around 500 years after the flood, so if they reached Australia just before rising post-ice-age sea levels rose, then perhaps this gives an indication of when they arrived. By several hundred years after the flood, there could have been millions of kangaroos.
:::: Your description of the post-flood dispersion of animals is also reasonable, except for the comment that the kangaroos "head towards the Australian continent". I said earlier that they likely headed in several directions, but only the ones reaching Australia survived (until modern times). Kangaroos are not limited to dwelling on plains; they are right at home in forested and hilly areas also, so mountainous country would not necessarily be an obstacle (I'd think they travelled as much as possible by land). By the time they reached bodies of water to cross, there would be many kangaroos from joeys to fully-grown adults, so there being ones of a suitable size and age to cross the water requires no stretch of imagination at all. I don't see what is particularly far-fetched about that explanation at all.
:::: Your argument about the rate of evolution is an ''ad hoc'' one to explain why the evidence doesn't fit the theory. That's not to say that it's wrong of course, but the point is that Lenski's experiments provide evidence that doesn't fit with the theory without invoking other, unseen, factors (faster rates in the past). Furthermore, Lenski has also found[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/01/990119080707.htm] that there seems to be a limit to how fast organisms can evolve, so your suggestion about what would need to be ''much'' faster rates seems ''contrary'' to the evidence.
:::: Perhaps (although I'm not convinced) humans would have experienced a greater range of environmental pressures, but that wouldn't make ''that'' much difference to account for the orders-of-magnitude shortfall in the mutation rate. Furthermore, you have more opportunities for mutations with larger populations, and Lenski apparently had ''trillions'' of bacteria, which provide ''many'' more opportunities than for humans.
:::: Yes, there is evidence of genetic data being "unlocked", but this raises more questions than it solves for evolution (such as how did this information appear and get selected for if it was "locked" and therefore contributed no survival value?)
:::: Radiometric dating has so many problems that it ''can't'' "safely give the conclusion that something is very old", and it is usually accepted as fact simply because and when it gives the dates the researchers are after. Given that, fossil dates cannot be used to reject an accurate historical account and much scientific evidence that say that they are much younger.
:::: Although there are some claims of historical dates older than 6,000 years, there's really very little such evidence that is very strong. The Egyptian king lists are supposed to go back further than allowed on a biblical timescale, but dates assigned to these lists did not allow for overlapping reins, and Egyptian chronology today is is much dispute.
:::: Darwin's conclusions were based, in part at least, on his ''beliefs'', not just on his observations. He didn't see mutations nor adaptations happening; he saw variations that he ''attributed'' to adaptations. And the adaptations he saw are consistent with a creationary view (see more below).
:::: There is not "definite" divergence in populations of the homo genus. The classification of the beings that you link to is still very much in dispute, and could in fact be homo sapiens[http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/5525/].
:::: Yes, creationists accept gene ''mutations'', but no, it's not a matter of degree. It's a matter of ''direction''. That is, evolution requires increasing amounts of genetic information. The first living cell had no information for blood, bone, livers, eyeballs, and so on. Evolution had to supply this extra information. The mutations and adaptations we observe are not the result of ''new'' information, but the ''loss'' of information. For example, sightless fish adapted to living in dark caves have ''lost'' the information for sight. This sort of loss is all that Darwin observed. But evolution requires ''new'' information in huge quantities, and such new information has never been observed, except perhaps in a few disputed examples, but still nothing like the amounts that evolution requires.
:::: I'm not sure that I follow your argument about science being an argument for God's existence. It seems to be saying that we are free to assume that what we study is actually a study of what was going on in God's mind before He created, but this is ''not'' what is generally claimed, and as such cannot be an ''argument for'' God's existence.
:::: Yes, most of the early geologists, biologists, and other scientists were indeed Christians, but these were generally not the ones who argued for an old Earth. Darwin's Christianity was fairly nominal to begin with, but he soon discarded it, and it was already being doubted in his mind before he came up with the idea of evolution. Historians of evolution have actually said that evolution was intended as a substitute for Christianity.
:::: Perhaps you've simply not been clear, but I don't believe that the Bible is the literal word of God. I believe that God "ghost-wrote" it using human authors (their words, his ideas and ultimate control), and that it ''contains'' literal history as well as parable, euphemisms, metaphors, and other non-literal passages. This is based on what the Bible itself claims as well as logic and evidence, not on wishful thinking.
:::: Your description of two different views of history, Bible-based and not Bible-based, is interesting and makes sense, but at the very least it acknowledges that what we believe about the past is based on our worldview (biblical, non-biblical, etc.), rather than (solely) on hard evidence. Creationists don't claim that creation can be scientifically proven, but point out that evolution and long ages are similarly based on worldviews, not absolute evidence. However, it's also true that much of the support of evolution and long ages has come not from people ignorant of the Bible, but from people opposed to it. Further, your description falsely insinuates that those that believe the Bible do so solely because that's what they are taught, rather than on the basis of other evidence, as opposed to the other person who hasn't read the Bible and bases his views on scientific evidence. This is not an argument about science vs. the Bible, but about the science of one worldview (Christianity) vs. the science of another worldview (atheism).
:::: I've not found your posts to be offensive at all, and appreciate the civil debate.
:::: [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 08:55, 9 December 2008 (EST)