camanintx
Well-Known Member
Any what theory would replace it with? Intelligent Design?
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Some questions about evolution.
- Thread starter Archer
- Start date
Noaidi
slow walker
Isn't it telling that ,virtually every week, we hear of another advance in science that relates to evolution. Even in the past week or so, we've had a human ancestor described and possible dino feathers preserved in amber.
What significant revelations have we had from the creationist / ID community?
What significant revelations have we had from the creationist / ID community?
tumbleweed41
Resident Liberal Hippie
johnhanks
Well-Known Member
I once put up a long-forgotten thread here asking why creationists are not in the forefront of palaeontological research. After all, they know for a fact that all species that have ever lived have been contemporaries, so somewhere out there there must be a bed of fossilised trilobites intermingled with whale bones, and a T. rex with human bones where its stomach was - either of which discoveries would be fatal for ToE. Given that many creationist organisations are financially well endowed, financing the search for them should be a cinch.
So, creationists, why so evasive and defensive in the face of fossil discoveries? If you're right and evolution is false, the evidence should be out there just waiting for you to dig it up.
Photonic
Ad astra!
They also refuse to comment on the new transitional fossils that pop up every few months or so.
Alceste
Vagabond
They argue that the dinosaurs sank deeper than the birds and mammals when they died in the flood. Presto! No need to find new evidence, just use the existing evidence to come to a ridiculous and unsupportable conclusion.
Alceste
Vagabond
That makes their argument even stronger: where there was one gap in the fossil record, now there are two!
Tiberius
Well-Known Member
Ah! So the dinosaurs sank deeper because they are larger! Which is why we NEVER find small animals lower in the fossil record than large animals. We'd never see an Archaeopteryx (crow sized) lower than a T-rex, would we? of course not. What a wonderful, fool-proof argument! Has me convinced!
Mr Spinkles
Mr
LOL! And somehow mammoths, whales, and horses didn't sink lower than humans ..... maybe those animals had internal sacs, which did not fossilize, which were filled with hydrogen to make those animals light as a feather!
johnhanks
Well-Known Member
To be honest, I'm more familiar with the 'head-for-the-hills' alibi. See, when the floodwaters started to mount, all the animals raced for the high ground. Now it goes without saying that the primitive invertebrates floundered first and formed the deepest fossils; among the vertebrates, the amphibians were least good at running, so are found lower than the slightly more efficient reptiles, with us good ol' mammals getting highest (and clever humans highest of all: no doubt we rode up on pterodactyls, which then returned to get fossilised with their kin).
What's remarkable, of course, is that not a single mammal (let alone human) was so old or so sick or so lame that it got left behind with the dinosaurs.
My point exactly. All creationists currently do is attempt defensively (and really rather pitifully) to contradict evolutionary interpretations of existing fossil evidence. If they really had the strength of their convictions they'd be out there looking for Haldane's Precambrian rabbits. I mean, they must know they're out there somewhere...
Alceste
Vagabond
Except that creationists do not accept the value of evidence at all. Evidence is nothing more than a threat and needs only to be defended against. It isn't a firm foundation on which to build conclusions - that's what the Bible is for. Why go looking for evidence when evidence is the adversary of Biblical "truth"? A YEC once reacted to my 100 million year old dinosaur tooth necklace with fear, as if it were occult and sinister - he even said it was from Satan, placed in my fossil-hunting path to divert me from the truth. Can you imagine that guy going looking for a precambrian rabbit? Everything he needs to know is in his book.
Having discussed the nature of evidence extensively with creationists (other forums), I'd say you're wrong about many.
Many do accept evidence, but interpret it differently - they reason from the premise of divine creation & sometimes guided evolution,
rather than accepting the scientific method. Tis still loopy IMO, but it's useful to properly understand their varied perspectives.
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Regarding the partial quote above, when you state you believe no theory or hypothesis... should be shielded from challenge, you are in the definite minority among the ToE faithful. And I do applaud your willingness to examine the evidence. Honest people can have honest differences of viewpoint.
Noaidi
slow walker
Interesting, rusra. There have been numerous people in various threads here saying exactly the same thing. In science, nothing is set in stone, nothing is taken for granted. Results, data, conclusions are routinely challenged and rightly so.
Where do you get the notion that science doesn't operate in this way?
tumbleweed41
Resident Liberal Hippie
Every aspect of science is challenged everyday. One of the most distiguishing features of the Scientific Method is the search for falsifying as well as confirming evidence.
johnhanks
Well-Known Member
The theory of evolution is challenged every time a biologist makes a new observation. Certainly, as I've tried to suggest in my last few posts above (admittedly with tongue partially in cheek), it's tested every time someone unearths a new fossil. (If the creationists are right, that whale with trilobites in its stomach has to be out there somewhere!)
What ToE is not challenged by is creationism/ID, on the very simple grounds that these latter have nothing to do with science; you might as well claim that ToE is challenged by the Epic of Gilgamesh. And before you start banging on about why in that case isn't ID allowed to be taught, I'll reiterate that it's excluded only from school science; your local preacher is allowed to indoctrinate kids with it to his heart's content, if their parents wish it.
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When creationism comes up with a theory thats testable, observable and makes predictions, not assertions, then you might have a decent challenge.
painted wolf
Grey Muzzle
If they come up with a testable hypothesis it would be amazing!
wa:do
wa:do
Show us these challenges to TOE of which you speak. You say they occur daily. How is it tested with discovery of a new fossil? And would that be akin to religion being tested with addition of a new scripture (or newly found ancient scripture)? Are there other ways to challenge TOE than with fossils? If yes, where are links to those ways?
How can it said on one hand, "nothing is set in stone" an on other hand, "TOE is fact, with insurmountable evidence supporting it?"
It seems like proponents want it both ways. The humble version that asserts the challenge is there daily, and is not taken for granted for one moment, and the 'other' version that says, 'there's nothing better, this is fact, creationism sucks, science has figured out that forms change all on its own with the wonderful process known as scientific method.'
How can it said on one hand, "nothing is set in stone" an on other hand, "TOE is fact, with insurmountable evidence supporting it?"
It seems like proponents want it both ways. The humble version that asserts the challenge is there daily, and is not taken for granted for one moment, and the 'other' version that says, 'there's nothing better, this is fact, creationism sucks, science has figured out that forms change all on its own with the wonderful process known as scientific method.'