Romans 1

i think youre grossly over simplifying the situation. i dont know who argues speciation through bacteria because bacteria dont sexually reproduce. the definition of a species involves a group of organisms capable of sexually mating. natural selection however can empirically be observed through antibiotic resistant bacteria.
once again i would also say that macro evolution has more than 0 proof and evidence. fossil records, nuclear dating, and notable observations (like the one i mentioned earlier) stand as evidence; some merely dismiss it as proof. however to reject it due to a lack of evidence would not be unjustified.



im not exactly sure what you are rejecting here: the evidence or the methods used to verify the evidence

your first point is not what i was saying.
i was noting how we dont find human fossils with dinosaurs (which would indicate humans didnt exist when dinosaurs did).
not how we find ancient species living among us today (as all that indicates is that they DID live back then, and simply never went extinct). the shear size and ferocity of dinosaurs should itself indicate that mammals would not have been on top of the food chain as they are now and would never survive alongside the much larger dinosaur. the rise of the mammal did not come until the fall of the reptile

This post was edited by Kamikizzle on May 9 2011 03:46pm

Don't confuse micro-evolution with macro-evolution, nor combine them as a single thing. That is your fallacy. No one here is arguing micro-evolution, because you're right, we can observe this occurring! The former, macro-evolution has not been observed, and there is no evidence for it. There are more holes in the fossil record that cause issues for this than have answers. Additionally, there is zero proof that the fossil reproduced and had offspring, and was not just a genetic aberration. All current dating methods are flawed for various reasons, which is too many to discuss at length via a topic that has nothing to do with such. If dating was so accurate, we'd have accurate numbers, not estimates (that has continually changed over time). Don't pass this off as fact, it is hardly so, and requires a great deal of belief to accept as a possible explanation.



Actually, you are wrong. We have found human fossils near, next to, and even under dinosaurs fossils. These little inconveniences are often explained away by other fanciful theories (that require belief), but never-the-less, don't lie and say that it hasn't been found or occurred.

Edit: some starting points to look into further: Tumbler Ridge area, The Wolverine Creek site, Dakota Sandstone. There are others, but I'd have to do some digging to find the documentation for them, which I don't have the time for at this moment in time.

Pak

I believe speciation is most often defined as evolution from one species into another. Antibiotic resistance is not such an occurrence so whether reproduction is asexual or otherwise isn't the factor which disallows it from being considered as speciation.

Njag is correct that dating methods are very inaccurate. Even element decay methods such as carbon-14 and rubidium-strontium dating are quite often wrong. Data sets are discarded in most cases if they don't correlate to the strata the sample was found in and even samples with known dates (recently deceased or still living) have been dated incorrectly by a factor of thousands or more. Not to mention the methods used to determine the accuracy of element decay dating (i.e. seasonal layers or tree rings) are based on guesses as it's possible for multiple layers to form annually.



Both are unsubstantiated in many cases. You can't talk about the "ferocity" of dinosaurs without having evidence of it. Most dinosaurs, and even the largest of them such as the brachiosaurus, were herbivorous and determining a diet beyond plant/animal would also involve drawing on observations that are impossible to make now.

Something that's always intrigued me is the apparent disappearance of dinosaurs; reptiles don't stop growing until they're deceased and the bible says that life spans were considerably longer in the years before the flood. It's possible that these large reptilian remains are elder, but more modern reptiles that have grown to great size. Is that hypothesis verified? No, that's why I don't quote it as fact. The methods used to verify the age of life on earth are inaccurate, but taught as factual and that's what I have a problem with.

Continents are eroding into the ocean at a rate many times slower than rock is replenished via igneous and metamorphic processes. The continents would erode flat in ~14 million years if it weren't for the replenishment via those two methods. Fossils survive only inside sedimentary rock so even with new sedimentary rock formed via the erosion of the other two types, the amount of original sedimentary rock containing fossils from hundreds of millions of years ago should have been transformed or eroded many times over. Less than half of one percent of the surface of the earth has all the layers described in the geologic column and more than three quarters are missing seven or more of the strata systems. Even those areas are often found with the layers in the "wrong" order or with index fossils that have been proven alive during other eras.

That being said, I don't contend that the modern theory of the age of the earth, and evolution by extension, is 100% wrong, but most of the proofs produced are circumstantial at best. That combined with the sheer mathematical implausibility of billions of years of beneficial random mutations resulting in speciation (which has never been observed) is why I say that macro evolution (or w/e term one wishes to call it) is merely a theory.

This post was edited by Durance Of Love on May 9 2011 06:10pm

im not confusing the two. and most reasons people reject macro evolution because they reject the techniques used to verify it: nuclear dating is not fabricated. we have estimates in numbers because decay itself is not precise but it is accurate. i am not saying rejecting macro evolution does not go unjustified because you are right in many of your points such as the missing data between the fossil records (something i agree with). however i would argue it IS erroneous to completely dismiss it as fabrication, estimation, grossly inaccurate, and lacking any evidence. (which is what ive been trying to state this entire thread)

i looked up tumbler ridge and didnt find anything other than dinosaur footprints were found. google didnt mention anything on wolverine creek that didnt come from a creationist website.


@first paragraph
i was saying how unlikely it is that (educated) people use bacterial evolution as proof for speciation. i dont think either of you realized i was refuting this line, not advocating it:

i was mentioning how i dont think (educated) people use this as a means of evidence for speciation for the reasons i (and you) stated.

quite frankly i am neither advocating nor refuting macro evolution. im just trying to make note that completely dismissing it as fabricated and without evidence is flat out wrong.
your last post seems to finally reflect that.

Kamikizzle: You have conceded to exactly what we are saying. You are free to believe anything you want, but lying about something is wrong. The truth is, (macro-)evolution requires faith and belief, because there is no solid empirical evidence to support it (which you agree with). Saying otherwise at this point is a lie. Scientists have had "evidence" for many failed ideas over the past couple thousand years, that's how science works. You start with an idea that is backed by at least some supposition, then try and find more evidence to either back it up or refute it.

The issue is that most laymen do not understand these concepts, and take these sorts of ideas as gospel and truth, which in part is due to the way they are taught about said subjects. Pick up any textbook from the last 20 years, when they talk about evolution, they all state things such as "we know evolution exists because of...". I have a number of such books, and the things they list are laughable, and half of them are either false or have since been proven incorrect.* Does that mean evolution is wrong? Well, not entirely, new ideas keep popping up to replace the old ones, and some of the issues are neither verifiable or falsifiable at this point. Again, this is a subject for an entirely different debate; the original poster is asking for evidence in the bible to support his friend's wild claims, not turning this into a debate. The point is that people are being told what to believe, and in turn just believe it on faith that what they are being taught is true, which is a dangerous thing in the area of science, where there are very few actual truths that can stand the test of time (mathematics being one of the few exceptions). [to be fair, as post #1 in this topic illustrates, it is equally dangerous in religion as well!]

* Examples: One book stated all marsupials live on Australia, which is because of evolution. It even agrees that if there were others on other continents, it would make it highly improbably that they all evolved simultaneously in different parts of the world. Turns out, only about 80% of marsupials live natively in Australia; so this one is "busted". Another is the fraudulent chart about various early life form stages (Haeckel's theory), the embryo chart that supposedly shows gills/slits in human embryos. This is still in textbooks today, even though it has been proven false, and was admitted to be fabricated. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recapitulation_theory (Perhaps they are finally removing it from some textbooks, but I have one from 2008 that still has this in it, as "evidence" for evolution.) There are many other such things, but it would take an entire topic to discuss them all, and again, this is not the right place for that. I just wanted to elaborate so-as not to be accused of making wild statements, to demonstrate some of the outright lies being taught as fact.

My bad then. I guess I was still on your point about: "bacterial resistance to penicillin is enough to validate evolution theory." Since micro-evolution is clearly not evidence for speciation I must have just misread your response to Njag.



I believe my first post reflected that too: "have found no compelling reason to believe that evolution is correct". I didn't say that evolution was impossible, just that I've seen no definitive evidence on the subject. The fact that it's paraded as fact and taught as such bothers me because then discoveries are seen through the prism of a 4 billion year old earth instead of taken as evidences to other plausible theories on their own merit.

@Njag: The textbook point is what sticks in my craw. Fabricated evidence (numerous missing links, vestigial organs, certain index fossils, etc.) to support a theory that, on the whole, dismisses a creator and by extension Christianity. The same people turn around and blame the bible of being a fairy tale when it is a scientifically accurate book in it's claims and in fact ahead of it's time for when it was penned. When you're dogmatic about what you teach our children (especially if it's wrong), it's that much harder for them to see both sides of things.

Absolutely! Just think of the Cambrian Explosion!

I recently took two quarters of astronomy in college and they simply assume naturalism is true. What's more, they simply assume that (macro-)evolution is true. This is what happens when individuals are not honest enough to consider the evidence on both sides, but instead decide to go with the bandwagon. It's amazing how a college professor will put their faith in evolution, but in no kind of God, let alone Jesus Christ. The assumptions they make are also surprising. You would be surprised how many times I have heard the old Argument from Ignorance fallacy in college regarding evolution, "There is no alternate explanation to these things we observe, so therefore it must be true." You might also be surprised to hear the old Argument from Authority fallacy: "An overwhelming majority of individuals believe that evolution is true, despite a select few scientists and religious fundamentalists. Therefore, evolution seems to be true."

To be sure, Christians make the same argumentative mistakes, but in pointing them out we can learn how to share our faith without using such fallacious logic.

i dont believe ive conceded to any argument and i think to say it requires 'faith and belief' is misleading. evidence for macro evolution is not adamant but it is far from 'lying'.
further i do not agree that there is no empirical data supporting it; i accept current nuclear dating techniques (something many people reject)