Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire the "science" of evolution vs creation

I remember a news story from a few years ago about flooding in Texas. The top soil was washed away from the banks of a river, and in the bedrock Dinosaur tracks were found with with Human footprints walking along the same path. Some of the human footprints were in the dinosaur prints. I never heard anymore about it , I wonder why?

Well, as probably the only one around here supremely dumb enough to assume the title "defender of evolution" I suppose I should continue...

Ringman writes...


Hard to imagine he could actually close a private school unless said school was receiving State funds. Far more likely that he could withdraw State acreditation on the grounds that the formal curricula offered in the classroom differed from that mandated by the State.

On the other hand, LOTS of things get discussed in classrooms, good and bad, that ain't on the State curricula either. Could a public school teacher present arguments for creationism in the classroom? Yepper, and many do.

Also, I dunno any regulation against assigning research papers and such comparing different theories, including Biblical literalism. From a practical standpoint, there are few things a teacher wishes to avoid as much as irate parents, especially righteously irate parents. Towards that end, any teacher worth his salt steps lightly in this area, and stresses that evolution is but a theory, presents the evidence, and tell the kids they can make up their own minds.

Amax writes...


Amax, all I can tell you is that there have never been verifyable human footprints mixed in the same rock strata with dinosaur footprints. If there were, paleontologists would RUSH to the journals to announce their find, such theory-destroying discoveries being the stuff of which academic careers are made.

Birdwatcher

Birdwatcher,

It takes a lot of time and effort to properly address these issues. I am willing to do it, as I believe many macro evolutionary arguments are in error. I also don't buy into every Young Earth argument or Intelligent Design argument. I would very much like to debate the ideas, theories, and facts involved in this discussion.

However, you sometimes seem to feel any opposition to macro-evolution is a personal attack on you.

To begin with a clean slate, I have never intended to disparage you personally in any way. If I have somehow offended you in any way, I apologize. While I believe ideas are fair game, I do not believe people are. Let me know if you are willing to try and debate this topic in a polite, positive, albeit pointed manner. I think many of us can learn much from such an exchange.

amax155 , The human footprints and dinosaur tracks you are refering to are in Glen Rose Texas on the Paluxy river or creek . Has been a subject of debate for years . It is thorn in the side of the religion of evolution . It's kept quiet by that group of believers .

Do a search on the Paluxy River .

Birdwatcher, You keep forgetting evolutionists are predjudice. There was an evolutionist who viewed the prints. His responce, "All this show is that in the future man will develope a time machine and go back and walk with dinosaurs." One detective from Dallas said, "If I saw these prints at a crime scene, I would say they are positively human. But since they are with dinosaur tracks, I don't know what they are."

There is a group, with permission, which every summer unearths one more track to follow a trail of dino and human tracks. It's tough to fake a brand newly unearthed trail.

The facts contradict the theory of an old earth. God's Word gives us the answer: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." By looking at the geneologies, one can discover the approxamate age of creation.

As far as Adam and Eve's kids marrying: They married their siblings or nieces or nephews. God's Word informs us Adam and Eve had sons and daughters. The idea that there would be problems with close marriages is is based on the genetic load today. They were nearly perfect. After all, the creation was brand new. Even Abraham married his sister. It was not until Moses that God saw fit to stop close marraiges.

bw:
geometric progression. the numbers add up. only point i was making to 'skinner. what Father God did about the gene pool is a mystery to me because inter-family breeding is clear in the Bible.
now then, as for "transitional" species and dating, who's to say so-called transitional species were not just animals that were a little different from the get-go and then died out? no way to scientifically prove transition; mere "observation" of what appears to be transition.
as for guessing the age of things based on half-life dating: sure, there is atomic half life, and it is apparently steady. but it still does not tell you at what point degradation began. that is always the problem with scientific dating: there is no benchmark and there cannot be one. degradation of a given element (i cannot think of the actual word here; please forgive me), whether it began 1 billion years ago or 20,000 years ago, it is steady and that is all we can know.

About whether or not man could have descended from two people, the way I have heard it explained was that after creation DNA hadn't yet accumulated the imperfections that cause problems with inbreeding. I don't know if there's any truth to that or not, just another possible explaination.

I don't know the details of carbon dating. However, it does work and has been proven to the satisfaction of people who spend their whole lives studying the topic. If you feel that you have proof that it is invalid then you should write a paper to provide the evidence to everyone. It would be published by many scientific journals if true.

From your comments it appears you do not understand the science behind carbon dating. You appear to be grasping at straws for an argument to discredit carbon 14 dating.

Here is a description:




Conrad

Thanks for the lesson on carbon dating .
Fish280 is right . There is no benchmark or baseline to measure from .
How would we know that the ratio of carbon 14 to carbon 12 in living things in the past would be the same as it is now ? What variables would affect the carbon 14 to carbon 12 ratio ?

ConradCA,

Have you heard of an Acelerator Mass Spetrometer? They have been used to date carbon 14 in diamonds!! If the diamonds are really millions of years old, how is there a detectable amount of C14?

Ringman,

Q: Have you heard of an Acelerator Mass Spetrometer?

A: Yes. I've operated one.

Q: They have been used to date carbon 14 in diamonds!! If the diamonds are really millions of years old, how is there a detectable amount of C14?

A: No they haven't.

Why are you people bothering to hash this out?

Every intelligent person knows that the Genesis accounts are false and that evolution occurs.

The Bible Thumpers refuse to consider any of your evidence because they are frightened (incorrectly) that proving Genesis is false would be the same as proving Jesus a fraud.

Their position is the same as in earlier generations when they thought the world was flat and refused to look through Galileo's telescope.

Incidentally, the Bable categorically states that the earth is flat (disagreeing with itself whether earth is a disk or has four corners) and that stars are little bitty lights that can fall on the ground.

Their arguments are so childish that they bear no rebuttal: "I don't believe carbon 14 works because I didn't take enough math to understand the explanation," and "there aren't any missing links."

Let them come up with ONE IOTA of EVIDENCE that anything in Genesis really happened.

Instead they say, "Genesis is absolute historical truth because the scriptures say so and I believe in the scriptures."

You might as well tell them they should worship Babe the Big Blue Ox. They're so dumb that they believe some scientist who found human and dinosaur tracks intermixed would closety the evidence instead of publishing it and WINNING THE NOBEL PRIZE.

When debating the topic of evolution it becomes apparent that what is at stake is potentially very different for the participants. For the evolutionist, unless they are trying to use evolution to "deny the existence of God" (entirely beyond the purview of science BTW), what is at stake is merely a theory, for which, to my mind, no better explanation has yet been proposed ("we don't understand it therefore God must have done it" being an unsatisfactory hypothesis IMHO).

For those who interpret the Bible literally however, ANY explanation other than seven days of Creation becomes quite literally an attack on the Christian Faith . Many folks here are Young Earth Creationists. I don't expect that most people come to a place like 24hourcampfire to have their fundamental beliefs assaulted, prob'ly most of us come here to shoot the breeze and BS about all sorts of things.

The risk of evolution threads is that such folks will be driven away 'cause coming here is not fun anymore and/or insulting. On the other hand, neither does evolution belong on the "Religion" board, and certainly I wouldn't care to debate it there.

Young Earth folks must necessarily take much on Faith. For example, the argument that the first humans could marry their immediate relatives with no deleterious effects because they had "perfect DNA" is certainly not backed by any observable evidence today. Neither do I believe supported by the preponderance of evidence is the assertion that the Earth and Heavens began only thousands of years ago.

Splitting the difference are the Intelligent Design crowd, who by interpreting the original Hebrew terms for the length of Creation differently, are thus able to remove much of the inherent conflict between science and Gospel. The fundamental flaw of this crowd however (IMHO), is that they are literally looking for miracles, miracles by their very nature defying scientific explanation. (for those looking for formidable pro-Intelligent Design arguments, check out the very well written www.reasons.org website).

One thing that quickly become apparent in any debate of this nature is the enormous amount of evidence to be considered, a whole lot more than just finches on the Galapagos or footprints in Texas (the vast diversity of corrobarating evidence being regarded by myself as one of the great strengths of the theory of evolution).

Like most folks, I come here to kick back and relax after a long day at work, not spend hours browsing the web. I'm gonna jump off of this particular thread, and start separate threads over the next few days addressing specific parts of this debate that interest me. Specifically them finches and those Texas footprints in the rock.

It is NOT my attention to attack anyone's beliefs, being aware that from a Young Earth viewpoint I am likely a poor deluded fool. Well anyway, if I AM wrong, here's hoping that God has a sense of humor.

Birdwatcher

Birdwathcer,

Sounds good. I agree that the biggest detriment to engaging in this type of study is the hours and hours of pouring through books to make sure we attribute the correct concept to the correct guy. I hesitate everytime I start into it. On one hand, I do not want to appear like I am giving in on the major points, on the other, it is a lot of time-consuming work.

I like the idea of exploring one or two topics at a time. We can be more thorough, and the task seems less daunting.

While some do, many many Christians who interpret the Bible literally are not bound to a seven 24-hour day creation account. There are many ideas on this, the most interesting one having to do with the slowing of time as the universe expands.

I interpret the Bible literally, and am not committed to the seven 24 hour day approach. There is nor requirement to interpret "yom" that way. To reuse a quote I posted earlier,

�In fact, many orthodox, evangelical scholars hold the universe is millions or billions of years old, including Augustine, B.B. Warfield, John Walvoord, Francis Schaeffer, Gleason Archer, Hugh Ross, and most leaders of the movement that produced the famous �Chicago Statement� on the inerrancy of the Bible.�

Of course, my take on this debate is a bit different than yours. As a Evangelical Christian of many years, I do not wrestle with who started the process. As such, I leave that behind and focus on the how. That is why I do not care to discuss matters of faith in this topic, and why I focus on what we see and observe naturally.

While I do not hold to their view, Creation Science has developed an impressive list of scientific evidence that supports their view.

I like Intelligent Design the best. They are not concerned with the age of the earth, and they include agnostics, as well as people from many faiths. The leaders are University Professors who have come to view macro evolution as a theory with too many holes. Denton and Behe are molecular biologists and Johnson was a law professor (do NOT argue with him. I have met him, and that timid looking little man with his polite smile can shred most folks arguments with not too much effort). Dembski is a Mathematics professor with PhDs in Math and Philosophy.

This is not an attack on anyone personally, just my observation. It is a philosophical issue. Non-theistic evolutionists say life originated due to random chance. This cannot be observed or proved. It must be taken on faith. IDers believe an intelligent agent designed the processes that are responsible. This too cannot be observed or proved and must be taken on faith. However, it seems to me evolutionists consider their unprovable belief scientific and consider the IDer's unprovable belief unscientific. In fairness, IDers often consider the evolutionist view closed minded and narrow, so neither side is faultless.

Regardless, all this is illogical, given neither view can be proved or disproved. A detailed examination of the evidence does not conclusively lead to either chance or design. Such conclusions are determined based presuppositions of the individual, even though we all like to say we objectively looked at the evidence and logically chose our view.

I say both evolutionists and IDers must exercise faith to believe what they cannot see. I say it's important to recognize this, then mostly forget about it and focus on what we can observe. The IDer does not routinely invoke God and miracles to explain things. If anything, the miracle is in fully grasping the details. The argument is design vs chance. Neither side should worry about where the search of the evidence leads. If it leans toward a view of random natural processes being the agent, that does not mean there is no God. If the evidences leans toward a view of design, the evolutionist does not have to find God.

On my shelf, my own personal references include:

Naturalistic Evolution

The Origin of the Species - Darwin
The Descent of Man - Darwin
One Long Argument - Mayr
The Blind Watchmaker - Dawkins
The Structure of Evolutionary Theory - Gould

Philosophy of Science

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions - Kuhn

Theistic Evolution

Finding Darwin's God - Miller

Young Earth Creationism

The Scientific Case for Creation
The Young Earth
Dinosaurs by Design
Modern Science and the Genesis Record - Rimmer

Intelligent Design

Evolution, a Theory in Crisis - Denton
Nature's Destiny - Denton
Darwin's Black Box - Behe
Intelligent Design - Dembski
Not By Chance - Spicher
Darwin on Trial - Johnson

That is one reason why it takes me so long to research these issues!

I am looking forward to a very edifying and constructive discussion.

Blaine

blaine:
you won't get courteous discourse from some folks like indy. he apparently thinks we Christians are all stupid. i guess if a fella like me with an IQ over 140 can be stupid, then anybody can be stupid. how about you? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />
then you've got conrad and birdwatcher and such who are courteous in their discourse. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

fish--

I resemble that remark! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Seriously, I never thought "we Christians are all stupid." I believe that the majority of Christians disbelieve the stuff about Adam and Eve and Noah's flood. I don't believe that the fundamentalists have any right to hijack and monopolize a religion.

As for the rest, in my experience, if you do believe these things, and if your IQ is 140, then you may be the exception that proves the rule.

there are many bright people, indy, who hold the Bible is inerrant, people like me who came to it slowly, gradually, painfully, reasonably over decades, and others who make the leap immediately and still others in between.
but ultimately, issues such as evolution and whether noah's flood was worldwide or regional are just chaff compared to the whole-wheat, eternally nutritious kernal of salvation. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

"but ultimately, issues such as evolution and whether noah's flood was worldwide or regional are just chaff compared to the whole-wheat, eternally nutritious kernal of salvation."

You got that part right, IMHO, fish.

One wonders why topics such as evolution are so much more popular then, and daw so many posts.

it's just one of those hot-button thangs. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

Yeah, my IQ was tested at 140 as well. Augustine's IQ is thought to have been 200, which I think is higher than Einstein's.

I think the big problem in all this is people are usually unaware of their own presuppositions and biases.