Ask a Young Earth Creationist 2

[Arakhor]

There's a logical disconnect there, though. Are you saying that the bones of early hominids that have been located are all fakes or hoaxes or otherwise unbelievable or that you don't believe that an early primate was responsible for both an ape ancestor and, say, homo habilis or homo austrolopethicus?

 

[Haseri]

@Eran: Yeah, I'm probably incorrect. But at least I point out what I don't know, instead of covering it up with 'God did it'.

And how can one call science stubborn? Sure, there are paradigms, but if science was as stubborn as religion, we'd still think there were only four elements and that the universe is geocentric. Only by questioning assumptions do we gain knowledge.

It's just that, everytime someone has questioned evolution with facts, it hasn't proved the Theory wrong, or at least didn't prove it so wrong as to be thrown out. A scientific Theory (as I understand it) is a collection of facts and how they relate to each other, a layman's theory is a scientific hypothesis.

 

[civ2]

Haseri
Stubborn in sticking to thier ASSUMPTIONS - not about being curious.

OK, I'm really tired of repeating myself.
So:
1. Micro and Macro are NOT the same - and to be more exact, Micro is a FACT and Macro is a THEORY.
Why?
Because you CAN see Micro in effect - but you CAN'T see Macro.
It's ONLY speculations.
(Until you invent a time machine. )
Again, just remember putting a dinosaur's head ON THE WRONG END!!!
How STUPID is that???
And you still call it FACTS??? Seriously???
2. People have free choice to believe whatever they want.
It's their problems - not mine.
Just remeber, the truth will be shown to you in the END.
So enjoy it WHILE IT LASTS.

 

[Arakhor]

Just repeating yourself endlessly won't change anyone's minds. Moreover, are you actually expecting anyone to take your last post seriously?

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

I actually only brought it up because I just finished reading a book about dinosaurs and, even though it appears to have been written for younger readers (cutesie analogies and exclamation points abounded) it actually described current understanding of the evolution of birds and their relatives in pretty great detail.

 

[PeteAtoms]

Haseri
Stubborn in sticking to thier ASSUMPTIONS - not about being curious.

OK, I'm really tired of repeating myself.
So:
1. Micro and Macro are NOT the same - and to be more exact, Micro is a FACT and Macro is a THEORY.
Why?

That's good. Considering what a 'theory' really is in the scientific community, I'm inclined to agree with you. So if it's not observed it isn't real right? I guess you can't prove the Earth was spinning or orbiting the sun before you were born right? What a crazy and absurd 'theory,' right?

And micro/macro evolution are the same process.

Where do different peoples' skin colors come from?
What are the point of vestigial organs found in humans and throughout nature?
What is DNA and is it worth studying to a creationist?
Was the moon landing fake or real?
Why are Native Americans lactose intolerant?
Are traits inheritable?
Do biological traits influence an organisms ability to survive?

 

[warpus]

I actually only brought it up because I just finished reading a book about dinosaurs and, even though it appears to have been written for younger readers (cutesie analogies and exclamation points abounded) it actually described current understanding of the evolution of birds and their relatives in pretty great detail.

What book was that? It sounds like it perhaps puts the evolution of flight into terms that civ2 could understand.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

What book was that? It sounds like it perhaps puts the evolution of flight into terms that civ2 could understand.

I'd have to look it up when I got home.

Hopefully I will remember to do this . . .

 

[Cheetah]

warpus
You're bringing an NOWADAYS example.
This is no proof for the PAST because you are basing your point on the (assumed correctness of) theory of evolution itself - not proving it.

You're writing off the argument to fast!

Your question was specifically:

can you tell me what use the "protobirds" had from "underdeveloped wings"?

Warpus example of the flying squirrel is thus a perfect answer. It is not a bird of course, but it does have "underdeveloped wings", which is what you were actually concerned with.

And it is a proof from the past (whatever that is ) as they've been evolving this for a while:

Recent evidence derived from fossils and the anatomy of wrist and gliding membranes, however, indicates that all living flying squirrel species are closely related and likely evolved from a tree squirrel ancestor during the Oligocene Epoch (33.7 million to 23.8 million years ago).

And thus you have your answer: The flying squirrels do have use of their "underdeveloped wings".

Atheism is a religion where "god" is "no god" which could refer to either "nature", "science", "human" or any other typical substitute.

No, not at all. What it actually is, is:

Atheism is where "god" is not.

Any religion is based on BELIEF - and science is also a kind of a belief with all those THEORIES in it.

Science is not a belief either. All scientific theories are only "believed" - trusted, actually - as far as we can throw them. That is, we only trust our theories until they are disproved, and as long as it is possible to disprove them.

There are of course a few experimental theories that can not yet be disproved, and they can be considered a belief.

Oh, your very own phrase "no reason to think God exists" is a THEORY and a BELIEF!
You just chose to believe a "no God" belief aka an atheistic one.

Absolutely not!

I do not hold a theory or belief that there is no God!

Neither do I - nor you - hold a theory or a belief that there is not a teapot circling Jupiter! We simply do not consider that such an idea even need a theory or an active belief about it!

 

[civ2]

Peety...
If something is unprovable in PRESENT day facts - it's a theory.
And every theory is a belief in itself.
Sceintists ASSUME things there's no PRESENT proof for - so it's their BELIEF.
OK, they can BELIEVE it - but don't make it look like FACTS.
What I usually hear from science-based atheists is "science PROVES evolution or Big Bang".
But it DOESN'T!
It just makes THEORIES what could've happen - that's all, theories (=beliefs).
Example:
You assume there's gravity.
What you do - you take an apple and throw it on a sleeping person.
Now you've PROVED it at least to the point of it WORKING.
This could (and is) done with micro evolution - but IMPOSSIBLE to do with macro.
Your skin etc examples are ALL micro.
And that actually works - I never said it doesn't.
But it's NOT macro.

 

[Plotinus]

Atheism is a religion in the same way baldness is a hair colour.

I quite like that statement. It's so easy everyone can understand it, and it gets the exact point across.

It's false, though. You can have a religion that incorporates - or is consistent with - atheism; but you can't have a hair colour that incorporates or is consistent with baldness (assuming that baldness involves a total lack of hair).

Atheism is not a religion or the absence of religion, just as theism is not a religion or the absence of religion. Both theism and atheism are beliefs. A religion is a complex sociological phenomenon which involves, among many other things, beliefs. Any given religion may number theism among its beliefs or indeed atheism (such as certain forms of Buddhism). Most religions don't number either.

However, in the west we're so used to the Abrahamic religions, for which theism is a very important component, that we tend to equate theism and religion, and think that atheism is the absence of religion. But that's just western bias, and it's not even true among all western religions anyway - there's such as thing as Christian atheism, for example.

Peety...
If something is unprovable in PRESENT day facts - it's a theory.
And every theory is a belief in itself.
Sceintists ASSUME things there's no PRESENT proof for - so it's their BELIEF.

Honestly, how do you think science works?

Certainly science can't prove claims about the past, such as the claim that flying birds evolved from flightless dinosaurs. However, that doesn't mean there's no evidence for such claims. Compare claims about history. If a historian says that Wellington defeated Napoleon at Waterloo, would you call that an ASSUMPTION or mere BELIEF? After all, it cannot be proven. You cannot observe Wellington defeating Napoleon without a time machine. Yet there is a vast amount of evidence for the claim, which makes it certain to all intents and purposes that Wellington did defeat Napoleon, and we can reasonably say that we know he did. Similarly, of course you can't go back and observe the course of natural history to verify claims that biologists make about it, but there are vast amounts of evidence to support those claims. This is not the case with religious claims like the claim that God created all currently existing species as they currently are; there aren't mountains of evidence for that. That is why it is not legitimate to say that scientific claims and religious claims are epistemologically identical, because they quite blatantly are not. If your argument depends upon the claim that they are, then your argument is never going to be worth very much. If you want to argue for young Earth creationism in a rational way then you must begin by accepting that scientific claims are not arbitrary, but are made on the basis of evidence. Now you may, perhaps, argue that, although they are made on the basis of the evidence, they are nevertheless mistaken, perhaps because scientists have misinterpreted the evidence. That might not seem very probable, but it is possible. But if you won't even accept that scientists base their claims on evidence in the first place, you're not engaging with the real world at all.

 

[civ2]

Sorry for double-posting this once - but at our writing rate it's outdated to EDIT.

Cheetah

That is, we only trust our theories until they are disproved, and as long as it is possible to disprove them.

Is a perfect definition of a belief - considered RIGHT until proved WRONG.
You see, the IDEA about "there's God" is much OLDER that any present day science.
Therefore you can't say you "disregard it" and "don't consider doing so as a belief" at the same time.
It was a fact that there were people believing it BEFORE any Big Bang theories.
So you have a choice to either believe it or not.
Because any (well-known) idea has to be either agreed OR disagreed with - no other way around.

 

[Haseri]

First of all, you do not understand the difference between scientific and layman's theories.

Second of all, macro- and micro- evolution are the same thing. And we do have evidence for macroevolution, in the fossils and skeletons.

And, you are correct we have a choice whether we hold evolution to be right or wrong. But facts don't care. They'll stay facts.

 

[Truronian]

Even the best gliders would never really FLY.

The albatross is one of the best gliders in the animal kingdom, and it can fly. Clearly you are wrong.

 

[PeteAtoms]

And no one is claiming that a flightless organism will 'learn to fly' in a single lifetime. But it is being said that a flightless glider's great-great-great-great-great-great-great-etc-etc...-children will be able to fly, if doing so gives them an advantage over other organisms they are competing with.

Evolution doesn't take place over a single generation, it takes much longer than that. But it doesn't take as long as creationists seem to exaggerate it as taking.

And the process can be observed in small scale. Uniformitarianism predicts that this process taking place over long periods of time, will create even greater degree of change/observability.

 

[PiMan]

Peety...
If something is unprovable in PRESENT day facts - it's a theory.
And every theory is a belief in itself.
Sceintists ASSUME things there's no PRESENT proof for - so it's their BELIEF.
OK, they can BELIEVE it - but don't make it look like FACTS.
What I usually hear from science-based atheists is "science PROVES evolution or Big Bang".
But it DOESN'T!
It just makes THEORIES what could've happen - that's all, theories (=beliefs).
Example:
You assume there's gravity.
What you do - you take an apple and throw it on a sleeping person.
Now you've PROVED it at least to the point of it WORKING.
This could (and is) done with micro evolution - but IMPOSSIBLE to do with macro.
Your skin etc examples are ALL micro.
And that actually works - I never said it doesn't.
But it's NOT macro.

I would like to introduce you to Last Thursdayism; the belief that everything was created last Thursday and that all evidence pointing to an older universe than this, including memories, were planted there by the creator last Thursday.
Alternatively, Last Tuesdayism; the belief that the universe was created last Tuesday and will be destroyed next Monday, and that this has been happening once a week every week for all eternity.

We "know" the age of the universe for example, by the reliability of a constant speed of light in a vacuum, the red shift of distant galaxies and through extrapolating these figures to result in all matter being observed as moving away from a single point. (I know I've butchered the theory, could someone more familiar with it correct me please?).
We don't even have to look at another galaxy to know that the universe is older than the upper limit suggested by YEC, we just have to look at stars at the edge of our own galaxy, which are well over 50,000 light years away. That we can see these at all, means either the universe is older than young Earth creationists think, or that the light was placed by God already on its way. If we accept the latter, then why not last Thursday?

 

[civ2]

Haseri
Aha.
Just read about how RELIABLE fossils (and scientists) are.
An even better link.

 

[Haseri]

Still, at least we admit our mistakes and try to amend them. Doesn't sound very stubborn to me.

The Piltdown Man.

And the second link, care to explain it to me in your own words?

 

[Steph]

Civ2, since your disregard Macro evolution has you can see it in fact (obvsiouly, if it takes let say 200 years to have a visible effect, more than your lifetime, you'll never be able to believe in it).
OK... Let's consider your line of reasonning is valid, and we cannot accept something if we can't see it. Evolution is not valid, creationism is...

Did you personnally witness God creating the Earth, Mankind, and all the animals, as they are now?

 

[civ2]

Steph
But I'm not saying it's a FACT.
It's a BELIEF and I hold it true - but I didn't say it's EASILY provable.
While evolution is commonly considered SUCH.
Please look through my last post's links - including the references.
If you can still say evolution is NOT a belief after all this...
Well, as I said, when someone is stubborn...

GOTTA GO, SORRY.
See you in a couple days, most probably.