Well, I’m finally back. My work schedule hasn’t changed though so I can’t guarantee immediate replies, but I’ll try to reply in less than 3 months next time!
When I found out the forum was moving, I’d hoped to have the time to post this before the move, but it didn’t work out that way. As it is, I’m sure an evolution debate thread would have come up here sooner or later, so it might as well be now.
For those that don’t know, this is in a reply to this message of this thread at the old board.
If you believe that it had to have started by God, and thus believe the power of God, why do you not believe that he could have done it all in 6 days time, and created all life rather than just some chemicals that mixed together and eventually evolved into the millions of species today? It doesn’t seem like that much of leap.
Because first, I’m not Christian and I reject the view that the Bible is the inerrant word of God along with the notion that Genesis should be interpreted literally. Second, a literal interpretation of Genesis isn’t the simplest explanation for the evidence available.
Well, at least you admit now there have been some. Will an apology be forthcoming for your insistence that I had not addressed it? Didn’t think so.
Perhaps I should have said “so called explanations” because, as I pointed out, you really didn’t answer the question. You danced around the subject a lot by talking about the growth rate of coral, but you never explained how that sequence of rocks were created.
These layers to which you refer are actually proof of a cataclysmic event.
Not just one cataclysmic event, but multiple events and probably not even cataclysmic. The rock layers follow a classic pattern starting with sandstone, followed by shale and limestone. All that is capped off with salt, gypsum and anhydrite.
That sequence is caused by a rising sea level. We know that because of the types of deposits that form on ocean shore lines today. Sand is deposited along the shore, followed by clay in shallow water, followed by carbonates (coral reefs, bottom dwelling animal shells, etc) in deeper water. The sand was deposited first as the sea rose with the clay and carbonates later as the sea level went up. The salt, gypsum and anhydrite deposits come from the ocean above the carbonate layer evaporating. In the shallow edges of the evaporation layer, you can even see the sun baked cracks in the mud when you split the layers of rock apart.
This sequence happens 3 separate times and the layers range anywhere from 100 feet to several thousand feet thick. We know it took a long time because we can measure how long it takes clay to settle out of water solution, how long it takes sea water to evaporate and how long it takes for coral reefs to grow (including your accelerated growth rate). This is not consistent with a flood.
I thought we had also discussed another possibility, but I could not find it - and this was volcanic action. We know that is what built up the huge deposits around the Dead Sea.
Yeah, right. I’m just dying to hear your evidence, but you never seem to be able to supply any when the subject comes up. Perhaps you could start by showing us which Middle Eastern Volcano spews salt, anhydrite and gypsum instead of ash and lava.
The cry of “wolf”…. I mean “fake”! I expected as much. Really, its another convenient excuse.
Carvings of or in rocks are impossible to date properly and are notoriously easy to fake. Perhaps you’ll recall all that uproar over the James Ossuary a while back. It doesn’t matter if they look like dinosaur tracks or hand prints they don’t prove anything. They can perhaps provide context for fossils discovered nearby, but they don’t add anything to the authenticity of a find.
That’s a pretty convenient excuse, don’t you think? Do you have any proof that this is the only way it could have happened?
In science, theory explains facts and evidence. To disprove a theory you need to supply facts and evidence to the contrary. If you want to claim the rock layers in North Dakota are folded upside down, you’ll have to provide your own evidence. I won’t do your work for you. I’m sure you won’t find any for ND because if there was any evidence that the rocks were out of sequence, it would have been of great interest to the companies that were drilling for oil out there and they would have mentioned it in their reports. They would have noticed it because the fossils that they encountered would have been in the wrong order, but when you look at the complete description (I mentioned it in my last post), you’ll find they occur in the proper chronological order.
I think you threw a red herring here. I’m going to have to take a look at the whole Cambrian Explosion argument and see where it leads, and if your explanation here has much to do with it. You point out that there are both very simple creatures and very diverse creatures, and I thought that was their point - that there should not be, and that they certainly should not be all mixed in together with trilobites being UNDER less “evolved” creatures. A flood would do that, incidentally, but I forgot you don’t believe in that.
Sorry, but it isn’t consistent with a flood. If that were the case, you’d have all creatures mixed up from simple to complex. That’s the whole thing about evolution and the geologic column. Everywhere you look simple creatures are on the bottom where the oldest rocks are. Complex creatures are on the top where the youngest rocks are. If you found dinosaurs with trilobites or humans (or any mammal more complex than a field mouse for that matter), however, that would be front page news… and it ain’t gonna happen.
Now you are agreeing that I am correct in saying the fossils are not full. I won’t hold my breath waiting for an apology on that one either. At any rate, NOW you are ignoring WHY I said they were incomplete to begin with. Since it is so incomplete, there’s no way we can know for sure what that creature looked like.
I’ve never claimed that all the fossils in the record are 100% complete or that they need to be. Since vertebrates are laterally symmetrical, you only need 50% to get the complete picture. I wrote about 8 fossils that transition from fish to amphibian. Only 3 weren’t complete and of those one (#3 Tiktaalik) was missing its hind legs and tail while another (#7 Pederpes) was only missing its tail. Only one was fragmentary (#6 Tulerpeton). The reason why it is important is because of what we do have. The feet and fingers. It also dated to the same time period as 2 of the other fossils and shows the kind of diversity there was at the time. The missing parts of this particular fossil don’t matter because this issue is the transition from fins to feet.
I shocked my parents by asserting to them that babies had tails and looked like pigs, calves, and bunnies before they were born!
I don’t know what show you were watching, but Haeckel had been discredited long before then. Here’s a link to an analysis of 15 biology text books from 1923 to 1997:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/02/exorcising_the_spectre_of_haec.php
The only book to report Haeckel’s work as fact was from 1937 even the 1923 book was skeptical.
Kudos for digging up a Network 54 thread
I’ve been around a lot longer than you might think and remember it clearly;) As far as I’m concerned, any statement you’ve made publicly on the subject is fair game, though you’re certainly allowed to correct or change your position if you find it necessary. By the same token, I’m willing to change my mind if enough evidence comes to light, but I’m not holding my breath waiting for it.
