Qcmbr
Sometimes I don't have the answers to your points.
I know. What you have to avoid is the situations where you state 'X', and I or others show you that 'X' is obviously not so, and you then keep on beliving 'X', or basing other beliefs on 'X', despite knowing at some level that 'X' is false. This is cognitive dissonance, and IF (note capitals) you display it, it is one of the signs you are in a cult... whether you agree with it or not.
I read, I see and my intellect doesn't come to the same conclusion from the observed facts that some other people come to - that's individuality I guess.
In some cases, yes. But flat-earthers cannot excuse their claim that the Earth is flat as 'individuality'. Your choice of car colour is individuality, for example. There's not a 'right' or a 'wrong' colour. But as far as the shape of this planet goes, there is a correct answer.
Likewise with beliefs regarding the development of life, there is only one correct answer.
Intellect is not the question here; one can have a fine mind but simply not be acquainted with a subject and thus reach erroneous conclusions.
As your questions show, I think you really need to extend your knowledge of evolutionary science before you can confidently make pronouncements.
To exclude macro-evolution when you make mistakes in your statement of evolutionary theory, or list as signs a Cretaionist would expectt things that are not observed (and thus serve the reverse purpose, without realising you are doing this I think), is a little hasty.
It's like someone excluding the Treaty of Versailles as a contributory cause of WWII because they haven't studied the subject enough.
If someone could make a convincing argument the Treaty of Versailles was not a contributory factor, showing a full and detailed knowledge of the subject, well, okay.
But if someone just said it, and at the same time made elementary errors in statements about WWII, you wouldn't give their opinion much weight.
hooberus
Though I don't intend on getting into a protracted discussion here, I would like state that I have a problem with this analogy.
That "objects fall at 9.8 m/s/s at sea level on Earth" is something that is subject to direct observation,
Like the fact there are fossils is subject to direct observation, and the fact that the oldest fissils are typically the simplest fossils is subject to direct observation...
however the formation of the fossil record took place in the unobserved, unrepeatable past. Thus, any claim as to how it came about (ie: "macroevolution", "progressive creation", etc.) was also not subject to direct observation.
Which is why it is a theory, just as Fg= G m1m2/r squared is a theory
Therefore they are not "analogous".
I disagree, for the reasons illustrated, and note that you still have difficulty distinguishing between the fact of the fossil record and the theories as to its development.
- Progressive creationists accept generally a similar sequence (however without evolution as its cause).
However, they are unable to explain how their 'mechanism for change' itself developed, so have no complete theory of the development of life, but rather a contradictory theory that insists complexity requires intelligent design yet has to insist the complexity of the intelligent designer arose without cause. See my first paragraph to Qcmbr.
Young Earth creationists believe that much of the fossil record was laid out in a global flood, and immediate post flood catastrophies.
Unfortunately there is no evidence for a Global Flood, and indeed, there is direct evidence indicating the Biblical accounts could not be a literal description of a Global Flood. See my first paragraph to Qcmbr.
I mean, look, from the link you gave;
The "Cambrian Explosion" may be readily explained as the result of the burial of the sea floor in the early stages of the biblical flood. 59
This ignores;
- Relaible dating techniques date the Cabrian Explosion to hundred of millions of years prior to any possible date for a Biblical Flood
- Existing buildings and trees (with relaible seeding/building dates) contradict any possible date for a Biblical Flood.
... unless of course on rejects Biblical dating as totally unrelaible, and the Flood account as utterly metaphorical as regards its extent, in which case it ALSO fails to 'explain' the Cambrian Explosion.
Of course, such superb 'ignoring' of facts to re-state a theory (Global Flood) that has already been disproved could be a good example of why such pseudo-scientific papers do not get published in mainstream science magazines.
The horse is dead hooberus, stop flogging it. Whilst OECism and IDism give themselves enough wriggle-room to not be falsified, YECism is falsifiable, unless one is willing to ignore inconvenient facts, in which case one is not building a very stong or supportable opinion.
