Posts by Gedanken

It's really quote simple; the close corespondence between various animal genomes and humans points to a common origin for all living things, and certainly that chimps and humans had a common ancestor. The notion that we "descended from chimps" is absurd and stating that the two genomes have much in common in no way suggests or imples that connection. No more so than does the fact that genome companies are looking at fish and mouse genomes (amongst others) to try to discover human therapeutics suggests that we descended directly from mice.

I do have a question: if a person believe in new earth creationism, and is a fundamentalist Christia, is it possible to examine the evidence logically and objectively or is there too much at stake - that is, could such a person even admit the possibility that they were wrong?

Gedanken

184

Questions for Creationists

by IronGland in

jw
friends

what does creationism explain?.

what does it predict?.

what about blind cave fish with residual eyes.

Gedanken

pomegranate,

Define your terms - what is a species? You obviously don't understand what the ring species idea is and your latest comments are unclear to say the least. Who said anything about "halted species?"

Gedanken

184

Questions for Creationists

by IronGland in

jw
friends

what does creationism explain?.

what does it predict?.

what about blind cave fish with residual eyes.

Gedanken

pomegranate,

I just find it interesting that the only things that you can say about Ridley's article are things that either appear on Creationist web sites (after all your quote was identical to theirs) or stuff that I have posted from his article. He discusses Salamanders in his book. Interesting. But if you say you read the article before you posted the quote then I suppose I will believe you - however, in that case you definitely misrepresented his point of view. You only switched to the charge of hypocrisy after I posted bits from his article, including the quote with the critical next sentence included.

Now, can you define what a species is? Did Noah have to take two of every kind of salamander into the ark since, obviously, the different ring species members cannot interbreed.

So let's have a good precise definition of what a species is. ACtually, as you know, Ridley's article also addressed this issue head on. What comments do you have on that?

Gedanken

184

Questions for Creationists

by IronGland in

jw
friends

what does creationism explain?.

what does it predict?.

what about blind cave fish with residual eyes.

Gedanken

Thing is pomegranate, Ridley didn't mention salamanders in his article.

184

Questions for Creationists

by IronGland in

jw
friends

what does creationism explain?.

what does it predict?.

what about blind cave fish with residual eyes.

Gedanken

pomegranate,

But I don't go around quoting what people say as a substitute for actually reading what they wrote and trying to assess it's validity. However, you do - remember how you produced all those geologists as evidence that the scientific field of geology is consistent with a global flood?

You also claimed that ring species don't exist which makes me think you didn't even read Ridley's article since he provides living evidence and photographs.

Gedanken

184

Questions for Creationists

by IronGland in

jw
friends

what does creationism explain?.

what does it predict?.

what about blind cave fish with residual eyes.

Gedanken

pomegranate,

:If you were a JW, that kind of "studying" is surely disqualified. If you call quoting the "bible scholars" from "biblestudytools" as studying the Bible, that studying of the Bible is also disqualified. Both ways of "studying" are studying other men who studied the Bible.

Excellent point and eloquently put. Think about that, please, next time you are tempted to post a quote from somebody to prove a point about evolution or geology. The principle applies in exactly the same way.

Gedanken

35

Kangaroos and the Fossil Record

by Gedanken in

creationists like to attack evolution by attacking the "fossil record" as being incomplete; i.e., if something existed, for example, transitional states, then we should see evidence of them in the fossil record.

so, their argument is that if something existed, then we should see it in the fossil record.. let's take a look at the case of kangaroos.

we must assume, if we accept the notion of a global flood, that noah collected two kangaroos for his menagerie in the ark.

Gedanken

hooberus,

How did they get back home after the flood? That was the original question of this thread.

Gedanken

184

Questions for Creationists

by IronGland in

jw
friends

what does creationism explain?.

what does it predict?.

what about blind cave fish with residual eyes.

Gedanken

Jim,

Actually I don't lump you in with the JW apologists at all - and I think I understand where you're coming from. If you aren't interested in evolution then fair enough. I'm not especially interested in electronics - and, really, that's all evolution is, another scientific discipline. Evolution has nothing to do with atheism - some evolutionists believe in God and some don't.

But it is really inarguable that the Bible account of creation - and any theory of special creation - is inconsistent with the evidence and also lacks predictive power. If we go back to the origin of life itself then pehaps God started it off. I don't personally believe that but it's a legitimate point of view and my opinion is just that - opinion. On topics like how did kangaroos get to Australia, or how could God create plants before creating light, the New Earth Creationists are really out on a giant limb and must resort to inventing explanations, avoiding the issues, or misquoting evolutionists. Witness pomeganate's inability to explain the existence of ring species like the California salamander.

Points have been made about what evolution is good for; personally I think that evolution is a powerful force for freeing people from enslavement to religion, just as physics and celestial mechanics was in the middle ages. Anything that makes people think and debate their long held beliefs can't be bad. People should no more have a blind belief in evolution than in creation but it's rare to find the former species.

Gedanken

184

Questions for Creationists

by IronGland in

jw
friends

what does creationism explain?.

what does it predict?.

what about blind cave fish with residual eyes.

Gedanken

jrizo,

Watchtower mentality. You Know used to post like that when he came up against stuff he didn't understand. Indeed, the typical JW response to criticism is one of boredom or feigned boredom. It's a well known psychological protection for people who are unable to deal with reality.

Gedanken