Re: Creation vs. Evolution: The Winner Is...

Gerard wrote:

What news reader are you using here? Do you know that it has the ability
to automatically quote the post to which you are responding, and to set
that quoted text off with little > signs, just like you see below? Try
it; it works, and makes the context so much clearer.

> a...@xxxxxxx Said "No, there were billions of years, not just six days,
> before humans
> first existed, and those species which existed at that time were not
> end products, they were merely a snapshot of a contually changing
> collection of life. Some new species have formed as recently as within
> the past hundred years. Many species have gone extinct since humans
> first existed."
>
> Species can either be applied to a different family of kinds, or it can
> be used to classify changes due to natural selection.

That made very little sense to me. It had words in it that I understand,
but the way they were put together doesn't seem to translate to anything
meaningful. Perhaps it will become clearer below.

> Either life is
> changing and species branch off, or kinds were created and are
> continuously being diversely created by a magnificant creator. You can
> view the entire life system on earth either way. It's up to you.

Of course it is. But which idea do the data support? Looks to me as if
the first alternative is inescapable. The characteristics of species,
from their gross anatomy to the nucleotides in their DNA, form a nested
hierarchy of groups within groups. This is exactly what we expect if
life formed a branching tree with characteristics changing every so
often: if something changes on a branch that later splits, that change
will be inherited by each new species descending from the branch. But
why would separate creation result in such a hierarchy? The only reason
I can think of is deception: the creator wanted to simulate common
descent. But that doesn't seem theologically acceptable. What do you think?

> But
> don't take claim to the word species. The reason for extinctions can be
> argued both ways also. Either the earth climates changed as a result of
> biblical events, causing a different medium for life, or life couldn't
> survive on it's own through evolution history, or even, man or other
> hunting species caused those extinctions(I'll admit, the last 200
> extinctions over the past few hundred years have been attributed to
> man-caused).

You can't attribute extinctions before humans existed to human causes.
There are no biblical catastrophes; in particular, no worldwide flood.
But this is all pointless until we can at least agree on geology. The
world is billions of years old. Life is billions of years old. Complex
animals have been around for 600 million years or so, and complex plants
for around 400 million years. Humans (if by that you mean Homo sapiens)
are only around 100,000 years old.

> But once again, everything can be viewed both biblically
> or secuarly.

You can view anything in any way you like. You can suppose that the moon
is made of green cheese if you like. But views can be tested against
reality. If you do that, some of them are more likely than others.
Separate creation is much, much less likely than common descent.

Please note that evolution does not equal atheism. Common descent does
not imply that god doesn't exist, or that he never intervened in the
process. We find no clear evidence for such intervention, but most of
the evidence is incapable of settling that question. However, separate
creation, a young earth, and a global flood are easily falsified, and
science disposed of all of them a couple of centuries ago.

> I don't like the fact that just because scientists
> classify and label things that that in itself validates it. It's like
> saying the media bias against republicans is accepted as the truth,
> just because they all are biased. The fact is they're wrong, and the
> republicans are in the know.
>
> Just ranting here.

I agree.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Your Secrets are Safe Here
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  • Re: Your Secrets are Safe Here
    ... It doesn't matter how much _you_ assert this is "THE primary law of ... I say the primary law of life is survival because the primary function ... Not only as an individual but also as a species. ... Some animals (even humans) exhibit weak or non-existent survival ...
    (sci.physics)
  • Re: Your Secrets are Safe Here
    ... It doesn't matter how much _you_ assert this is "THE primary law of ... I say the primary law of life is survival because the primary function ... Not only as an individual but also as a species. ... Some animals (even humans) exhibit weak or non-existent survival ...
    (sci.physics)
  • Re: Help on honest questions
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  • Re: Some evolution questions
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    (talk.origins)
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