# Creationists: Strut Your Stuff **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 11, 2000, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-strut-your-stuff/17827 "2000-03-11T20:01:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![David\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/51bf81/32.png) [@David\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_B)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2000, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-strut-your-stuff/17827/1 "2000-03-11T20:01:00Z")
Ok, here we are again. We have a couple new creationists (Pashley and CalifBoomer) making all sorts of claims in several different threads. So as I’ve done before, I’m opening a new thread just for the creationists to put forth their evidence for creationism and/or against evolution. But, be warned – this site is all about _fighting_ ignorance. So if you really don’t know what you’re talking about and aren’t prepared to discuss it with people who _do_ know what they’re talking about, you might as well just slink away now. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2000, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-strut-your-stuff/17827/2 "2000-03-12T01:21:00Z")
Looks like so somebody hasn’t got their debunking fix recently 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![CalifBoomer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f1d935/32.png) [@CalifBoomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalifBoomer)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2000, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-strut-your-stuff/17827/3 "2000-03-12T01:49:00Z")
David- We would like you to posit your view on this issue, please. While you’re formulating your response, take a look at [This (Activist Creationists?)](http://www.worldmag.com/world/issue/03-01-97/cover_1.asp) ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2000, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-strut-your-stuff/17827/4 "2000-03-12T02:12:00Z")
Oh, golly. We have Johnson (where have we heard about him previously?) who, trained as a lawyer, frequently tears up the verbal presentations of scientists in debate, but who has never submitted an actual defendable assault on evolution to a science journal. Then we have Behe, a nice guy and a decent scientist, but one who has chosen to declare that certain events “require” design because his personal feeling is that they could not occur through random events–even though he has not yet demonstrated _why_ they could not occur through random events. And I loved this quote: > [@](#): > > Consider these quotations: “You are an animal, and share a common heritage with earthworms… ,” proclaims the Holt, Rinehart, and Winston textbook Biology: Visualizing Life. “Evolution is random and undirected … without either plan or purpose,” declares Prentice Hall’s Biology. American public schools are supposed to be neutral with regard to religion, but these statements are clearly antagonistic to all theistic religions. Since several theistic religions can and do accept both of those statements as valid as a functional description of the continuity of life and as an accurate depiction of the operation of evolution, I have to wonder who these people are that think they get to define what all theistic religions can believe. Oh, well. Let the fun begin. * * * Tom~ ---
**Author:** ![CalifBoomer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f1d935/32.png) [@CalifBoomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalifBoomer)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2000, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-strut-your-stuff/17827/5 "2000-03-12T02:21:00Z")
[Here’s the Islamic view](http://www.submission.org/suras/app31.html) ---
**Author:** ![CalifBoomer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f1d935/32.png) [@CalifBoomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalifBoomer)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2000, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-strut-your-stuff/17827/6 "2000-03-12T02:27:00Z")
[Another Christian view](http://www.wwco.com/religion/believe/believe_12.html) ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2000, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-strut-your-stuff/17827/7 "2000-03-12T02:55:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Another important impetus for the design movement was the crushing critique of neo- Darwinism offered in Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, written by then-agnostic Michael Denton. Today’s resurgence of controversies in education was fueled partly by a high school biology supplement, Of Pandas and People, published by the Foundation for Thought and Ethics in Richardson, Texas. About 15,000 books have been sold for use in public schools. (snicker) Let me guess: Kansas? [quote] I was practically an evangelist for evolution," Mr. Anderson says wryly. His turnabout was sparked when a colleague told him baldly, “Don’t get me wrong, I believe human evolution happened, but there’s absolutely no evidence for it.” [/qoute] (snicker) You know, evidently he wasn’t all that fired up (or knowledgeable) about evolution if he couldn’t come up with any evidence of human evolution when some idiot chirped. Evangelist for evolution, my ass. Moron. > [@](#): > > Consistent Darwinism implies: “No life after death; No ultimate foundation for ethics; No ultimate meaning for life; No free will.” The only reason for insisting on free will, Mr. Provine adds, is a cruel desire to blame people for their actions and lock them up. Huh? What? Is this even a coherent thought? Free will? What? Lock up whom? I can’t believe I just wasted five minutes of my life reading that crap. ---
**Author:** ![Ben](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/df788c/32.png) [@Ben](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ben)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2000, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-strut-your-stuff/17827/8 "2000-03-12T03:04:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by CalifBoomer: > \*\* [Another Christian view](http://www.wwco.com/religion/believe/believe_12.html)\*\* Please, CalifBoomer, don’t waste our time. The people you linked to don’t even know that “species” and “family” aren’t synonyms. -Ben ---
**Author:** ![SingleDad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9e8a1a/32.png) [@SingleDad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SingleDad)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2000, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-strut-your-stuff/17827/9 "2000-03-12T04:12:00Z")
The Creationists are making an extraordinary claim (to wit: the earth is only millenia old, despite all the evidence consistent with an age in the billions of years). Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. **Positive** evidence in favor, not just attempting to refute contrary evidence. I challenge Creationists to present this positive evidence. And don’t just throw the link at us. Present a piece of evidence in summary form, and _then_ present the link. * * * He’s the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armor, shouting ‘All Gods are Bastards!’ ---
**Author:** ![Bored2001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47774/32.png) [@Bored2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bored2001)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2000, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-strut-your-stuff/17827/10 "2000-03-12T04:22:00Z")
> [@](#): > > The new strategy centers on a concept labeled intelligent design Did anyone else notice that no where in that a entire article did it actually define what “Intelligent design” was? The closest it came was giving a vauge description of it. > [@](#): > > At the bedrock of life, in the microscopic world of the cell, we find molecular machines consisting of interrelated parts, all of which are necessary for the machines to work. Such structures cannot have emerged gradually by any conceivable Darwinian process. Why? Fyi, Cells did not just spontaneously appear. There were many different types of cell-like not-quite-organisms before the first real cell. > [@](#): > > The book’s theme is that DNA is essentially intelligence encoded in a biological structure, which implies that it was created by an intelligent agent. Dna is not encoded intelligence, but rather the coding for proteins. Btw, according to the ribozyme theory, Dna originated from a self-replicating enzyme/RNA (ribozyme) that was acted upon by another protein called reverse transcriptase. (elaboration will be made if inquired about) > [@](#): > > The idea of intelligent causes is just as scientific as the idea of natural causes…In ordinary life we distinguish natural from intelligent causes all the time–when police officers determine whether a person died of natural causes or was murdered, when archaeologists decide whether a chipped rock is just a rock or a paleolithic tool. Why can’t we use the same reasoning in natural science?" Cause then it wouldn’t be natural science. It would be supernatural science. [QUOTE But the Cambrian fossils show precisely the opposite pattern: The major patterns of life appear in a shotgun blast of radically different forms, and only then begin to diversify.[/quote] Good point. I can’t explain it. Although cataclyzmic evolution could–but the probability of cataclyzmic evolution is a sliver of slim at best. * * * Islamic view > [@](#): > > A fish cannot evolve into a bird; a monkey can never evolve into a human. Yes it can a fish can and did, and man didn’t evolve from monkey. Fish to amphibian to reptile to bird. [quote] bla bla bla…probably dimishes to 209x10^-50 or 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000209 chance of getting a singular combination bla bla bla [quote] Uh, ok thats for one combination. there are many millions or billions of ways DNA could have come into existance–or rather RNA did(see above). > [@](#): > > haphazard creation of the exacting sequences of nucleotides into DNA is Zero…we are talking about billions of nucleotides that must be arranged in a > specific sequence. It’s not haphazard. The ribozyme would be able to self-replicate and thus having the ability to mutate. In short it is not haphazard, but gradual. Dna can have 100% different nucleotide combination and still code for the same exact protein. Each aminoacids have several code-ons to which they attach. > [@](#): > > Some evolutionists have stated that the human gene and the monkey’s gene are 90% similar. However, even if the similarity was 99%, we are still talking about 300,000,000 nucleotides that must be haphazardly re-arranged to change the monkey into a human. The probability laws preclude this as an utter impossibility. The human gene contains 30,000,000,000 nucleotides; 1% of that is 300,000,000. Monkey didn’t evolve into man. Go back about 20 or so million years and you will find the DNA sequences much more similar. ## oh, and btw, Chimp and Human ARE 99% similar. alternate christain > [@](#): > > apes only breed with apes, chimpanzees with chimpanzees, and monkeys with monkeys. So what about the poor ole jacka\*\*? I always seem to forget. Was it a Horse + donkey = Mule? or Horse + Mule = donkey? It matters not. They interbreed. > [@](#): > > The “common ancesor” that evolution demands has never existed. There is no “missing link.” They have fossils of animals that do seem to show the divergence of man and primate. > [@](#): > > Evolutionists expected to find fossil records to support their theory of species changes. It demands vast numbers of scaly reptiles transforming their scales into feathers and their front feet into wings. Other reptiles supposedly should be changing into fur-bearing quadrupeds. Did they find those thousands of multi-changing creatures? Not one. Uhh, yes they have. I can’t recall the exact scientfic name, so i’ll use the common knowledge one. The perodactyl–and it’s many ancestors(some of which DID have feathers) > [@](#): > > Not only so, but there would have to be millions upon millions of observable living links right now in the process of turning into a higher form This changing of species occurs rapidly only when there is some huge change in environment. Otherwise you’d just keep the greater whole of the species at the median of the bell curve of traits for a species. Oy… that took to long… good day. ---
**Author:** ![CalifBoomer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f1d935/32.png) [@CalifBoomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalifBoomer)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2000, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-strut-your-stuff/17827/11 "2000-03-12T04:43:00Z")
aaaaaccccchhhh!! Earthlink keeps dropping my connection…I swear I’m gonna get DSL, but i won’t be with earthlink… ahem. Ok, where were we? I agree with Single Dad. The earth and entire universe as we know it are billions of years old. So let’s have a reasonable discussion. First, let’s find points of agreement. I submit that a creationist philosophy is not automatically an “anti-evolution” philosophy. I agree that ‘speciation’, if understand the term correctly, has indeed occurred over the course of history. My objection goes to the notion that there absolutely, definitely was no creator. I maintain that there was a creator, and that He is God. I can’t prove to you that God exists, and you can’t prove He does not exist. I’ll post this before the connection goes again… ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Dave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/46a35a/32.png) [@Great\_Dave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Dave)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2000, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-strut-your-stuff/17827/12 "2000-03-12T05:24:00Z")
I love it when people object to evolution by saying: Well how come we don’t see apes turning into humans now? or Where are all the intermediates now? Just makes me want to smack em upside the head. The concept of geologic time is just harder for others to grasp, I guess. * * * It’s not how you pick your nose, it’s where you put the boogers ---
**Author:** ![SingleDad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9e8a1a/32.png) [@SingleDad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SingleDad)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2000, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-strut-your-stuff/17827/13 "2000-03-12T05:36:00Z")
I have no objection to someone claiming that ‘God’ created the Universe 10-15 billion years ago. That is an unfalsifiable proposition, although, IMHO, not a very interesting one. It is the Fools assert as _fact_ that the Earth and Universe are only about 5600 years old with **no evidence whatsoever** (outside of the Bible) to support that assertion. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2000, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-strut-your-stuff/17827/14 "2000-03-12T05:57:00Z")
An amusing sideline, if you will. There was somebody, a writer of some middling prominence in Mid-19th Cent. England, who adroitly sidestepped the whole fossil/age of the Earth by advancing the notion that God not only created the Earth, while he was at it he built in all the fossils and other geological evidence to make it look like the planet evolved in geological time, rather than something God cooked up in 6 days in the macrowave. (His name escapes me, but I might have read about him in one of my Gould books.) Anybody know his name? ---
**Author:** ![SingleDad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9e8a1a/32.png) [@SingleDad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SingleDad)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2000, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-strut-your-stuff/17827/15 "2000-03-12T06:32:00Z")
**elucidator** That’s a common argument of the creationists. It begs the question, however, of why God would perform such a deception, giving rise to term “Divine Weasel”. Regardless, it’s not a rational argument: It’s a dismissal of emprical evidence on non-rational grounds. * * * He’s the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armor, shouting ‘All Gods are Bastards!’ ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Dave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/46a35a/32.png) [@Great\_Dave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Dave)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2000, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-strut-your-stuff/17827/16 "2000-03-12T06:52:00Z")
**elucidator** I had heard this argument, and brought it up to my paleontology professor at Calvin College- a fairly conservative Christian college. He had a good laugh about it. To apply _reductio ad absurdum_, God could have created the universe just now, with me in mid keystroke. Well, he could have, right? * * * It’s not how you pick your nose, it’s where you put the boogers ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2000, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-strut-your-stuff/17827/17 "2000-03-12T06:56:00Z")
Bored2001 wrote: > [@](#): > > ## quote > > ## But the Cambrian fossils show precisely the opposite pattern: The major patterns of life appear in a shotgun blast of radically different forms, and only then begin to diversify. > > Good point. I can’t explain it. I can. The Cambrian “explosion” took place over approximately 5 million years. During this time every single animal phylum, both currently existing and extinct, came into being. Now, you’re probably saying, “But wait, tracer! It takes tens of thousands of years for a population to evolve into another species. It must take a bazillion jillion years for a population to evolve into a whole different _phylum!_” Well, actually … no, it doesn’t. And it certainly wouldn’t have taken all that long at the start of the Cambrian period. You see, we big apes in the modern world have inherited a vastly hugely complex genome with all sorts of intricately interwoven biological machinery (and a hell of a lot of useless vestigial baggage) encoded in it. It would take an awful lot of successive and carefully guarded mutations for us to sprout an extra pair of legs – and even more to sprout and extra abdomen. And even if we did, we live in a world populated by all sorts of other animal species just as complex as we are, who have filled just about every ecological niche that _can_ be filled; a radically new phylum-spawning body plan, and every intermediary stage on the way to that new body plan, would have to have some advantage in this heavily-populated world of ours to evolve. But at the start of the Cambrian explosion, the new animal phyla came into existence from animal ancestors that had **no** body plan to speak of. Sprouting an extra lobe here or a limb there just didn’t require as many evolutionary steps as it would for a big hulking land-dweller like us. And more importantly, they were coming into a world that had almost **no** animal species exploiting any niches at all. If your newly-evolved fin allowed you to dig one millimeter under the sand for food, it was a huge boon, because nobody else was already there digging under the sand and no sand-dwelling critters had as yet evolved a defense against your new sand-digging power – so you and your progeny would almost be guaranteed to prosper. The fact that it took 5 million years for the newly erupting animal phyla to fill all these virgin niches is a testament to the _slowness_ of evolution, not to a mysterious, divine Burst of Creation. * * * The truth, as always, is more complicated than that. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Dave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/46a35a/32.png) [@Great\_Dave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Dave)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2000, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-strut-your-stuff/17827/18 "2000-03-12T07:12:00Z")
Re: Cambrian Explosion One must also consider that there might have been a soft bodied creatures in the preC that did not fossilize well. These types of creatures are not easy to find; indeed most of the discoveries are relatively recent. This effect further extends the time period of the explosion, dampening it. The seperation of the supercontinent Pangea also occured at about the same time. This undoubtedly created many unfilled niches by changing climate and creating a warm shallow sea. When dealing with paleontology, people (Creationists like Duane Gish) tend to forget that what fossils we do have are but a mere glimpse of what actually existed. It’s like getting 57 peices of a 1000 piece puzzle and trying to figure out what the picture is. * * * It’s not how you pick your nose, it’s where you put the boogers ---
**Author:** ![CalifBoomer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f1d935/32.png) [@CalifBoomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalifBoomer)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2000, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-strut-your-stuff/17827/19 "2000-03-12T07:46:00Z")
[http://www.isidaho.com/bluetree/anmonkey.gif](http://www.isidaho.com/bluetree/anmonkey.gif) So far, I’ve yet to hear anyone-except me- propose just how everything started. Statements like this > [@](#): > > You see, we big apes in the modern world have inherited a vastly hugely complex > genome with all sorts of intricately interwoven biological machinery (and a hell of a lot > of useless vestigial baggage) encoded in it. cause me to ask–\*\* from where?? \*\* did ‘we big apes’ inherit 'vastly hugely complex genome bla, bla, bla. Well, you people are great thinkers, _where?_ ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Dave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/46a35a/32.png) [@Great\_Dave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Dave)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2000, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-strut-your-stuff/17827/20 "2000-03-12T08:12:00Z")
ok, **CalifBoomer** , start paying attention. I’ll give you a quick overview of how the procees works. It all started a long, long time ago. (Unfortunately, we haven’t quite figured out exactly how it all started, but we’ve got some of our best minds on it, so eventually we’ll work it out.) Some very simple single celled ‘bugs’ are floating around, trying to eke out an existence and pass along their genes. Some can withstand more UV than others, so they pass on their genes more often. Soon enough, all of the bugs can withstand more UV. Flash forward a few billion years- some apes are trying to eke out an existence and pass on their genes. Some can fashion tools and survive better than others, and pass on their genes more often. If you want more details, feel free to educate yourself by reading some of Stephen Jay Gould’s books, notably _Ever Since Darwin_. Also try _Beak of the Finch_- the author escapes me. * * * It’s not how you pick your nose, it’s where you put the boogers [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-strut-your-stuff/17827.md?page=2)