Bodswood, have you gone to www.talkorigins.org to read what is there?
If not, do you ever intend to go to www.talkorigins.org ?
If not, is there any reason whatsoever to continue this conversation?
Thanks, chaps, especially for the link to http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/specimen.html
I’d like to concentrate on the fossile evidence before attacking the genetic stuff.
I’ve certainly used talkorigins, but there’s quite a bit there. Also, the need to check what non-evolutionists say on the same subject necessitates quite a bit of time.
Is Behe’s website the best of the opposition websites, or have none of you accessed *any * of them?
This has been answered, but just to clarify: I was referring to modern humans who happened to have lived prior to the historic period (approximately 4,000 B.C.E. where fewer remains have had time to become fossils–since we are talking about the fossil record). Similarly, we have found modern human remains, not yet fossilized, in peat bogs and similar environments that can preserve bodies We have also found “modern” (or near-modern) animals in similar locations (e.g., wooly mammoths), but we have found no dinosaurs or trilobites in such environments.
Observations themselves do not logically compel belief in anything, other than that the observations are valid. What is compelling are those observations of similarity between extant organisms, coupled with similarity between extant organisms and fossil organisms, coupled again with similarities between fossil organisms themselves. And when you throw in the similarities in DNA*, the evidence becomes even stronger.
- One might reasonably state that one should not be surprised to find similar DNA in similar organisms. DNA, after all, is the blueprint for the organism, and if the organisms are similar, the blueprints ought to be similar. The rub, as it were, is that the DNA is similar even in the non-coding regions – those sections of DNA which don’t serve as a protein-template, or blueprint. And in these sections, we again have no reasonable expectation that they should be similar, based solely on appearance or habit. And, again, this makes sense from the viewpoint of common descent: the similarities are inherited, and the source of that inheritance is a common ancestor. All birds are similar for a reason. And birds are remarkably similar to crocodiles for a reason. And bats are more similar to humans than to either birds or crocodiles for a reason. I would again ask, what is that reason, if not common descent?
Haven’t read Behe’s website. Try the Bob Jones University website’s Creation / Evolution site. They have a section aimed at debunking evolutionary theory here.
They’re obviously coming from a evangelical Christian mindset and I don’t think much of their conclusions or of their methods, but at least they’re a university. Might be the best you can get from the creationist / ID side.
A good many of us have, in fact, read Behe’s works (including websites), as well as Johnson’s, Wells’s, Dembski’s, Gish’s, and so on. Unfortunately, “best” is a rather subjective term, especially when one disagrees substantially with not only the conclusions presented therein, but the methods by which those conclusions are obtained.
This is a site I am rather fond of, as it brings together all the various critics of Darwinian evolution, both from theistic and non-theistic sources, and evaluates them on their own merits.
DF, off the bat I would answer that the similarities are as they are because the animals were made/created that way. One would expect mammals to show similarities (regardless of size, habitat etc.) because they share such a very special way of raising young in common.
Need this be due to common descent and associated “branching”?
BTW, the majority of my life as a Christian has seen me the member of no church, and prior to that I had no single or strong denominational background. I attended a school which taught evolution and yet have never believed in it. Though I don’t discount it.
I suppose I wonder why this should be.
I have looked up the fossile page from talkorigins and fell it is not scientifically-speaking overwhelming. I *was * aware of much of it before, of course. I don’t mean to sound churlish, but the sample size seems a little less than would normally be accepted, isn’t it? I say churlish because it’s obviously not easy to go out and dig up new fossils (especially ones that require extensive reconstruction - which obviously weakens the conclusions that can be drawn from the sample).
Personally, I wouldn’t feel a psychological loss if I found that I was descended ultimately from a bacterium. But I just don’t find the evidence strong. I will keep examining it with as open a mind as I can muster.
DF and Lambchops, thanks for those sites. I’ll check out the fossil stuff so I’m ain a better position to align with current thinking rather than just raising my own instinctive stuff. Thus, try to keep the discussion moving forward and meaningful.
Coming in late on this topic and I picked this up on page one…
Bolding mine.
Not true for all theists. Don’t lump us all together like that. I love to read and learn about most geological, cosmological and astronomical sciences and want to learn “what’s new on the horizon” and yet still have strong faith in God. Even our priest talked about the expansion of knowledge and what does it mean to our faith. He was in full support of questioning one’s beliefs with all of the recent discoveries, otherwise how can we grow logically and spiritually to understand the world as it is. “Do not be ignorant for another 400 years (wrt - Galileo) because it is against the beliefs of the Vatican, make the effort to inform what is true (fact)…what is right.”
As for the Bible and it’s accuracy…how many versions (species) are there now over the course of a few thousand years? It’s even evolving.
Vatican Science
From cite:
"Father Corbally says the current Pope has encouraged the Observatory researchers to incorporate philosophy and religion into their scientific work. Aside from the observatories, the Pope recently established the Pontifical Academy of Sciences to further bring science and religion into dialogue.
Father Corbally doesn’t see any conflict with the Catholic Church pursuing scientific questions. “They have a lot to say to each other. They’re separate, but they can help each other,” he says. In fact, it was a Catholic Priest who came up with the evolutionary “Big Bang” theory of the Universe."
Hmph…didn’t know that.
Ah, but what is a “mammal”, and why are they similar in the first place? Mammals, in current phylogenetic terms, are united by ancestry - they are mammals because that’s what their daddy was. If you take away ancestry, then you have no reason to have similarities beyond “way of life”, and as I pointed out before, way of life itself is insufficient to explain observed deeper similarities. Why should horses be mammals at all? Why with the milk-drinking and hair and inner ear composed of malleus, incus and stapes? What gives with the dentary-squamosal jaw joint? Surely, none of that is a fundamental requirement for “horseness”, except in hindsight. And why should rhinoceroses be so similar to horses, to the point that they are more similar to horses than just about anything else alive? Why might not horses and rhinos and elephants and bats all be equally similar, or equally dissimilar? They could still all be mammals, if you like, but there remains the associated problem of “more similar”.
To fall back on “that’s how they were created” really answers nothing: why were they created that way? Certainly, a not only intelligent, but divine, creator labors under no limitations of form, essence, or efficiency. He can simply will into being anything He can imagine. Surely, however, you would not claim the Creator of All is a being of limited imagination!
Common descent offers an elegant solution to the above questions: inherited traits, gradually modified over time. Those traits were inherited from a common ancestor: rhinos and horses share one, and going back far enough one finds that all placental mammals share one as well.
None of this, obviously, means that God couldn’t have created things as they are, for reasons we may never know or even begin to discern. Unfortunately, that isn’t a very satisfying solution. The evidence points to common descent, just as we can trace such disparate dog breeds as the Saint Bernard and Chihuahua back to a common ancestor: the grey wolf. We can similarly trace such disparate canids as wolves, foxes and dholes back to a common ancestor, or find a common ancestor for birds and crocodiles, or for rhinos and horses. To me, that is a far more satisfying explanation than “God did it.”
Well, what about animals that look closely related but actually have very different backgrounds? I believe Darwin’s Finch raised the bat / bird example, but how about whales and fish? Why would God, in his infinite wisdom, create a mammalian whale that is closely related to land mammals? If their function determines their make-up, why not make the whale just a bigger fish, with gills and so on, lump it into one big “beasts of the sea” category?
I don’t know why you say there are not many fossils. There are literally millions of catalogued fossils, dug up all around the world by all kinds of people. I think I’ve got a couple myself. There are many very old fossils of very primitive forms of life. There are many moderately old fossils of dinosaurs. There are many recent-ish fossils of primitive large mammals. There is no lack of evidence!
In a way. Georges Lemaitre was his name. Apparently he went to seminary and was ordained, but I don’t know if he was a practising priest, if there is such a distinction…
If you want to see fossil hominids, this site (which I directed you to on the very first page of this thread) is one of the best.
[fixed link-Czarcasm]
John, thanks but the link doesn’t work. I also checked out the first page but found nothing similar there.
You say you’ve gone to the talkorigins site, bodswood, so here is the $64,000 question:
Did you learn anything new that might effect what you currently believe about evolution?
Try it now-I fixed the link.
Thanks, Czar, up and running now.
The site: “[O]ur species and chimpanzees are both the descendants of a common ancestor that was distinct from other African apes. This common ancestor is thought to have existed in the Pliocene between 5 and 8 million years ago, based on the estimated rates of genetic change.”
A couple of questions that came to mind as I read this. Are there any fossils of this common ancestor? Do fossil records for chimps show a similar number of intermediate forms as is deemed to exist for humans?
I really wish Ben were still around. Luckily, we still have his Molecular Genetics and Evolution FAQ. bodswood, follow this link and read the FAQ. At the very bottom is a “Challenge to Creationists”, containing eleven questions to creationists. Read the FAQ and try to answer them. If you find yourself falling back on “God did it that way for reasons unknown to us”, try and realize that there comes a point when you really must look the facts in the eye and choose the simple solution. Evaluate the evidence in favour of creationism; does it really outweigh everything we’ve said and everything in that FAQ?
Thanks to that link - the site seems good and the writer very bright. However, the questions went way over my head. But I do have a couple of simple ones of my own, clarification of which should help to push the discussion forward.
Well what are your questions?