# Evolution 101 for Fundies **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 13, 2001, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-101-for-fundies/76066 "2001-08-13T17:33:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![bj0rn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a88e57/32.png) [@bj0rn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bj0rn)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2001, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-101-for-fundies/76066/41 "2001-08-16T10:41:36Z")
evolution is happening all around us… what possible reason should anyone have to say evolution did not happen before the year 4004 BC. and since i mentioned a date, the calendar which we are currently relying on has seen some major changes, months and years have been “fixed” to try and represent the true years since the birth of “our lord” jesus christ. yet it is widely belived we have been wrong in our calculations…so why on earth did anybody think about specifying 4004 BC as the year of creation when he cant be sure the dates in the bible or even our current date is correct? anyway, enough of that…the fact is that evolution is happening…we see it best with the smallest lifeforms, bacterias develop immunity to certain poisons etc… as you said, you didnt want to get to much into a biothingy, so ill just leave the explanations as are, i hope i made myself clear. bj0rn - still evolving ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2001, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-101-for-fundies/76066/42 "2001-08-16T12:35:51Z")
The trouble with the Polar Ice Theory is that I don’t recall a verse in the Bible saying, “AND GOD SAID ‘IT’S GONA GET MIGHTY DAMN HOT MIGHTY DAMN FAST, SO PACK YOUR SHORTS AND TANK TOPS ON THE ARK, BUT DON’T FORGET TO PACK YOUR PARKAS AND MUKLUKS BECAUSE THERES A BIG CHILL A COMIN’ FORTY DAYS FROM NOW.” ---
**Author:** ![JonF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/cab0a1/32.png) [@JonF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JonF)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2001, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-101-for-fundies/76066/43 "2001-08-16T17:15:20Z")
THis may have been thoroughly debunked already, I haven’t read all the thread, but I though I’d toss in my $0.02 now. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Spyderman \* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by Podkayne \* > > > > > [@](#): > > > > > > \*Originally posted by Wildest Bill \* > > > > > > > [@](#): > > > > > > > > \*Originally posted by dropzone \* > > > > “Then where did all the water go?” > > > > > > HUH…it evaporated? > > > > “Evaporated” does not mean “disappeared.” The water would still be in the Earth’s atmosphere. > > > > It’s not. > > > > Thank you for playing. > > IMHO it is possible that most of the water is now locked and frozen at the polar ice caps. Some of these iceshelves are hundreds and hundres (if not thousands) of miles long and can be up to two miles thick in some areas, according to [this](http://sung3.ifsi.rm.cnr.it/~dargaud/Antarctica/InfoAntarctica.html#Map). The water involved in covering the present topography of the Earth is **one hundred thirty thousand** times the total amount of water we are pretty sure exists on Earth. References: [The Biblical Flood](http://www.lwbbs.net/userpage/g10/pages/flood.html), [Water Supply of the World](http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004674.html). The icecaps contain the vast majority of the fresh water, but only 2.2% of the total water. One hundred thirty thousand. 132,000. That’s a _ **humungous** _ factor. That amount of water just isn’t, and has never been, around. Creationists often postulate that the Earth’s topography was much flatter then. That sort of works, but leads immediately to questions of how the Earth’s topography changed, and the few proffered explanations are pretty ludicrous. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2001, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-101-for-fundies/76066/44 "2001-08-16T19:24:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by bj0rn \* > **…the fact is that evolution is happening…we see it best with the smallest lifeforms, bacterias develop immunity to certain poisons etc…** Yes, but your Typical Fundamentalist will simply respond, “Oh, that’s just _micro_evolution happening. Everyone knows that. But _macro_evolution, like an ape becoming a man, is impossible. So there.” And then you try to explain that there’s no such thing as micro- or macro-evolution, and how lots of micros make up one macro, and your Typical Fundamentalist just asks you to show him an ape that evolved into a man, and you respond “Trent Lott,” and then it’s all over but the pointless shouting… ---
**Author:** ![barbitu8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@barbitu8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barbitu8)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2001, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-101-for-fundies/76066/45 "2001-08-16T22:04:09Z")
The last post brings up a good point. You can point out indisputable proof of evolution, and the fundies will say that you haven’t proved that one species has evolved into an entirely new species. They also will point out gaps in the fossil evidence of evolution, which Darwin explained in his book. Fundies will even quote Darwin, out of context, to show that even Darwin didn’t believe in evolution. I think they read a different edition than the one I have: an edition put out by some fundies. ---
**Author:** ![vanilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f19dbf/32.png) [@vanilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vanilla)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2001, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-101-for-fundies/76066/46 "2001-08-16T23:35:01Z")
I’ve been told about the “water canopy” which covered the earth before the flood. Thats supposedly where the water came from, although that makes it sound like it just dropped, which would’ve sunk the boat. ---
**Author:** ![JonF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/cab0a1/32.png) [@JonF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JonF)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2001, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-101-for-fundies/76066/47 "2001-08-17T17:05:30Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by vanilla \* > I’ve been told about the “water canopy” which covered the earth before the flood. > Thats supposedly where the water came from, although that makes it sound like it just dropped, which would’ve sunk the boat. It would have done more far than that. The few “creation scientists” who are attempting to come up with a coherent story have given up on the water/vapor/ice canopy. That much water in the air in any form requires temperatures and pressures that are incompatible with human life, or with 99.99999% of known life (maybe some of the bacteria that live in very hot springs could handle it). (E.g. see [SENSITIVITY STUDIES ON VAPOR CANOPY TEMPERATURE PROFILES](http://www.icr.org/research/lv/lv-r05.htm) in which two creationists conclude that _just maybe_ it would be possible, by _really stretching_, to get enough water into the atmosphere to cover the Earth to a depth of **two meters** without destroying all life. Mount Everest is several thousand meters high …). If the water wasn’t suspended in the atmosphere the energy released by getting it to the Earth’s surface causes similar or worse conditions. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2001, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-101-for-fundies/76066/48 "2001-08-17T17:21:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by barbitu8 \* > \*\*Fundies will even quote Darwin, out of context, to show that even Darwin didn’t believe in evolution. I think they read a different edition than the one I have: an edition put out by some fundies. \*\* Those are published by [Jack Chick.](http://www.chickcomics.com/)😃 ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2001, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-101-for-fundies/76066/49 "2001-08-17T19:07:29Z")
Nice, tough question, Rose. Since the whole Flood discussion, though a part and parcel of the “Genesis-is-literal” debate surrounding this question, is not directly applicable to the six-days question, look at the following series of items: The Earth’s surface is composed of rocks, consisting of igneous (cooled molten rocks), sedimentary (evidently laid down in layers like what might happen along a streambank after numerous freshets), and metamorphic (from applying heat and/or pressure to the sedimentary rocks, a la baking a cake or a casserole). Some relatively common elements – carbon, potassium, rubidium, zirconium, thorium, along with uranium and a couple of others – include radioactive isotopes which evidently break down at constant rates. Using these, and we don’t need to go into advanced geophysics, it’s possible to come up with dates for when the rock was laid down, or at least when it achieved its present state in the case of the metamorphic ones. Now, mostly this will apply to the igneous rocks, giving frames for when the sedimentary ones were laid down according to they formed on top of the igneous, were laid down before it, or it intruded into gaps in them. (Figuring that out only requires a little common sense, like noting that the limestone alongside the basalt intrusion is partway changed to marble by the heat of the basaltic lava). Now, in the sedimentary rock are fossils that appear to be the remains of life forms that existed at the time they were laid down. It doesn’t take much imagination at all to recognize that a thing in the rock that looks like an oyster shell in every detail probably **was** an oyster shell. And there’s an easy process, in operation today, where the process of petrifaction takes place – the organic matter is transformed into rock by dissolution and replacement by minerals dissolved into the water. I recall reading of a stone newspaper found in a cave – where someone had taken refuge in the cave, abandoned a newspaper there, and the woodpulp was replaced over a number of decades by calcite dissolved in the cave water, preserving a readable “fossil newspaper” of limestone. Okay. Now, _in the absence of man, God, devil, angel, Vishnu, fairy, elf, Invisible Pink Unicorn, or other supernatural intervention_, it seems reasonable to read the record of the rocks as an accurate account of what happened. It takes some skill, and is not precise – details keep changing with increases in our knowledge – e.g., the Napa Valley deposits in California is explained by a quite different process now than when I learned geology in the late Sixties – but that seems reasonable. Bring a supernatural force into the picture, and things are a bit different. An omnipotent deity – call him “J” after the usual name used by the main two writers of Genesis – could very easily have worked up the process according to the Genesis account, in six days, or a fraction of a nanosecond for that matter, imbuing His creation with false evidence suggesting what geologists and paleontologists think they know about it. And, of course, we’re not limited to the Judaeo-Christian approach here – this sounds very much like the sort of cosmic practical joke that would appeal to Loki, for example. Anyone with a background in Native American mythology could come up with other “trickster gods” for whom it would be the precise sort of thing they would be inclined to perpetrate. However, there are two things that mitigate against this Young-Earth Creationism being the case in the view of the Christian: 1. He is, by all the evidence we have, not the sort of God to perpetrate this sort of cosmic shell game on people. His interest, by His own account, is in bringing people to come to know and believe in Him out of love rather than by force or compulsion. 2. That first chapter of Genesis is written in the literary genre called “myth” – _stylistically_ the simplified explanation of divine doings in an easy-to-remember, repetitive format. This statement would be true even if Young Earth Creationism and Literalist Christian Cosmology were the absolute truth – it’s not a judgment of truth value but of literary style. Being such, though, it can be quite “true” without its individual elements having literal veracity – in the same way that, for example, the parable of the Good Samaritan conveys a truth about what human beings ought to do toward one another without being the literal account of one Eliezer Ben Judah who was rescued after being robbed and assaulted by Eliah of Shechem, a Samaritan. (And you might take into consideration that Jesus specifically picked the despised, heretical ethnic minority for his hero for that story.) So my conclusion is that it is one excellent myth in the Campbellian sense – a vibrant, vivid story, told in the repetitive format that becomes memorable – of God’s action in Creation – not a literal account opposed to science, but the process science describes in technical language attributed to the One Who accomplished it and portrayed in vivid poetry. Does that help? {fixed italics. --Gaudere} [Edited by Gaudere on 08-17-2001 at 06:19 PM] ---
**Author:** ![vanilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f19dbf/32.png) [@vanilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vanilla)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2001, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-101-for-fundies/76066/50 "2001-08-17T19:17:30Z")
For God’s sake;)Polycarp You ALWAYS help! Thanks to all. Wish me luck. Just wait til they find out I’m volunteering at Planned Parenthood. ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2001, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-101-for-fundies/76066/51 "2001-08-17T19:51:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by vanilla \* > \*\*For God’s sake;)Polycarp > > You ALWAYS help! > Thanks to all. > Wish me luck. > Just wait til they find out I’m volunteering at Planned Parenthood. \*\* Best of luck! ---
**Author:** ![wevets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9a140/32.png) [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2001, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-101-for-fundies/76066/52 "2001-08-17T20:16:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by rjung \* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by barbitu8 \* > > Fundies will even quote Darwin, out of context, to show that even Darwin didn’t believe in evolution. I think they read a different edition than the one I have: an edition put out by some fundies. > > Those are published by [Jack Chick.](http://www.chickcomics.com/)😃 Yeah, I think it’s _The Origin of Species_ by Charles Darwinn, the well-known Dutch author. His other famous book was, I believe, _Sedimentation Occurs in the Mind, Not on the Earth_, a critique of Hutton’s geology. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2001, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-101-for-fundies/76066/53 "2001-08-17T20:19:42Z")
How fundie must one be to believe that man is “created in God’s image” or “the ultimate product of evolution”? If either of those concepts is integral to one’s belief system, I don’t see how they can fully accept evolution which is an undirected, tho not random, process. _(Please lend a hand if those last two adjectives are not entirely the optimal choices.)_ ---
**Author:** ![Navigator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/4af34b/32.png) [@Navigator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Navigator)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2001, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-101-for-fundies/76066/54 "2001-08-17T21:44:04Z")
[QUOTE] \*Originally posted by MEBuckner \* \*\* > [@](#): > > (Does Egypt have a Deluge myth? The floods of the Nile were very different from the floods of the Tigris and Euphrates\*\* Why, yes it does! from: [http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html#Egypt](http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html#Egypt) > [@](#): > > Egypt: > People have become rebellious. Atum said he will destroy all he made and return the earth to the Primordial Water which was its original state. Atum will remain, in the form of a serpent, with Osiris. [Faulkner, plate 30] (Unfortunately the version of the papyrus with the flood story is damaged and unclear. See also Budge, p. ccii.) Peace. ---
**Author:** ![vanilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f19dbf/32.png) [@vanilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vanilla)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2001, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-101-for-fundies/76066/55 "2001-08-20T23:38:49Z")
Youre gonna love this one! I went to a new church Sunday. It seemed okay. Assemblies, which I’ve been to them before. So, I left my bible and purse on the pew and went to class with my son (he likes me there til he gets to know people). So I come back afterwards, see a $20 on my bible. I think, WO! How nice. We are destitute, and God has led someone to put a 20 here for us. Right. i open it and see Don’t be disappointed…its a tract! The kidn waitresses get. Oh my gosh. Of COURSE I’m disappointed! And why did they think I wasn’t a christian just becasue it was my first time there? Or was it my Nader button on my purse? Sheesh! Fundies…☹ ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2001, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-101-for-fundies/76066/56 "2001-08-21T02:05:22Z")
Well Vanilla, since you are still hounded by fundies use this then: Lets look at the creation of our own moon from the newest evidence: [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tothemoon/origins2.html](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tothemoon/origins2.html) [http://www.spacedaily.com/news/lunar-01d.html](http://www.spacedaily.com/news/lunar-01d.html) Recent evidence and mathematical simulations are beginning to give more credence to the idea that the Moon came to be as a result from a collision to an object the size of mars. This is not the wacky Velikovsky theory, there was no close encounter here, the mars size object was obliterated and so was the crust of earth 1. After the collision, the majority of the pieces fell down on our current earth 2, and the pieces around it turned into our moon. For our discussion it is important to mention that rocks dated from before the collision have evidence of biological activity, meaning that there was life in earth 1, but life came back on earth 2. > **[Earlier Water On Earth? Oldest Rock Suggests Hospitable Young Planet](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/01/010111073459.htm)** > > Geological evidence suggests that Earth may have had surface water -- and thus conditions to support life -- billions of years earlier than previously thought. Scientists reconstructed the portrait of early Earth by reading the telltale chemical... For the evolutionist this is another opportunity: two eras now were to look for the origins of life. And how life finds a way to come back (or to be created again!) under the most stressful circumstances. For the fundamentalists this is yet another headache. Compounded by this: - For the fundies the moon was supposed to appear at the same time as the sun. (Gen. 1:16) - Fundamentalists now have to deal with 2 creations. - A worldwide flood would have been child’s play compared to the almost complete destruction of the earth’s crust. So there is no reason why, if humans were on earth from the beginning, for the Bible to ignore such a catastrophe. > **[The Origin of the Moon](https://www.psi.edu/epo/moon/moon.html)** > > Page design by Gregg Herres and William K. HartmannPSI's role:Two PSI senior scientists, Dr. William K. Hartmann and Dr. Donald R. Davis, were the first to suggest the leading modern hypothesis of the moon's origin, in a paper published in 1975 in... ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2001, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-101-for-fundies/76066/57 "2001-08-21T03:40:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by vanilla \* > \*\*So I come back afterwards, see a $20 on my bible. > I think, WO! How nice. We are destitute, and God has led someone to put a 20 here for us. > Right. > i open it and see Don’t be disappointed…its a tract! > \*\* If I were you, I’d mail that to the FBI along with an enquiry as to the legality of it. It most probably won’t be illegal, but if not…😃 ---
**Author:** ![drewbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drewbert/32/15890_2.png) [@drewbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewbert)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2001, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-101-for-fundies/76066/58 "2001-08-25T14:17:23Z")
I’ve only skimmed the thread, so sorry if someone else has already suggested this… As to the OP, I think it’s crucial that they understand that scientists treat evolution and the Big Bang as completely separate concepts that have nothing to do with each other. Seems obvious to most of us, but there are people who don’t get this - to them, creation of the Universe and creation of life are lumped into one big event. So cover first things first. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-101-for-fundies/76066.md?page=2)