[_ Old Earth _] Debunking Evolution:

[Lewis]

Years ago on this forum I would argue with you guy's but I have found out that it is a lost cause. Because you all are blind to the truth, you have closed your minds and hearts off to the creator of all things. You stand around with your finite minds knowing nothing. The Bible account gets proved every time. But even with proof you people still refuse to believe. But I will tell you there will come a time when you will believe, and that is when you are wailing and gnashing your teeth. The fool has said in his heart that there is no God.

 

[Jam]

This is a purely nonsensical statement. The blanket term 'scientists' includes every discipline going, and it is simply silly to say 'consensus among scientists' as if that meant anything at all.

Which scientists do you mean?

Physicists? What do they know about biology?
Chemists? Which chemists, and what do they know about biology?
Astronomers? What do they know about biology?
Mathematicians? What do they know about biology?
Rocket scientists? Metallurgists? Computer scientists?

So that is a meaningless statement, and should not be swallowed as if it is true. Some biologists reject evolution, but have got to shut up about it or be blacklisted by the universities and establishment in general.

Perhaps "general consensus" was the wrong word for me to use... I simply meant to claim that far more scientists (by this I mean those who have studied the natural sciences beyond undergraduate level) believe that evolution is correct than believe that it is false.

Even scientists not specialising in biology are likely to understand evolutionary theory more than your average member of the public: not only are they likely to be more intelligent, but they are also virtually guaranteed to have a better understanding of the scientific method and the very nature of evidence itself. Sure, biologists' assertions probably count for more on this subject, but they are not the only opinions that count... regardless, I could substitute the word "biologists" for "scientists" and my statement would still be true.

Perhaps you should try looking at it from the facts' point of view.

This is exactly the point that I meant to make: I do not consider myself to be in a position to objectively evaluate all of the evidence! I have not formally studied evolutionary biology (or, indeed, any form of biology) extensively beyond O-level, and I do not have the time to go through examining every piece of evidence that exists that relates to evolution. For this reason I would consider it arrogant for me to claim to have any valid/reliable opinion on the truth of evolution... given that most schools' governing bodies and authorities are in similar situations to mine, wrt their understanding of evolution, it seems perfectly reasonable for them to simply go with whatever the specialists think, does it not? To do otherwise would be pretty presumptuous.





Here is a list of webpages regarding scientific opinions on evolution that I have spent a fair deal of time compiling for you. If there's a bit much though, then I'm sure the Wikipedia page will suffice (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_of_support_for_evolution#Scientific_support). It is very heavily sourced, so please do not dismiss simply because it is Wikipedia- if you have issues with what is said, please explain why the sources provided do not support the assertions made, or how you know that the sources are not credible. Brackets indicate slightly less relevant webpages, or those that only briefly mention the issue.

(http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309064066&page=25)
http://ncse.com/media/voices/science
http://www.nsf.gov/nsb/documents/1999/nsb99149/nsb99149.txt
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=6024&page=28
http://www.people-press.org/2009/07/09/section-5-evolution-climate-change-and-other-issues/
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientific_societies_rejecting_intelligent_design)
-->A Scientific Support for Darwinism (details can be found by googling or simply visiting the Wikipedia page [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Scientific_Support_For_Darwinism])
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/edwards-v-aguillard/amicus1.html
http://www.interacademies.net/10878/13901.aspx
http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2006/pdf/0219boardstatement.pdf
http://www.jstor.org/pss/2743476
(http://nihrecord.od.nih.gov/newsletters/2006/07_28_2006/story03.htm)
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kitzm...strict/4:Whether_ID_Is_Science#Page_83_of_139

I am aware that the definitions of "scientist" used by a couple of these pages may be slightly different to my own.

 

[Asyncritus]

I've had a look at the jstor paper you quoted, but not at the others.

In it, the authors state that 74 Nobel laureates have signed a document saying they believe in evolution.

I wonder what subjects their Nobels were in?

You see, it's a favourite evolutionist tactic to shout: you have no qualifications in evolutionary genomics, evolutionary biology, etc etc'. Therefore, why don't you shut up and go play over there on the motorway? So just what were their Nobels in?

There are other laureates who say the exact opposite. Other Fellows of the Royal Society, other members of NAS, hugely important European scientists in France and the Nordic countries : all of whom say the opposite or express very grave reservations about the theory.

But as always, it's the biggest mouths that get heard.

But don't you think it strange that so many scientists have to publicly express their support for a scientific theory? Have you ever heard of such a demonstration of slavish support of the Law of Gravity? Or the Law of Mass Action?

So why does this 'scientific theory' have to haul so many people, unqualified in the field as a general rule, to shout their support?

Don't you think that 'the lady doth protest too much'?

There are far greater scientists than Darwin who express their belief in God and creation.

Newton for a start, da Vinci, William Harvey, James Clerk Maxwell, Lord Kelvin, Louis Pasteur, Louis Agassiz, Sir Francis Bacon, Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, Robert Boyle, Gregor Mendel, John Ray, Henri Fabre, Linnaeus, Michael Faraday, Liebnitz, Blaise Pascal, Max Planck, Albert Einstein (who did not believe in a personal God, but could not exclude the divine in creation), Wilbur and Orville Wright, Werner von Braun, Werner Heisenberg, and a multitude of others.

In the Creation Research Society there are over 700 scientists who do not accept evolution.
http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/sciencefaith.html

Why didn't Jstor produce a list such as that to balance the scales?

http://notaboutreligion.com/2009/03/31/nobel-laureates-and-scientists-who-believe-in-god/

http://nobelists.net/

 

[Barbarian]

This is a purely nonsensical statement. The blanket term 'scientists' includes every discipline going, and it is simply silly to say 'consensus among scientists' as if that meant anything at all.

More to the point, if you take data from various lists of "scientists who doubt Darwin", and Project Steve, it turns out that about 0.3% of people with doctorates in biology or a related field don't accept evolutionary theory as it is today.

Which scientists do you mean?

The 97.7%.

Physicists? What do they know about biology?
Chemists? Which chemists, and what do they know about biology?
Astronomers? What do they know about biology?
Mathematicians? What do they know about biology? Rocket scientists? Metallurgists? Computer scientists?

You should ask the Discovery Institute. They tout them as experts in biology. Project Steve requires a doctorate in Biology or a related field. The D.I. list includes engineers, mathematicians, "safety" and other unrelated jobs.

So that is a meaningless statement, and should not be swallowed as if it is true.

No kidding. But if they listed only people who knew what they were talking about, the list would be a little thin.

Some biologists reject evolution, but have got to shut up about it or be blacklisted by the universities and establishment in general.

The head of the Immunology department at Iowa State was a creationist, and had been given tenure and position. Kurt Wise was accepted as a doctoral candidate by Stephen Gould at Harvard, as an openly-professed YE creationist. So you've gotten that wrong, too.

There is an evolution juggernaut, and woe betide anyone who dares say nay.

See above. You've been badly misled.

 

[Jam]

In it, the authors state that 74 Nobel laureates have signed a document saying they believe in evolution.

I wonder what subjects their Nobels were in?

You see, it's a favourite evolutionist tactic to shout: you have no qualifications in evolutionary genomics, evolutionary biology, etc etc'. Therefore, why don't you shut up and go play over there on the motorway? So just what were their Nobels in?

19 out of the 72 Nobel Laureates mentioned received their Nobel Prizes in physiology/medicine (the closest thing to biology for which one can receive a Nobel Prize). See http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/edwards-v-aguillard/amicus1.html

As I explained in my previous post, the others' lack of education in evolutionary theory specifically does not render their statements irrelevant: they still have a far better understanding of the scientific method, what constitutes scientific evidence and how to evaluate evidence than an average person.

Also as I mentioned in my last post, you could replace the word "scientist" with "biologist" and get the same result: the vast majority of biologists are also in support of evolutionary theory.

There are other laureates who say the exact opposite. Other Fellows of the Royal Society, other members of PNAS, hugely important European scientists in France and the Nordic countries : all of whom say the opposite or express very grave reservations about the theory.

But as always, it's the biggest mouths that get heard.

This is irrelevant to my point that the majority of scientists (even specifically in the relevant field) of Nobel laureates support evolution. I did not deny that some reject it.

But don't you think it strange that so many scientists have to publicly express their support for a scientific theory? Have you ever heard of such a demonstration of slavish support of the Law of Gravity? Or the Law of Mass Action?

So why does this 'scientific theory' have to haul so many people, unqualified in the field as a general rule, to shout their support?

Don't you think that 'the lady doth protest too much'?

Because there are so many people claiming that it is false... we Creationists are not constantly asserting that Newton's law of universal gravitation (or any other scientific theory) lacks evidence or is impossible or whatever it is that it is popular among us to say... so why would there be any need to consistently assert that it is true? Couple this with the number of lawsuits and stuff made by us against the teaching of evolution in schools, and I'm sure you can understand their belief that it is a necessity for them to speak out.

There are far greater scientists than Darwin who express their belief in God and creation.

Newton for a start, da Vinci, William Harvey, James Clerk Maxwell, Lord Kelvin, Louis Pasteur, Louis Agassiz, Sir Francis Bacon, Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, Robert Boyle, Gregor Mendel, John Ray, Henri Fabre, Linnaeus, Michael Faraday, Liebnitz, Blaise Pascal, Max Planck, Albert Einstein (who did not believe in a personal God, but could not exclude the divine in creation), Wilbur and Orville Wright, Werner von Braun, Werner Heisenberg, and a multitude of others.

I fail to see the relevance of this. We are discussing evolution; not the existence of God...

In the Creation Research Society there are over 700 scientists who do not accept evolution.
http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/sciencefaith.html

Why didn't Jstor produce a list such as that to balance the scales?

A Scientific Support for Darwinism received nearly 8,000 scientists' signatures, offering support for the theory of evolution. This took four days.

http://notaboutreligion.com/2009/03/31/nobel-laureates-and-scientists-who-believe-in-god/

http://nobelists.net/

Again, I have not denied that some scientists believe evolution to be false; I have simply asserted that far more belief it to be correct.

 

[Gazelle]

Debunking Evolution:
problems, errors, and lies exposed,
in plain language for non-scientists
http://www.newgeology.us/presentation32.html

:toofunny Let's try and have the "scientists" read it too...maybe they'll understand then? :toofunny

 

[Asyncritus]

More to the point, if you take data from various lists of "scientists who doubt Darwin", and Project Steve, it turns out that about 0.3% of people with doctorates in biology or a related field don't accept evolutionary theory as it is today.

I wonder just how selective that survey was!

You should ask the Discovery Institute. They tout them as experts in biology. Project Steve requires a doctorate in Biology or a related field. The D.I. list includes engineers, mathematicians, "safety" and other unrelated jobs.

No kidding. But if they listed only people who knew what they were talking about, the list would be a little thin.

That list above of Nobelists also contains some odd things - especially as only a handful; of them have anything to do with biology as you kindly pointed out. Physiology is nothing like evolutionary biology, as I don't suppose you know, or you wouldn't have raised the point.

The head of the Immunology department at Iowa State was a creationist, and had been given tenure and position. Kurt Wise was accepted as a doctoral candidate by Stephen Gould at Harvard, as an openly-professed YE creationist. So you've gotten that wrong, too.

See above. You've been badly misled.

That's 2 of them. That the lot? Marvellous!

 

[Asyncritus]

Here's a quote from the above link:

"Evolution" mixes two things together, one real, one imaginary. Variation (microevolution) is the real part. The types of bird beaks, the colors of moths, leg sizes, etc. are variation. Each type and length of beak a finch can have is already in the gene pool and adaptive mechanisms of finches.

Creationists have always agreed that there is variation within species. What evolutionists do not want you to know is that there are strict limits to variation that are never crossed, something every breeder of animals or plants is aware of.

Whenever variation is pushed to extremes by selective breeding (to get the most milk from cows, sugar from beets, bristles on fruit flies, or any other characteristic), the line becomes sterile and dies out. And as one characteristic increases, others diminish.

But evolutionists want you to believe that changes continue, merging gradually into new kinds of creatures. This is where the imaginary part of the theory of evolution comes in. It says that new information is added to the gene pool by mutation and natural selection to create frogs from fish, reptiles from frogs, and mammals from reptiles, to name a few.

Do these big changes (macroevolution) really happen?

Evolutionists tell us we cannot see evolution taking place because it happens too slowly. A human generation takes about 20 years from birth to parenthood. They say it took tens of thousands of generations to form man from a common ancestor with the ape, from populations of only hundreds or thousands.

We do not have these problems with bacteria.

A new generation of bacteria grows in as short as 12 minutes or up to 24 hours or more, depending on the type of bacteria and the environment, but typically 20 minutes to a few hours.

There are more bacteria in the world than there are grains of sand on all of the beaches of the world (and many grains of sand are covered with bacteria).

They exist in just about any environment: hot, cold, dry, wet, high pressure, low pressure, small groups, large colonies, isolated, much food, little food, much oxygen, no oxygen, in toxic chemicals, etc.

There is much variation in bacteria. There are many mutations (in fact, evolutionists say that smaller organisms have a faster mutation rate than larger ones16). But they never turn into anything new. They always remain bacteria.

Fruit flies are much more complex than already complex single-cell bacteria. Scientists like to study them because a generation (from egg to adult) takes only 9 days. In the lab, fruit flies are studied under every conceivable condition. There is much variation in fruit flies. There are many mutations. But they never turn into anything new. They always remain fruit flies.

Many years of study of countless generations of bacteria and fruit flies all over the world shows that evolution is not happening today...endquote.

Barbarian? LK?

 

[Asyncritus]

That article has some lovely quotes in it. Here's another:

When a creature produces light with chemicals it is called bioluminescence.

"A remarkable diversity of marine animals and microbes are able to produce their own light, and in most of the volume of the ocean, bioluminescence is the primary source of light."

"On land, fireflies are the most conspicuous examples, but other luminous taxa include other beetles, insects like flies and springtails, fungi, centipedes and millipedes, a snail, and earthworms."

Evolutionists think bioluminescence evolved independently 40 to 50 separate times! --Haddock, Steven H.D., Mark A. Moline, James F. Case. 2010. Bioluminescence in the Sea. Annual Review of Marine Science, Vol. 2, pp. 443-493.

:biglol :toofunny :silly

 

[Asyncritus]

Here's a list of 500 or so acientists, with a substantial number of PhDs among them who reject Darwinism.

http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=660

So we have to fight the case on its merits, not on numbers.

Just BTW, I view acceptance of evolution as a one way ticket to atheism.

That is why that list of believing scientists is highly relevant.

 

[EricTheBaptist]

Here's a list of 500 or so acientists, with a substantial number of PhDs among them who reject Darwinism.

http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=660

So we have to fight the case on its merits, not on numbers.

Just BTW, I view acceptance of evolution as a one way ticket to atheism.

That is why that list of believing scientists is highly relevant.

DissentFromDarwinism can't be used as evidence against Evolution. Last time I used that on an Evolutionist he laughed and said "Haha the old numbers "argument"..classic."

 

[freeway]

I think the one thing that screams of the false hood of evolution is the lack of Transitional fossil. The micro macro level of so called evolution can be debated on and on.. The one thing that should be found without end, is missing links. Or should I say there should be no missing links... Lets run down to the nearest museum and look at all the fossils...not.

 

[Asyncritus]

DissentFromDarwinism can't be used as evidence against Evolution. Last time I used that on an Evolutionist he laughed and said "Haha the old numbers "argument"..classic."

As I said, the case stands or falls on its own merits, not on the numbers of supporters or dissenters.

So get your facts together (I've put up plenty of them in this forum) and go beat him over the head with them.

You can shut him up pretty permanently by raising the arguments from the origin of instinct. Visit my blog and get some ammo.

http://belligerentdesign-asyncritus.blogspot.com/2009/10/ervs-function-discovered.html

 

[Barbarian]

DissentFromDarwinism can't be used as evidence against Evolution. Last time I used that on an Evolutionist he laughed and said "Haha the old numbers "argument"..classic."

The usual thing is to compare those numbers with those from Project Steve. Turns out that the evidence shows only about 0.3% of Biologists with doctorates don't accept modern evolutionary theory. The bandwagon argument is a big loser for creationists.

 

[Barbarian]

I think the one thing that screams of the false hood of evolution is the lack of Transitional fossil.

That's a testable assertion. Show me any two major groups, said to be evolutionarily connected, and we'll see how it goes.

Better yet, give me several examples, so we will know I wasn't just lucky the first time.

 

[EricTheBaptist]

That's a testable assertion. Show me any two major groups, said to be evolutionarily connected, and we'll see how it goes.

Better yet, give me several examples, so we will know I wasn't just lucky the first time.

Cambrian Explosion, shows a lack of transitional species.

 

[Barbarian]

Barbarian suggests:
hat's a testable assertion. Show me any two major groups, said to be evolutionarily connected, and we'll see how it goes.

Better yet, give me several examples, so we will know I wasn't just lucky the first time.

Cambrian Explosion, shows a lack of transitional species.

Can't think of any examples? Neither can anyone else. You do know that there are many, many multicellular organisms in the Precambrian, don't you?

Let's take trilobites. Pavancorina, commonly found in the Precambrian:

Spriggina, also Precambrian:

Try again?

 

[Asyncritus]

Barbarian

Are you trying to say that all the evolutionary palaeontologists who use the description 'Cambrian Explosion' are up a gum tree?

Why do you think they use such a loaded term?

Do you really want a listing of all the species, genera, families and the higher taxa featuring in the Cambrian Explosion. I'm sure I could oblige, partially at any rate, but it would be a waste of good electrons.

You know as well as I do that the term Cambrian Explosion is perfectly justified.

So where are their ancestors? And where's that elusive 'common ancestor' that nobody's ever seen?

 

[Jam]

I wonder just how selective that survey was!

No need to wonder; all the information is here and here! Random members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science were surveyed, including non-American members.

That list above of Nobelists also contains some odd things - especially as only a handful; of them have anything to do with biology as you kindly pointed out. Physiology is nothing like evolutionary biology, as I don't suppose you know, or you wouldn't have raised the point.

I'm assuming that this was aimed at me: Barbarian didn't really mention this topic...

Anyway, I didn't say thay physiology was evolutionary biology; I said that that was the closest thing to biology for which a Nobel Prize could be awarded. So what I was saying is that a lot of them were likely to indeed be biologists, as they couldn't have actually won awards in biology. I was right: nearly half of the Nobel laureates' mentioned specialised in biology:

1. André Cournand – biologist
2. Arthur Kornberg – biochemist/molecular biologist
3. Barbara McClintock – geneticist
4. Christian Anfinsen – biochemist
5. Daniel Nathans – microbiologist
6. David Baltimore – biologist
7. David Hubel – neurobiologist
8. Donald Glaser – neurobiologist/molecular biologist
9. Francis Crick – molecular biologist/biophysicist/neuroscientist
10. Frederick Robbins – virologist
11. George Palade – cell biologist
12. George Snell – geneticist
13. Har Khorana – biochemist/molecular biologist
14. Howard Temin – geneticist/molecular biologist
15. James Watson – molecular biologist/zoologist/geneticist
16. John Northrop – biochemist
17. Joseph Goldstein – biochemist/geneticist
18. Julius Axelrod – biochemist
19. Konrad Block – biochemist
20. Linus Pauling – biochemist
21. Marshall Nirenberg – biochemist
22. Melvin Calvin – biologist
23. Michael Brown – geneticist/biologist
24. Paul Berg – biochemist
25. Renato Dulbecco – biologist/virologist
26. Robert Holley – biochemist
27. Robert Merrifield – biochemist
28. Roger Guillemin – biologist/neurologist
29. Roger Sperry – neurobiologist
30. Salvador Luria – microbiologist/molecular biologist
31. Severo Ochoa – biochemist/molecular biologist
32. Thomas Weller - virologist
33. Walter Gilbert – biochemist/molecular biologist
34. William Lipscomb – biochemist

As far as I'm aware, "evolutionary biology" is not a formal branch of biology, and so there aren't actually any scientists who formally refer to themselves as evolutionary biologists.

Regardless, most of this may be irrelevant... do you genuinely deny that scientific (or biologists', if you wish) support for evolution far outweighs any dissent?

 

[EricTheBaptist]

Barbarian suggests:
hat's a testable assertion. Show me any two major groups, said to be evolutionarily connected, and we'll see how it goes.

Better yet, give me several examples, so we will know I wasn't just lucky the first time.



Can't think of any examples? Neither can anyone else. You do know that there are many, many multicellular organisms in the Precambrian, don't you?

Let's take trilobites. Pavancorina, commonly found in the Precambrian:

Spriggina, also Precambrian:

Try again?

Now all of that has changed. A recent study in Nature reported that some of the same soft-bodied "Cambrian" sea creatures were found in Morocco--preserved in brilliant reds and yellows because of the oxidation of pyrite that occurred on their soft tissues while they were being fossilized--in a higher layer, mixed in with "later" animals.2 This discovery erases the argument for evolution, which relies on the absence of these creatures in higher layers to support the assumption that they "diverged" into "later" life forms--and eventually into people. - Institute for Creation Research credit to them.