Evolution and Creationism [Mad Hatter vs. Himura]

Mad Hatter and Himura have agreed to debate.

The topic is Evolution and Creationism.

This is not affirmative and negative cases, but rather, each man trying to present his own side. Therefore, both are expected to create a case for their own position.

Both competitors agreed on certain rules. These stipulated rules cannot be violated.

1. Mad Hatter can't quote talkorigins and Himura can't quote answersingenesis. They are allowed to get ideas from there, but no direct quoting or referencing is allowed. The reasoning is that it becomes too easy to let two sites argue instead of themselves.

2. To avoid being too broad, the debate will only encompass common descent vs. creationism of species. For evolution this does not include the big bang, formation of stars and galaxies, formation of the earth, and abiogenesis. For Creationism it doesn't include the creation of all these things except life.

3. The debate is not only over evolution, but also creationism. Because of this, each side needs to provide evidence supporting his theories, not just evidence against the opposing theory. Evolution and creationism are not the only two possibilities.

Furthermore, Himura is a proponent of creationism-- not Intelligent Design theory. Intelligent Design theory will not be debated here.

That is the preliminary. I trust both debators to be able to follow the rules that they agreed to. If they do not, either I will catch them, or someone will notify me, and I will catch them.

For readers: this thread is for you reading pleasure only. The only two posters who are licitly allowed to post in this thread, besides moderaters (official ZU mods or any mediator I may choose), are Mad Hatter and Himura. Do not post in this thread if you are not one of these people. I will delete your post, and I will reserve the right to strike you. The Serious Discussion board is meant to be more sophisticated than the rest of the forum. The individual debates are going to be likewise in regards to the Serious Discussion board: stricter and elevated from the rest of the forums.

Addendum: no position is correct simply because it is argued well. Readers, beware that how well an argument is presented has no holding on the actual truth of the position advanced.

Mad Hatter, I believe it has been agreed upon that you will present first. Good luck to the both of you. Keep it civil, and have fun.

Thanks, Bobslob.


I'm going to support the theory of common descent, the theory that every organism on the earth had one common ancestor approximately 4 billion years ago. This ancestor, through evolution, split up over time into every species known today.
There is not one piece of evidence that will undoubtedly prove evolution. Rather, evolution theory is a result of a convergence of many forms of evidence. As I will show, every method we have to trace lineages of species will point to the same tree of descent.
This is the evolutionary tree that most people agree upon (Well, it's a vague version of it). It is also the tree of general classification of organisms, based on their similarities. I will present a set of evidences supporting this tree.

Fossils

The first way we can create this tree is by examining the fossil record. By digging up fossils, their respective strata, and the date we get from carbon dating, we have a fairly accurate concept of the order in which these fossils formed. The fossil record gives a clear succession of changes. The first example I will give is hominid evolution.

This picture shows the timeline of the human fossil record. More importantly, we have fossils that show every step of the way:

This picture shows the transformation of ape ancestors to homo sapiens sapiens. The respective times for each of these is shown in the first picture I gave. Both of these are from the Smithsonian Institute.

Another example would be the transition fossils between land mammals and whales.

Here is a nice picture showing some of the transitional fossils. As you can see, the animals became more and more horizontal, and eventually the legs became vestigial.


Before you claim the dating methods for fossils are inaccurate, I will explain how they are accurate: Any tool will not give proper results if it is not used properly. Carbon dating has clear limitations - nothing less than 100 years old will turn out accurately, and nothing older than 30,000 years old will be accurate. However, other forms of radiometric dating can give us readings that go back much further, such as uranium 238, in its transition to lead, has a half life of 4.5 billion years. Uranium 235 has a half life of 704 million years. These are just a few examples of the dating methods we have. (Source).
These dating methods have been calibrated with tree rings, which give a very accurate calendar going back 11,000 years. As far as I know, even ID supporters don't refute tree ring dating.

As for the geological column, it is more in tact than most people think - some places, such as Williston Basin in North Dakota. In some places in the world, the geological column is out of order, but in very predictable ways, so its still easy to tell which layer is which.

Vestiges

I will now explain vestigial structures and chemicals. Vestigial structures are not necessarily structures that have no purpose, but structures that have a reduced purpose. These are structures that have been passed down in descent. The first example I will give is the human appendix. While the human appendix does have a role, it is an extremely minute one, and makes such an insignificant difference that the risk of infection outweighs its benefits. Originally the purpose of the appendix was to help digest cellulose, but we humans don't have much cellulose in our diet, and even if we did, the appendix is now incapable of digesting it, since it has lost most of its abilities. Of course, apes and other primates all have functional appendices.(Source).

Another example I will give is a very awkward-looking insect called a weevil. weevils have fully developed wings that are protected by a hard shell. Unfortunately for the weevil, the shell is sealed shut, so it can never use its wings. Another good example of this type is a species of mole that, although it has fully developed eyes, the eyelids are unable to open. (Source).

Structures are not the only type of vestige; molecular vestiges also occur. An example of this is ascorbic acid production. Our predicted ancestors had bodies with the capability of producing vitamin C. In fact, most animals aside from primates have this ability. However, since we primates started eating fruits, we lost the ability. (Source).

Suboptimality

Although humans seem like the optimal creature, there are many things in us that could be much more efficient. Birds have a lung system with multiple compartments (slightly similar to the structure of a heart). This is very efficient, because this way, the bird releases all its CO2 from the lungs. Humans, on the other hand, have lungs that are unable to release all of the CO2 emitted.

Homologies

Homologous structures are structures passed on from an ancestor with a change in purpose, while the general structure remains similar. Compare forelimbs of animals, for example.

All of these structures closely resemble the human arm, even with the same bones.
Here is another nice example. As we can see, the whale limb has the same bones for the most part as a human limb, while fish do not. this goes to support the close tie between sea mammals and land mammals. In fact, homologous structures follow the phylogenetic tree prefectly.

Homologous molecules also exist. 98% of our DNA doesn't code into any protein. The rest of this "junk" DNA gives us important clues as to our ancestry. The similarities just in our junk DNA point to this very same tree. Of course, most of these similarities are unnecessary, since they don't code into anything.

Analogies

When species are geographically isolated, but in similar environments, they tend to develop similar features that are structurally different. For example, compare a bird wing to an insect wing. These are entirely different, structurally. However, in species that are more closely related, these organs are more likely to develop with similar structures. A bat wing and a bird wing are fairly similar, while an insect wing is very different. Uncoincidentally, this is what is predicted by the model I presented above. While these don't prove evolution, they do support it. If there were a designer, it seems like a very arbitrary design.


All of these cases point to the same tree of descent. Many cases that I haven't mentioned point to it too, such as retroviral insertions that have been passed down, protein homologies, and more. I would like you to find a case that does not point towards common descent.


Since it doesn't seem like you have much time, I will end my argument here. I would love to give more examples and arguments, but in the interest of time, I can't give very many.

Sorry to be so slow, I didn't realize you had this going already.

Firstly, I would like to state my purpose here. I don't want to preach, and I don't want to attack and disprove common descent, although the thought is tempting. I don't even want to say creationism is a better idea, though I certainly bellieve it is. I merely want to get the point across that both ideas have equal merit, and just because creationism involves a belief in God it doesn't mean it can't be scientifically accurate. Science is the method we use for understanding our world, using fact and evidence to support our conclusions.

I am very glad that you specified common decent rather than saying "evolution." There are many parts to evolution, and oftentimes microevolution (variation within a type of animal due to breeding or natural selection) and macroevolution (basically, common decent) are confused. Microevolution is a proven fact, and is accepted by creationism, which believes that all the variations "evolved" from the animals that survived the flood of Noah. Creationism holds that the bible is true in it's entirety and looks for evidence to support this biblical truth.

For reference, here is a very condensed creationism timeline:
around 6000 years ago God created the heavens and the earth.
100 years or so later Adam sinned and ruined God's perfect world
4000 years ago or so there was a huge flood, which covered the entire earth
around 2000+ years ago Jesus was born
and here we are today.

The Flood of Noah is a core part of creationism, as it provides the ancestors of all living creatures on earth today, human and animal. In order to accept creationism their must be evidence of such a flood.

There is evidence firstly in the fossil record. For instance take the "Cambrian explosion."
The idea of the "Cambrian explosion" comes from the part of the geologic column where almost no multicellular life can be found beyond what is described as the 600 million year mark. Right above this, however, there is an incredible wealth of multicellular fossils of both animals and plants. Recent revisions in evolutionary theory have shortened the time span for the evolution of these fossils from 50 to a mere 10 million years. That is a geological blink of an eye, and one can't help but doubt evolution would work so quickly then and slow down later. There is also reason to doubt the geologic column, which I will explain later. The "Cambrian explosion" is actually evidence for Noah's flood and a young earth, the so called 600 million year mark being the bottom layer of settled sediment that the flood stirred up when it covered the world around 4,000 years ago. The buried animals and plants were fossilized inside of the different layeres of dirt that settled out under the floodwaters above, in no particular order besides the elevation and geographical region where they lived.

More fossil evidence for evolution comes from a very unlikely place, a mountaintop. fossilized sea creatures such as mollusks and conches have been found on mountains from the Himilayas to the Andes. Now mollusks don't climb mountains well, or survive for very long out of the water. the obvious conclusion here is that the mountains used to be covered with water. You will say that there isn't enough water in the world do this, and I would agree with you. But the bible doesn't say that the mountains were always there. In actuality creationism places the mountains rising as the waters receded. The post flood world is thought to have been much more level than the world of today.

Still on the subject of geological proof I will mention the Grand Canyon. In a nutshell, the canyon's elevation is greater where the Colorado River exits than where it enters. This and many other features actually show that the canyon once consisted of two lakes, Grand Lake and Hopi Lake. Then somehow the lake overflowed at one end, and was washed out. The enormous amouts of water required to do this were easily supplied by Noah's flood, which washed out the canyon very quickly. This rapid washout is supported by the fact that a delta large enough to account for the massive amounts of dirt that would be displaced by slow erosion cannot be found. This is just a small summary, if you want more info you can go here and check out Kent Hovind's and John Hinton's articles. this site also has excellent videos on creationism. http://www.drdino.com/articles.php

Dinosaurs offer furthur proof for creationism. large species of dinosaur such as Brontosaurus or Apatosaurus have comparatively small nostrils. Due to their nostril size it would be very hard for them to survive without a higher concentration of oxygen then is currently availible. Under the creationism theory however the oxygen concentration would have once been much greater. The bible says that God created a firmament above the waters and below the waters. This firmament was the atmosphere. creationism holds that before the flood a layer of ice was supported above the atmosphere, blocking many harmful uv and x rays and exerting pressure on the atmosphere below. Supercooled ice is magnetic, because of water's polarity, and such a field could have easily been supported by earth's magnetic field. The increased pressure changed the atmospheric levels, creating, in effect, a hyperbaric chamber. In such and environment a dinosuar with small lungs and nostrils could have eastily survived. Also, plant growth would exceed all fathomable limits. A man recently grew a tomato plant in a greenhouse with preflood hyperbaric conditions and his plant grew enourmous and produced an excess of 15000 tomato's. This explains the problem of what dino's ate, there would have been plenty of food to go around. The enormouse amount of plant and animal life also account for the large amounts of coal and oil found in the world today. Coal and oil can be formed very quickly given enough pressue and a worldwide flood easily provides the pressure. It also accounts for the existence of the large deposits of fossils fuels, rather than the smaller pockets that would be expected to form by the death and fossilization of individual animals over the evolutionary timespan.

Many human artifacts have been found inside of coal deposits. This is very strong evidence for a creationism and the flood, as it proves humans lived before the coal deposits were formed.

A list of flood facts and evidence can be found here http://www.drdino.com/articles.php?spec=77

Irreducible systems logically demand creation. A system of irreducible complexity is a system that can no longer function if even one of it's parts were removed. The demand a creator because natural selection is extermely unlikely to produce them given any amount of time, as the individual parts are useless by themselves and wouldn't furthur the development of a species. One example is the eye, which requires a complex set of chemical reactions, as well as many interdependant structural parts working together to function. Darwin tried to explain it away by showing different types of eyes and claiming that they were evidence of evolution from simple to complex. The real roadblock, however, comes from the field of biochemistry. Anatomical evolution of these structures seems reasonable enough, but it is biochemically impossible. If you want to know the in depth and nitty gritty details youcan read this book, which I found a Barnes and Noble
Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution by Michael J. Behe.

One more piece of evidence more directly related to humans. The environmental factors effecting the pre flood dinos and plants would have also caused humans to become much bigger. the bible says that there were giants in the earth in those days, and indeed there seems to have been. Hundreds of giant skeletons have been found all over the world showing that our ancestors were actually bigger, stronger, and probably smarter than us.
And we're not talking about 9 or 10 feet tall, but as much as 15 feet. The Turkish govt. claims to have found Noah's grave, and he was a towering 13 feet tall. This also sheds light on how building the ark was possible, as a giant's cubit would be much bigger than we thought and big strong people wouldn't have as much trouble building the enourmous ships as we would have using their technology. Consider also thing such as Stonehenge and Easter Island. A race of Giants wouldn't have nearly as much trouble moving those stones as our supposed "caveman" ancestors.


Now to your earlier post

First off, carbon dating is actually much lessaccurate than you say, and for a multitude of reasons. It is based on an assumption, first of all, that the levels of CO2 have always remained constant. We know for a fact that this cannot be true, just look at how much they have changed due to greenhouse gas emmissions ect. over the past few decades. Secondly the 1/2 life of carbon fourteen not only limits the accurate dating of very young things, but things older than 40,000 years as well. For much more info on what's wrong with carbon dating youcan read this article: http://www.drdino.com/articles.php?spec=73

Also, the geologic column is less factual than you think. When it was devised advanced method such as radiometric dating had't been devised yet. In fact, many of them were based off of the Geologic column itself. Big mistake. You see, when the fossils were dated they were dated based on the layer of strata that they were found in. Now here's where it gets interesting. Guess how the layers are dated- by the fossils that they contain. that's right, the geologic column is based on circular reasoning. Also there are only around 20 places in the world that contain the fossils in the order prescribed by the column. IT would only take one site without the proper order to disprove the column, it turns out that all but 20 do. Not looking good for the Geologic column.

Ah, yes. The old human evolutionary record. This record has been subjected to so many fakes and frauds that I cannot list them all here. There are several books on the subject, which you can find along with an article here:http://www.drdino.com/articles.php?spec=59
but the basic jest is this, The human evolutionary record is a fraud, a lie.

As for the evolution of whales, it merely depends on your viewpoint. You can look at fossils, see similarities and claim evolution or you can claim a common designer. This example almost requires you accept evolution already, and is thereby not very solid proof. Also I would like to pose a question as to why whales evolved from land animals which were supposesd to have evolved from fish? Would't it make more sense to think that whales evolved from other sea creatures?

Vestigal organs are a myth. Everything serves a purpose. True some can be removed, but that doesn't make them vestigal. You can live without your legs, but that doesn't mean that they're vestigal too, does it? Many people say that the whale's pelvis is vestigal, the remains of it land going past as a cow type animal. the pelvis, however, is essential to providing additional support during mating. Definitly not vestigal.
Your example of molecular vestige assumes prematurely that we have evolutionary ancestors. How can it prove common descent if it is formed under the assumption that common descent is true? It is just as logically valid to say God intended us to eat fruits (which he did) and therefore created us accordingly.

Homologies, too are a weak argumentative basis. They can be interperted based on prior belief in evolution or as evidence of a common design used by the creator. Evolution can look deceptively simple on the anatomical level, but on the chemical level it just doesn't fly. Read the book I mentioned above.

As for analogies, if the shoe fits, why not wear it? The differences in structure may actually lend more evidence to the caring God of the bible, who created all creatures with love so that they could be best suited to their environment.

It is all basically a matter of choice. I think both our World Views have their strong and weak points, and peolple have the right to choose for themselves what they want to believe. the fact that one idea has received more media support and been put in textbooks does not make all other ideas invalid. There are historical examples of popular opinion being wrong, showing us we should be open to possibilities , even the possibility that we have been lied too. I'm not saying this is the case here, mind. I merely say it to encourage people to be more alert and open minded, considering all sides and making educated decisions. To me creationism makes the most sense, but choose for yourself.

by the by, how do we decide when the debate is over? do we each post once and argue once, if so I guess that I am finished but I will certaily come back to read your response. Please pm me and tell me your opinion, Mad Hatter.

I think we'll just keep this going until it dies or we come to a conclusion.

The Cambrian explosion happened at a time of a lot of evolutionary developments. It is believed that hox genes, which control much of the overall shape and structure of organisms originated just before then, which would case rapid changes. 10 million years is still a relatively long time in evolution - plenty of time for new species to form. You see, evolution works in a pattern called punctuated equilibrium. This means most of the developments appear over thousands of years, followed by a very long period of stasis. When a new pressure is added, change will occur again. I'd also like to point out that you used the geological column to support your claim, and later reject the geological column.

Fossils on mountain tops make perfect sense. The Himalayas were, at one time, at sea level. They resulted from the continents pushing against each other. There's no mystery here.

As for the grand canyon, the delta is bigger than you think. However, we should not expect much sediment - most of the rock is limestone, which will dissolve in water. If it is deposited, it will be deposited far past the delta.

I don't see how your paragraph on dinosaur noses is evidence for creation. Sure, it could mean there was more oxygen in the air back then (although if you are arguing that, I'd like a source). But that's fairly irrelevant. Perhaps I misunderstood.

Can you give me a source for the human items found in coal deposits? I don't know enough about this to give you a proper answer, but I will say this: coal, under the right circumstances, can form relatively quickly. While it is rare, it occurs.

Irreducible complexity is often reducable. Many people say that our DNA system is irreducibly complex. However, many different codons can form the same amino acids, showing that parts can be switched. Sure, if the part is removed, it won't work. But that doesn't mean the part can't be changed or modified. In fact, the concept irreducible complexity was a prediction a scientist made BASED on evolution, although he called it "interlocking complexity."

I would like to see a source for these "giants" you speak of. I have not heard of any fossil remains of giants or anything like it. The figures on Easter Island could have been put up by humans. There was an interesting NOVA episode on that, where they recreated it, using the ancient tools and pure man power.


Carbon dating does not require that the level of CO2 has remained constant. In fact, any scientist will tell you that atmospheric CO2 changes constantly. It is true that carbon dating can't date really young things or really old things. However, carbon 14 is not the only element we can test for. I talked about this in my original argument. I suggest you reread the section in which I talk about uranium 238 and 235.

The geological column was originally derived without radiometric dating. However, now that we have radiometric dating, we have a very accurate geological column. There is no circular reasoning in the geological column. The fossils that are dated are called index fossils - fossils that appear in only one layer; never any other. These give us an idea of the age of the layer. Then we can look at other fossils in that layer to get a vague idea of the date. Of course, when we need to be specific, we can date these fossils with radiometric dating. So far these have pretty much always given matching results.
As for the order of the layers, I explained this in my first post. Please reread that section (Talking about folding and faulting).

The human record is very accurate. There have been a few hoaxes in the past, but these have all been exposed. These, however, don't reflect scientists in general. Creationists have been responsible for a fair amount of hoaxes too, so be careful with that. Yes, there are several books against the hominid record. Of course, there are countless books supporting it too. As for the link you gave, it is very weak. It only tries to refute a few fossils, and we have a huge amount of hominid fossils. All it says about Lucy is that it is 40% complete. While the article makes it seem like that's barely anything, that's enough to tell us a huge amount. So I would like to know, in your words, what's wrong with the hominid fossil record.

For whale evolution, there is no presumption that evolution occurs - the phenomenon I wrote about is a prediction of evolution which turns out to be accurate. This one way to test the accuracy of a theory. I'm no expert on whale evolution, but I will say this - sea mammals didn't evolve from fish simply because that's not the way it happened. We have transitional fossils showing fish moving onto land, and then more transitional fossils that show mammals moving into the water. I should note - it would be a GREAT advantage for sea mammals if they were more similar to fish - sea mammals have lungs, which are useless underwater. Why don't sea mammals have gills instead? Anyway, the motivation for a transition to water could be just about anything. I'll give you a purely hypothetical example: perhaps the land mammals ate fish, and occasionally swam to catch them. Those with a bigger lung capacity and better swimming features would be more likely to catch fish, and therefore more likely to survive. Eventually these mammals became more suited to the underwater environment than the land. So there's a possibility.

As I said in my first post, vestigial organs can still have a purpose. The important thing is that the functionality has been reduced. Please tell my why we have appendices if their setbacks outweigh their functionality. The reason we attribute molecular vestiges to evolution is that there's no reason to have vhemicals in our body that have no function. It just makes us more inefficient. This is another prediction made by evolution.

Homologies don't prove evolution. As I said, evolution is a result of a convergence of evidence, and not one single piece. Anyway, homologies are another accurate prediction of evolution. A supported prediction is considered evidence. The same goes for analogies.



One more thing - every scientific theory makes testable predictions. These are necessary for it's viability and plausibility. If it doesn't make predictions, it's a hypothesis. I have stated a few of the many predictions evolution theory makes. I would like to know what predictions creationism makes.

10 million years is a long time, but is it really long enough to produce so many multicellular organisms from unicellular ones. Also, exactly how do you propose that a single celled organism can become a multicellular one through evolutionary means, especially in their environment? We all came from one cell in the womb, but that is not evolution and the first unicellular organisms certainly did not live in an environment comparative to a womb. Also, my argument against the geologic column was that it was not evidence of a fossil record over millions of years. It is the age issue that I question. I guess it was improper phrasing on my part. I was referring to the actual rock layers themselves and used the names given to them by the column. My point was multicellular life seems to get, for the most part, it's kick-off in that one layer, and It seems logical to me that this could indicate sediment deposit from a flood rather than a burst of evolutionary activity.

Fossils on mountaintops make sense either way. My goal is to show that the idea of creationism has equal merit with common design as an idea.

The dinosaur nose issue shows the O2 concentration was higher, which leads into the layer of ice that would have been supported above the atmosphere. This layer is important to creationism because it shows where plant and animal matter for coal and oil formation would have come from. There have been bubbles found inside of fossilized amber showing the higher O2 levels to be factual. I saw this on a video; I will dig it up and find the source they used when I get a chance.

I learned about the coal artifacts from the same video. I will get you the source they used, if they used any. I know that you can see at least one of these artifacts at a creationist run museum in Pensacola Florida.

There have been many instances where petrified trees have been found running perpendicular through multiple layers of the geologic column, some even upside down. I simply do not see how the occurrences you described in your above post can explain this particular phenomenon. Trees could, however, sink through multiple layers of sediment and fossilize with special conditions. For instance underneath a lake or other large body of water this is easily observed. Given, therefore, the large number trees found like this in various locations seem to be more evidence to me of a worldwide flood during the time of Noah. Hundreds of trees would have washed out and been able to become arranged in this way, settling in the fresh sediment underneath the floodwaters.

I have many problems with the hominid record. The main and most pertinent one is that it is just a bunch of bones from various organisms arranged in an order so that it looks like we “could have evolved” You can’t prove from and arrangement of bones some of those creatures eventually had children that looked like others of those creatures. Anyone can arrange a set of bones in order based on similar traits, it doesn’t prove evolution happened. As for Lucy, if a complete foot was never found, why is it depicted with human-like bipedal feet? For all that the skeleton actually shows Lucy could have been just another monkey. The fact that it may have walked on it’s feet doesn’t prove that it was becoming human, either. Some people think that there are bipedal apes still alive today. Other animals, such as birds, walk on two legs, but they are far from human. Why shouldn’t it be logical that mammals can produce bipedal creatures besides us also? I also think that the fact that Lucy was discovered just before the Leakey’s grant money ran out. I am not saying that Lucy was faked, just that money is a powerful tool and it can affect peoples’ judgement in many strange ways. If you had a grant funding your operation and your creditors were expecting results for human evolution you may be less objective, especially if your grant was running out. I find that 40% really is unacceptable, especially sense the skull was not complete.

Please explain to me how an appendix’s negative effects outweigh it’s positive ones. Many people have their appendices removed, but that is the result of infection, I believe. Maybe I misunderstood your post about molecular vestiges. At any rate, everything must have a purpose, maybe we just haven’t learned enough yet to know what it is. If it is a minor alteration caused by microevolution it is even a conflict for creationism.

I have heard how evolution effects many other areas of thought and research, however I think most of the real results it has produced, if not all, were results of the microevolution aspect of the theory, and common decent has had little to do with furthering scientific thought. Creationism does have applications, one of which being a wholly different approach to the study of geological history. Darwinism and the like are fairly recent occurrences in history and before their influence in the world science and thought were guided by Christian principles for many years. Many great scientists and inventors were Christian.

Multicellular organisms appear before the Cambrian explosion. I don't know where you heard they didn't. The earliest ones are supposed to be around 590 million years old, found in the Doushantuo Formation in China.

The transition from single-celled organisms to multi-cellular organisms is not implausible. We do have intermediate forms of these - protists are multicellular, but every cell in the organism is exactly the same. One cell can divide into 2 cells in mitosis. The two cells can stick together. Eventually, different cells developed different functions, which was very beneficial to the organism. We can see a bit of how this works in embryos today - at a very early stage, every cell in the ebryo is identical, genetically and structurally. Differentiation occurs when different cells get different signals.

If there is sediment deposit from a flood, it would only form one layer. And if it somehow formed more than one, the layers would be different in every region. Also, the layers are not arranged in order of density, so the heaviest particles did not fall first. Why is this?

What do you mean by a layer of ice in the atmosphere? Are you talking solid ice? Or do you mean there were frozen ice particles in the air? Anyway, I'd need to see the source before saying anymore.

Petrified forests stand upright on the surface too. So it's no shock that sediment would build up around them. Also, folding, which I talked about earlier, can occur, turning the rock layers upside down. This is one of the many possible explanations for that. Are there really a large number of trees like that? Can I have a source?

As I said before, not one single fossil on its own proves evolution. I explained that hominid fossils point to evolution because of their structure and their date. Are you suggesting that all these transitional fossils are actually different species? Species that became extinct in order of cranial capacity and height? I would like to see a source for those bipedal apes that live today. Animals are not bipedal unless their bodies support it. No animal that's uncomfortable with walking on hind legs would, for more than a few seconds. Do you have any evidence that this lack of money might have something to do with finding Lucy? Without it, you're making a post hoc fallacy. 40% is a lot. It is enough to tell many things about an organism. You're basically saying that if we only found the top half of someone, we couldn't figure out the size of its head.

Infections are the negative effect of appendices. And there's nothing we can do about it except for getting our appendices removed. Appendices kill many people each year. How many lives does it help?
Your assumption that everything in the body has a purpose is based on your preconceived notion of creationism. You have not shown why everything "must have a purpose."

I think I might not have been clear in my last paragraph. When I talked about predictions, I didn't mean scientific advancements. The theory of gravity predicts that an object a meter above the earth will fall towards the earth. This is verified by anyone's observations. Evolution predicts that organisms that are closely related, but separated in different environments, will have similar structures with different functions. It also predicts that more distantly-related organisms in similar environments will have parts that are structurally different, but serve the same purpose. That's just one example of a prediction evolution would make that is supported by fact. So I'll ask you again: what does creationism predict?

And just for the record, early scientists were not guided by creationism, they just believed in it, because there was no known alternative. But they made no discoveries just due to creationism. Of course, I could argue that creationism has had negative effects - The original concept of racial superiority began because of creationism. However, I am not using that as an argument, just a side comment.



I'm going to restate a few arguments I made that I think you missed, because they're pretty significant.

Why do weevles and some other beetles have a fully developed pair of wings under a shell that is sealed shut?

Why do some types of moles have fully developed eyes under eyelids that are sealed shut?

I'm still waiting for evidence of 13 feet men, inaccuracy of radiometric dating, and the fossil record. These seem to have gone ignored, but they are important.

Also, you said in your earlier post, and I didn't see it, that god intended for us to eat fruits. How do we know this? If we had the capability of producing vitamin C ourselves, many lives would have been saved. Scurvy results from vitamin C deficiency. So why would a designer create organisms with flaws like this?

I guess I used poor phrasing. I was saying there are few to no multicellular fossils before the so called 600 million year mark. That is what the cambrian explosion is, in around 10 million years the world supposedly went from predominantly unicellular life to an astounding number of multicellular organisms. I believe that 590 would be younger than 600, correct?

You say development could have been similar to that of an embryo in its early stages, but in actuallity the world provides a far harsher environment for survival than you will find in a womb. The tumultuous theroes of a primordial sea do not seem like the easiest place to develop multicellular life to me.

Take different kinds of dirt, put them in a glass with water and shake it up. it will settle into layers. Also the sheer weight of upper layers among other factors could effect the density of the layers after they settled.

I believe it would be along the lines of smallere ice particles held in place by the earth's magnetic field. Extremely cold ice can be effected magnetically because of water's polarity.
I havent gotten the video back yet. as soon as I do I will have many sources for you.
here is more infohttp://www.genesispark.com/genpark/flood/flood.htm

How do you propose the exposed part of the trees remained in tact for another hundred million years or so as would be required if each layer built up around the tree in turn. yes, I have heard that there are several locations where trees appear this way.
here is a good source if you have questions on how the flood could have shaped the earth
http://www.creationism.org/symposium/symp3no2.htm

you say evolution is demonstrated by structure and date. If the date is wrong then you really don't have much to go by. Index fossils are not necessarily as accurate as you assume, and these fossils were dated using circular reasoning, then other fossils dated according to them. See here http://www.creationscience.com/onlin...ciences26.html
and for a more in depth amount of info:http://www.rae.org/revev2.html

I don't know all that much about the appendix, or I might be able to make a better arguement here. Also, isn't your assumption that there are parts of the body without a purpose based on your preconceived notion of evolution?

Creationism makes mny predictions, especially in genetics such as quantification of genetic diversety. There are others here http://www.cs.unc.edu/~plaisted/ce/predictions.html

I realize that it wasn't an argument, but I must clarify your mistake about creationistic thinking giving rise to racial superiority. there is nothing in the bible or christian religion thaat even hints towards this atrocity. In fact it is condemned, and all people are equal in God's sight. Jesus died for the gentiles too, as a sign of God's love for ALL of mankind. the rise of racial superiority, particularly the belief people like Hitler held actually comes from evolutionist thinking. Hitler favored Aryans because he thought that they were most evolved. He counted people of African decent as being predominatly ape and jews as being nearly pure ape. At the Olympic Games in germany he stormed out of the stadium after witnessing the sucess of the African American athlete Jesse Owens saying that it was unfair to make his men race againt that "animal." hitler was not christian, nor did he like christians. many christians aided the oppressed during the Holocaust. Racial supremacy does not come from creationism, I don't know where you heard it, but it is definitly wrong.

I know almost nothing about moles and weevils, but I will ask this: Why hasn't common decent given them means to see or fly? How does evolution explain the presence of these appendages? I don't see how this proves your theory. I will research these subjects and see if I can find the answer.

The fruit thing goes way back to the time of the Garden of Eden. In the original creation there was no death among people and animals. God's world was perfect and sinless. If no animals died then everything would have had to be vegitarian. And yes is possible for all animals to be vegitarian, tooth structure does not necessarily mean anythin. Take for instance the fruit bat. It's tooth structure would lead you to assume it was carnivorous if you had not observed it. When sin was brought into the world so was death. Now meat was on the menue, so to speak. God later told man he could eat meat, so don't think I am supporting anything too PeTA-like here either. In the original plan we were intended to eat meat, but that changed. If we were intended to eat a diet high in fruit nuts and veggies what sense would it make to allow us to create these vitamins on our own. In some instances this could even create an overdose and be harmful.

Did you know that there is evidence that supports a "bottleneck effect" in human population? given the current population and using the fact that population growth is a exponential function it can be derived that the current population of the world is nowhere near as large as it should be if humans have been around as long as many evolutionists claim. You know, the great flood would be an excellent cause for this bottleneck effect. Also it is observed that the earliest humans in the evolutionary timeline would bury their dead. If this went on for about 40,000 years the simple question is this: where are all the graves?

The Cambrian explosion started 530 million years ago (mya). If multicellular life started around 590 mya, that gives them 60 million years to evolve. In addition, they would evolve relatively quickly; multicellular composition is a huge advantage, so it would become abundant quickly.

Perhaps I was unclear with my embryo analogy - I wasn't trying to say it was exactly like an embryo. I was just trying to say that cells can differentiate. This doesn't need a special environment.

Your analogy of the dirt in a glass is an example of what creationism says the layers would be like. However, in order for the dirt in the glass to resemble the real geological column would be if (this is just hypothetical) you dropped sand and soil into the glass at the same time, with sand on the bottom, then a layer of soil, then a layer of sand again. The geological column has layers of high limestone content, layers with less limestone content, and on top of that, layers with high limestone content. Sediment does not get deposited this way.

As for the trees, when something is petrified, it is rock. Rock can easily be preserved for millions of years if sediment has been deposited around it. After all, it takes a lot to destroy a rock inside a bigger rock. Originally you said there were a large number of trees upside down. When I asked you about that, you said, "...there are several locations." I'm not arguing that there aren't several locations. But I don't think these upside down trees are particularly abundant.

Yes, evolution is shown in the structure and date of fossils. I have explained how the geological column is not circular reasoning. The article says the fossils are inaccurate because liquefaction occurs. However, that assumes that a flood has occured too. Are there any articles that agree with the one you gave that aren't creationist propaganda sites? The second article you gave gives examples of how the strata are out of order, but I have already explained how this is predictable. Pretty much all of the examples they give are the result of faulting. I will show you one example:

EXPECTED

Jurassic
Triassic
Permian
Pennsylvanian
Mississippian
Devonian
Silurian
Ordovician
Cambrian

ACTUAL

Cambrian
Jurassic
Triassic
Permian

As you can see, this follows the exact same process that I described in my first post. An area with the Cambrian layer at the bottom overlapped the existing one, forming an order similar to C-A-B-C. Also, it seems we both agreed that there are places where the column is in tact.

I hope to hear an explanation for appendices sometime. If creationism did take place, there should be an explanation for this. My knowledge of useless structures does not assume evolution: it comes from the fact that humans have a better survival rate without certain structures.

As for predictions, please make arguments yourself. The reason I don't want us to just quote TalkOrigins and AiG is that we wouldn't actually debate this ourselves, we'd just be directing each other to other people's arguments. Of course, I did read a few of the predictions on the site. It is full of non-sequiturs and other fallacies. Some of them aren't even real predictions. Example:

Now, since the basic organisms were created recently, we should expect all of the descendents of a created kind to be very similar. They should generally have the same number of chromosomes, and the same genes at the same locations on corresponding chromosomes. They also should often be able to interbreed, which should make tracing their evolutionary relationships fairly complex. In addition, their nuclear and mitochondrial DNA should be fairly similar. However, between different created kinds, we should generally expect to find greater differences in the nuclear and mitochondrial DNA

Obviously the chromosome number is the same, or else it wouild be a different species and therefore, according to creationism, a different line of descent. The fact that they can interbreed is what defines them as being in the same species.

Please explain how creationism predicts a quantification of genetic diversity. I will say, there are a few predictions that creationism does make. One of these is that dinosaurs and humans coexisted. Why don't we have any human fossils anywhere near dinosaur fossils? Is there any evidence to support the coexistence of dinosaurs and humans?

As for racism, it was Carolus Linnaeus, in 1735, who invented the concept of human races. Of course, scientifically, there are no different human races, as any anthropologist will tell you. (While there are genetic differences, there are too few to actually consider different ethnicities to be different races). Anyway, being European, he was naturally biased towards Europeans. He classified all humans into 4 races (Americanus, the native Americans; Asiaticus, the Asians; Africanus, self-explanatory; and Europeaeus, the white man). He assumed that humans were created by God and originated on top of one mountain. He measure the shapes of different skulls, and came to the conclusion that those in the Caucasus region were the most spherical, and assumed that's what resembles God's intention the most. So he figured that Europeans were God's intended design, and the other races were just flaws. Of course, I am not holding this against creationism. It is irrelevant and off-topic, I just find it's interesting to know how the concept of race originated. Everything in this paragraph is supported in this article.

The idea with weevles and moles is that their ancestors did have those functions. AiG even gives a reason for beetles to be flightless, although it conveniently doesn't mention that these beetles have wings under their shells that can't be used. In windy areas, flying would have blown the beetles far away from the rest of the population (at least that's according to AiG). Weevles would be unable to fly even if their wings worked, because, as you can see in the photo I linked to, their necks have evolved to be so long that flight would be nearly impossible. Moles spend almost all their life underground, so they barely ever use their eyes. Instead, they use their other senses, and keep their eyelids shut when they're moving through dirt. Their supposed ancestors had eyelids that opened.

With fruits, part of my point was that our diet would not need to be high in fruits, since we get those nutrients anyway. Most humans don't get as much vitamin C as they ideally should. It would make sense if God told us to eat fruits - after all, they have vitamin C...

Exponential population growth only started in the last century. Before that, it was linear. Exponential population growth occurs when an organism can survive and reproduce very well. Humans have developed technologies to help this, the most important being agriculture. A population can't grow exponentially unless it has a means to support itself. In the last century, we started getting surpluses and technologies that actually cure illnesses (instead of just drilling a hole in the head or perscribing homeopathic medications). Compare the human life expectancy now to that of the middle ages. It has more than doubled. Even then, it is unlikely that every grave should be noticable. Cavemen didn't use tombstones.


Once again, I'm still waiting for evidence of 13 feet men, inaccuracy of radiometric dating, and the inaccuracy of the geological column (supplied by you, with a link to the source, and this source needs to be proper, because I will check the references the source gives. If you can, find sites that have are as neutral as possible, or ones with peer-reviewed data, but I realize that's hard). In addition, you still have to explain why humans have appendices, and why weevles and moles have their vestigial structures. Sorry, I know that sounds like nagging, but I'm just explaining how to refute my stance.

The dirt in a glass example is an oversimplified analogy. The reason that we see such arrangements of layers has to do with such things as graded bedding and cross bedding.
Graded bedding indicates repeated layers of turbulent, then quiet water deposition, which would account for your layers of higher/lower limestone content. Cross bedding is indication of rapid depostits from currents of varying directions. These have been observed, which leads us to suspect the occurance of a flood. You seem to like to use folding as an excuse for fossils being out of order, but it could also explain how layers in some places go from higher to lower to higher amounts of limestone composition. Also, it is not just limestone that composes the rock layers. Sandstone, shale, and chert are also present.

But before it is petrified it is not rock. The trees go through multiple rock layers, layers that are said to have formed one by one, each over millions of years. A tree will not remain standing for X-million years exposed to the air and waiting for the next layer to build up around it. the buried portion may fossilize, but the exposed part is certain to rot. Therefore we conclude that multiple layers of rock must have been laid down all at the same time, not over millions of years. I don't see how that can be made more clear.

I don't see how you explained the geologic column is not circular reasoning. I said it was, yousaid it wasn't because of index fossils, but it is the index fossils that were dated using this reasoning. Also the method originally used assumes that each individual layer of rock represents a different time period of so many million years. This is a highly illogical assumption to make. We know tree rings and ice layers do not represent individual years, but rather represent periods of change, such as rainy/dry seasons or periods of snowfall. Why then should rock layers represent individual multimillon year spans?

You criticize that liquefaction assumes a flood, but in actuality it is based on the hypothesis that a flood takes place. A hypothesis is basically just an assumption based on observation. proving a hypothesis is essential for the scientific process, and one way to aid in doing so is to show how the hypothesis could explain some observable occurances in the world around us. Evolution was a hypothesis too, and much of the evidence you have shown requires the assumption that it occurs.
The phase "creationist propaganda" has me slightly confused. The info comes from sites that support and believe creation, but that doesn't make them propoganda. Your question here leads me to believe that you are asking for a mention to this theory from a scientific site that does not support creationism and therefore must most likely support evolution.
(perhaps I should call such sites "evolutionist propoganda sites?") Why, then, would someone who believes in evolutionary theory want to offer, acknowledge, or in any other way make mention of evidence that may not support their theory. That would be absurd.

On to appendices. The appendix has a high concentrarion of lymph nodes, suggesting that it is an organ of the lymphatic, or immune system. Recent studies suggest that it serves the bulk of it's important duties during our early life, mainly infancy. There are other organs in the body you can live without, such as 1 kidney, or the gall bladder, which aids your digestion. The extra kidney is not considered a vestige, however, and as far as I am aware neither is the gall bladder. At one time in history it was thought that therewere 180 vestigal organs in the human body. These have slowly been proven wrong, one by one.
Creationism provides, in general, two ways to look at vestigal organs: it's purpose is yet unknown, or it's function changed or was reduced significantly as a result of the fall from paradise.

Creationism dictates that animals can only come from animals of the same kind. this reduces the amount of diversity that can be observed within a species. A pig can't grow wings and fly is basically the point here. Genetic diversity measures the probability that corresponding DNA base pairs will differ from each other. This amount should remain consistent with the concept of microevolution over 6000 years, and allow that natural selection has produced relatively few beneficial mutations, if any.

There is much evidence for humans and dinosaurs living together, although not all of it is palientology. First off, nearly every culture makes reference to dragons. Dragons could very well be dinosaurs as they were thought of in ancient times. Artwork from as far apart as Macedonia and Peru depict humans and dinosaurs side by side. Native Americans tell of the Thunderbird, which bears striking resemblance to a teradatyle or similar creature. Also, if dinosaurs lived with man some may still be alive. Cryptozoology investigates hundreds of reports of things like modern dinosaurs. the most famous, and most questionable is the loch ness monster in Scotland, which is supposedly a plesiosaur. The celeocanth is still alive today. Sharks have supposedly been around as long as dinos, and they are still living today. Crocadilians are a similar scenario. There have been rumors of a pigmy Apatosaurus-like creature living in the African Congo. The locals there certainly believe in it, claiming it is more feirce than even the crocidiles or hippos and saying it frequents streches of river where a particular fruit grows. There are supposedly living teradactyles in Africa and other parts of the world.

I don't know why the weevil is like it is, but perhaps we will someday. I don't know much about moles either, but there eyes are probably better off like this as they can sense changes in light and dark without the risk of being blinded by the sun when they come up to the surface.

Sorry, I guess I am confused on the point you are trying to make with vitamin C..?

So you are saying that civilized society has only existed for 100 years? agriculture has been around for far more than 100 years. Every ancient civilization had it. It is only the large scale raising of cash crops that has developed over the last century, and this is not necessarily helpful. Also, ancient technology is far more advaced than we suspect. The Egyptians seem to have known about electricity, for example, and I saw a video once where archeologists found what appeared to be some sort of battery. Medication is not always necessary for long life. There is a villiage in the Himalayas where the average life expectancy was well over 90 years old. The people lived so long because of factors in their diet, such as eating apricot seeds. This is where the legend of Shangrila began. As more worldly influences enter their community thier life expectancy is actually decreasing. The middle ages were a time of turmoil following the collapse of the Roman Empire. During the middle ages the life expectancy was much worse than before. We know of people in the Bible, which was written before the middle ages, who lived for significant amounts of time. The Bibles geneological significance is recognized by many scolars, the ages it gives are no myth. Of course cavemen didn't make headstones, but they buried their dead in graves, and we should be able to find a significant number of these graves in the ground all over the world, but we simply have not. Every grave won't be noticeable, but a considerable amount more than seem to exist should be. You don't need gravestones to find a grave, you just need to dig. Consider how many ancient cities have been found by farmers in the field or work crews digging to lay foundations for buildings. yet few of the aforementioned graves have been found in this way.

Here are sources on giants.
http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/...45/giants.html
http://www.stevequayle.com/Giants/N....iant.race.html
www.biblebelievers.org.au/giants.htm
There have been giants found:
in stone graves in Tennesee
Near Rutland new york
& Asland county Ohio, to name just a few.

St. Christopher was rumored to be between 12 and 18 feet tall, and is depicted this way in european depictions, though not in western ones.

Many extremely large tracks ect. have been found suggesting their makers were incredibly tall.

other dating methods such as K-Ar (potassium argon) dating are not necessarily accurate, and with other dating methods then C-14 fossils can seldom be dated directly, the rocks near them must be dated instead. The % of error is not within acceptable bounds & too many questionable assumptions have been made to ensure accuracy in the dating process.
The reasoning behind all this is very lengthy and complicated, so the above is all I will say on the topic. Go here if you want to read the explinations in detail about K-Ar & other dating methods: www.trueorigin.org/dating.asp

Interesting fact. The bone in you eyebrow ridge never stops growing. Imagine what it would look like after a few centuries of growth. Quite a bit like the Cavemen skulls we see all the time in museums. It is possible that many of these skulls merely came from people who lived before Noah, and are not in any way representations of individual separate species.