Understanding creationism, II:<br/> An insider's guide by a former young-Earth creationist

David,
I'm new here and eagerly awaiting each installment of the series, having emerged from a similar background myself.
This second post discusses the micro-evolution position of YECs vis a vis land-dwelling, air breathing animals, those happy few, those 10,000 few. However, what are their positions on:
1.) the myriad of marine and freshwater non-air breathing species; for example, did they microevolve after the flood also or were they already diversified more heavily? And what about pinnipeds, cetae, and other marine mammals?
2.) the many, many kingdoms of microscopic organisms that are everywhere in the biosphere. Have they speciated post diluvian, from a small set of original bacteria, viruses, diatoms, extremophiles, etc.?
3.) since all land and freshwater plants were presumably destroyed in the flood, did they quickly return via speciation from surviving seaweeds or did the ark carry a seedbank too and if so, why isn't it mentioned?
I jest of course but I am wondering if they do address these kinds of questions.

@Cordorcet:

Hey, thanks for your comment! We obviously know that the Genesis flood myth is a fable/poetic-form retelling of the Epic of Gilgamesh with some critical departures intended to highlight the differences between the gods in the Utnapishtim story and YHWH in the Hebrew story. One of the edits is that the Hebrew author expands the Ark's contents from the livestock of the protagonist to ALL breathing land creatures. It's ridiculous, of course, to try and make this out as an actual historical event.

But they try. Genesis 7 says that the Flood killed every breathing land creature, but YECs typically exclude various invertebrates on the convenient grounds that they don't breathe using normal lungs. And so plants, microorganisms, aquatic mammals, fish, and various insects/worms/invertebrates all somehow managed to survive without being intentionally brought onto the Ark. Suggested survival pathways include "clinging to floating matted logs" and "hitchhiking on the Ark".

They have written painfully long, detailed, and inventive books on the subject. Like Noah's Ark: A Feasibility Study. All about the ways it could have been done.

Point out that there are many species which can't survive outside a very narrow range of conditions, and they'll argue that those specializations came into being since the Flood; that the Flood-era flora/fauna were hardier.

david.starling.macmillan said: They have written painfully long, detailed, and inventive books on the subject. Like Noah's Ark: A Feasibility Study. All about the ways it could have been done. I have GOT to get my hands on that! Point out that there are many species which can't survive outside a very narrow range of conditions, and they'll argue that those specializations came into being since the Flood; that the Flood-era flora/fauna were hardier. hmm...a flood which destroyed all air-breathing life AND was violent enough in its effects to create geological strata, grand canyons, what seems to be volcanic caldera older than 4000 years, ad infinitum, was not violent enough to destroy the hardy antediluvian plant life it buried under fathoms of intense water and pressure?

Condorcet said:

david.starling.macmillan said: They have written painfully long, detailed, and inventive books on the subject. Like Noah's Ark: A Feasibility Study. All about the ways it could have been done.

I have GOT to get my hands on that!

hmm...a flood which destroyed all air-breathing life AND was violent enough in its effects to create geological strata, grand canyons, what seems to be volcanic caldera older than 4000 years, ad infinitum, was not violent enough to destroy the hardy antediluvian plant life it buried under fathoms of intense water and pressure?

Your discussion is very informative and spot on. However, attempts at rational discussions with YECs as a group is absolutely futile. In the end there is no possible discussion, evidence, or whatever you will ever be able to come up with that can refute: "The Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it."

I look forward to your entire series.

Condorcet:

Welcome. When editing your reply, feel free to add new pairs of <blockquote> and </blockquote> to tags make your comments more readable, so we can tell what are your words, and those you are replying to.

If you see a textual feature of a comment that you want to emulate, do what I do: click the "Reply" link, and then look through the text for the various HTML <tag> </tag> pairs which implement that feature. Be careful. Such tags will always come in pairs, typically in nested pairs.

Scott F said: Condorcet: Welcome. When editing your reply, feel free to add new pairs of <blockquote> and </blockquote> to tags make your comments more readable, so we can tell what are your words, and those you are replying to.

However, they will invariably add that this process works in only one direction; mutations can remove genetic information, but they cannot (in the creationist mindset) add it.

They actually are correct in arguing that their “microevolution” could never accumulate into “macroevolution” because their definition of “microevolution” is much more limited than we see in reality.

More fundamentally, the creationist must realize the flaw in his philosophical argument. Our DNA does not contain abstract information, like a book filled with human language. Abstract information almost certainly requires a conscious mind to interpret it, but that is not what DNA represents. Using the idea of a code to represent DNA is our abstraction; the actual function of DNA is purely chemical. There is no interpretation required; the alignment and connection is the same sort of process by which snowflakes form into crystals. The evolution of our genetic code is not driven by some conscious intelligence constantly adding new information, but by the environment, which continually forces life to adapt in order to survive.

Condorcet said:

Scott F said: Condorcet: Welcome. When editing your reply, feel free to add new pairs of <blockquote> and </blockquote> to tags make your comments more readable, so we can tell what are your words, and those you are replying to.

Thanks, mea culpa

I read your post and the comments and I feel a tenuous pattern about the YEC’s. You mention hyper-evolution and I immediately think of the astrophysicist’s inflation at the time of the big bang, you mention suggested survival methods, etc. None of these things are in the Bible. But to paraphrase Mat 16:6 beware the leaven of the scientist. Perhaps if the pressure is kept up on the YEC’s, they, as a population, would evolve into rational beings. I listened to a kindly elderly, indeed ancient, preacher who today would be called a YEC, but he believed God micromanaged, i.e. he did not believe in gravity. People were held on the earth, the moon went around the earth, the earth went around the sun, the stars moved in the heavens, all due to the power of God’s will. He didn’t need hyper-evolution or floating mats of seaweed. You can see how far down the slippery slope the current YEC’s have gone. BTW that ancient preacher would never have been so unkind to make a comment like I did about rational beings. The veneer of civilization is very thin.

Scott F said: Condorcet: Welcome. When editing your reply, feel free to add new pairs of <blockquote> and </blockquote> to tags make your comments more readable, so we can tell what are your words, and those you are replying to. If you see a textual feature of a comment that you want to emulate, do what I do: click the "Reply" link, and then look through the text for the various HTML <tag> </tag> pairs which implement that feature. Be careful. Such tags will always come in pairs, typically in nested pairs.

ksplawn said: If they'd just drop the old baggage and accept that mutations CAN increase information, they'd instantly reduce some of the problems with their new model.

In reality I don't think it would actually turn many YECs away if they changed course like this,

Explain that speciation is a macroevolutionary event, not a micro one. By definition (the one used by actual scientists), microevolution takes place below the species level and macroevolution is what takes place above the species level.

More fundamentally, the creationist must realize the flaw in his philosophical argument.

The YEC understanding of recombination seems to have some limits. In the description in the post, recombination in the parents assembles a new genotype, which then spreads. That can happen every so often if recombination rates are low enough. But if they are a little higher, then the recombination will not only assemble the new genotypes (new haplotypes) but it will also disassemble them soon after. Which limits the ability of recombination to explain an imagined burst of hyperevolution.

Their general principle that mutation cannot increase adaptive information also has a big problem. When most evolutionary biologists hear of that principle, a simple objection immediately comes to mind. Suppose that we have a functional gene, say Hemoglobin Beta. And suppose that a mutation at site 56 occurs which mutates the base C to a G, and damages the function of the gene, That can happen, and it would fit in with the creationists' supposed general principle.

But now suppose that another mutation occurs at that same site, and changes G to C. Well, by their definition it is one that creates "new genetic information". If there was more of this "information" present when the base was C than when it was G, than a change back from G to C must increase the amount of this "information". So there is supposed to be some law of the universe that makes that back-mutation impossible. Evolutionary biologists will be puzzled. Why is C --> G supposed to be a mutation which can occur, while G --> C cannot occur? What law of the universe is there that stops it from happening?

Joe Felsenstein said: But now suppose that another mutation occurs at that same site, and changes G to C. Well, by their definition it is one that creates "new genetic information". If there was more of this "information" present when the base was C than when it was G, than a change back from G to C must increase the amount of this "information". So there is supposed to be some law of the universe that makes that back-mutation impossible. Evolutionary biologists will be puzzled. Why is C --> G supposed to be a mutation which can occur, while G --> C cannot occur? What law of the universe is there that stops it from happening?

eric said: As hard as this is to grok, most creationists probably really honestly think the evidence supports their beliefs.

I just edited Mr. Condorcet's comment, directly above, to show paragraphs where he intended them. The easiest way to show a paragraph is to use two "Enters" in a row; one alone will not do.

eric said:

ksplawn said: Explain that speciation is a macroevolutionary event, not a micro one. By definition (the one used by actual scientists), microevolution takes place below the species level and macroevolution is what takes place above the species level.

I beg to differ slightly with David on this one. I don't think YECism is as consistent (about macro/micro) as he or you make it sound. I think the reality is that they will have wildly different standards for what counts as "macro" depending on whether you're talking about humans and closely related species vs. species that are less closely related to us. Development of millions of species of ants from one progenitor species = micro, but the evolutionary change from australopithecus or even homo erectus to homo sapiens = macro...even though biologically speaking, the differences in those hominids is much smaller than the differences between various ants. And lets not even talk about onions. If they were as consistent as David implies, then clearly any definition of "macro" that includes human evolution from earlier hominids would require God's separate creation of lots of different onion species. :) But they aren't consistent; any human evolution from earlier hominids will be counted as macro, while onion evolution from earlier Allium species will be counted as micro.

Condorcet, thanks for giving us your story too!

alicejohn said: Your discussion is very informative and spot on. However, attempts at rational discussions with YECs as a group is absolutely futile. In the end there is no possible discussion, evidence, or whatever you will ever be able to come up with that can refute: "The Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it." I look forward to your entire series.

One small thing that I wonder about is how the taxonomic rank of species came to have its peculiar importance today. It wasn't species, but "kinds" which were created, and "kinds" were saved on the Ark. But today it is species which are the only objective rank, while genera and so on are more a matter of convenience to the taxonomist - let alone the vagueness of "kinds".

I've not read all the comments, but my favorite explanation for the conundrum of how the ark could accommodate all the species of the world is that God miniaturized them before they entered the ark and then restored them to full size after they exited it.

alicejohn said: In the end there is no possible discussion, evidence, or whatever you will ever be able to come up with that can refute: "The Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it."

alicejohn said: Attempts at rational discussions with YECs as a group is absolutely futile. In the end there is no possible discussion, evidence, or whatever you will ever be able to come up with that can refute: "The Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it."

ksplawn said: When I started paying attention to Creationism back in the late 90s/early 00s, they hadn't settled onto the hyperfast evolution model to such a great extent. It only seems to have caught on since the opening of the Creation Museum, really.

Assuming that's an accurate reflection on the state of Creationism, this argument seems like a holdover from their earlier attempts to debunk evolution. If they'd just drop the old baggage and accept that mutations CAN increase information, they'd instantly reduce some of the problems with their new model. Static-to-decreasing genetic information cannot generate endless varieties of new species, which their new story requires.

They actually are correct in arguing that their “microevolution” could never accumulate into “macroevolution” because their definition of “microevolution” is much more limited than we see in reality.

Or to put it simply, just point out that the definition of "microevolution" used by Creationists is not the same as the one used by biologists. Explain that it's a made-up definition, and show them that the terms "micro/macroevolution" in biology have a different meaning. Explain that speciation is a macroevolutionary event, not a micro one. By definition (the one used by actual scientists), microevolution takes place below the species level and macroevolution is what takes place above the species level. Thus the separation between two species is macro (even moreso if the accelerated Post-Deluge Not-Evolution Evolution model allows serial speciation events: one species splits into two, and then those two split into four, rather than one species constantly splitting off other species which themselves remain fixed). If they already accept that speciation happens, so much the better.

It might help to explain the pattern of magnetic stripes in the floor of the Atlantic ocean. Sea-floor spreading along the mid-Atlantic ridge has allowed magnetized particles to align with the Earth's magnetic poles through several reversals, crystallizing their new orientation as the magma cools and trapping information about the past in the rocks. The pattern on the Eastern side of the ridge is the mirror image of the pattern on the Western side, encoding data about the Earth's magnetic field over millions of years as neatly as the strip on the back of your credit card. This pattern, this data, this information required no intelligent intervention to come about. It's just the entirely natural processes of continental drift and magnetism.

eric said: They'd have to adopt some consistent, detailed or mathematical definition of "information." IMO they've been unwilling to do that because pretty much any definition you use allows it to be created through natural processes.

Explain that speciation is a macroevolutionary event, not a micro one. By definition (the one used by actual scientists), microevolution takes place below the species level and macroevolution is what takes place above the species level.

I beg to differ slightly with David on this one. I don't think YECism is as consistent (about macro/micro) as he or you make it sound. I think the reality is that they will have wildly different standards for what counts as "macro" depending on whether you're talking about humans and closely related species vs. species that are less closely related to us.

More fundamentally, the creationist must realize the flaw in his philosophical argument.

Oh, I don't think so. As Feynman said (paraphrasing), the easiest person to fool is yourself.

Joe Felsenstein said: The YEC understanding of recombination seems to have some limits. Suppose that we have a functional gene, say Hemoglobin Beta. And suppose that a mutation at site 56 occurs which mutates the base C to a G, and damages the function of the gene, That can happen, and it would fit in with the creationists' supposed general principle. But now suppose that another mutation occurs at that same site, and changes G to C. Well, by their definition it is one that creates "new genetic information". If there was more of this "information" present when the base was C than when it was G, than a change back from G to C must increase the amount of this "information". So there is supposed to be some law of the universe that makes that back-mutation impossible. Evolutionary biologists will be puzzled. Why is C --> G supposed to be a mutation which can occur, while G --> C cannot occur? What law of the universe is there that stops it from happening?

TomS said: One small thing that I wonder about is how the taxonomic rank of species came to have its peculiar importance today. It wasn't species, but "kinds" which were created, and "kinds" were saved on the Ark. But today it is species which are the only objective rank, while genera and so on are more a matter of convenience to the taxonomist - let alone the vagueness of "kinds".

Joe Felsenstein said: But now suppose that another mutation occurs at that same site, and changes G to C. Well, by their definition it is one that creates "new genetic information". If there was more of this "information" present when the base was C than when it was G, than a change back from G to C must increase the amount of this "information". So there is supposed to be some law of the universe that makes that back-mutation impossible. Evolutionary biologists will be puzzled. Why is C --> G supposed to be a mutation which can occur, while G --> C cannot occur? What law of the universe is there that stops it from happening?

Mark said: I've not read all the comments, but my favorite explanation for the conundrum of how the ark could accommodate all the species of the world is that God miniaturized them before they entered the ark and then restored them to full size after they exited it.

callahanpb said: There's an irony that I missed until reading David's latest posting. If you just wanted an explanation of the diversity of life on Earth, you could read the first chapter of Genesis and conclude that an omnipotent God put it all there, and the "omnipotent" part would cover any objections. Modulo some confusing bits about separating bodies of water, you could just accept that the world you see is the way it was created by God. While it isn't science, it's an explanation that is at least somewhat consistent with naive observation. But Genesis doesn't stop there. Only a few chapters later, God wipes out all land creatures except those rescued by a clearly non-omnipotent man with a very large boat. This undermines all the explanatory power of the first chapter. The world around us simply looks nothing like the result of a global flood and large scale animal rescue several thousand years ago. You can still say "The Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it." but now the Bible says a lot of things that are at odds with naive observation. Of course, you can go to heroic lengths to make it all appear consistent, but it's no longer an easy way out. You are left with as much work to do as a real scientist, but without any reasonable prospect of success.

It seems like it would be easier for a YEC to say "OK, evolution really could happen the way scientists say it does, but it actually didn't, because this is what the Bible says happened." Then at least they would have a robust form of evolution available to explain post-flood speciation.

Mike Elzinga said: This shows up even in a version of Dawkins’s “Weasel” program in which all sites are allowed to mutate for each offspring for each generation. The “average distance” of a generation of offspring from the ideal offspring representing the “best fit” to the current environment drops rapidly and then hovers at a small distance from the ideal. From the “hovering” position, there is a well-defined probability that an offspring will get produced that exactly matches the ideal that represents the “best fit.” The simulations follow exactly the theoretical predictions within a standard deviation or so. However, the ID/creationists haven’t even figured out how to write a Weasel program; and they believe the answer has been placed in the program by introducing the “target” organism.

David, thank you for writing this series. I'm impatiently awaiting each new posting. But I'm also delighted with the quality of the discussions in the comments here. I can't tell you how refreshing it is to see no one name-calling or recycling one-liners. I can actually learn something from these comments! (For example, it sounds like Creationists now pretty much accept the basics of evolution as long as they are allowed to call it something else and it only goes back to Noah. A revelation!)

I appreciate the insight into the side of the debate that those of us who didn't grow up in strongly religious households or creationist schools find so hard to understand. I know there's a strong sense in the scientific and scientifically-minded community that if you engage creationists on their arguments, that you're essentially legitimizing their arguments; or, that such debates are ultimately futile because they don't change minds. But the fact is they do change minds, and one has to know what they're up against in order to argue effectively for their side. The antievolution problem won't just go away on its own if we ignore it, as many were and are content to believe, so it warms my heart to see more and more people fighting back against the pseudoscience fictions that Creationist organizations have been so successful at marketing as fact. And doing so in increasingly effective ways.

You've mentioned some of the individually tailored tactics that antievolutionists use in debates. And I've seen [the ironically named] Ray Comfort's "shock and awe" interviewing of university students and professors, and their complete flusterment when asked questions about "kinds," fossils of "transitional" animals, evolution being a "belief" or "faith," and the like--terminology and rhetorical phrasing that we know from articles like this and the Nye/Ham debate form the basis of the Creationist arsenal, but that it was quite clear these students and professors had never encountered and had no ready response for.

I wonder, what is your opinion of science-embracing individuals using Creationists' own tactics against them? What I mean is, dismantling their arguments from a platform of legitimate science can only go so far. You're still left with the theological/hermeneutical, philosophical, rhetorical and historical fallacies and inconsistencies in their arguments (e.g., that if any part of the Bible is not to be taken literally, there is nothing binding any of it to be true, including the promise of salvation through Christ; or the outright lie that "secularists" have hijacked science as part of a plot to corrupt it and win converts for their "religion").

Do you think an attack on those fronts that do not fall within scientific territory can be effective, or even won on certain points? Because it seems to me that the vast number of Christians and other theists who are content with metaphorical and symbolic interpretations of much of scripture, those who believe but see no problem with the scientific method, geologic time, and evolution, have just as much to lose from the "hijacking" of their own religion for fundamentalist purposes. Could (or should) a philosophical argument against the pillars of Creationism be part of the debate?

Here's all that needs to be said about all "information" arguments. Creationists and ID proponents assert there is a kind of "information" which they won't define and can't compute. It is not to be confused with real forms of information like Shannon information and Kalmogorov information, which can be produced by natural processes. Call the Creationist ID version "Ooga Booga information", or OBI. Here you may insert Dembski's CSI or D/FCSI or Behe's IC or whatever you like, it's all the same.

The creationist or ID proponent plays a game of equivocation in which he broadens or narrows the definition of Ooga Booga Information in an ad hoc fashion, narrowing the definition to exclude the observed products of known natural processes (thus evading falsification), then later broadening the definition so it can encompass DNA, proteins, etc.

To have an "inference to design", what the ID/Creationist needs is this pattern:

1. Natural processes make Ooga Booga Information? NO

2. Invisible Spirits and Spooks make OBI? YES

3. Do Living Things Have OBI? YES

This NO/YES/YES pattern is absolutely essential to logically infer that the presence of OBI in living things means that an invisible spook made the living things (an inference based on induction and then deduction; the first two steps form an inductive rule, step 3 is a deduction from the inductive rule.. Any other pattern invalidates the logic.

But the first problem is that we've never seen any invisible spook make any mutation anywhere, or make anything.

So they pull their first dirty, dirty trick, replacing "Invisible Spook" which they want kids to be taught in school, with "INTELLIGENCE".

2. Intelligent beings make OBI? YES

Then they claim it's a logical deduction that "intelligent beings" (really meaning "spooks") made living things.

This is actually a logically fallacy because they've broadened the class used in the inductive step, inventing a new, broader class of "Intelligence" which includes both humans and hypothetical spooks. They can then claim they're doing valid induction from the behavior of humans, and say this applies to intelligent agents in general, meaning spooks. This is an invalid form of induction because we have seen humans make things but we've never seen spooks make anything. If they were really doing induction, a valid inductive rule would be "spooks have never been seen to make anything so they never will make anything." By saying "intelligent being" they evade this.

Let me use an analogy. Suppose we find a dead body with a bullet hole in it. In our past experience, whenever we found a dead body with a bullet hole in it, we always found that a human had caused a gun to go off, accidentally or deliberately. So we have an inductive rule: "a dead body with a bullet hole in it is always caused by a human who made a gun go off."

Now suppose we broaden this inductive rule to "a dead body with a bullet hole in it is always caused by a human OR A GHOST who made a gun go off."

Technically this is accurate, because "human or ghosts" is a superset of "humans". But it is invalid to use this rule in a deductive step where you conclude "A ghost murdered the victims"! It should also be pointed out that an infinite number of inductive rules can be concocted of the form "a dead body with a bullethole in it is always caused by a human OR A GREEN KANGAROO who made a gun go off." They're technically accurate but can't be used for deduction concluding that a green kangaroo killed the guy.

But this dirty trick is not enough. They still need to use equivocation, because every real, mathematically defined version of information is produced by natural processes. Thus, for real information we would stop at step 1:

1. Natural processes make Information? YES

And we'd be done, ID refuted; even if life has information, natural processes made it. So to continue past Step 1 they have to equivocate, and switch to a narrow definition of OBI, usually by talking about Shakespearean sonnets, the Mona Lisa, Mount Rushmore, etc. This definition basically amounts to what I call grammar-dependent information. The idea is that natural processes don't make grammatically encoded meaning.

The problem for them, of course, is that living things contain no Shakespearean sonnets, no sentences, no grammatically encoded meaning. This ought to kill their logic at Step 3.

Thus, by the narrow defintion, they should have:

1. Natural processes make OBI (Shakespearean Sonnet Definition)? NO

2. Intelligent beings make OBI (Shakespearean Sonnet Definition)? YES

3. Do Living Things Have OBI (Shakespearean Sonnet Definition)? NO

Thus, by the narrow definition, the pattern is NO/YES/NO-- they needed NO/YES/YES-- and there is no valid inference to design.

But the IDiots solve this problem by equivocating, in Step 3, waaay over to a broad definition so that any string of DNA "letters" is "digital information" (even though no genome has "digits" encoded in it.) By the broad definition, to measure the OBI you just count the number of DNA "letters" in the sequence and convert it to bits by multiplying by 2 (because there are four kinds of DNA letters and log_base2[4] = 2.)

The problem for them is that, by the broad definition, natural processes can obviously make OBI. Of course, gene duplication doubles the length of a sequence, thereby doubling its OBI. This is true also of Dembski's fancy "CSI" if you really follow the shit math he gives in his shit papers. His "CSI" always increases with longer sequence length.

Thus, by the broad defintion, they should have:

1. Natural processes make OBI (Broad Definition)? YES

2. Intelligent beings make OBI (Broad Definition)? YES

3. Do Living Things Have OBI (Broad Definition)? YES

Thus, by the broad definition, the pattern is YES/YES/YES-- they needed NO/YES/YES-- and there is STILL no valid inference to design.

So the ID/creationists just use equivocation, switching between definitions:

1. Natural processes make OBI (Shakespearean Sonnet Definition)? NO

2. Intelligent beings make OBI (Either Definition)? YES

3. Do Living Things Have OBI (Broad Definition)? YES

They finally got the NO/YES/YES pattern they needed, by the most dishonest methods conceivable. Teach the controversy!

The above analysis is true of all "information" type arguments including Dembski's CSI and Behe's IC. It's all equivocation, and to argue with the ID perps you need to detect and challenge equivocation.

Katharine said: You've mentioned some of the individually tailored tactics that antievolutionists use in debates. And I've seen [the ironically named] Ray Comfort's "shock and awe" interviewing of university students and professors, and their complete flusterment when asked questions about "kinds," fossils of "transitional" animals, evolution being a "belief" or "faith," and the like--terminology and rhetorical phrasing that we know from articles like this and the Nye/Ham debate form the basis of the Creationist arsenal, but that it was quite clear these students and professors had never encountered and had no ready response for.

david.starling.macmillan said: The more modern cladistic approach actually represents the evolutionary relationships. Cladistics organizes fossil species so as to show how close they are to various common ancestors, rather than placing them at the bottom alongside living species. Cladistics shows common ancestry as clearly as possible.

Katharine said: It warms my heart to see more and more people fighting back against the pseudoscience fictions that Creationist organizations have been so successful at marketing as fact. And doing so in increasingly effective ways. I wonder, what is your opinion of science-embracing individuals using Creationists' own tactics against them? What I mean is, dismantling their arguments from a platform of legitimate science can only go so far. You're still left with the theological/hermeneutical, philosophical, rhetorical and historical fallacies and inconsistencies in their arguments (e.g., that if any part of the Bible is not to be taken literally, there is nothing binding any of it to be true, including the promise of salvation through Christ; or the outright lie that "secularists" have hijacked science as part of a plot to corrupt it and win converts for their "religion"). Do you think an attack on those fronts that do not fall within scientific territory can be effective, or even won on certain points? Because it seems to me that the vast number of Christians and other theists who are content with metaphorical and symbolic interpretations of much of scripture, those who believe but see no problem with the scientific method, geologic time, and evolution, have just as much to lose from the "hijacking" of their own religion for fundamentalist purposes. Could (or should) a philosophical argument against the pillars of Creationism be part of the debate?

diogeneslamp0 said: Here's all that needs to be said about all "information" arguments. Creationists and ID proponents assert there is a kind of "information" which they won't define and can't compute. It is not to be confused with real forms of information like Shannon information and Kalmogorov information, which can be produced by natural processes. Call the Creationist ID version "Ooga Booga information", or OBI. Here you may insert Dembski's CSI or D/FCSI or Behe's IC or whatever you like, it's all the same. The creationist or ID proponent plays a game of equivocation in which he broadens or narrows the definition of Ooga Booga Information in an ad hoc fashion, narrowing the definition to exclude the observed products of known natural processes (thus evading falsification), then later broadening the definition so it can encompass DNA, proteins, etc. It's all equivocation, and to argue with the ID perps you need to detect and challenge equivocation.

John Harshman said:

david.starling.macmillan said: The more modern cladistic approach actually represents the evolutionary relationships. Cladistics organizes fossil species so as to show how close they are to various common ancestors, rather than placing them at the bottom alongside living species. Cladistics shows common ancestry as clearly as possible.

I wouldn't say that. The cladistic approach represents cladistic relationships. A cladogram doesn't show how close anything is to any ancestors, and it does indeed place fossil species in the same positions as living species (usually the top, not the bottom, though that's purely a graphic decision). Cladograms do show common ancestry, i.e. the descent of groups of species from a common ancestor, but they neither show the ancestors nor the closeness of species to those ancestors. Now, you can time-calibrate a cladogram or you can represent branch lengths in terms of numbers of changes; still, neither of those shows quite what you seem to be talking about.

david.starling.macmillan said: For example, I always believed that any non-literal interpretation of Genesis was “myth” and any “myth” was something that wasn’t true – in other words, a lie. I now recognize that it’s entirely possible for a sacred text to contain clearly mythic elements (that would have been mythic even to the original audience) just as it’s fine to have parable or poetry.

This comment is not intended to dilute your excellent points in the least. If anything, providing some context could even reinforce them. But I feel obligated to remind new readers that what you describe pertains only to a minority, albeit a vocal one, of what are typically called "creationists." As you noted: "six-day-young-earth creationism was never a fundamentalist dogma until the 1960s." And in fact a recent article by Josh Rosenau supports what I had inferred from polls (other than the misleading Gallup one that's usually cited), which is that most creationists in the general public are still not strictly YEC. Though, given how little time and interest most people have, a few clever sound bites is all it would take to turn most of them, and even many non-evolution-deniers, into YECs.

Those who have given it some serious thought, and still find YEC (but not flat-earthism or geocentrism) convincing, are an even smaller minority (though even 1% of Americans is still ~3 million). When you say that "the creationist" "needs to understand" or "must realize," you probably know better than I do that 99+% of those in the same position you were just before realizing how you had been misled will only react by either descending further into self-deception, or, if their need to "save the world" overrules their need to be consistent, become anti-evolution activists. In which case they may likely find the more evasive ID strategy less risky. But very few will have the courage to do what you did, much go public with it.

Why, then, should anyone bother pointing out the problems with "scientific" YEC? The reason may be trivially obvious to us, but not to those who think there are only creationist and evolutionist "fixed kinds." The fact is that, for every person who will not admit evolution under any circumstances, there's at least 1 or 2 more with various degrees of doubt of evolution, and misconceptions about evolution and the nature of science. Not all of them are Biblical literalists, and even fewer are YECs. But as I alluded above, the great majority - much more than the 40-45% from the Gallup poll - are susceptible to anti-evolution arguments. But they're just as capable of understanding and accepting the refutations of those arguments. Unfortunately the latter takes much more effort to appreciate than the former does to mislead.

Another trend that I have detected is that when a poll gives it as an option, the % that "unsure" of evolution has been greatly increased in the last ~20 years, with the corresponding decrease roughly evenly split between committed "evolutionists" and "creationists." That's a big concern to me because it suggests that the ID strategy is "trickling down." While YEC gets a lot of media attention, and has a lot more misleading arguments against evolution that require refuting, the "don't ask, don't tell what happened when" policy of ID appears to be gaining traction among people who don't care much about science and natural history (dismissing it all as "a long time ago"), yet are willing to uncritically believe that scientists are in a "conspiracy."

david.starling.macmillan said: @Cordorcet: Hey, thanks for your comment! We obviously know that the Genesis flood myth is a fable/poetic-form retelling of the Epic of Gilgamesh with some critical departures intended to highlight the differences between the gods in the Utnapishtim story and YHWH in the Hebrew story. One of the edits is that the Hebrew author expands the Ark's contents from the livestock of the protagonist to ALL breathing land creatures. It's ridiculous, of course, to try and make this out as an actual historical event. But they try. Genesis 7 says that the Flood killed every breathing land creature, but YECs typically exclude various invertebrates on the convenient grounds that they don't breathe using normal lungs. And so plants, microorganisms, aquatic mammals, fish, and various insects/worms/invertebrates all somehow managed to survive without being intentionally brought onto the Ark. Suggested survival pathways include "clinging to floating matted logs" and "hitchhiking on the Ark". They have written painfully long, detailed, and inventive books on the subject. Like Noah's Ark: A Feasibility Study. All about the ways it could have been done. Point out that there are many species which can't survive outside a very narrow range of conditions, and they'll argue that those specializations came into being since the Flood; that the Flood-era flora/fauna were hardier.

Condorcet said:

david.starling.macmillan said: They have written painfully long, detailed, and inventive books on the subject. Like Noah's Ark: A Feasibility Study. All about the ways it could have been done. I have GOT to get my hands on that! Point out that there are many species which can't survive outside a very narrow range of conditions, and they'll argue that those specializations came into being since the Flood; that the Flood-era flora/fauna were hardier. hmm...a flood which destroyed all air-breathing life AND was violent enough in its effects to create geological strata, grand canyons, what seems to be volcanic caldera older than 4000 years, ad infinitum, was not violent enough to destroy the hardy antediluvian plant life it buried under fathoms of intense water and pressure?

No, we should discard the coercive, dubiously coherent notion of 'sacred text' and replace it with straightforward exposition of our values. I'm quite fond of the religious left as individuals, but the fact that others can use the same texts to promote hatred and anti-science is a moral data point against 'sacred texts'.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not trolling; I'm not saying their is nothing of value in the myths of culture. But as expressions of moral values, they are poor, coercive, and of ambiguous utility at best.

Easier to be against murder on the basis of respect for persons as foundational, instead of the Bible. More reliable, too. See, I want you to live, Chris, because living and loving are good. Nothing to do with any sacred text. Don't need it.

RJ said: No, we should discard the coercive, dubiously coherent notion of 'sacred text' and replace it with straightforward exposition of our values.

ISTM that the YEC have made the public impression that to reject evolution and to be a good, Bible believing Christian one must be a YEC. Even if privately one accepts than dinosaurs lived long before humans, that is something that one should be ashamed of, like one's not going to church every Sunday. Something that one should not admit to the pollster.

david.starling.macmillan said:

eric said: I beg to differ slightly with David on this one. I don't think YECism is as consistent (about macro/micro) as he or you make it sound. I think the reality is that they will have wildly different standards for what counts as "macro" depending on whether you're talking about humans and closely related species vs. species that are less closely related to us.

It seems like this, because we're reasonably expecting their definitions to be grounded in empirical reality and subject to evidential constraints. But their definitions are tautological and philosophical, designed to meet a rhetorical requirement. Only God can produce truly new genetic information, because true genetic information is something only intelligence can produce. Speciation can only be the result of microevolution, because microevolution is specialization and not the creation of new information.

callahanpb said: From the first day of class, she emphasized the definition of myth as "sacred history" -- definitely not "falsehood" or "made up explanation for a natural phenomenon." The sacred texts of a culture tell us about their values (among other things). Treating them as science or literal history is obviously a waste of time, but by the same token, treating them as lies or deluded ramblings is cultural snobbery.

Frank J said: Most creationists in the general public are still not strictly YEC. Though, given how little time and interest most people have, a few clever sound bites is all it would take to turn most of them, and even many non-evolution-deniers, into YECs. Those who have given it some serious thought, and still find YEC (but not flat-earthism or geocentrism) convincing, are an even smaller minority (though even 1% of Americans is still ~3 million). The great majority - much more than the 40-45% from the Gallup poll - are susceptible to anti-evolution arguments. But they're just as capable of understanding and accepting the refutations of those arguments. Unfortunately the latter takes much more effort to appreciate than the former does to mislead.

Chris Tyler said: Genesis 7:21–22 ‘And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.’ So for most creationists it’s not lungs that are the issue it’s nostrils. That might be anatomically true in the modern sense but would you argue that an insect does not carry the breath of life, that they breathe? Could you argue that an insect does not in fact creep? Or that all animals creep? One might say that insects are synonymous with creeping. Are we saying that saying nostrils could not be a metaphor for the next words in the sentence to be more poetic? The Breath of life?

In short, according to the Bible, and working within the framework that Biblical literalism allows, anything NOT on the Ark would be dead.

Chris Tyler said: Most "higher" plants evolved on land, and their seeds are not able to survive a prolonged soaking in salt water. A small number of specialised plants, which have evolved to survive at the littoral zone and whose seeds actually use oceanic currents to colonize new areas, could conceivably have survived a global flood.

A longer term effect would have been salinification of the soil, which would have caused permanent soil damage and left it unable to support most forms of plant life. As an example, one-third of the arable areas flooded after Hurricane Katrina suffered permanent salt damage. A year-long, worldwide flood would have had permanent consequences - the extinction of most plant life.

RJ said: No, we should discard the coercive, dubiously coherent notion of 'sacred text' and replace it with straightforward exposition of our values. I'm quite fond of the religious left as individuals, but the fact that others can use the same texts to promote hatred and anti-science is a moral data point against 'sacred texts'.

So insects don't breathe. And plants aren't alive. Sure, fine, whatever.

And these dipsticks want to be taken seriously? Really? Really?

Oh yes....sadly I know. I'm debating a few creationist via e-mail and the amount of special pleading is quite excruciating.

A longer term effect would have been salinification of the soil, which would have caused permanent soil damage and left it unable to support most forms of plant life. As an example, one-third of the arable areas flooded after Hurricane Katrina suffered permanent salt damage. A year-long, worldwide flood would have had permanent consequences - the extinction of most plant life.

Ooh, good point. I don't think AiG has considered that...I know I hadn't. Any elaboration?

Sadly I don't have any other elaborations. But I can tell you that the YEC that I've been trying to understand has asserted that we don't know how salty the oceans were. He used this argument when I talked about how on earth would fish survive the change in salinity since it never rains salt water. I say that it's all about balance the amount of salinity that it takes to ruin soil is WAY lower than the salinity that it takes to keep a fish alive. "Salting the earth" is a tried and true way of ruining crops for a good long time after all. What I'm strugginng with right now is "Gain of function" mutations. Also I'd love if you elaborated about the false analogy of "Information as we see it" vrs "Genetic chemistry"

DS said: So insects don't breathe. And plants aren't alive. Sure, fine, whatever. And these dipsticks want to be taken seriously? Really? Really?

Frank J said: This comment is not intended to dilute your excellent points in the least. If anything, providing some context could even reinforce them. But I feel obligated to remind new readers that what you describe pertains only to a minority, albeit a vocal one, of what are typically called "creationists." As you noted: "six-day-young-earth creationism was never a fundamentalist dogma until the 1960s." And in fact a recent article by Josh Rosenau supports what I had inferred from polls (other than the misleading Gallup one that's usually cited), which is that most creationists in the general public are still not strictly YEC. Though, given how little time and interest most people have, a few clever sound bites is all it would take to turn most of them, and even many non-evolution-deniers, into YECs. Those who have given it some serious thought, and still find YEC (but not flat-earthism or geocentrism) convincing, are an even smaller minority (though even 1% of Americans is still ~3 million). When you say that "the creationist" "needs to understand" or "must realize," you probably know better than I do that 99+% of those in the same position you were just before realizing how you had been misled will only react by either descending further into self-deception, or, if their need to "save the world" overrules their need to be consistent, become anti-evolution activists. In which case they may likely find the more evasive ID strategy less risky. But very few will have the courage to do what you did, much go public with it. Why, then, should anyone bother pointing out the problems with "scientific" YEC? The reason may be trivially obvious to us, but not to those who think there are only creationist and evolutionist "fixed kinds." The fact is that, for every person who will not admit evolution under any circumstances, there's at least 1 or 2 more with various degrees of doubt of evolution, and misconceptions about evolution and the nature of science. Not all of them are Biblical literalists, and even fewer are YECs. But as I alluded above, the great majority - much more than the 40-45% from the Gallup poll - are susceptible to anti-evolution arguments. But they're just as capable of understanding and accepting the refutations of those arguments. Unfortunately the latter takes much more effort to appreciate than the former does to mislead. Another trend that I have detected is that when a poll gives it as an option, the % that "unsure" of evolution has been greatly increased in the last ~20 years, with the corresponding decrease roughly evenly split between committed "evolutionists" and "creationists." That's a big concern to me because it suggests that the ID strategy is "trickling down." While YEC gets a lot of media attention, and has a lot more misleading arguments against evolution that require refuting, the "don't ask, don't tell what happened when" policy of ID appears to be gaining traction among people who don't care much about science and natural history (dismissing it all as "a long time ago"), yet are willing to uncritically believe that scientists are in a "conspiracy."

[OT Alert!]

Karl W. Giberson offers some insight regarding how Creationists deal with evidence:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/01/the-crazy-way-creationists-try-to-explain-human-tails-without-evolution.html

[/OT Alert!]

gnome de net said: [OT Alert!] Karl W. Giberson offers some insight regarding how Creationists deal with evidence: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/01/the-crazy-way-creationists-try-to-explain-human-tails-without-evolution.html [/OT Alert!]

Mike Elzinga said: However, the ID/creationists haven’t even figured out how to write a Weasel program; and they believe the answer has been placed in the program by introducing the “target” organism.

diogeneslamp0 said: Here's all that needs to be said about all "information" arguments. Creationists and ID proponents assert there is a kind of "information" which they won't define and can't compute. It is not to be confused with real forms of information like Shannon information and Kalmogorov information, which can be produced by natural processes. Call the Creationist ID version "Ooga Booga information", or OBI. Here you may insert Dembski's CSI or D/FCSI or Behe's IC or whatever you like, it's all the same. The creationist or ID proponent plays a game of equivocation in which he broadens or narrows the definition of Ooga Booga Information in an ad hoc fashion, narrowing the definition to exclude the observed products of known natural processes (thus evading falsification), then later broadening the definition so it can encompass DNA, proteins, etc. To have an "inference to design", what the ID/Creationist needs is this pattern: 1. Natural processes make Ooga Booga Information? NO 2. Invisible Spirits and Spooks make OBI? YES 3. Do Living Things Have OBI? YES This NO/YES/YES pattern is absolutely essential to logically infer that the presence of OBI in living things means that an invisible spook made the living things (an inference based on induction and then deduction; the first two steps form an inductive rule, step 3 is a deduction from the inductive rule.. Any other pattern invalidates the logic. But the first problem is that we've never seen any invisible spook make any mutation anywhere, or make anything. So they pull their first dirty, dirty trick, replacing "Invisible Spook" which they want kids to be taught in school, with "INTELLIGENCE". 2. Intelligent beings make OBI? YES Then they claim it's a logical deduction that "intelligent beings" (really meaning "spooks") made living things. This is actually a logically fallacy because they've broadened the class used in the inductive step, inventing a new, broader class of "Intelligence" which includes both humans and hypothetical spooks. They can then claim they're doing valid induction from the behavior of humans, and say this applies to intelligent agents in general, meaning spooks. This is an invalid form of induction because we have seen humans make things but we've never seen spooks make anything. If they were really doing induction, a valid inductive rule would be "spooks have never been seen to make anything so they never will make anything." By saying "intelligent being" they evade this. Let me use an analogy. Suppose we find a dead body with a bullet hole in it. In our past experience, whenever we found a dead body with a bullet hole in it, we always found that a human had caused a gun to go off, accidentally or deliberately. So we have an inductive rule: "a dead body with a bullet hole in it is always caused by a human who made a gun go off." Now suppose we broaden this inductive rule to "a dead body with a bullet hole in it is always caused by a human OR A GHOST who made a gun go off." Technically this is accurate, because "human or ghosts" is a superset of "humans". But it is invalid to use this rule in a deductive step where you conclude "A ghost murdered the victims"! It should also be pointed out that an infinite number of inductive rules can be concocted of the form "a dead body with a bullethole in it is always caused by a human OR A GREEN KANGAROO who made a gun go off." They're technically accurate but can't be used for deduction concluding that a green kangaroo killed the guy. But this dirty trick is not enough. They still need to use equivocation, because every real, mathematically defined version of information is produced by natural processes. Thus, for real information we would stop at step 1: 1. Natural processes make Information? YES And we'd be done, ID refuted; even if life has information, natural processes made it. So to continue past Step 1 they have to equivocate, and switch to a narrow definition of OBI, usually by talking about Shakespearean sonnets, the Mona Lisa, Mount Rushmore, etc. This definition basically amounts to what I call grammar-dependent information. The idea is that natural processes don't make grammatically encoded meaning. The problem for them, of course, is that living things contain no Shakespearean sonnets, no sentences, no grammatically encoded meaning. This ought to kill their logic at Step 3. Thus, by the narrow defintion, they should have: 1. Natural processes make OBI (Shakespearean Sonnet Definition)? NO 2. Intelligent beings make OBI (Shakespearean Sonnet Definition)? YES 3. Do Living Things Have OBI (Shakespearean Sonnet Definition)? NO Thus, by the narrow definition, the pattern is NO/YES/NO-- they needed NO/YES/YES-- and there is no valid inference to design. But the IDiots solve this problem by equivocating, in Step 3, waaay over to a broad definition so that any string of DNA "letters" is "digital information" (even though no genome has "digits" encoded in it.) By the broad definition, to measure the OBI you just count the number of DNA "letters" in the sequence and convert it to bits by multiplying by 2 (because there are four kinds of DNA letters and log_base2[4] = 2.) The problem for them is that, by the broad definition, natural processes can obviously make OBI. Of course, gene duplication doubles the length of a sequence, thereby doubling its OBI. This is true also of Dembski's fancy "CSI" if you really follow the shit math he gives in his shit papers. His "CSI" always increases with longer sequence length. Thus, by the broad defintion, they should have: 1. Natural processes make OBI (Broad Definition)? YES 2. Intelligent beings make OBI (Broad Definition)? YES 3. Do Living Things Have OBI (Broad Definition)? YES Thus, by the broad definition, the pattern is YES/YES/YES-- they needed NO/YES/YES-- and there is STILL no valid inference to design. So the ID/creationists just use equivocation, switching between definitions: 1. Natural processes make OBI (Shakespearean Sonnet Definition)? NO 2. Intelligent beings make OBI (Either Definition)? YES 3. Do Living Things Have OBI (Broad Definition)? YES They finally got the NO/YES/YES pattern they needed, by the most dishonest methods conceivable. Teach the controversy! The above analysis is true of all "information" type arguments including Dembski's CSI and Behe's IC. It's all equivocation, and to argue with the ID perps you need to detect and challenge equivocation.

david.starling.macmillan said: The only thing to upset this sort of prejudice, I think, is exposure. Fundamentalists should be made to befriend Muslims, Hindus, gays, Catholics, agnostics -- anyone whose ideology they aren't comfortable with. Media helps too. I remember the first time I watched V for Vendetta...I winced when Gordon Dietrich (played by the always-entertaining Steven Fry) mentioned that he kept an illegal copy of the Koran in his home because he appreciated the poetry and beauty of it even though he wasn't Muslim. But the scene stuck with me, and I started to see that myth could be more than just devilish lies.

Scott F said:

david.starling.macmillan said: The only thing to upset this sort of prejudice, I think, is exposure. Fundamentalists should be made to befriend Muslims, Hindus, gays, Catholics, agnostics -- anyone whose ideology they aren't comfortable with. Media helps too. I remember the first time I watched V for Vendetta...I winced when Gordon Dietrich (played by the always-entertaining Steven Fry) mentioned that he kept an illegal copy of the Koran in his home because he appreciated the poetry and beauty of it even though he wasn't Muslim. But the scene stuck with me, and I started to see that myth could be more than just devilish lies.

The best class I had in high school was a comparative cultures class. As an extra credit assignment (it couldn't be a requirement for the class), we were encouraged to attend religious services of two religions, not our own, and report on them. Living in a big city, the opportunities were there. My choices were Jewish and Buddhist services. It was very enlightening, to say the least.

What law of the universe is there that stops it from happening?

One of the major points of the book (The Edge of Evolution) was that if only one mutation is needed to confer some ability, then Darwinian evolution has little problem finding it. But if more than one is needed, the probability of getting all the right ones grows exponentially worse. --Michael Behe

Our uniquely human attributes constitute a quantum leap, not just an innovation, a leap that cannot have arisen without guidance. We are not souped-up apes. --Ann Gauger

[ID is] YEC taking the fifth, mixed in with a few lies about evolution, and some illogical argumentation - as nicely described by Diogeneslamp in this thread.

— Harold

Frank J said:

[ID is] YEC taking the fifth, mixed in with a few lies about evolution, and some illogical argumentation - as nicely described by Diogeneslamp in this thread.

— Harold

I would say that it's "90% OEC and 10% YEC taking the fifth." It seems that would-be OEC activists who find YEC absurd, but, as David noted, are nevertheless sympathetic to it, find ID a convenient strategy. And that includes non-Biblicals like Behe who concede common descent as well as all of mainstream chronology. I hope you're right that ID has had no effect. Certainly few people can name a DI activist, and I can personally vouch that shockingly few people heard of Kitzmiller v. Dover. But what if the past 20 years had just more YEC and OEC in lieu of ID? I doubt that the "unsures" would have been so numerous by now. Maybe there would have been a few % more committed Biblical literalists, but without the "don't ask, don't tell what happened when," more people - and I don't mean committed Biblical literalists - would have noticed at least the embarrassing contradictions between OEC and YEC if not the grotesque distortion of evidence needed to "support" either. At least a few more % would likely have been saying things like "Evolution may have unanswered questions, but Biblical creationism has huge problems, so I guess I'll go with evolution." Since everyone here likes to talk about religion, I have to also wonder about those religions that officially accept evolution. I have read anecdotes of priests and ministers who had (or would have) reluctantly conceded their church's position, finding ID arguments a convenient way out.

TomS said: YEC have made the public impression that to reject evolution and to be a good, Bible believing Christian one must be a YEC. Even if privately one accepts than dinosaurs lived long before humans, that is something that one should be ashamed of, like one's not going to church every Sunday.

eric said:

david.starling.macmillan said: Their definitions are tautological and philosophical, designed to meet a rhetorical requirement. Only God can produce truly new genetic information, because true genetic information is something only intelligence can produce. Speciation can only be the result of microevolution, because microevolution is specialization and not the creation of new information.

I don't really want to argue with you on this, because you know these folks better than I do. But are you REALLY saying that they would accept the speciation of homo sapiens from earlier hominids as microevolution???

Microevolution: The accumulation of minor adaptive genetic changes observable over human lifespans. Macroevolution: The cumulative result of microevolution over geologic time, leading to major morphological changes and/or speciation.

Microevolution: Adaptive genetic changes due to recombination or information-negative mutation which may lead to a more-genetically-diverse parent "kind" splitting into two more-genetically-specialized daughter "kinds". Macroevolution: The accumulation of information-positive mutations allowing one clade to change into another clade.

Chris Tyler said: Sadly I don't have any other elaborations. But I can tell you that the YEC that I've been trying to understand has asserted that we don't know how salty the oceans were. He used this argument when I talked about how on earth would fish survive the change in salinity since it never rains salt water. I say that it's all about balance the amount of salinity that it takes to ruin soil is WAY lower than the salinity that it takes to keep a fish alive. "Salting the earth" is a tried and true way of ruining crops for a good long time after all.

What I'm strugginng with right now is "Gain of function" mutations. Also I'd love if you elaborated about the false analogy of "Information as we see it" vrs "Genetic chemistry"

Dave Luckett said:

DS said: So insects don't breathe. And plants aren't alive. Sure, fine, whatever. And these dipsticks want to be taken seriously? Really? Really?

Not quite so. The Bible includes "creeping things" at Genesis 1:28 as "nephesh chayyah", which literally means "living breathers". It also implies that plants are not included as "nephesh chayyah". Did they think that plants weren't alive, then? Maybe. Not in the same way, though. So it would appear that the ancient Hebrews were aware that insects breathe, but thought that plants don't. Give them credit: with the observational base they were working from, that isn't bad.

FL said:

What law of the universe is there that stops it from happening?

This is really the main (science) issue on the table regarding David's "Part 2." I've seen this question (or variations on it) here at PT before. It's like asking "What law of the universe is there that stops 'microevolution' from adding up, over gazillions of years, to 'macroevolution'?" The question is designed to shift the burden of proof away from evolutionists whenever non-Darwinists point out that macro-evolution has never been observed.

Gregor Mendel tried to write a letter to Darwin to let him know that, according to Mendel's results, some LIMITS existed. (Don't know if Darwin saw the letter though.)

The work of Richard Lenski (and on a smaller but similar scale, Ralph Seelke) DOES makes clear that limits have been observed, as Michael Behe and Ralph Seelke have pointed out. Limits do exist, whether or not one can specify a naturalistic mechanism for it.

One of the major points of the book (The Edge of Evolution) was that if only one mutation is needed to confer some ability, then Darwinian evolution has little problem finding it. But if more than one is needed, the probability of getting all the right ones grows exponentially worse. --Michael Behe

So there's some serious limitations going on there.

"whenever non-Darwinists point out that macro-evolution has never been observed"

Mendel, Behe and Gauger, nice experts on modern evolutionary theory Floyd. Have you no shame? Wait, I already know the answer to that one. Never mind.

FL said: Even Gregor Mendel tried to write a letter to Darwin to let him know that, according to Mendel's results, some LIMITS existed. (Don't know if Darwin saw the letter though.)

As for Felsenstein's question, I don't know the answer, but the work of Richard Lenski (and on a smaller but similar scale, Ralph Seelke) DOES makes clear that limits have been observed, as Michael Behe and Ralph Seelke have pointed out.

One of the major points of the book (The Edge of Evolution) was that if only one mutation is needed to confer some ability, then Darwinian evolution has little problem finding it. But if more than one is needed, the probability of getting all the right ones grows exponentially worse. --Michael Behe

As for Felsenstein's question, I don't know the answer, but the work of Richard Lenski (and on a smaller but similar scale, Ralph Seelke) DOES makes clear that limits have been observed, as Michael Behe and Ralph Seelke have pointed out.

eric said: So yes, things get exponentially harder. But no, that doesn't mean they can't happen.

FL said: but the work of Richard Lenski (and on a smaller but similar scale, Ralph Seelke) DOES makes clear that limits have been observed,

But if more than one is needed, the probability of getting all the right ones grows exponentially worse.

eric said: "Exponentially" is not some magic word that prevents it from happening. ... So yes, things get exponentially harder. But no, that doesn't mean they can't happen.

The critical distinction is that creationists (and, to some extent, the general public) tends to conceptualize evolution as a linear process where one mutation needs to be followed by a matching mutation and so on and so on many times to get the right result. But evolution happens across the population, so there are MANY different mutations being shuffled and reshuffled in many different places every generation. That's the subject of the next post, incidentally.

david.starling.macmillan said: and so on and so on many times to get the right result.

david.starling.macmillan said: The critical distinction is that creationists (and, to some extent, the general public) tends to conceptualize evolution as a linear process where one mutation needs to be followed by a matching mutation and so on and so on many times to get the right result. But evolution happens across the population, so there are MANY different mutations being shuffled and reshuffled in many different places every generation. That's the subject of the next post, incidentally.

What about Behe? The only ID advocate who has ever sorta kinda maybe actually stated that the world isn’t less than 10,000 years old, without using obvious weasel words and/or issuing a retraction? Is he a lone “OEC” crackpot?

— Harold

David covered this. He pointed out (1) YECs fixate on mendelian inheritance mechanisms, (2)yes, these sorts of mechanisms do have limits, but (3) what YECs conveniently ignore is that there is more to inheritance than Mendel’s mechanisms. Looks like he nailed you in one, FL.

Mendel's experiments unambiguously showed that while variation occurred within species, it only occurred within limits. In documented lectures, he refuted the theory of evolution, stating that the laws of inheritance did not permit limitless change, but only permitted change within definite parameters. --Creationwiki

Frank J said: Nor does the one that most people know, Michael Medved.

And simply saying that Mendel told Darwin something does not make it true either. Mendel had no idea what gene even was. Why on earth would you think he could possibly know about the limits of evolution?

Do you really think that two generations of pea plants could possibly teach anyone anything about the limits of evolution? Really? Really?

Even when his egregious errors are pointed out to him, Floyd just doubles down and continues with his ignorant, already refuted nonsense.

One of the problems with trying to convince an ID/creationist of anything is the game of citing authority that they play with scientific papers. Our resident YEC, FL, illustrates how the game is played.

Cite a scientific paper as “evidence” against evolution and then drag the discussion into a quagmire of “interpretation” of the paper. It’s the old exegesis, hermeneutics, etymology, and word-gaming tactic that eats up time and tries to give the appearance of the ID/creationist having broad erudition and being able to “stay in the game” against all comers and experts. Morris and Gish taught this tactic at the Institute for Creation “Research.”

The point is that the ID/creationist has never read the paper and couldn’t comprehend the basic science even if his life depended on it. Nevertheless he pretends to understand the paper. We have seen this over and over and over again with people like FL who don’t comprehend even high school level science because their science education stopped somewhere back in the 8th grade. Their “arguments” always degenerate into an infinite regress of mud wrestling over the meanings of the meanings of the meanings of meanings.

One of the most common mistakes that people make in arguing with an ID/creationist is to allow themselves to be drawn into this quagmire by playing the same game of citing counter references. One sees this going on with people who have spent many years mud wrestling with the people over at UD; they pick up exactly the same habits of the UD people.

It seems to me that if an ID/creationist attempts this ploy, the first thing that should happen is that the ID/creationist be asked to demonstrate his conceptual understanding of science at the high school and middle school level.

I have observed many, many times over the years that every ID/creationist – to a person – runs away from that challenge and retreats back into the same mindless citing of “authority” or tries to “up the ante” by jumping into advanced concepts and pretending to be able to argue at an advanced level. That tactic is pure dishonesty on their part. I have no doubt that they know at some level that they are bluffing and are misrepresenting what they know; and FL has tried to pull that crap on people many times here on Panda’s Thumb. It is pure snark spewing out of a heart of darkness.

Microevolution: The accumulation of minor adaptive genetic changes observable over human lifespans. Macroevolution: The cumulative result of microevolution over geologic time, leading to major morphological changes and/or speciation.

Good point Mike. Perhaps Floyd would like to explain Mendel's laws to us. You know, in his own words, since he is such an expert. Perhaps he could then demonstrate to us how they pose some kind of limit on evolution. Perhaps he could then explain how no real evolutionary biologist seems to be aware of this, presumably since they are unaware of Mendel's laws. I can't wait for the response.

And then Floyd can go on to show how Newton proved that black holes could not exist, you know cuz on accounta the apple falling and all. Man that story has everything Floyd loves, magic apples, magic falling, the works.

FL said: David wrote,

Microevolution: The accumulation of minor adaptive genetic changes observable over human lifespans. Macroevolution: The cumulative result of microevolution over geologic time, leading to major morphological changes and/or speciation.

Just curious on one thing. What is your source for those definitions? The definitions that I use for discussion of macro and micro, are the ones from Campbell-Reece's textbook (Biology) and Freeman-Herron's textbook (Evolutionary Analysis). I just stick with those. FL

FL said: Joe Felsenstein wrote,

What law of the universe is there that stops it from happening?

@Harold, about Kenyon and Davis:

Yes, one could say that they founded the ID strategy before Johnson worked out the details. But as I often note, they had reason to play "don't ask, don't tell" with the "what happened when" before Edwards v. Aguillard forced the hasty change to "cdesign proponentsists." And yes, they promoted YEC, not OEC, before that. After all it was the heyday of Morris' "scientific" YEC, so before ID came along it's likely that many people who didn't necessarily believe YEC found it comforting to promote ir. But D & K must have been at least losing confidence that any evidence would support a YE (global flood and all) - if they ever did have any.

OPAP was supposed to be a textbook for God's sake, not a pop-pseudoscience book where it's OK, and even expected, to "support" ones claims mostly or exclusively on "weaknesses" of mainstream science, and often top it off with a conspiracy charge. If there were credible evidence for a YE a textbook would be the ideal place to put one's best foot forward. There would be no need to obsess over "Darwinism," or invoke "creation" or "design," which students who find the YE evidence convincing would infer anyway.

Good point Mike. Perhaps Floyd would like to explain Mendel’s laws to us. You know, in his own words, since he is such an expert.

On a small scale, Darwin's theory has triumphed; it is now about as controversial as an athlete's assertion that he or she could jump over a four-foot ditch. But it is at the level of macroevolution-of large jumps-that the theory evokes skepticism. Many people have followed Darwin in proposing that huge changes can be broken down to plausible, small steps over great periods of time. Persuasive evidence to support that position, however, has not been forthcoming. --Michael Behe, Darwin's Black Box

FL said:

David covered this. He pointed out (1) YECs fixate on mendelian inheritance mechanisms, (2)yes, these sorts of mechanisms do have limits, but (3) what YECs conveniently ignore is that there is more to inheritance than Mendel’s mechanisms. Looks like he nailed you in one, FL.

Not at all, Eric. There's no refutation of what Mendel wrote to Darwin about the existence limits. In fact, you might want to re-read your own #2 statement there. The limits ARE there.

FL said: David wrote,

Microevolution: The accumulation of minor adaptive genetic changes observable over human lifespans. Macroevolution: The cumulative result of microevolution over geologic time, leading to major morphological changes and/or speciation.

Just curious on one thing. What is your source for those definitions?

FL said: I didn't claim any expertise for me, and I sure didn't claim any expertise for you. Perhaps YOU would like to explain Mendel's laws, and in your own words. It's not that difficult to talk about Mendel's laws if you have access to Wiki or other popular sources. But that doesn't change what Mendel wrote to Darwin. There ARE limits, pesky limits, inconvenient limits, but very real limits.

FL said:

Good point Mike. Perhaps Floyd would like to explain Mendel’s laws to us. You know, in his own words, since he is such an expert.

I didn't claim any expertise for me, and I sure didn't claim any expertise for you. Perhaps YOU would like to explain Mendel's laws, and in your own words. It's not that difficult to talk about Mendel's laws if you have access to Wiki or other popular sources. But that doesn't change what Mendel wrote to Darwin. There ARE limits, pesky limits, inconvenient limits, but very real limits. That's why the debate about macroevolution has never gone away, even after 150+ years. Here's the classic summary:

On a small scale, Darwin's theory has triumphed; it is now about as controversial as an athlete's assertion that he or she could jump over a four-foot ditch. But it is at the level of macroevolution-of large jumps-that the theory evokes skepticism. Many people have followed Darwin in proposing that huge changes can be broken down to plausible, small steps over great periods of time. Persuasive evidence to support that position, however, has not been forthcoming. --Michael Behe, Darwin's Black Box

FL

I'm not sure how the limits set by Mendelian inheritance are even relevant. Mutation and chromosome duplication are both very common and have nothing to do with Mendelian inheritance.

I was thinking a little about lateral gene transfer, not because it is very common or needed for evolution, but it certainly puts the lie to the notion that nature respects "limits" set by our models of it. You could make the simplifying assumption that bacteria genes never get inserted into eukaryote DNA, and still have a robust evolutionary theory. But if you look at current evidence, it seems that even that simplifying assumption is sometimes wrong.

In short, it is inconceivable (and it this case, the word means what I think it does) that a biologist could compile a sufficiently exhaustive list of inheritance mechanisms to set hard "limits" to evolution.

So in the process of trying to learn a little about lateral gene transfer, I stumbled on this http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16124-solarpowered-sea-slug-harnesses-stolen-plant-genes.html It's been known for a long time that this slug uses chloroplasts from algae it eats. More recently, it's been determined that the slug itself has some genes to produce proteins needed to support these chloroplasts. That is, it makes proteins that are only useful for the chloroplasts, and would normally only be made by plants. Whoa, how'd that happen?

As a simplifying assumption, we normally rule out the idea that we will acquire genes from the foods we eat and pass them on. Even in this case (with as much as I can glean from the article) you could imagine a co-evolutionary model resulting in the development of such genes in the slug by more conventional means. The researcher in this case seems to think the slugs acquired the genes directly from the algae, but I don't think it has been established either way.

What's interesting from the standpoint of science is not whether this amazing animal "refutes" or "confirms" a specific model of evolution. It may be demonstrating an entirely new (albeit rare) model of gene acquisition. Real scientists study these things to understand them better and learn new things about the world, not to confirm their pre-existing assumptions.

Notice that Floyd claimed that it was not difficult to talk about Mende;'s laws, yet he completely failed to do so. Man, I have been waiting for two years for this guy to explain linkage disequilibrium to me, you know, the evidence that proves there was no magic flood. No wonder he can't do it.

When Floyd is ready to discuss science and stop quoting ignorant, dishonest creationist charlatans, I might respond on the bathroom wall. Until then, he can pick his favorite orifice, stick his finger up it and rotate it counter clock wise.

david.starling.macmillan said:

FL said: I didn't claim any expertise for me, and I sure didn't claim any expertise for you. Perhaps YOU would like to explain Mendel's laws, and in your own words. It's not that difficult to talk about Mendel's laws if you have access to Wiki or other popular sources. But that doesn't change what Mendel wrote to Darwin. There ARE limits, pesky limits, inconvenient limits, but very real limits.

Yes, there are. To. Mendelian. Inheritance. Your fervor is amusing for all of us to watch, because you consistently miss the point. It is as if someone said "I flew from LA to Chicago in four hours this morning" and you said "Nope, you're lying, the speed limits won't allow you to drive from LA to Chicago in four hours." Then they stare at you, blinking, and say, "No, see, I didn't drive; I flew." And then you say "Doesn't matter, you can't drive that distance in four hours, speed limits won't allow it!" At which point they take you to a padded cell.

I’m not sure how the limits set by Mendelian inheritance are even relevant.

I think the pesky inconvenient, very real Limits™ FL alludes to are those that prevent a dog from giving birth to a cat, a sparrow giving birth to a tuna, or, you know, or an ape giving birth to a human.

@ FL: still link-challenged? You've been cluttering this forum for how many years and you haven't learned how to use the "Reply" link? Maybe if you could learn that, we'd believe your claims of having learned some science in those college-level courses you claim to have taken.

harold said: In the name of the designer, people, please don't let creationists taunt you into making unclear statements that can easily be interpreted as wrong.

Frank J said: Numerous people buy into one or another science denial trend, and almost all such trends are characterized by the inconsistent claim that scientists, doctors, or pharmaceutical companies are dastardly conspirators, but that entities like tobacco companies are not. Also, the claim is inconsistent - if doctors seem to agree with the attitude favored by the denier, suddenly doctors are valid authority figures. ... A common thread is a growing tendency to "deny whatever science I personally feel inconvenienced by, or that challenges my ideology". This trend is MUCH more concentrated on the political right, and for obvious reasons. That's where the least self-aware, most biased, most authoritarian people go - to the Fox/Limbaugh/hate radio/hate internet/Tea Party right. But it is by no means totally exclusive to the right.

The pinna, or ear flap if you will, has been shown to be important in sound localization. The underlying tissue that forms the pinna, allowing it to be so flexible, is called cartilage and is similar to the cartilage found in most of the joints of the body. How cells that are capable of cartilage formation acquired this ability, never mind how they ended up extending themselves from each side of the head, to the bane of many young women, would seem to require some sort of satisfactory explanation if one is to espouse the macroevolutionary model for the development of hearing. --Dr. Howard Glickman MD, "Wired for Much More than Sound: Part VII: The Ear and Hearing." http://www.arn.org/docs/glicksman/eyw_050101.htm

FL said: And by the way DS, the correct term is "oracle." Not "oh great auricle." That's just plain wrong. It's "oh great oracle." You see, an "auricle" is a pinna. A pinna is your external ear. It's the point of difference between the human ear and that of other mammals.

And your pinna was custom-built to provide yet MORE intractable problems for your beloved religion of evolution.

The pinna, or ear flap if you will, has been shown to be important in sound localization. The underlying tissue that forms the pinna, allowing it to be so flexible, is called cartilage and is similar to the cartilage found in most of the joints of the body. How cells that are capable of cartilage formation acquired this ability, never mind how they ended up extending themselves from each side of the head, to the bane of many young women, would seem to require some sort of satisfactory explanation if one is to espouse the macroevolutionary model for the development of hearing. --Dr. Howard Glickman MD, "Wired for Much More than Sound: Part VII: The Ear and Hearing." http://www.arn.org/docs/glicksman/eyw_050101.htm

So listen well, DS. Your own EARS help falsify the theory of evolution!

callahanpb said:

harold said: In the name of the designer, people, please don't let creationists taunt you into making unclear statements that can easily be interpreted as wrong.

Point taken. I'll leave the debating to the pros. It really doesn't interest me very much.

If anyone watched the Inner FIsh series, they know that the mammalian ear is one of the best examples of evolution there is. Floyd was too stupid to watch it and learn something, so he has once again stumbled into spouting nonsense about something he knows nothing about. PIty the fool.

If anybody is interested, there is a classic example of ID/creationist bluffing over on the Bathroom Wall; and it was started by a taunt from FL on Page 135 here.

It goes on for a few pages as FL continues to bluff and bluster.

Finally, on Page 137, I call out FL on his tactics.

And what does FL do? He gets cocky and doubles down with this crap; whereupon he gets his bluff called here.

Now look at FL’s continued snarky bluffing here. He just can’t help himself.

The hammer is brought down on FL here; and look how he continues trying to play his simpering game here.

And, by the way, FL now claims to have been right all along; even though he clearly didn’t have a clue or a working knowledge of a scientific concept. All of this is demonstrated in real time and in print for everyone to see.

The game continues over on Page 139 where FL keeps bluffing but the game is already over.

Pages 135 to about Page 140 over on the Bathroom Wall demonstrate a classic example of how the ID/creationist game is played; and, furthermore, it is a quantative example captured here on Panda’s Thumb.

It is hard to be charitable and assume that this is all innocent ignorance. There is no question in my own mind that the ID/creationists who play these kinds of games are simply exhibiting their own inner demons that they project onto everyone else.

Mike Elzinga said: If anybody is interested, there is a classic example of ID/creationist bluffing over on the Bathroom Wall; and it was started by a taunt from FL on Page 135 here. It goes on for a few pages as FL continues to bluff and bluster. Finally, on Page 137, I call out FL on his tactics. And what does FL do? He gets cocky and doubles down with this crap; whereupon he gets his bluff called here. Now look at FL’s continued snarky bluffing here. He just can’t help himself. The hammer is brought down on FL here; and look how he continues trying to play his simpering game here. And, by the way, FL now claims to have been right all along; even though he clearly didn’t have a clue or a working knowledge of a scientific concept. All of this is demonstrated in real time and in print for everyone to see. The game continues over on Page 139 where FL keeps bluffing but the game is already over. Pages 135 to about Page 140 over on the Bathroom Wall demonstrate a classic example of how the ID/creationist game is played; and, furthermore, it is a quantative example captured here on Panda’s Thumb. It is hard to be charitable and assume that this is all innocent ignorance. There is no question in my own mind that the ID/creationists who play these kinds of games are simply exhibiting their own inner demons that they project onto everyone else.

harold said: But then I saw that they were a bunch of BSers who didn't know or care anything about entropy or anything else.

Mike Elzinga said: If anybody is interested, there is a classic example of ID/creationist bluffing over on the Bathroom Wall; and it was started by a taunt from FL on Page 135 here. It goes on for a few pages as FL continues to bluff and bluster. Finally, on Page 137, I call out FL on his tactics. And what does FL do? He gets cocky and doubles down with this crap; whereupon he gets his bluff called here. Now look at FL’s continued snarky bluffing here. He just can’t help himself. The hammer is brought down on FL here; and look how he continues trying to play his simpering game here. And, by the way, FL now claims to have been right all along; even though he clearly didn’t have a clue or a working knowledge of a scientific concept. All of this is demonstrated in real time and in print for everyone to see. The game continues over on Page 139 where FL keeps bluffing but the game is already over. Pages 135 to about Page 140 over on the Bathroom Wall demonstrate a classic example of how the ID/creationist game is played; and, furthermore, it is a quantative example captured here on Panda’s Thumb. It is hard to be charitable and assume that this is all innocent ignorance. There is no question in my own mind that the ID/creationists who play these kinds of games are simply exhibiting their own inner demons that they project onto everyone else.

Mike Elzinga said: I think the clue may have come from the audiences that ID/creationists were trying to get at; namely, the kids, elementary through high school. Ken Ham’s crap is aimed at kids. Jason Lisle, Georgia Purdom, and the other people who work for, or have worked for Ken Ham all have egregious misconceptions of their own that they want to pass on to other people’s kids. I’ve seen the process at work in real time with a few ID/creationists attempting to bend and break science to fit their sectarian dogma. It is evident from some of the stuff one can find on the web, by Googling “How to debate an evolutionist” or creationist advice on how to study science, that they have developed systematic ways of doing this.

harold said: I hope my comment did NOT come across as a "STFU and go away" type of comment. That was most certainly NOT the intent.

FL said:

David covered this. He pointed out (1) YECs fixate on mendelian inheritance mechanisms, (2)yes, these sorts of mechanisms do have limits, but (3) what YECs conveniently ignore is that there is more to inheritance than Mendel’s mechanisms. Looks like he nailed you in one, FL.

Not at all, Eric. There's no refutation of what Mendel wrote to Darwin about the existence limits. In fact, you might want to re-read your own #2 statement there. The limits ARE there. Since the time of Mendel and Darwin, (quite a few years ago, right?) we naturally know more about inheritance than they do. Not disputing that. But simply saying something like,"we know more about inheritance in 2014" is not a refutation of what Mendel told Darwin. What was Mendel's findings, and what position did Mendel take? In brief, here's the answer:

Mendel's experiments unambiguously showed that while variation occurred within species, it only occurred within limits. In documented lectures, he refuted the theory of evolution, stating that the laws of inheritance did not permit limitless change, but only permitted change within definite parameters. --Creationwiki

Now obviously you will disagree with the phrase "refuted the theory of evolution". So be it. But the main point remains the same from Mendel's time till now: change is NOT limitless, but instead limited with definite parameters. And that concept, of course, happens to create a problem for the theory of evolution unto this day. FL

Not at all, Eric. There’s no refutation of what Mendel wrote to Darwin about the existence limits. In fact, you might want to re-read your own #2 statement there. The limits ARE there. Since the time of Mendel and Darwin, (quite a few years ago, right?) we naturally know more about inheritance than they do. Not disputing that. But simply saying something like,”we know more about inheritance in 2014” is not a refutation of what Mendel told Darwin.

Rolf said: FL wrote:

Not at all, Eric. There’s no refutation of what Mendel wrote to Darwin about the existence limits. In fact, you might want to re-read your own #2 statement there. The limits ARE there. Since the time of Mendel and Darwin, (quite a few years ago, right?) we naturally know more about inheritance than they do. Not disputing that. But simply saying something like,”we know more about inheritance in 2014” is not a refutation of what Mendel told Darwin.

It seems to me that FL ignores the fact that Mendel knew nothing about the mechanics of evolution. Did Mendel have any clue about genetics, genomes, mutations, variations within populations and differential reproductive success? All Mendel did was discover some basic facts about dominant vs. recessive traits. That's nothing to do with evolution. FL, there is no need to use Darwin or Mendel as references when discussing the theory of evolution in the 21st century. There is a high risk that some relevant details may be overlooked. Agreed? Can you do that, come with us from the 1st and into the 21th century?

There's another aspect of life that even FL can't ignore: What's the purpose of sexual reproduction if species are meant to be static? All that sex is a guarantee that genes will mix and create new combinations all the time. Didn't God believe in mutations, were they a surprise to him/her or only a regrettable oversight? Bu mutations do occur and he's never done anything about it. Always and still not able to do anything about it. And that applies not only to mankind or the animal kingdom, even trees, lilies and grass do it.

Mutations are not only the main if not only source of 'creating' new and useful variantions, they also are the cause of some very ugly and harmful diseases.

Is it impossible for you to debate science without references to the Bible? There can't be much about evolution that is not solidly supported by regular science; science not created for the purpose of supporting evolution - just science plain and straight in our perpetual quest for Knowledge even before Darwin discovered Natural Selection. Artificial Selection had already been in use for thousands of years by that time.

Let me also add the obvious fact that the flexibility life is blessed with by the opportunity of adaptation to changing environments and conditons is what has allowed life to occoupy most any imaginable niche on the planet. Whereas static species, once extinct would be lost and the planet soon would be left without life.

Fundamentalism is not the answer to the problems you are up against.

Rolf said: Is it impossible for you to debate science without references to the Bible? There can’t be much about evolution that is not solidly supported by regular science; science not created for the purpose of supporting evolution - just science plain and straight in our perpetual quest for Knowledge even before Darwin discovered Natural Selection..

callahanpb said:

Rolf said: Is it impossible for you to debate science without references to the Bible? There can’t be much about evolution that is not solidly supported by regular science; science not created for the purpose of supporting evolution - just science plain and straight in our perpetual quest for Knowledge even before Darwin discovered Natural Selection..

I think David's main point in this series is to explain why it is impossible for creationists to do just that. Creationists begin with the premise that evolution is primarily a philosophical program aimed at eliminating the need for God as an explanation of the natural world. I think even many creationists would accept that characterization, though it is clearly at odds with what actual evolutionary biologists do and their motivations for doing it. Everything about evolution is "solidly supported by regular science" by definition, because it is regular science. Anything that isn't "regular science" would stand as rather dubious support of a scientific principle, and (if the term is even meaningful), it would have to be backed up by regular science to have any validity.

Is it impossible for you to debate science without references to the Bible?

— Rolf

Clarification: For David, the question would be "...would you still have concluded..." since he no longer does.

page 135

While evolutionary thinking would expect to find primitive simplicity in microbes, these DNA code variations represents [sic] a level of complexity that defies evolutionary expectations.

Single celled organisms are once again defying the simple-to-complex inferred evolutionary pattern of life.

Is it impossible for you to debate science without references to the Bible?

"The hearing ear and the seeing eye, the Lord has made them both."

FL said: You'll notice that Mike's post there, is based NOT on David's "Part 2" article, not on the merits or demerits of my actual comments here in this thread, but instead on a relatively brief Bathroom Wall debate from THREE YEARS AGO. Sheesh.

FL said: Rolf says:

Is it impossible for you to debate science without references to the Bible?

Of course not. But let's be honest Rolf: Even though the Pandas are interested in science, the Pandas are ALSO seriously interested in the Bible and its claims -- surprisingly so, in fact.

So I simply try to offer the Bible's claims (where applicable) along with the science stuff.

FL said: Rolf says:

Is it impossible for you to debate science without references to the Bible?

But let's be honest... you gonna remember that somewhere in the Bible it said that the Lord himself made the human eye and human ear.

Matt Young said: While we are on the subject of adaptation and speciation, quote-mines from an AIG article that came out last week:

While evolutionary thinking would expect to find primitive simplicity in microbes, these DNA code variations represents [sic] a level of complexity that defies evolutionary expectations.

Single celled organisms are once again defying the simple-to-complex inferred evolutionary pattern of life.

To the contrary, evolutionary thinking would recognize that microbes have been evolving for over a billion years and would expect considerable complexity by now. Only a creationist, blinded by certain presuppositions, would have to explain away their complexity.

FL said: Even though the Pandas are interested in science, the Pandas are ALSO seriously interested in the Bible and its claims -- surprisingly so, in fact.

Why throw this Bible verse into a "scientific" discussion of the human ear or human eye? Because you guys will remember it, that's why. It's just that simple. ... I love the science talk, honestly. Cook up some more science discussion, yes. But adding a little Bible seasoning to that discussion, gives it a special, unique, unforgettable flavor.

FL also wrote: Posts come and go. Forgotten quickly.

BTW, evolution does not have a direction toward complexity. Cave animals often evolve to losing their sight, and parasites depend on their hosts.

FL said: Returning to the thread topic -- David's "Part 2", the correct "creationist response" would involve pointing out the issue of LIMITS to how far evolution can go. Point out examples of limits, like what Gregor Mendel did, and then "bring it into the 21st century" (to borrow slightly from Rolf) by going with examples of limits involving E. Coli bacteria, Fruit Flies, etc etc. (After all that gung-ho radiation and chemical zapping to speed up fruit fly generation times, what did those poor fruit flies wind up telling those scientists? They told them, "At the end of the day, a fruit fly is still a fruit fly. LIMITS EXIST, DUDE."

Also the Non-Darwinist would want to look up counter-arguments against evo-claims of "gene-duplication" and other items. I'm not going to to do that here and now, this is just my general thoughts on how Non-Darwinists would begin to address such essays as this "Part 2." Other Non-Darwinists might propose other approaches.

FL said: So I simply try to offer the Bible's claims (where applicable)along with the science stuff.

FL says: So I simply try to offer the Bible’s claims (where applicable) along with the science stuff.

Dave Luckett said:

FL says: So I simply try to offer the Bible’s claims (where applicable) along with the science stuff.

And when he does that, to try to bolster the false claim that "Christianity is incompatible with evolution", he gets his ass handed to him. It's become a repeated refrain in these parts - "the Bible does not say that". But with every repeat, FL's willingness to alter, adulterate and abridge the text he calls holy becomes more glaring. See, this is what I find the craziest thing of all. I can understand being utterly flummoxed by the science of evolutionary biology. I am so, myself. I can understand - although I do not approve of - an unwillingness to trust a claim that seems counterintuitive, even when it is made by experts. But this I do not understand - that FL quotes a text that plainly, obviously, does not say what he says it says, then does the dance of triumph, completely ignoring the gobsmacked response: "Where does it say that no flesh was eaten before the Fall?" "Where does Jesus say the stories in Genesis were literal fact?" "Where does it say that scripture must be read literally?" "Where does it say that Moses wrote Genesis?" "Where does Jesus say that He is God in person?" Others find it astonishing that FL can demonstrate, with apparent pride, such crushing" ignorance and contempt for science. I do, too, but I'm even more astonished by his vanity and hypocrisy.

Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God ...

“Where does it say that no flesh was eaten before the Fall?” “Where does Jesus say the stories in Genesis were literal fact?” “Where does it say that scripture must be read literally?” “Where does it say that Moses wrote Genesis?” “Where does Jesus say that He is God in person?”

Don’t lecture me on the Bible; I am beyond the Bible...

I don't want to get into another controversy about this, but the translation Rolf is using of Matthew 19:17 is in error. The Greek reads: εἷς ἐστιν ὁ ἀγαθός. This translates as "only one is good" or "one alone is good", and no more. In this passage God is not named, nor is there a title or epithet denoting Him. But that aside:

Jesus says that only One is good, and no more. It is difficult to see how this can be read as meaning "I am that One", unless an extreme, and, in my opinion, fanciful interpretation be indulged.

But at the very least, my question stands: "Where does Jesus say that He is God in person?" That is, where are the words that must actually mean that?

FL, as usual, is indulging in fantasy.

His "big five" planks have been repeatedly reduced to matchwood. He can't answer the rebuttal, and has never even tried. The reasons why the stories in Genesis are plainly identifiable as mythic narrative have been many times rehearsed, and FL simply ignores them.

He's still out there, trying to sell the Big Lie.

“Where does it say that kinds (or species) are unrelated?”

— TomS

My last comment is yet another reason why I hate to use the words "creationism" and especially "creationist(s)," even with quotes. I need to clarify one point before I am misinterpreted. In fact many self-described "creationists", including ones who have given it a lot of thought, can and do change their minds when shown their misconceptions. Few have the courage to publicly admit it like David, though. Ironically, ID peddlers, who insist that they're not "creationists," are the least likely to admit that they have been misled and/or are misleading.

“Where does it say that no flesh was eaten before the Fall?” “Where does Jesus say the stories in Genesis were literal fact?” “Where does it say that scripture must be read literally?” “Where does it say that Moses wrote Genesis?” “Where does Jesus say that He is God in person?”

phhht said:

“Where does it say that no flesh was eaten before the Fall?” “Where does Jesus say the stories in Genesis were literal fact?” “Where does it say that scripture must be read literally?” “Where does it say that Moses wrote Genesis?” “Where does Jesus say that He is God in person?”

Flawd, if you'll permit me to throw something up on you, you've had YOUR butt ground to mincemeat on each of these question by now. Many times. I myself have reduced you to craven ducking and cowardly dodging on numerous occasions. On this occasion, you're using your tired old "told you before" dodge. The questions per se are perfectly legitimate, but they are fully answered already and they remain fully answerable from objective reality: the bible does not say what you claim it does. You cannot cite chapter and verse. Your drooling counter-factual insistence that it does too say that, which is what you are reduced to these days, cannot refute that fact. And it doesn't even matter anyway, since the bible is fictitious. But that's okay, it doesn't matter about who explains it, it only matters that you have had things explained to you - slowly, and in very small words - and that the explanations can always be given to you again. And will be, because you are too stupid to grasp them. The bible does not say that, Flawd. It simply does not say that. Unless you are delusional, that is.

I don’t want to get into another controversy about this, but the translation Rolf is using of Matthew 19:17 is in error. The Greek reads: εἷς ἐστιν ὁ ἀγαθός. This translates as “only one is good” or “one alone is good”, and no more. In this passage God is not named, nor is there a title or epithet denoting Him.

... to writers of the first few centuries CE these similarities between the new Christian religion and the ancient Mysteries were extremely obvious. Pagan critics of Christianity, such as the satirist Celsus, complained that this recent religion was nothing more than a pale reflection of their own ancient teachings. Early "Church fathers," such as Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and Irenaeus, were understandably disturbed and resorted to the desperate claim that these similarities were the result of diabolical mimicry. Using one of the most absurd arguments ever advanced, they accused the Devil of "plagiarism by anticipation," of deviously copying the true story of Jesus before it had actually happened in an attempt to mislead the gullible!

...(To) writers of the first few centuries CE, these similarities between the new Christian religion and the ancient Mysteries were extremely obvious.

Frank J said:

Is it impossible for you to debate science without references to the Bible?

— Rolf

Actually that brings up a hypothetical question I have had for years. I would expect FL and other committed deniers to evade or "dance around" it, but I think David will give an honest answer. The question is: "If you never read or heard of the Genesis account, and only consulted the evidence obtained independently of it, would you still conclude that that evidence converges on your particular interpretation of the Genesis account?" Note that I am not asking whether one thinks that that evidence points to a creator or designer, or supports or falsifies the Darwinian mechanism.

FL said: Returning to the thread topic -- David's "Part 2", the correct "creationist response" would involve pointing out the issue of LIMITS to how far evolution can go. Point out examples of limits, like what Gregor Mendel did, and then "bring it into the 21st century" (to borrow slightly from Rolf) by going with examples of limits involving E. Coli bacteria, Fruit Flies, etc etc. (After all that gung-ho radiation and chemical zapping to speed up fruit fly generation times, what did those poor fruit flies wind up telling those scientists? They told them, "At the end of the day, a fruit fly is still a fruit fly. LIMITS EXIST, DUDE."

Rolf said: I can't for the life of me see what there's to wait for: Christ returned, all that remains to do is incorporate him. The practice of performing rituals symbolic of spiritual matters may be conducive but what really matters is to realize the message hidden in the ritual. It is not about ingesting the flesh and blood of Jesus, it is to realize the Christ in you, your spirit. Christ's always been there, he always will be here. (The dying and resurrecting god-man was worshipped by the Egyptians thousands of years BCE) It is all about 'salvation' of our soul, a spiritual matter. Man's soul speaks in symbols, Christians worship symbols, ignorant of the facts. The Gnostics knew and was rewarded with brutal persecution. Don't lecture me on the Bible; I am beyond the Bible, you are like a person stopping at a door that says "Salvation", waiting to be saved but he doesn't open the door. Because he hasn't got the key. The key is understanding. Since your's is the mind of a creationist I don't think my remarks are too far off topic here.

Dave Luckett said: I don't want to get into another controversy about this, but the translation Rolf is using of Matthew 19:17 is in error. The Greek reads: εἷς ἐστιν ὁ ἀγαθός. This translates as "only one is good" or "one alone is good", and no more. In this passage God is not named, nor is there a title or epithet denoting Him. But that aside: Jesus says that only One is good, and no more. It is difficult to see how this can be read as meaning "I am that One", unless an extreme, and, in my opinion, fanciful interpretation be indulged.

But at the very least, my question stands: "Where does Jesus say that He is God in person?" That is, where are the words that must actually mean that?

Frank J said:

Is it impossible for you to debate science without references to the Bible?

— Rolf

Actually that brings up a hypothetical question I have had for years. I would expect FL and other committed deniers to evade or "dance around" it, but I think David will give an honest answer. The question is: "If you never read or heard of the Genesis account, and only consulted the evidence obtained independently of it, would you still conclude that that evidence converges on your particular interpretation of the Genesis account?" Note that I am not asking whether one thinks that that evidence points to a creator or designer, or supports or falsifies the Darwinian mechanism.

FL said:

I honestly have no capability to understand what it’s like to be “beyond the Bible”.

You made that obvious a long time ago. Why the limits of your "capability to understand" should be relevant to the rest of us is less obvious.

A moron bloviated: Returning to the thread topic -- David's "Part 2", the correct "creationist response" would involve pointing out the issue of LIMITS to how far evolution can go. Point out examples of limits, like what Gregor Mendel did, and then "bring it into the 21st century" (to borrow slightly from Rolf) by going with examples of limits involving E. Coli bacteria, Fruit Flies, etc etc. (After all that gung-ho radiation and chemical zapping to speed up fruit fly generation times, what did those poor fruit flies wind up telling those scientists? They told them, "At the end of the day, a fruit fly is still a fruit fly. LIMITS EXIST, DUDE."

CJColucci said: FL said: I honestly have no capability to understand what it’s like to be “beyond the Bible”. You made that obvious a long time ago. Why the limits of your "capability to understand" should be relevant to the rest of us is less obvious.

One problem with your dismissal of fruit flies and other examples of evolution simply because they are still fruit flies is that you are using the “Moving The Goalpost” Fallacy by making an impossible demand that you fully intend to invalidate any attempt to meet it because it offends your own sacred prejudices.

Evolution was not observed in fruit fly genetic manipulations in 1980, nor has it been observed in decades-long multigenerational studies of bacteria and fruit flies. The experiments only showed that these creatures have practical limits to the amount of genetic change they can tolerate. When those limits are breached, the creatures don't evolve—they just die. -- Brian Thomas, ICR, 2010

Well, there’s the claim of pre-existence in John 8. Evangelicals love to claim that Jesus said “I AM” in reference to YHWH’s, but this is dubious. Even so, the claim of pre-existence is undeniable, which knocks adoptionism right out. Of course we know that John, being the latest gospel, is also least likely to be adoptionistic if indeed that was the original article. But we have a passage very near the beginning of Mark with the clear implication that Jesus is, indeed, divine. It’s very difficult for me to fit anything short of divinity into the “Only God can forgive sins” and the “watch me” bit from Mark 2:7-11. Then, later in the same chapter, Jesus’s claim of Lordship over the Sabbath would have been seen as a direct claim of divinity by his audience. We shouldn’t necessarily expect a blanket claim of goodhood as we would judge godhood, simply because the New Testament wasn’t written to us (the usual evangelical fallacy). But in the context of its original audience, it’s hard to deny.

FL said: It's what Univ. of Calif.-Irvine researcher Molly Burke showed in 2010 by doing fruit fly research that gave 600 fruit fly generations, or something like the equivalent of "12,000 years of human evolution." (Brian Thomas.) In fact, if we consult a pro-evolution source, then it's been 8 million years since fruit flies came to Hawaii. Those 8 million years have produced 500 species of...FRUIT FLIES. Every single one of them. Not one is anything but a fruit fly.

FL said: Meanwhile, it seems that Dave Luckett offered a question: “Where does Jesus say that He is God in person?”

FL said: Now David M says that, "But there is no limit on the quality of the changes which can take place." But honestly, that's just a promissory note, a very much unpaid bill.

It seems that Dave Luckett offered a question: “Where does Jesus say that He is God in person?” And David M has offered a most interesting answer to that one.

Well, there’s the claim of pre-existence in John 8. Evangelicals love to claim that Jesus said “I AM” in reference to YHWH’s, but this is dubious. Even so, the claim of pre-existence is undeniable, which knocks adoptionism right out. Of course we know that John, being the latest gospel, is also least likely to be adoptionistic if indeed that was the original article. But we have a passage very near the beginning of Mark with the clear implication that Jesus is, indeed, divine. It’s very difficult for me to fit anything short of divinity into the “Only God can forgive sins” and the “watch me” bit from Mark 2:7-11. Then, later in the same chapter, Jesus’s claim of Lordship over the Sabbath would have been seen as a direct claim of divinity by his audience. We shouldn’t necessarily expect a blanket claim of goodhood as we would judge godhood, simply because the New Testament wasn’t written to us (the usual evangelical fallacy). But in the context of its original audience, it’s hard to deny.

Ouch. Ouch. Triple Ouch. Well, Dave? Well, Phhht? Rolf? Mike Elzinga? How about you, Stanton? Sure looks like "The Bible DOES SAY THAT."

phhht said:

FL said: Meanwhile, it seems that Dave Luckett offered a question: “Where does Jesus say that He is God in person?”

Before you get into whether the book says Harry Potter could really walk on water, could you just nail down how many gods you're talking here? One? Three? Four? And skip the bafflegab, it's tiresome.

FL said:

phhht said:

FL said: Meanwhile, it seems that Dave Luckett offered a question: “Where does Jesus say that He is God in person?”

Before you get into whether the book says Harry Potter could really walk on water, could you just nail down how many gods you're talking here? One? Three? Four? And skip the bafflegab, it's tiresome.

One. Just one God.

phhht said:

FL said:

phhht said:

FL said: Meanwhile, it seems that Dave Luckett offered a question: “Where does Jesus say that He is God in person?”

Before you get into whether the book says Harry Potter could really walk on water, could you just nail down how many gods you're talking here? One? Three? Four? And skip the bafflegab, it's tiresome.

One. Just one God.

So when the Holy Ghost impregnated Mary with himself, he was no motherfucker?

Smarmy schmuck said: Hi Stanton! You're back! Welcome; I'd honestly thought that you were gone from Pandaville.

You wrote:

One problem with your dismissal of fruit flies and other examples of evolution simply because they are still fruit flies is that you are using the “Moving The Goalpost” Fallacy by making an impossible demand that you fully intend to invalidate any attempt to meet it because it offends your own sacred prejudices.

I have to admit, while I don't think you're correct about "moving the goalposts" in the specific instance of fruit flies, I do LOVE executing fully evil intentions! But seriously, Stanton, do you know what the truth is about those poor Fruit Flies? Yes, you DO know:

*Liar for Jesus' bullshit redacted*

It's just that simple. Limits exist. It's what Lenski has showed with the big E. Coli research (and also Seelke with his smaller but significant E. Coli research). It's what Univ. of Calif.-Irvine researcher Molly Burke showed in 2010 by doing fruit fly research that gave 600 fruit fly generations, or something like the equivalent of "12,000 years of human evolution." (Brian Thomas.)

In fact, if we consult a pro-evolution source, then it's been 8 million years since fruit flies came to Hawaii. Those 8 million years have produced 500 species of...FRUIT FLIES. Every single one of them. Not one is anything but a fruit fly.

*FL's inane proselytizing for Jesus redacted* Ouch. Ouch. Triple Ouch. Well, Dave? Well, Phhht? Rolf? Mike Elzinga? How about you, Stanton? Sure looks like "The Bible DOES SAY THAT." FL

phhht said:

phhht said:

FL said:

phhht said:

FL said: Meanwhile, it seems that Dave Luckett offered a question: “Where does Jesus say that He is God in person?”

Before you get into whether the book says Harry Potter could really walk on water, could you just nail down how many gods you're talking here? One? Three? Four? And skip the bafflegab, it's tiresome.

One. Just one God.

So when the Holy Ghost impregnated Mary with himself, he was no motherfucker?

What's the problem, Flawd? Too stupid to defend the implications of your madness? Got to dodge and duck and run away?

david.starling.macmillan said: The rich young ruler came asking what was necessary for eternal life and claimed to have kept the Law perfectly…clearly, he felt he too qualified as “good”. Jesus’s challenge seems only natural – “You’re calling me good, but are you actually willing to acknowledge me as God?”

That, after all, is the great focus of Christianity: it is not enough to simply follow Jesus as a good teacher; you have to see him as God before salvation will have any meaning for you.

Which matters…how?

Of everyone here, you’re the only one whose ideology depends on Jesus specifically claiming divinity.

No one here is going to suddenly and abruptly change their views just because the Gospels did or didn’t make that statement. It doesn’t matter.

Why, pray tell, do you only agree with my reasoning when it lines up with what you already believes?

FL plants his foot in his mouth: David M, the ex-YEC champion of Evolution, is ALSO David M, the openly biblical nemesis of atheism and skepticism.

Don't even talk about evolution... what really raises my hackles is this so called theory of evaporation. Now I agree that if you put a glass of water out overnight and measure very carefully, you can observe a certain amount of microevaporation. I have done numerous experiments myself, some of them lasting several days, and I admit, this microevaporation thing seems to be true, but there are clear limits. The whole idea of macroevaporation is unsupported by evidence, yet they still try to push this dogma on unsuspecting school children. What the evaporationists consistently fail to acknowledge is that at the end of the day, a glass of water is still a glass of water.

FL evaded:

Why, pray tell, do you only agree with my reasoning when it lines up with what you already believes?

Because a new and fascinating paradox is taking place in Pandaville, and I want to see how it will turn out. David M, the ex-YEC champion of Evolution, is ALSO David M, the openly biblical nemesis of atheism and skepticism. (And for some reason, this nemesis gig keeps popping up when you talk about the most vital truth claims about Jesus). They expected the Evolution part from you. The Nemesis part, ummm, not quite. As Dr. Jekyll, the Pandas love and welcome your input. But as Mr. Hyde, you're making them nervous. You're the very first Theistic Evolutionist in Panda history to ever accomplish that, by the way. Kudos. So yes, I find the situation interesting. Not pretending that we are allies or anything. I just want to see if the Pandas really ARE into rational truth-seeking, when one of their own starts giving Biblical analyses that happen to crash into their atheism and skepticism. FL

So your god's a motherfucker as well as a zombie, right Flawd?

Maybe the Bible does say something, maybe it doesn't. But with so many people interpreting so many holy books in so much detail, why should I prioritise YOUR particular book over anyone else's? Meanwhile, outside my window, carboniferous limestones that show successive layers of deposition (there are nice layers of volcanic ash in them to prove this) are overlain with glacial clays full of little erratics that have been washed down from Scotland. There's a story there that makes sense and doesn't rely on anyone's interpretation of anything. And that's what I'll continue to teach the children and adults who ask me about it, regardless of what the Bible, the Qu'ran, the Torah, the Bhagavad Gita or the collected tales of H P Lovecraft have to say about the matter. At the same time, when I'm taking an RE or Philosophy and Ethics class, I'll talk about Christ, Muhammad, Guru Nanak and Moses with all the respect - and all the due criticism - that great moral thinkers deserve, and the rocks can stay outside, being neither moral or immoral. You might see that as a contradiction, but it's not.

callahanpb said: Don't even talk about evolution... what really raises my hackles is this so called theory of evaporation. Now I agree that if you put a glass of water out overnight and measure very carefully, you can observe a certain amount of microevaporation. I have done numerous experiments myself, some of them lasting several days, and I admit, this microevaporation thing seems to be true, but there are clear limits. The whole idea of macroevaporation is unsupported by evidence, yet they still try to push this dogma on unsuspecting school children. What the evaporationists consistently fail to acknowledge is that at the end of the day, a glass of water is still a glass of water.

Where does it say that Moses did not write Deuteronomy 34?

FL said: Jesus NEVER disagrees, not even slightly, with Hebrew monotheism as exemplified in the Mosaic Law.

David M, the ex-YEC champion of Evolution, is ALSO David M, the openly biblical nemesis of atheism and skepticism.

As Dr. Jekyll, the Pandas love and welcome your input. But as Mr. Hyde, you’re making them nervous.

In fact, if we consult a pro-evolution source, then it’s been 8 million years since fruit flies came to Hawaii. Those 8 million years have produced 500 species of…FRUIT FLIES. Every single one of them. Not one is anything but a fruit fly.

apokryltaros responded to FL: And yet, your gleeful exposure of an imaginary civil war brewing among the Panda's Thumb commentors does not absolve you of the facts that your so-called evidences against evolution are all blatant lies, that you lied about not using the Moving the Goalpost Fallacy while using the Moving the Goalpost Fallacy, and that you have not explained how one species of fruit fly evolving into 500 different species of fruit flies over the course of 8 million years is magically somehow not evolution because they are magically, still fruit flies.

gnome de net said:

apokryltaros responded to FL: And yet, your gleeful exposure of an imaginary civil war brewing among the Panda's Thumb commentors does not absolve you of the facts that your so-called evidences against evolution are all blatant lies, that you lied about not using the Moving the Goalpost Fallacy while using the Moving the Goalpost Fallacy, and that you have not explained how one species of fruit fly evolving into 500 different species of fruit flies over the course of 8 million years is magically somehow not evolution because they are magically, still fruit flies.

@ FL: after you've addressed all those questions, perhaps you could explain those extra 7,990,000 years. You know, the years before the 10,000-year-old Earth was created.

FL said:

...(To) writers of the first few centuries CE, these similarities between the new Christian religion and the ancient Mysteries were extremely obvious.

Is that really true, Rolf? I'm not even googling yet, but I already know from the Bible that New Testament Christianity was highly inclusive of women (prophetesses, for example). In contrast, women couldn't even get on the back of the Mithraism bus, let alone function as a prophetess. So there's going to be some problems here with the claim of "similarity". (Okay, now I'll start googling.) FL

FL said:

phhht said:

FL said: Meanwhile, it seems that Dave Luckett offered a question: “Where does Jesus say that He is God in person?”

Before you get into whether the book says Harry Potter could really walk on water, could you just nail down how many gods you're talking here? One? Three? Four? And skip the bafflegab, it's tiresome.

One. Just one God. As you know from your own study of the New Testament, Jesus NEVER disagrees, not even slightly, with Hebrew monotheism as exemplified in the Mosaic Law. (Deut. 6:1, "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.") Jesus never claimed the existence of more than one God. Always only one God. **** So what are you going to do about David M's response? What are you going to do about Jesus claiming that HE is that one God? Are you ready to fess up that "The Bible really DOES say that"? FL

Helena Constantine said: Mithraism, hwoever, is younger than Christianity, having been devised by a certain Thrasyllus (some may remember him as the Astrologer Tiberius nearly had thrown off a cliff in Rhodes in I Claudius)in the 60s AD, but Tertullian etc. bought the cult's propaganda that it was thousands of years old.

Especially piquant is the fact that Jesus referred to Psalm 82 - the one Helena quotes, above - at John 10:34, and mocks the Pharisees, telling them that it says that they are gods. (To make this out, Jesus has to be implying that they, the Pharisees, are also "sons of the Most High", but that they "know nothing" and "walk about in darkness", like the gods that Yahweh is condemning.)

Thus Jesus defended himself against the charge that he was making himself out to be God. He said, in effect, that his claim to be the son of God was nothing extraordinary: that even they could make the same claim.

Helena Constantine said: What Rolf says is correct. Mithraism, hwoever, is younger than Christianity, having been devised by a certain Thrasyllus

callahanpb said:

Helena Constantine said: What Rolf says is correct. Mithraism, hwoever, is younger than Christianity, having been devised by a certain Thrasyllus

That's interesting. I know almost nothing about Mithraism, and I admit I thought it was much older. The wikipedia page largely supports the 1st century Roman origin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithraic_mysteries but it gets complicated.

Roman mystery cults as a phenomenon were nothing new, nor was their practice of hooking onto existing deities from around the Known World and building up a brand new "mystery cult" around them. These things functioned more like secret clubs and potential ladders up the social hierarchy than what we typically think of as religious cults. Think about all the popular conceptions of Freemasons as a "secret society where you can put a sticker on your car and never get a speeding ticket" and you'd have the right frame of reference.

ksplawn said: Think about all the popular conceptions of Freemasons as a "secret society where you can put a sticker on your car and never get a speeding ticket" and you'd have the right frame of reference.

Not really sure what Roman mystery cults has to do with the creationism debate and actual science, but OK. . . .

FL is correct in his claim that women weren't allowed into Mithraic crypts, but why this should be an important point I'm not sure. While women certainly held a place of relative equality in early Christian worship (though not in society), this was being actively rebuked in the 2nd century CE, and the age and authorship of 1 Timothy which forbids women from preaching is very much in dispute. Gender inequality remains deeply ingrained in many sects of Christianity today.

Clearly figures like Mithras, Cybele, Attis, Isis, Osiris/Serapis, Artemis, etc., were understood differently by their Roman mystery cults than they were in the cultures and times in which they originated. But the same can be said of the cult of Jesus Christ. Yes, they were in competition with each other in the Roman Empire, but they ALL claimed ancient authority. The Christians did this by claiming themselves as a subset of Judaism, just as the Mithraists ostensibly came from a much older Zoroastrian tradition, and worshipers of Cybele tied the goddess in with their claims to Trojan ancestry. Just about all of these cults were at one time considered dangerous by the Roman government, not least among which for their dodgy "Eastern" origins.

Christianity was never unique in its claim to older authority. And it did represent a dramatic shift from and schism with the religion that it claimed to be descended from, just like its contemporaries. You could fairly say that what all these traditions have in common is that they represent an evolution and speciation of religions and gods. There's quite a bit of "horizontal meme transfer" observable in religion as well, particularly those of the Roman world.

Which makes me curious, FL--admittedly partly because I have a deep interest in it--why you don't want to touch the subject of Egyptian resurrection? (Besides it being sort of irrelevant to the creation debate, I mean.) That Christian mythology owes much to the religions that surrounded it geographically and came before certainly doesn't make me squirm in my seat, because the symbolic meaning behind the continuously-dying-and-resurrecing sun god resonates with me as a human being on planet Earth even if I am atheistic and not religious. What insight am I missing?

Katharine said: Not really sure what Roman mystery cults has to do with the creationism debate and actual science,

There is much made about supposed parallels between Jesus and Horus, especially with the advent of the internet and the Bill Maher fandom. But none of those claims are supported by any reputable or mainstream Egyptologists. They generally were either collected and popularized by or originated with a pseudohistorian in the 1800s by the name of Gerald Massey.

So let's be careful to separate out the real parallels from those with a more... recent and inventive provenance.

Critically, there was no "continuously-dying-and-rising" for Horus. That actually had to do with the father of Horus, Osiris, who was dismembered by Set and cast into the Nile. His wife Isis put his body parts back together (except for his penis, which had been eaten by a crab), added a golden phallus she made herself, and temporarily reanimated him with a magic spell so he could impregnate her with Horus. Because Osiris was neither dead nor alive, he was given guardianship over the underworld.

This particular myth was often set within the yearly seasons and used as a symbol of winter and harvest just like Persephone in Greek mythology. Lots of cultures had that. But Christianity's dying-and-rising has no connection to the seasons whatsoever, and there are no precursors which show a developmental path from such myth.

Horus, the "divine child", did die and come back to life...sort of. While still a toddler, he was stung by a scorpion; Isis used a magic spell to remove the poison from the wound and he came back to life. But there's no real connection to be made there.

david.starling.macmillan said: [emphasis added] We shouldn't necessarily expect a blanket claim of good hood as we would judge godhood, simply because the New Testament wasn't written to us (the usual evangelical fallacy). But in the context of its original audience, it's hard to deny.

Indeed. FL praises my use of literary criticism when it agrees with his conclusions and ridicules it when it doesn't.

He is committed to his fundamentalist authorities, not to any specific mode of thought or reasoning or logic.

As Eleanor Roosevelt is often quoted (probably falsely, but who knows): "Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people." Depending on authority for truth places you firmly in the final camp.

david.starling.macmillan said:

Helena Constantine said: Mithraism, hwoever, is younger than Christianity, having been devised by a certain Thrasyllus (some may remember him as the Astrologer Tiberius nearly had thrown off a cliff in Rhodes in I Claudius)in the 60s AD, but Tertullian etc. bought the cult's propaganda that it was thousands of years old.

NOW it makes sense. Perfect sense, in fact. I had always wondered why the Church fathers acted so threatened by those mystery cults, given that they were all either contemporary inventions or not at all similar to Christianity. I hadn't thought about the whole "claiming ancient authority" business that would have invariably been in play.

Scott F said:

david.starling.macmillan said: [emphasis added] We shouldn't necessarily expect a blanket claim of good hood as we would judge godhood, simply because the New Testament wasn't written to us (the usual evangelical fallacy). But in the context of its original audience, it's hard to deny.

And therein lies the rub. When it suits, FL requires that we must read the Bible as literally true, word for word, as presented in one of the countless versions of the Bible (which ever one supports the point that FL is trying to make at the time), to the point of arguing the minutiae of single words. However, when it suits, we must disregard the literal text, and read the Bible "in the context of its original audience" for its "true" meaning. I know you [David] (now) understand this hypocrisy, and it's why you wrote it this way. But clearly FL doesn't understand the distinction, even when pointed out to him. Anything that agrees with FL's pre-defined conclusions is "right". Anything that disagrees with his pre-defined conclusions (even when arrived at using the same evidence and the same analysis) is (by preordained definition) "wrong".

I find it amusing, and more than a bit ironic, that in "ancient" times, religions were judged by how ancient they were. The source of knowledge and wisdom was with the "ancients". Anything that had lasted a long time was obviously good and worth listening to.

In contrast, today religions are again judged by what society considers to be the source of knowledge and wisdom: Science. Consider the new religions of Mormonism, Scientology, Creation Science, etc. Religion today must be validated by Science in order to be considered good and worth listening to.

TomS said: Excuse me, have I misunderstood what you said about "However, when it suits, we must disregard the literal text, and read the Bible "in the context of its original audience" for its "true" meaning."?

Scott F said: I'd be surprised if you aren't familiar with the works of professor Bart Ehrman. I'm no historian, and can't compare and contrast what he has to say, but what I remember of his work agrees pretty well with what I hear from our Pandas here. He has several installments in The Great Courses lecture series, one of which discusses the need for early Christianity to establish a claim to "ancient authority", to be viewed at the time as a serious contender as a valid religion.

Scott F said: I find it amusing, and more than a bit ironic, that in "ancient" times, religions were judged by how ancient they were. The source of knowledge and wisdom was with the "ancients". Anything that had lasted a long time was obviously good and worth listening to. In contrast, today religions are again judged by what society considers to be the source of knowledge and wisdom: Science. Consider the new religions of Mormonism, Scientology, Creation Science, etc. Religion today must be validated by Science in order to be considered good and worth listening to.

FL said: Because a new and fascinating paradox is taking place in Pandaville, and I want to see how it will turn out. David M, the ex-YEC champion of Evolution, is ALSO David M, the openly biblical nemesis of atheism and skepticism. (And for some reason, this nemesis gig keeps popping up when you talk about the most vital truth claims about Jesus). They expected the Evolution part from you. The Nemesis part, ummm, not quite. As Dr. Jekyll, the Pandas love and welcome your input. But as Mr. Hyde, you're making them nervous. You're the very first Theistic Evolutionist in Panda history to ever accomplish that, by the way. Kudos.

Scott F said:

FL said: Because a new and fascinating paradox is taking place in Pandaville, and I want to see how it will turn out. David M, the ex-YEC champion of Evolution, is ALSO David M, the openly biblical nemesis of atheism and skepticism. (And for some reason, this nemesis gig keeps popping up when you talk about the most vital truth claims about Jesus). They expected the Evolution part from you. The Nemesis part, ummm, not quite. As Dr. Jekyll, the Pandas love and welcome your input. But as Mr. Hyde, you're making them nervous. You're the very first Theistic Evolutionist in Panda history to ever accomplish that, by the way. Kudos.

Uh, no. Nope. Not in the slightest. David's perspective on what Creationists actually believe and understand is refreshing. He can freely discuss such ideas in a rational and thoughtful way. FL's stale self-blind atonal hypocrisy is rather tiresome. David's personal theology is entirely his own, and does not effect his scholarship, his exposition, nor his science. His personal theology also doe not effect in the slightest the theology (or lack thereof) of any of the rest of us. Just as FL's personal theology has not the slightest effect on any of us. (Except perhaps to elicit disgust and revulsion.)

Hey, Floyd is free to believe all that stuff. The problems arise when his rights collide with others rights and he doesn't like the compromise or the fact that compromise is necessary.

Scott F said: In contrast, today religions are again judged by what society considers to be the source of knowledge and wisdom: Science. Consider the new religions of Mormonism, Scientology, Creation Science, etc. Religion today must be validated by Science in order to be considered good and worth listening to.

I was thinking of alternative medicine in particular. People love to cite "ancient wisdom".

Which makes me curious, FL–admittedly partly because I have a deep interest in it–why you don’t want to touch the subject of Egyptian resurrection? (Besides it being sort of irrelevant to the creation debate, I mean.) That Christian mythology owes much to the religions that surrounded it geographically and came before certainly doesn’t make me squirm in my seat, because the symbolic meaning behind the continuously-dying-and-resurrecing sun god resonates with me as a human being on planet Earth even if I am atheistic and not religious. What insight am I missing?

Was the New Testament Influenced by Pagan Religions? http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/cri/cri-jrnl/web/crj0169a.html

The major reason why no Mithraic influence on first-century Christianity is possible is the timing: it's all wrong! The flowering of Mithraism occurred after the close of the New Testament canon, much too late for it to have influenced anything that appears in the New Testament. Moreover, no monuments for the cult can be dated earlier than A.D. 90-100, and even this dating requires us to make some exceedingly generous assumptions. Chronological difficulties, then, make the possibility of a Mithraic influence on early Christianity extremely improbable. Certainly, there remains no credible evidence for such an influence.

Was Jesus Christ Just a Copycat Savior Myth? (Four Articles) http://christianthinktank.com/copycat.html http://christianthinktank.com/copycatwho1.html http://christianthinktank.com/copycatwho2.html http://christianthinktank.com/copycat2.html

If you want to convince people of something, maybe citing NON-hyper-conservative-fundamentalists would help prove your point better.

If you can't find anyone saying what you believe except for hyper-conservative-fundamentalists, maybe you should reconsider your belief.

Correction: It was Helena Constantine who said that Mithraism was younger.

You're welcome to dismiss the article writers' assessments without even reading and thinking through (let alone refuting) their arguments, David.

Such instant dismissals, such "taint-so's", happen a lot in Pandaville.

My task, however, is to present the above information in case there are any readers out there who really DO want to know what are the counter-arguments, what is the "other side of the story", when the atheists and skeptics start trying to claim that the Christian New Testament writers somehow "borrowed" their historical/truth claims from (or were "influenced by"), the pagan/mystery/Egyptian religions.

FL

Yeah. it s just the Psalms that makes it clear that Yahweh is the leader of a council of gods, like in every other ANE culture: Psalm 82 [1] God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods. [2] How long will ye judge unjustly, and accept the persons of the wicked? Selah. [3] Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy. [4] Deliver the poor and needy: rid them out of the hand of the wicked. [5] They know not, neither will they understand; they walk on in darkness: all the foundations of the earth are out of course. [6] I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High. [7] But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes. [8] Arise, O God, judge the earth: for thou shalt inherit all nations.

Now the word gods there is the same word Eloihim translated gods, but it is also translated judges. In Exodus, chapter 22, verses 8 and 9, as God is giving instructions in the law for how the judges are to determine certain cases, and God calls the judges gods because a judge has such authority over a person's destiny. And because he holds the power of a person's life and destiny, God called judges gods. So, "God stands in the congregation of the mighty. He judges among the judges." Or, God will be judging the judges. -- Chuck Smith, Text Commentary on Ps 82 (via blueletterbible.org

FL said: In every case the answer is obvious: God the Judge is talking to, or about, human judges. That's who He is calling "gods." Why are they called "gods"? Not because they possess God's omni-attributes -- they're only humans, and that's all -- but because it's true that as judges, actual human lives ARE in their hands, ARE in their power, and can be vastly affected by their judicial decisions. That's why the human judges are called 'gods'.

phhht said:

FL said: In every case the answer is obvious: God the Judge is talking to, or about, human judges. That's who He is calling "gods." Why are they called "gods"? Not because they possess God's omni-attributes -- they're only humans, and that's all -- but because it's true that as judges, actual human lives ARE in their hands, ARE in their power, and can be vastly affected by their judicial decisions. That's why the human judges are called 'gods'.

In other words, your god spoke figuratively, not literally. The verse is not literally true.

david.starling.macmillan said:

phhht said:

FL said: In every case the answer is obvious: God the Judge is talking to, or about, human judges. That's who He is calling "gods." Why are they called "gods"? Not because they possess God's omni-attributes -- they're only humans, and that's all -- but because it's true that as judges, actual human lives ARE in their hands, ARE in their power, and can be vastly affected by their judicial decisions. That's why the human judges are called 'gods'.

In other words, your god spoke figuratively, not literally. The verse is not literally true.

[Fundamentalists] only invoke figurative language after the fact, when it's necessary to justify that a verse is "totally still true" if you "just look at it this way".

Or maybe the issue is simply "Pay attention to both the text and the context."

That's just Bible 101, (or any other book for that matter).

FL said: Or maybe the issue is simply "Pay attention to both the text and the context." That's just Bible 101, (or any other book for that matter).

FL said: Or maybe the issue is simply "Pay attention to both the text and the context."

eric said:

FL said: Or maybe the issue is simply "Pay attention to both the text and the context." That's just Bible 101, (or any other book for that matter).

Everybody's doing that. Mainstreamers come to different conclusions than you do when they pay attention to text and context, because "paying attention to both the text and the context" is an act of interpretation that leads to different results depending on the person. Your interpretation of the bible is just that, an interpretation, because you pay attention to both the text and the context. If you didn't have to pay attention to context, THAT would be non-interpretive.

FL said: Because a new and fascinating paradox is taking place in Pandaville, and I want to see how it will turn out. David M, the ex-YEC champion of Evolution, is ALSO David M, the openly biblical nemesis of atheism and skepticism. (And for some reason, this nemesis gig keeps popping up when you talk about the most vital truth claims about Jesus). They expected the Evolution part from you. The Nemesis part, ummm, not quite. As Dr. Jekyll, the Pandas love and welcome your input. But as Mr. Hyde, you're making them nervous.

FL said: Katharine wrote,

Which makes me curious, FL–admittedly partly because I have a deep interest in it–why you don’t want to touch the subject of Egyptian resurrection? (Besides it being sort of irrelevant to the creation debate, I mean.) That Christian mythology owes much to the religions that surrounded it geographically and came before certainly doesn’t make me squirm in my seat, because the symbolic meaning behind the continuously-dying-and-resurrecing sun god resonates with me as a human being on planet Earth even if I am atheistic and not religious. What insight am I missing?

I think Ksplawn and David M's responses pointed the way on the Egyptian stuff. I'm just going to toss in Dr. Ronald Nash's CRI Journal article that goes into more detail, as well as Glenn Miller's series of articles. This stuff seriously answers your question.

Was the New Testament Influenced by Pagan Religions? http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/cri/cri-jrnl/web/crj0169a.html

You also mentioned that the Mithraism mystery religion was "younger" than New Testament Christianity. Nash agrees with that, but that simply provides ANOTHER dissimilarity (on top of the stuff I mentioned about Mithraism excluding women) between that cult and NT Christianity:

The major reason why no Mithraic influence on first-century Christianity is possible is the timing: it's all wrong! The flowering of Mithraism occurred after the close of the New Testament canon, much too late for it to have influenced anything that appears in the New Testament. Moreover, no monuments for the cult can be dated earlier than A.D. 90-100, and even this dating requires us to make some exceedingly generous assumptions. Chronological difficulties, then, make the possibility of a Mithraic influence on early Christianity extremely improbable. Certainly, there remains no credible evidence for such an influence.

So the real answer is NO, Christianity's historical and truth claims weren't borrowed, nor were influenced, by the Mithraism mystery religion. Claimed "similarities" or "borrowings" don't look so similar or borrowed when examined up close. The claims of New Testamant Christianity simply do NOT "owe" anything to Mithraism or other mystery religions, nor to Egyptian myths, etc. **** But one can get into even MORE detail if one is really interested. Here are Glenn Miller's Christian-Thinktank articles regarding the same topic. This four-part series attempts to cover all the bases. Rolf and Katherine might like it.

Was Jesus Christ Just a Copycat Savior Myth? (Four Articles) http://christianthinktank.com/copycat.html http://christianthinktank.com/copycatwho1.html http://christianthinktank.com/copycatwho2.html http://christianthinktank.com/copycat2.html

Enjoy! FL

FL said: Correction: It was Helena Constantine who said that Mithraism was younger.

callahanpb said:

Helena Constantine said: What Rolf says is correct. Mithraism, hwoever, is younger than Christianity, having been devised by a certain Thrasyllus

That's interesting. I know almost nothing about Mithraism, and I admit I thought it was much older. The wikipedia page largely supports the 1st century Roman origin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithraic_mysteries but it gets complicated.

FL said: Meanwhile, Helena Constantine wrote,

Yeah. it s just the Psalms that makes it clear that Yahweh is the leader of a council of gods, like in every other ANE culture: Psalm 82 [1] God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods. [2] How long will ye judge unjustly, and accept the persons of the wicked? Selah. [3] Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy. [4] Deliver the poor and needy: rid them out of the hand of the wicked. [5] They know not, neither will they understand; they walk on in darkness: all the foundations of the earth are out of course. [6] I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High. [7] But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes. [8] Arise, O God, judge the earth: for thou shalt inherit all nations.

So it's reasonable to ask, "What about Psalm 82 which Helena quoted? Who are those 'gods'? Does the Bible teach Polytheism in Psalm 82?" Fair questions; let's look for an answer. **** Take a look at the first and last verses of that Psalm. God is described as exactly what? A Judge. And right after the first verse, what is God saying MUST cease? Rendering unjust judgments, and giving free passes to the wicked. (So who might God be talking to here?) Right after the second verse, in verses 3 and 4, what is God saying MUST happen instead? Rendering judgments that defend the poor and the needy against the oppression and evil that's being laid on them by wicked people. (So who might God be talking to here?) In verses five, six, and seven, the "gods" that God is specifically addressing, are NOT doing what God said to do. God makes very clear in verse five that these "gods" are not paying attention to His instructions cited in verses 2 ,3, and 4. (So who might God be talking about here?) So that's why in verses 6 and 7, God (who is described as a Judge in verses 1 and 8, remember?) actually puts forth a judgment of His own: "I have said, 'Ye are gods', and all of you are children of the most High"...but ye shall die like men." Whoever these unjust "gods" are, they will wind up dying like humans. (So who might God be talking about here? Especially since God only claims humans, but NEVER any idol gods, as His own children?) **** In every case the answer is obvious: God the Judge is talking to, or about, human judges. That's who He is calling "gods." Why are they called "gods"? Not because they possess God's omni-attributes -- they're only humans, and that's all -- but because it's true that as judges, actual human lives ARE in their hands, ARE in their power, and can be vastly affected by their judicial decisions. That's why the human judges are called 'gods'. **** Okay. So now we looked at the Psalm 82 text and context, and we have an answer. You can clearly see that Psalm 82, (and of course the rest of the Bible) does NOT teach polytheism.

Now the word gods there is the same word Eloihim translated gods, but it is also translated judges. In Exodus, chapter 22, verses 8 and 9, as God is giving instructions in the law for how the judges are to determine certain cases, and God calls the judges gods because a judge has such authority over a person's destiny. And because he holds the power of a person's life and destiny, God called judges gods. So, "God stands in the congregation of the mighty. He judges among the judges." Or, God will be judging the judges. -- Chuck Smith, Text Commentary on Ps 82 (via blueletterbible.org

The Bible, both OT and NT, very clearly teaches monotheism, as the following 28 verses demonstrate. http://www.mit.irr.org/28-biblical-passages-which-explicitly-teach-there-only-one-god FL

Several of the Psalms were simply adapted from Ugaritic sources; the story of the flood has a near mirror image in Ugaritic literature; and the language of the Bible is greatly illuminated by the language of Ugarit

FL said: Katharine wrote,

Which makes me curious, FL–admittedly partly because I have a deep interest in it–why you don’t want to touch the subject of Egyptian resurrection? (Besides it being sort of irrelevant to the creation debate, I mean.) That Christian mythology owes much to the religions that surrounded it geographically and came before certainly doesn’t make me squirm in my seat, because the symbolic meaning behind the continuously-dying-and-resurrecing sun god resonates with me as a human being on planet Earth even if I am atheistic and not religious. What insight am I missing?

I think Ksplawn and David M's responses pointed the way on the Egyptian stuff. I'm just going to toss in Dr. Ronald Nash's CRI Journal article that goes into more detail, as well as Glenn Miller's series of articles. This stuff seriously answers your question.

david.starling.macmillan said: If you want to convince people of something, maybe citing NON-hyper-conservative-fundamentalists would help prove your point better. If you can't find anyone saying what you believe except for hyper-conservative-fundamentalists, maybe you should reconsider your belief.

I recall the interesting occasion (it was on the BW, about P340 or so) when I asked FL to vouchsafe one of the rules by which he interpreted scripture, viz: May one assume that any implication drawn from a scriptural text is true only if that implication is a necessary one - ie, one that is the required and inevitable conclusion - and not merely if the implication is a possible, useful or even likely one?

All I ever received was a surly "Why do you want to know that?"

My response, that I wished to understand the correct methods by which the Bible is interpreted, was ignored. I never received an answer.

The observations of FL's "method" above are of course correct. FL reads and interprets scripture, and also augments, alters and truncates it, at will. He does that according to no principle whatsoever, but rather according to cultural blinkers installed by authority that he can't question.

Here, he's insisting on a metaphorical treatment of "gods". It doesn't mean gods in Psalm 82 or Exodus 8, says FL and FL's whackdoodle site, it means "human judges". On account of we say so. It's a figure of speech, a metaphor.

Metaphor? Like "garden" meaning "primordial wilderness", we ask? Or "serpent" meaning "urge to push the limits"? or "tree of knowledge of good and evil" meaning "acquisition of empathy and understanding of consequence"? Or "fall" meaning "acknowledgement of personal responsibility"? That stuff?

No, no, no. All of that is totally completely absolutely literal historical fact.

And you know this how?

Because we say so, that's why!

Dave Luckett said: I recall the interesting occasion (it was on the BW, about P340 or so) when I asked FL to vouchsafe one of the rules by which he interpreted scripture, viz: May one assume that any implication drawn from a scriptural text is true only if that implication is a necessary one - ie, one that is the required and inevitable conclusion - and not merely if the implication is a possible, useful or even likely one? All I ever received was a surly "Why do you want to know that?" My response, that I wished to understand the correct methods by which the Bible is interpreted, was ignored. I never received an answer. The observations of FL's "method" above are of course correct. FL reads and interprets scripture, and also augments, alters and truncates it, at will. He does that according to no principle whatsoever, but rather according to cultural blinkers installed by authority that he can't question. Here, he's insisting on a metaphorical treatment of "gods". It doesn't mean gods in Psalm 82 or Exodus 8, says FL and FL's whackdoodle site, it means "human judges". On account of we say so. It's a figure of speech, a metaphor. Metaphor? Like "garden" meaning "primordial wilderness", we ask? Or "serpent" meaning "urge to push the limits"? or "tree of knowledge of good and evil" meaning "acquisition of empathy and understanding of consequence"? Or "fall" meaning "acknowledgement of personal responsibility"? That stuff? No, no, no. All of that is totally completely absolutely literal historical fact. And you know this how? Because we say so, that's why!

Helena Constantine said: I wrote a good deal of that article--or I had at one time. God knows what condition its in now. That page is especially prone to vandalism.

Yeah. Of course it's only coincidence that Easter and the Passover occurs just around about spring sowing time in the northern hemisphere. Sure it is.

See this lovely bridge... I have the title deeds right here.

I really love the Mormon take on wine. That Passover meal, Jesus was only drinking fruit juice, y'know.

FL said: Meanwhile, Helena Constantine wrote,

Yeah. it s just the Psalms that makes it clear that Yahweh is the leader of a council of gods, like in every other ANE culture: Psalm 82 [1] God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods. [2] How long will ye judge unjustly, and accept the persons of the wicked? Selah. [3] Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy. [4] Deliver the poor and needy: rid them out of the hand of the wicked. [5] They know not, neither will they understand; they walk on in darkness: all the foundations of the earth are out of course. [6] I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High. [7] But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes. [8] Arise, O God, judge the earth: for thou shalt inherit all nations.

So it's reasonable to ask, "What about Psalm 82 which Helena quoted? Who are those 'gods'? Does the Bible teach Polytheism in Psalm 82?" Fair questions; let's look for an answer. **** Take a look at the first and last verses of that Psalm. God is described as exactly what? A Judge. And right after the first verse, what is God saying MUST cease? Rendering unjust judgments, and giving free passes to the wicked. (So who might God be talking to here?) Right after the second verse, in verses 3 and 4, what is God saying MUST happen instead? Rendering judgments that defend the poor and the needy against the oppression and evil that's being laid on them by wicked people. (So who might God be talking to here?) In verses five, six, and seven, the "gods" that God is specifically addressing, are NOT doing what God said to do. God makes very clear in verse five that these "gods" are not paying attention to His instructions cited in verses 2 ,3, and 4. (So who might God be talking about here?) So that's why in verses 6 and 7, God (who is described as a Judge in verses 1 and 8, remember?) actually puts forth a judgment of His own: "I have said, 'Ye are gods', and all of you are children of the most High"...but ye shall die like men." Whoever these unjust "gods" are, they will wind up dying like humans. (So who might God be talking about here? Especially since God only claims humans, but NEVER any idol gods, as His own children?) **** In every case the answer is obvious: God the Judge is talking to, or about, human judges. That's who He is calling "gods." Why are they called "gods"? Not because they possess God's omni-attributes -- they're only humans, and that's all -- but because it's true that as judges, actual human lives ARE in their hands, ARE in their power, and can be vastly affected by their judicial decisions. That's why the human judges are called 'gods'. **** Okay. So now we looked at the Psalm 82 text and context, and we have an answer. You can clearly see that Psalm 82, (and of course the rest of the Bible) does NOT teach polytheism.

Now the word gods there is the same word Eloihim translated gods, but it is also translated judges. In Exodus, chapter 22, verses 8 and 9, as God is giving instructions in the law for how the judges are to determine certain cases, and God calls the judges gods because a judge has such authority over a person's destiny. And because he holds the power of a person's life and destiny, God called judges gods. So, "God stands in the congregation of the mighty. He judges among the judges." Or, God will be judging the judges. -- Chuck Smith, Text Commentary on Ps 82 (via blueletterbible.org

The Bible, both OT and NT, very clearly teaches monotheism, as the following 28 verses demonstrate. http://www.mit.irr.org/28-biblical-passages-which-explicitly-teach-there-only-one-god FL

callahanpb said:

Helena Constantine said: I wrote a good deal of that article--or I had at one time. God knows what condition its in now. That page is especially prone to vandalism.

It seemed reasonably well organized. I naively would have considered "Mithraic mysteries" to be about as esoteric as a Wiki page can get, so I'm surprised to hear about the vandalism. I guess in context it makes sense, but wherever I first heard of Mithras as an analogous resurrection story to Christ (it might have even been at Catholic school way back) it didn't seem like a hugely threatening idea. I was definitely taught that Zoroastrianism was another monotheistic religion (probably in a social studies class at the same Catholic high school). It wouldn't have occurred to me that these things were controversial enough to result in Wiki vandalism. Religions are going to have a lot of similar ideas anyway. It's hard to prove that one was derived from another, and even if, so what? Vergil was also sometimes considered to have anticipated Christian ethics, and that's usually presented as support for Vergil rather than a charge of "copy cat" for Christianity.

Helena Constantine said: There isn't any resurrection in Mithraism. Christians (and this is in the 17th century or so) often interpreted the 'rock birth' of Mithras as analogous to resurrection.

The idea of bodily resurrection seems to have arisen during the Jewish revolt against Antiochus V. They could could see that martyrs were having their bodies destroyed, so they figured divine justice would some day compensate them with new bodies.

So one of my friends that is a YEC saw this and couldn't help pointing out that your math is a bit off. If the number of species doubled from 10,000 every 385 years that would be just under 13 doublings and would be close to 81 Million species.

sez dorkyninja: "So one of my friends that is a YEC saw this and couldn’t help pointing out that your math is a bit off. If the number of species doubled from 10,000 every 385 years that would be just under 13 doublings and would be close to 81 Million species."
Your YEC friend wasn't paying attention when they read the OP. If one doubling takes 385 years, 13 doublings takes (13 * 385 =) 5005 years, and the op explicitly states ": in order to go from 10,000 primordial “kinds” to 6.5 million species in less than 5000 years" (emphasis added). That's less than 5,000 years, which, in turn, must necessarily be less than the 5,005 years your YEC friend's thirteen doublings would require.

Also, if one starts with 10K "kinds" on Noah's Big-ass Boat, nine doublings brings that up to 5,120K species, and 10 doublings brings it up to 10,240K species; thirteen doublings need not apply, thanks kindly for asking. if your YEC friend would be so kind as to tell us when they think Noah's Big-ass Boat plied the raging waters of the Ye Fludde, we could tell you how many years-per-doubling it would take for 9-10 doublings to bring 10K "kinds" up to 6.5E6 species. On the perhaps-valid assumption that your YEC friend thinks Ye Fludde occurred 5,005 years ago, the number of years each doubling would have taken lies somewhere between (5,005/10 =) a hair over 500 and (5,005/9 =) a little over 556. Adjust those figures up or down, as appropriate, if your YEC friend thinks Ye Fludde occurred earlier or later than 5,005 years ago.

xubist said: sez dorkyninja: "So one of my friends that is a YEC saw this and couldn’t help pointing out that your math is a bit off. If the number of species doubled from 10,000 every 385 years that would be just under 13 doublings and would be close to 81 Million species." Your YEC friend wasn't paying attention when they read the OP. If one doubling takes 385 years, 13 doublings takes (13 * 385 =) 5005 years, and the op explicitly states ": in order to go from 10,000 primordial “kinds” to 6.5 million species in less than 5000 years" (emphasis added). That's less than 5,000 years, which, in turn, must necessarily be less than the 5,005 years your YEC friend's thirteen doublings would require. Also, if one starts with 10K "kinds" on Noah's Big-ass Boat, nine doublings brings that up to 5,120K species, and 10 doublings brings it up to 10,240K species; thirteen doublings need not apply, thanks kindly for asking. if your YEC friend would be so kind as to tell us when they think Noah's Big-ass Boat plied the raging waters of the Ye Fludde, we could tell you how many years-per-doubling it would take for 9-10 doublings to bring 10K "kinds" up to 6.5E6 species. On the perhaps-valid assumption that your YEC friend thinks Ye Fludde occurred 5,005 years ago, the number of years each doubling would have taken lies somewhere between (5,005/10 =) a hair over 500 and (5,005/9 =) a little over 556. Adjust those figures up or down, as appropriate, if your YEC friend thinks Ye Fludde occurred earlier or later than 5,005 years ago.

Using the Bible, well-documented historical events, and some math, we find that the Flood began approximately 4,359 years ago in the year 1656 AM or 2348 BC. Some may look for an exact date (i.e., month and day), but we are not given that sort of precision in Scripture.

Scott F said: The problem with the Flood ... Or more succinctly, the problem with the Flood is that it's obviously an allegory. (At least in light of today's scientific knowledge; I'll leave open how it was understood historically.) The take-aways from a religious standpoint are things like Noah was a righteous man, and God made a covenant not to flood the earth again. Trying to reconcile it with 21st century science is a waste of time from both a scientific and religious perspective. The latter, because if you think there is anything important to learn from the story, you'll miss it if you waste your time pretending it's science. The Flood and its implications strain plausibility so far, that it is really difficult for me to muster a better answer than "C'mon you cannot possibly believe this." and if I concede this, then "OK, but if you think I'm going to believe it, you're very mistaken."

Scott F said: The problem with the Flood ...

But Christianity’s dying-and-rising has no connection to the seasons whatsoever, and there are no precursors which show a developmental path from such myth.... The whole “dying-and-rising-god myth” argument is, IMO, really bad historiography even though it’s a very nice story and makes for some entertaining speculation. Just poor scholarship and cobbled-together imaginings from start to finish From The Jesus Mysteries:

St. Epiphanius must have found this a perplexing coincidence for, along with many other early Christians, he celebrated the same date, January 6, as the birthday of Jesus-as does the Armenian Church to the present day.55 Goodness only knows what he made of the "markings of the sign of the cross on the hands, knees, and head"! There was quite a dispute in early Christianity about whether the birth of Christ was December 25 or January 6. Was this because no one could remember? Or could it be simply because early Christians were unsure whether to synchronize it with the birth of Mithras or with the birth of Aion, both of whom were different representations of the perennial Mystery godman? These dates were not arbitrarily chosen. Both were once the dates of the winter solstice, the shortest day, which signals the turning point of the year and the returning of the life-giving sun. Due to the precession of the equinoxes this date changes slightly over time. So, although the solstice moved progressively from January 6 to December 25, some traditions continued to celebrate it on the familiar night.56 Today it falls around December 22. The annual celebration of the nativity of the Mystery godman celebrated the death of the old year and its miraculous rebirth as the new year on the date of the solstice. Osiris-Dionysus represented and was represented by the sun, as was Jesus, whom the Church father Clement of Alexander calls "The Sun of Righteousness."57 By way of balance, Dionysus' virgin mother Semele derives her name from the virgin moon goddess Selene.58 The angel Gabriel who comes to Mary to announce the birth of Jesus was likewise equated with the moon. 59