Questions from Christians Regarding Evolution

[John Bauer]

The following was split from another thread.​

No creatures would suddenly appear complex, ...

What does "suddenly appear" mean? Do you mean within seconds? Weeks? Millennia? And from the womb, like a dog giving birth to a cat? Or speciation over thousands of generations after a lineage split?

... and none would be the same as the earliest form, ...

How do you justify that claim? What prevents a later species from resembling an earlier form? Say, for example, Carcharhinus leucas (today) versus Hybodus reticulatus (150 mya).

And the ‘oldest’ layer has to be factored by bottom-to-top changes in strata (and the reverse) in a cataclysm.

I cannot decipher this sentence. Please rephrase.

The Lenski experiment found its mutations eating other things after several decades, but that was due to oxygen in a lab. They had no way to prevent oxygen reaching the mutations, so the ‘simulation’ of the experiment (its accuracy) breaks down there, and must explain a source for oxygen in reality.

If this is your own response, then you have misunderstood the Lenski long-term evolution experiment (LTEE). If this was taken from somewhere else, then that person didn't understand—and you ought to have verified his claims before repeating them.

"They had no way to prevent oxygen reaching the mutations," you said—but why would they even try to prevent it? The Lenski LTEE was explicitly designed as an aerobic experiment. The flasks were shaken to ensure continuous oxygenation, because the goal was to study adaptation in an oxygen-rich environment typical of many natural bacterial niches. Oxygen was a stable, controlled parameter, not a contaminant or design flaw.

If the experiment had aimed to simulate anaerobic conditions, oxygen exclusion would have been trivial to engineer. That was never the objective. The emergence of citrate utilization occurred within the very environment the experiment deliberately maintained. Any claim that this represents a breakdown of the setup is simply inaccurate.

Normally, E. coli cannot use citrate when oxygen is present because the gene that makes the citrate "import protein" is switched off in aerobic conditions. After about 30,000 generations, one group of bacteria evolved a new ability: They could now take in and use citrate even with oxygen around. This happened because a genetic rearrangement duplicated the citrate transporter gene and placed it under a different genetic switch that turns on in the presence of oxygen. This rewired gene control system now allowed access to a food source that was previously unavailable.

Also: While the LTEE itself has been running for "several decades," the specific evolutionary event being cited occurred more than 20 years ago. The citrate-utilizing phenotype was first clearly identified and isolated in 2003, and later analyzed in detail in Zachary D. Blount, Christina Z. Borland, and Richard E. Lenski, "Historical Contingency and the Evolution of a Key Innovation in an Experimental Population of Escherichia coli," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105, no. 23 (2008): 7899–7906, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0803151105.

 

[CrowCross]

The following was split from another thread.​

What does "suddenly appear" mean? Do you mean within seconds? Weeks? Millennia? And from the womb, like a dog giving birth to a cat? Or speciation over thousands of generations after a lineage split?

When the Cambrian fossils are examined it is seen that the major phyla and classes of animals suddenly appear fully developed in the Cambrian strata with no ancestral linage leading up to the many different phyla and classes.

In other word, you don't see the speciation of animals producing different genera, then the continuation of morphological evolution producing animals that can be divided into different families and then orders.

Instead, as mentioned above, the Cambrian geological record contains fossilized animals that are very diverse in the hierarchy of the taxonomical rank and show no sign of a slow divergence from a common ancestor....the mutations are not show to add up.

The theory belonging to evolutionism tells us that all life evolved from a common ancestor. This hypothesis is taught as fact in our schools and even presented from time to time on this forum as the truth. But is it true or just another lie from the camps of evolutionism which have been kept secret?

The question becomes:

Why do the major phyla and classes of animals suddenly appear fully developed in the Cambrian fossils with no ancestral linage leading up to the phyla and classes that are found fossilized there as the T.O.E. predict they should?

Instead, a major problem for evolutionism is recognized. The geological record has fossilized animals that are very diverse in the hierarchy of the taxonomical rank and show no sign of a slow divergence from a common ancestor. The animals found in the Cambrian strata are already divided into different phyla and classes.

The bedrock, or the basement strata of rocks don't present descent with modification as the theory of evolutionism calls for. In fact, one could claim that it appears to be pretty much up-side-down.

 

[John Bauer]

Causes and effects are limited to a closed system of nature. A God-figure does not act into nor intervene in that.

(Emphasis mine.)

That claim follows from metaphysical naturalism, but not Christian theism. Since you are not an atheist, I am confused by you making that claim.

The term nothing in the lips of conventional science is rife with something always being there to start with.

This amounts to a category error. You are criticizing a field for failing to answer a question it does not, by definition, claim to answer.

Science is methodologically empirical—it presupposes a spacetime continuum. It depends on observation, measurement, experimentation, and repeatability. Those activities presuppose temporality (change, succession, duration) and spatial extension (distance, location, relation). Those activities are unintelligible in the absence of a spatiotemporal framework. A "nothing" prior to spacetime is therefore not an object of empirical investigation in any ordinary sense. To fault science for not explaining that is to demand that it operate outside the very conditions that make it possible, never mind intelligible.

Evolution cannot explain the origin of life because it presupposes life; it explains what happens once life already exists. In the same way, empirical science cannot explain the coming-into-being of spacetime itself, because it presupposes a spatiotemporal framework in order to function at all. Criticizing science on that basis is like criticizing arithmetic for not explaining why numbers exist.

That's why Rogan said what he did to Meyer about a mass-explosion event---that the fact that science is driven to say 'nothing' was there makes that event the proof of the Biblical claim.

I agree with you and them: An event entails a cause. When it comes to the Big Bang, what caused it?

Science, as methodologically empirical, is categorically incapable of answering that. That task belongs to metaphysics and theology, not science.

Science can't explain why something rather than nothing exists. Arithmetic can't explain why numbers exist. Chemistry cannot explain why atoms exist. Evolution can't explain why life exists. Neuroscience cannot explain why consciousness exists. History cannot explain why time exists. Linguistics cannot explain why meaning exists.

Every discipline operates within boundary conditions it cannot itself ground. Confusing a field's explanatory domain with ultimate explanation is a common, recurrent philosophical error—one that is entirely avoidable.

 

[CrowCross]

Science can't explain why something rather than nothing exists. Arithmetic can't explain why numbers exist. Chemistry cannot explain why atoms exist. Evolution can't explain why life exists. Neuroscience cannot explain why consciousness exists. History cannot explain why time exists. Linguistics cannot explain why meaning exists.

No, but the Word of God does.

 

[John Bauer]

No, but the Word of God does.

True indeed.

 

[John Bauer]

When the Cambrian fossils are examined, it is seen that the major phyla and classes of animals suddenly appear fully developed in the Cambrian strata with no ancestral linage leading up to the many different phyla and classes. In other word, you don't see the speciation of animals producing different genera, then the continuation of morphological evolution producing animals that can be divided into different families and then orders. Instead, as mentioned above, the Cambrian geological record contains fossilized animals that are very diverse in the hierarchy of the taxonomical rank and show no sign of a slow divergence from a common ancestor. The mutations are not shown to add up.

... The question becomes:

Why do the major phyla and classes of animals suddenly appear fully developed in the Cambrian fossils with no ancestral linage leading up to the phyla and classes that are found fossilized there as the T.O.E. predict they should?

Instead, a major problem for evolutionism is recognized. The geological record has fossilized animals that are very diverse in the hierarchy of the taxonomical rank and show no sign of a slow divergence from a common ancestor. The animals found in the Cambrian strata are already divided into different phyla and classes.

Suddenly appear.

@EarlyActs said that no creatures would “suddenly appear” complex, and I asked what suddenly means. According to @CrowCross here, referring to the early Cambrian radiation, it means roughly 30 million years. (Subsequent taxonomic elaboration consumed another 20–30 million years, from middle to late Cambrian. All told, the Cambrian spanned ~55 million years.)

In that case, the claim is false. New, morphologically diverse species do appear after tens of millions of years. For example, the humpback whale and the hippopotamus—certainly different species and very diverse morphologically—trace to a lineage split that occurred within that kind of timeframe.

No ancestral lineage.

This is incorrect. The Cambrian (which spanned ~50 million years) did not emerge in isolation. It was preceded by the Ediacaran period (which was nearly twice as long); in that period we find multicellular organisms, early soft-body bilaterians, trace fossils, and bauplans that gave rise to the Cambrian diversification. These are precisely what ancestry before major diversification would look like, ancestors with limited preservable hard parts and simpler morphologies.

There are two facts which drive the illusion of “suddenness.” The first is taphonomy. Early ancestors were small, soft-bodied, and poorly mineralized. Fossilization probability was extremely low. Expecting a smooth, continuous sequence is hopelessly naïve. The second is geological resolution. The Cambrian “explosion” spans ~30 million years. That is sudden in geological terms, but not in evolutionary terms, and certainly not in ordinary terms. That “sudden” appearance spanned a very, very long time. For some perspective, 30 million years ago there were no humans, no hominins, not even hominoids (apes). Entire mammalian radiations unfolded within that interval. It is only sudden in a geologic sense.

It is intellectually careless to imagine that evolution should be visible generation by generation in rock layers. Fossilization just won’t produce that. And a lack of fossil continuity isn’t evidence of no ancestors; it is evidence of exactly that preservation bottleneck, something especially predicted of the Ediacaran period and its soft-bodied creatures. The record we possess is entirely consistent with gradual descent operating over epochs of time, constrained by the limits of fossil preservation.

Speciation of animals producing different genera, etc.

This claim misunderstands how evolution proceeds. It does not unfold as a tidy ladder of species, genus, family, order, class, and phylum recorded sequentially in the rocks. Taxonomic ranks are human labeling conventions, not evolutionary stages. Evolution doesn’t climb the taxonomic hierarchy. It doesn’t generate genera first, then families, then orders as if building a corporate organization chart. That expectation itself is the mistake. Evolution produces branching divergence, often with early explosions of morphological disparity followed by later diversification within established body plans—a pattern Darwin already recognized in principle which was later formalized as punctuated equilibrium by Gould and Eldredge. (See my post in another thread which addresses this in a bit more detail, with quotes and citations.)

The theory belonging to evolutionism tells us that all life evolved from a common ancestor.

I don’t know what “the theory belonging to evolutionism” is supposed to be. It sounds like a deliberate attempt to misrepresent, which would be a violation of the rules. There is nothing stopping you from representing the opposing view accurately and honestly. For example, you could have simply said, “The theory of evolution tells us that all life evolved from a common ancestor.”

My response to that? “Correct.”

This hypothesis is taught as fact in our schools and even presented from time to time on this forum as the truth.

This is a category error. You just switched from “theory” to “hypothesis.” I hope this wasn’t deliberate, that you’re using these terms interchangeably simply because you don’t know the difference between these categories—because if it was deliberate then it was a violation of the rules.

In science, a law is a generalization about empirical data that seeks to describe the regular and consistent patterns and relationships that are found. But these are descriptions, which are not explanations. That is the role of a theory, a concise unifying conceptual structure that ties together and explains observed and predicted empirical phenomena (causes, forces, etc.) and their relationships. Theories also encompass and integrate many different hypotheses, which are limited explanations of more narrow sets of phenomena. [1] Here is an example that should help to illustrate the difference between each term and their relationships to one another: A hypothesis about graviton particles might serve a general theory of gravitation proposed to explain the law of gravity.

But is it true? Or just another lie from the camps of evolutionism which have been kept secret?

The theory of evolution is true in the same sense that the heliocentric theory is true. We casually refer to our sun-centered planetary system as a fact, even though it’s actually just a theory. (The solar system as a whole has never been observed.) When a theory has withstood so many thousands of empirical tests and remains unfalsified, it is practically a fact even if technically it isn't.

---

[1] Ernan McMullin, “Hypothesis,” in Wilbur Applebaum, ed., Encyclopedia of the Scientific Revolution From Copernicus to Newton (New York: Garland, 2000), 315–318; “Theory,” ibid., 641–643; Helen Hattab, “Laws of Nature,” ibid., 354–357; Carl G. Hempel, Philosophy of Natural Science (Prentice-Hall, 1966); New Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th ed., s.v. “Theory”; APA Dictionary of Psychology, s.v. “Hypothesis,” “Theory,” and “Law.”

 

[CrowCross]

Suddenly appear.

@EarlyActs said that no creatures would “suddenly appear” complex, and I asked what suddenly means. According to @CrowCross here, referring to the early Cambrian radiation, it means roughly 30 million years. (Subsequent taxonomic elaboration consumed another 20–30 million years, from middle to late Cambrian. All told, the Cambrian spanned ~55 million years.)

In that case, the claim is false. New, morphologically diverse species do appear after tens of millions of years. For example, the humpback whale and the hippopotamus—certainly different species and very diverse morphologically—trace to a lineage split that occurred within that kind of timeframe.

Not true. The humpback and hippo do not trace back to a linage that split.

No ancestral lineage.

This is incorrect. The Cambrian (which spanned ~50 million years) did not emerge in isolation. It was preceded by the Ediacaran period (which was nearly twice as long); in that period we find multicellular organisms, early soft-body bilaterians, trace fossils, and bauplans that gave rise to the Cambrian diversification. These are precisely what ancestry before major diversification would look like, ancestors with limited preservable hard parts and simpler morphologies.

The fossils in the Cambrian appear with out any successive linages leading up to what is seen fossilized in the flood deposited sediment that became rocks labeled falsely as precambrian.

There are two facts which drive the illusion of “suddenness.” The first is taphonomy. Early ancestors were small, soft-bodied, and poorly mineralized. Fossilization probability was extremely low. Expecting a smooth, continuous sequence is hopelessly naïve. The second is geological resolution. The Cambrian “explosion” spans ~30 million years. That is sudden in geological terms, but not in evolutionary terms, and certainly not in ordinary terms. That “sudden” appearance spanned a very, very long time. For some perspective, 30 million years ago there were no humans, no hominins, not even hominoids (apes). Entire mammalian radiations unfolded within that interval. It is only sudden in a geologic sense.

According to the evo-crowd 30MY's ago there were humans. There are many depictions, fossils, artwork etc. that show humans and dinosaurs existed together.
What the theo-evo crowd forgets is that there was a world wide flood in the days of Noah...and Noah and his sons took care of dinosaurs on the ark. After the flood they were released. Even Job writes about them.
The evo-crown has their timing confused.

It is intellectually careless to imagine that evolution should be visible generation by generation in rock layers. Fossilization just won’t produce that. And a lack of fossil continuity isn’t evidence of no ancestors; it is evidence of exactly that preservation bottleneck, something especially predicted of the Ediacaran period and its soft-bodied creatures. The record we possess is entirely consistent with gradual descent operating over epochs of time, constrained by the limits of fossil preservation.

Yes it would be careless to imagine that evolution should be visible generation by generation in rock layers especially when you understand that the rock layers were deposited during the flood of Noah about 4,000 years ago....and the rock layers represent the catastrophic death of animals and their biome. Typically presented as how flood waters would advance with the sea animals buried first...the near shore and shore animals next...followed by the land animals.

Speciation of animals producing different genera, etc.

This claim misunderstands how evolution proceeds. It does not unfold as a tidy ladder of species, genus, family, order, class, and phylum recorded sequentially in the rocks. Taxonomic ranks are human labeling conventions, not evolutionary stages. Evolution doesn’t climb the taxonomic hierarchy. It doesn’t generate genera first, then families, then orders as if building a corporate organization chart. That expectation itself is the mistake. Evolution produces branching divergence, often with early explosions of morphological disparity followed by later diversification within established body plans—a pattern Darwin already recognized in principle which was later formalized as punctuated equilibrium by Gould and Eldredge. (See my post in another thread which addresses this in a bit more detail, with quotes and citations.)

Evolution doesn’t climb the taxonomic hierarchy....Why? It never happened. Animals can be placed into a taxonomical hierarchy.

I don’t know what “the theory belonging to evolutionism” is supposed to be. It sounds like a deliberate attempt to misrepresent, which would be a violation of the rules. There is nothing stopping you from representing the opposing view accurately and honestly. For example, you could have simply said, “The theory of evolution tells us that all life evolved from a common ancestor.”

For someone to tell us God used evolutionism to create man...is a deliberate attempt to misrepresent the book of Genesis.

My response to that? “Correct.”

No.

This is a category error. You just switched from “theory” to “hypothesis.” I hope this wasn’t deliberate, that you’re using these terms interchangeably simply because you don’t know the difference between these categories—because if it was deliberate then it was a violation of the rules.

You might as well ban me now. That's what you're looking for. Right?

In science, a law is a generalization about empirical data that seeks to describe the regular and consistent patterns and relationships that are found. But these are descriptions, which are not explanations. That is the role of a theory, a concise unifying conceptual structure that ties together and explains observed and predicted empirical phenomena (causes, forces, etc.) and their relationships. Theories also encompass and integrate many different hypotheses, which are limited explanations of more narrow sets of phenomena. [1] Here is an example that should help to illustrate the difference between each term and their relationships to one another: A hypothesis about graviton particles might serve a general theory of gravitation proposed to explain the law of gravity.



The theory of evolution is true in the same sense that the heliocentric theory is true. We casually refer to our sun-centered planetary system as a fact, even though it’s actually just a theory. (The solar system as a whole has never been observed.) When a theory has withstood so many thousands of empirical tests and remains unfalsified, it is practically a fact even if technically it isn't.

Do you still believe in the flat earth?

---

[1] Ernan McMullin, “Hypothesis,” in Wilbur Applebaum, ed., Encyclopedia of the Scientific Revolution From Copernicus to Newton (New York: Garland, 2000), 315–318; “Theory,” ibid., 641–643; Helen Hattab, “Laws of Nature,” ibid., 354–357; Carl G. Hempel, Philosophy of Natural Science (Prentice-Hall, 1966); New Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th ed., s.v. “Theory”; APA Dictionary of Psychology, s.v. “Hypothesis,” “Theory,” and “Law.”

 

[John Bauer]

Not true. The humpback and hippo do not trace back to a lineage that split.

If you’re placing evolution under critical scrutiny, then this claim is question-begging and must be remedied. Rule 4.4 would now be in effect.

The same applies if you are simply dismissing evolution as false and assuming the truth of young-earth creationism. That would likewise invoke Rule 4.4.

Allow me to remind you: This thread is for questions regarding evolution. Critiques of evolution are permissible and welcomed, too, but simply dismissing it as false is not a critique and will not be tolerated.

The fossils in the Cambrian appear without any successive lineages leading up to what is seen fossilized in the flood deposited sediment that became rocks labeled falsely as Precambrian.

Here, too, you are just assuming evolution is false without even attempting to refute it.

Here is the interesting part that is usually overlooked: That means evolution stands unrefuted. I am content with that, of course, but I can’t imagine why you would be.

According to the evo-crowd 30MY's ago there were humans.

That is utterly false. As I pointed out, there weren’t even apes of any kind at that point, never mind humans.

You are demonstrating a profound ignorance of evolution. You cannot argue against something of which you have no proper knowledge. There are no proponents of evolution—literally none—who think humans existed 30 million years ago.

There are many depictions, fossils, artwork etc. that show humans and dinosaurs existed together.

There are precisely zero. I would be surprised if you could show me one that I haven’t already seen. As I’ve said before, my library is full of young-earth creationist books. I am very familiar with these claims; they are called pratts for a reason.

What the theo-evo crowd forgets is that there was a worldwide flood in the days of Noah, and Noah and his sons took care of dinosaurs on the ark. After the flood, they were released. Even Job writes about them. … rock layers were deposited during the flood of Noah about 4,000 years ago, and the rock layers represent the catastrophic death of animals and their biome. … flood waters would advance with the sea animals buried first, then near shore and shore animals next, followed by the land animals.

Such claims assume the truth of young-earth creationism, which is a question-begging move in this thread (because it’s for questions or critiques regarding evolution). Any more of this going forward and I will hit the Report button—which will incur warning points, as it would be willful.

You might as well ban me now. That's what you're looking for. Right?

Absolutely not. What I am looking for—and finding almost no takers—is someone who will provide a rational critique of evolution. I love having my ideas tested. That requires people with opposing views, so that’s what I want.

But the rules do warn that deliberately violating the rules repeatedly will warrant a ban.

Public service announcement: If your attempted criticisms of evolution cannot avoid violating the forum rules, that should tell you something.

Do you still believe in the flat earth?

The question assumes I believed in a flat earth at some point, which is false.

 

[CrowCross]

If you’re placing evolution under critical scrutiny, then this claim is question-begging and must be remedied. Rule 4.4 would now be in effect.

The same applies if you are simply dismissing evolution as false and assuming the truth of young-earth creationism. That would likewise invoke Rule 4.4.

Allow me to remind you: This thread is for questions regarding evolution. Critiques of evolution are permissible and welcomed, too, but simply dismissing it as false is not a critique and will not be tolerated.

It is no longer about claiming that evo-ism is false but rather it has been demonstrated.
ESPECIALLY biblically.

Here, too, you are just assuming evolution is false without even attempting to refute it.

The cambrian fossils are just one point (of many) that has been made.

Here is the interesting part that is usually overlooked: That means evolution stands unrefuted. I am content with that, of course, but I can’t imagine why you would be.

Science has shown evolutionism doesn't work. Over the last little while you refuse to see that truth.

That is utterly false. As I pointed out, there weren’t even apes of any kind at that point, never mind humans.

The bible disagrees.
Creation science disagrees.

You are demonstrating a profound ignorance of evolution. You cannot argue against something of which you have no proper knowledge. There are no proponents of evolution—literally none—who think humans existed 30 million years ago.

Of course not...it destroys your narrative. Have you ever seen the Delk Track?

There are precisely zero. I would be surprised if you could show me one that I haven’t already seen. As I’ve said before, my library is full of young-earth creationist books. I am very familiar with these claims; they are called pratts for a reason.

This site shows you are wrong.

Such claims assume the truth of young-earth creationism, which is a question-begging move in this thread (because it’s for questions or critiques regarding evolution). Any more of this going forward and I will hit the Report button—which will incur warning points, as it would be willful.

Go for it. If you would like me to leave this forum....just ask.

Absolutely not. What I am looking for—and finding almost no takers—is someone who will provide a rational critique of evolution. I love having my ideas tested. That requires people with opposing views, so that’s what I want.

In this link I provided you with two sites to check out.

But the rules do warn that deliberately violating the rules repeatedly will warrant a ban.

Public service announcement: If your attempted criticisms of evolution cannot avoid violating the forum rules, that should tell you something.



The question assumes I believed in a flat earth at some point, which is false.

That's nice to know. Based upon what?

 

[EarlyActs]

The following was split from another thread.​

What does "suddenly appear" mean? Do you mean within seconds? Weeks? Millennia? And from the womb, like a dog giving birth to a cat? Or speciation over thousands of generations after a lineage split?



How do you justify that claim? What prevents a later species from resembling an earlier form? Say, for example, Carcharhinus leucas (today) versus Hybodus reticulatus (150 mya).



I cannot decipher this sentence. Please rephrase.



If this is your own response, then you have misunderstood the Lenski long-term evolution experiment (LTEE). If this was taken from somewhere else, then that person didn't understand—and you ought to have verified his claims before repeating them.

"They had no way to prevent oxygen reaching the mutations," you said—but why would they even try to prevent it? The Lenski LTEE was explicitly designed as an aerobic experiment. The flasks were shaken to ensure continuous oxygenation, because the goal was to study adaptation in an oxygen-rich environment typical of many natural bacterial niches. Oxygen was a stable, controlled parameter, not a contaminant or design flaw.

If the experiment had aimed to simulate anaerobic conditions, oxygen exclusion would have been trivial to engineer. That was never the objective. The emergence of citrate utilization occurred within the very environment the experiment deliberately maintained. Any claim that this represents a breakdown of the setup is simply inaccurate.

Normally, E. coli cannot use citrate when oxygen is present because the gene that makes the citrate "import protein" is switched off in aerobic conditions. After about 30,000 generations, one group of bacteria evolved a new ability: They could now take in and use citrate even with oxygen around. This happened because a genetic rearrangement duplicated the citrate transporter gene and placed it under a different genetic switch that turns on in the presence of oxygen. This rewired gene control system now allowed access to a food source that was previously unavailable.

Also: While the LTEE itself has been running for "several decades," the specific evolutionary event being cited occurred more than 20 years ago. The citrate-utilizing phenotype was first clearly identified and isolated in 2003, and later analyzed in detail in Zachary D. Blount, Christina Z. Borland, and Richard E. Lenski, "Historical Contingency and the Evolution of a Key Innovation in an Experimental Population of Escherichia coli," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105, no. 23 (2008): 7899–7906, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0803151105.

re 'suddenly appear'
I'm referring to the expression 'the Cambrian explosion.' As I recall, it included several things, for ex., bees, spiders, that are exactly as found today.

 

[EarlyActs]

The following was split from another thread.​

What does "suddenly appear" mean? Do you mean within seconds? Weeks? Millennia? And from the womb, like a dog giving birth to a cat? Or speciation over thousands of generations after a lineage split?



How do you justify that claim? What prevents a later species from resembling an earlier form? Say, for example, Carcharhinus leucas (today) versus Hybodus reticulatus (150 mya).



I cannot decipher this sentence. Please rephrase.



If this is your own response, then you have misunderstood the Lenski long-term evolution experiment (LTEE). If this was taken from somewhere else, then that person didn't understand—and you ought to have verified his claims before repeating them.

"They had no way to prevent oxygen reaching the mutations," you said—but why would they even try to prevent it? The Lenski LTEE was explicitly designed as an aerobic experiment. The flasks were shaken to ensure continuous oxygenation, because the goal was to study adaptation in an oxygen-rich environment typical of many natural bacterial niches. Oxygen was a stable, controlled parameter, not a contaminant or design flaw.

If the experiment had aimed to simulate anaerobic conditions, oxygen exclusion would have been trivial to engineer. That was never the objective. The emergence of citrate utilization occurred within the very environment the experiment deliberately maintained. Any claim that this represents a breakdown of the setup is simply inaccurate.

Normally, E. coli cannot use citrate when oxygen is present because the gene that makes the citrate "import protein" is switched off in aerobic conditions. After about 30,000 generations, one group of bacteria evolved a new ability: They could now take in and use citrate even with oxygen around. This happened because a genetic rearrangement duplicated the citrate transporter gene and placed it under a different genetic switch that turns on in the presence of oxygen. This rewired gene control system now allowed access to a food source that was previously unavailable.

Also: While the LTEE itself has been running for "several decades," the specific evolutionary event being cited occurred more than 20 years ago. The citrate-utilizing phenotype was first clearly identified and isolated in 2003, and later analyzed in detail in Zachary D. Blount, Christina Z. Borland, and Richard E. Lenski, "Historical Contingency and the Evolution of a Key Innovation in an Experimental Population of Escherichia coli," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105, no. 23 (2008): 7899–7906, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0803151105.

What prevents a later species from resembling an earlier form?
Oh, so there is suddenly no trace of evolution in 150MY if they say so? How can you stop a force that is said to be definitive of nature? Isn't the rule of thumb that if there is an example of it not occurring then we can't say it is absolute?

 

[EarlyActs]

The following was split from another thread.​

What does "suddenly appear" mean? Do you mean within seconds? Weeks? Millennia? And from the womb, like a dog giving birth to a cat? Or speciation over thousands of generations after a lineage split?



How do you justify that claim? What prevents a later species from resembling an earlier form? Say, for example, Carcharhinus leucas (today) versus Hybodus reticulatus (150 mya).



I cannot decipher this sentence. Please rephrase.



If this is your own response, then you have misunderstood the Lenski long-term evolution experiment (LTEE). If this was taken from somewhere else, then that person didn't understand—and you ought to have verified his claims before repeating them.

"They had no way to prevent oxygen reaching the mutations," you said—but why would they even try to prevent it? The Lenski LTEE was explicitly designed as an aerobic experiment. The flasks were shaken to ensure continuous oxygenation, because the goal was to study adaptation in an oxygen-rich environment typical of many natural bacterial niches. Oxygen was a stable, controlled parameter, not a contaminant or design flaw.

If the experiment had aimed to simulate anaerobic conditions, oxygen exclusion would have been trivial to engineer. That was never the objective. The emergence of citrate utilization occurred within the very environment the experiment deliberately maintained. Any claim that this represents a breakdown of the setup is simply inaccurate.

Normally, E. coli cannot use citrate when oxygen is present because the gene that makes the citrate "import protein" is switched off in aerobic conditions. After about 30,000 generations, one group of bacteria evolved a new ability: They could now take in and use citrate even with oxygen around. This happened because a genetic rearrangement duplicated the citrate transporter gene and placed it under a different genetic switch that turns on in the presence of oxygen. This rewired gene control system now allowed access to a food source that was previously unavailable.

Also: While the LTEE itself has been running for "several decades," the specific evolutionary event being cited occurred more than 20 years ago. The citrate-utilizing phenotype was first clearly identified and isolated in 2003, and later analyzed in detail in Zachary D. Blount, Christina Z. Borland, and Richard E. Lenski, "Historical Contingency and the Evolution of a Key Innovation in an Experimental Population of Escherichia coli," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105, no. 23 (2008): 7899–7906, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0803151105.

I cannot decipher this sentence. (about layers)
There are layers on the bottom now which were on the top before the cataclysm. There are layers now on the top which were on the bottom before it. The changes are so massive, there is almost nothing uniform to be found. "Alaska is the junkyard of 3 tectonic plates" as an example. (The back cover of a book on geologic hikes in AK).

 

[EarlyActs]

The following was split from another thread.​

What does "suddenly appear" mean? Do you mean within seconds? Weeks? Millennia? And from the womb, like a dog giving birth to a cat? Or speciation over thousands of generations after a lineage split?



How do you justify that claim? What prevents a later species from resembling an earlier form? Say, for example, Carcharhinus leucas (today) versus Hybodus reticulatus (150 mya).



I cannot decipher this sentence. Please rephrase.



If this is your own response, then you have misunderstood the Lenski long-term evolution experiment (LTEE). If this was taken from somewhere else, then that person didn't understand—and you ought to have verified his claims before repeating them.

"They had no way to prevent oxygen reaching the mutations," you said—but why would they even try to prevent it? The Lenski LTEE was explicitly designed as an aerobic experiment. The flasks were shaken to ensure continuous oxygenation, because the goal was to study adaptation in an oxygen-rich environment typical of many natural bacterial niches. Oxygen was a stable, controlled parameter, not a contaminant or design flaw.

If the experiment had aimed to simulate anaerobic conditions, oxygen exclusion would have been trivial to engineer. That was never the objective. The emergence of citrate utilization occurred within the very environment the experiment deliberately maintained. Any claim that this represents a breakdown of the setup is simply inaccurate.

Normally, E. coli cannot use citrate when oxygen is present because the gene that makes the citrate "import protein" is switched off in aerobic conditions. After about 30,000 generations, one group of bacteria evolved a new ability: They could now take in and use citrate even with oxygen around. This happened because a genetic rearrangement duplicated the citrate transporter gene and placed it under a different genetic switch that turns on in the presence of oxygen. This rewired gene control system now allowed access to a food source that was previously unavailable.

Also: While the LTEE itself has been running for "several decades," the specific evolutionary event being cited occurred more than 20 years ago. The citrate-utilizing phenotype was first clearly identified and isolated in 2003, and later analyzed in detail in Zachary D. Blount, Christina Z. Borland, and Richard E. Lenski, "Historical Contingency and the Evolution of a Key Innovation in an Experimental Population of Escherichia coli," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105, no. 23 (2008): 7899–7906, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0803151105.

re oxygen
They didn't want oxygen, because they would have to explain that. I guess you haven't heard the joke:

GOD: make a planet with life on it
MICROBIOLOGIST TEAM: Sure, we'll need X, Y, Z...
GOD: I don't think you understand; you have to make those, too...

 

[EarlyActs]

The following was split from another thread.​

What does "suddenly appear" mean? Do you mean within seconds? Weeks? Millennia? And from the womb, like a dog giving birth to a cat? Or speciation over thousands of generations after a lineage split?



How do you justify that claim? What prevents a later species from resembling an earlier form? Say, for example, Carcharhinus leucas (today) versus Hybodus reticulatus (150 mya).



I cannot decipher this sentence. Please rephrase.



If this is your own response, then you have misunderstood the Lenski long-term evolution experiment (LTEE). If this was taken from somewhere else, then that person didn't understand—and you ought to have verified his claims before repeating them.

"They had no way to prevent oxygen reaching the mutations," you said—but why would they even try to prevent it? The Lenski LTEE was explicitly designed as an aerobic experiment. The flasks were shaken to ensure continuous oxygenation, because the goal was to study adaptation in an oxygen-rich environment typical of many natural bacterial niches. Oxygen was a stable, controlled parameter, not a contaminant or design flaw.

If the experiment had aimed to simulate anaerobic conditions, oxygen exclusion would have been trivial to engineer. That was never the objective. The emergence of citrate utilization occurred within the very environment the experiment deliberately maintained. Any claim that this represents a breakdown of the setup is simply inaccurate.

Normally, E. coli cannot use citrate when oxygen is present because the gene that makes the citrate "import protein" is switched off in aerobic conditions. After about 30,000 generations, one group of bacteria evolved a new ability: They could now take in and use citrate even with oxygen around. This happened because a genetic rearrangement duplicated the citrate transporter gene and placed it under a different genetic switch that turns on in the presence of oxygen. This rewired gene control system now allowed access to a food source that was previously unavailable.

Also: While the LTEE itself has been running for "several decades," the specific evolutionary event being cited occurred more than 20 years ago. The citrate-utilizing phenotype was first clearly identified and isolated in 2003, and later analyzed in detail in Zachary D. Blount, Christina Z. Borland, and Richard E. Lenski, "Historical Contingency and the Evolution of a Key Innovation in an Experimental Population of Escherichia coli," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105, no. 23 (2008): 7899–7906, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0803151105.

the switch that came on:
So where did the oxygen come from? As Malone demonstrated, and attempted to meet with Lenski to discuss, there is no explanation, and there is hardly enough positive genetic change to mention; mutations deteriorate a creature. And Malone gave 'sideway's examples, where another form of a creature (I don't recall whether it was fish or salamandar) ceased using eyesight, and began using other senses to find/gather food.

(Emphasis mine.)

That claim follows from metaphysical naturalism, but not Christian theism. Since you are not an atheist, I am confused by you making that claim.



This amounts to a category error. You are criticizing a field for failing to answer a question it does not, by definition, claim to answer.

Science is methodologically empirical—it presupposes a spacetime continuum. It depends on observation, measurement, experimentation, and repeatability. Those activities presuppose temporality (change, succession, duration) and spatial extension (distance, location, relation). Those activities are unintelligible in the absence of a spatiotemporal framework. A "nothing" prior to spacetime is therefore not an object of empirical investigation in any ordinary sense. To fault science for not explaining that is to demand that it operate outside the very conditions that make it possible, never mind intelligible.

Evolution cannot explain the origin of life because it presupposes life; it explains what happens once life already exists. In the same way, empirical science cannot explain the coming-into-being of spacetime itself, because it presupposes a spatiotemporal framework in order to function at all. Criticizing science on that basis is like criticizing arithmetic for not explaining why numbers exist.



I agree with you and them: An event entails a cause. When it comes to the Big Bang, what caused it?

Science, as methodologically empirical, is categorically incapable of answering that. That task belongs to metaphysics and theology, not science.

Science can't explain why something rather than nothing exists. Arithmetic can't explain why numbers exist. Chemistry cannot explain why atoms exist. Evolution can't explain why life exists. Neuroscience cannot explain why consciousness exists. History cannot explain why time exists. Linguistics cannot explain why meaning exists.

Every discipline operates within boundary conditions it cannot itself ground. Confusing a field's explanatory domain with ultimate explanation is a common, recurrent philosophical error—one that is entirely avoidable.

That claim follows from metaphysical naturalism, but not Christian theism. Since you are not an atheist, I am confused by you making that claim.

Having read this, I am now convinced that I do not want any further 'categories' set by you about what is 'off-topic.'

As a Biblical theist, I have to talk about other views, like Bhuddism. That does not mean I don't know Bhuddism because I am a Biblical theist, or that I have left it.

In this way, I am not like a communist Chinese engineer I spoke to outside Beijing when we were 'unmonitored' (no one from the state listening) in 2003. He drew a geometric slope in the sand with an object sitting at its top. He explained that it was under 100% slope, ie, 44 degrees or less. Then he changed it to 100% and the object slid down. And asked: "how come you Christians don't believe the object will slide down?" That was his understanding of Christians and a hostility to science as taught to him in CCP university. But it was not mine.

People are different from our 'understandings' of them!

(Emphasis mine.)

That claim follows from metaphysical naturalism, but not Christian theism. Since you are not an atheist, I am confused by you making that claim.



This amounts to a category error. You are criticizing a field for failing to answer a question it does not, by definition, claim to answer.

Science is methodologically empirical—it presupposes a spacetime continuum. It depends on observation, measurement, experimentation, and repeatability. Those activities presuppose temporality (change, succession, duration) and spatial extension (distance, location, relation). Those activities are unintelligible in the absence of a spatiotemporal framework. A "nothing" prior to spacetime is therefore not an object of empirical investigation in any ordinary sense. To fault science for not explaining that is to demand that it operate outside the very conditions that make it possible, never mind intelligible.

Evolution cannot explain the origin of life because it presupposes life; it explains what happens once life already exists. In the same way, empirical science cannot explain the coming-into-being of spacetime itself, because it presupposes a spatiotemporal framework in order to function at all. Criticizing science on that basis is like criticizing arithmetic for not explaining why numbers exist.



I agree with you and them: An event entails a cause. When it comes to the Big Bang, what caused it?

Science, as methodologically empirical, is categorically incapable of answering that. That task belongs to metaphysics and theology, not science.

Science can't explain why something rather than nothing exists. Arithmetic can't explain why numbers exist. Chemistry cannot explain why atoms exist. Evolution can't explain why life exists. Neuroscience cannot explain why consciousness exists. History cannot explain why time exists. Linguistics cannot explain why meaning exists.

Every discipline operates within boundary conditions it cannot itself ground. Confusing a field's explanatory domain with ultimate explanation is a common, recurrent philosophical error—one that is entirely avoidable.

That claim follows from metaphysical naturalism, but not Christian theism. Since you are not an atheist, I am confused by you making that claim.
Having read this, I am now convinced that I do not want any further 'categories' set by you about what is 'off-topic.'

As a Biblical theist, I have to talk about other views, like Bhuddism. That does not mean I don't know Bhuddism because I am a Biblical theist, or that I have left it.

In this way, I am not like a communist Chinese engineer I spoke to outside Beijing when we were 'unmonitored' (no one from the state listening) in 2003. He drew a geometric slope in the sand with an object sitting at its top. He explained that it was under 100% slope, ie, 44 degrees or less. Then he changed it to 100% and the object slid down. And asked: "how come you Christians don't believe the object will slide down?" That was his understanding of Christians and a hostility to science as taught to him in CCP university. But it was not mine.

People are different from our 'understandings' of them!

I am not making that claim; I am reporting it. If you find the report faulty, don't say that I'm making the claim. Explain the fault of the report. I have studied this kind of thing for 5 decades, including years in both community college and an Oregon state university. I believe I know of which I speak.

 

[EarlyActs]

(Emphasis mine.)

That claim follows from metaphysical naturalism, but not Christian theism. Since you are not an atheist, I am confused by you making that claim.



This amounts to a category error. You are criticizing a field for failing to answer a question it does not, by definition, claim to answer.

Science is methodologically empirical—it presupposes a spacetime continuum. It depends on observation, measurement, experimentation, and repeatability. Those activities presuppose temporality (change, succession, duration) and spatial extension (distance, location, relation). Those activities are unintelligible in the absence of a spatiotemporal framework. A "nothing" prior to spacetime is therefore not an object of empirical investigation in any ordinary sense. To fault science for not explaining that is to demand that it operate outside the very conditions that make it possible, never mind intelligible.

Evolution cannot explain the origin of life because it presupposes life; it explains what happens once life already exists. In the same way, empirical science cannot explain the coming-into-being of spacetime itself, because it presupposes a spatiotemporal framework in order to function at all. Criticizing science on that basis is like criticizing arithmetic for not explaining why numbers exist.



I agree with you and them: An event entails a cause. When it comes to the Big Bang, what caused it?

Science, as methodologically empirical, is categorically incapable of answering that. That task belongs to metaphysics and theology, not science.

Science can't explain why something rather than nothing exists. Arithmetic can't explain why numbers exist. Chemistry cannot explain why atoms exist. Evolution can't explain why life exists. Neuroscience cannot explain why consciousness exists. History cannot explain why time exists. Linguistics cannot explain why meaning exists.

Every discipline operates within boundary conditions it cannot itself ground. Confusing a field's explanatory domain with ultimate explanation is a common, recurrent philosophical error—one that is entirely avoidable.

This amounts to a category error. You are criticizing a field for failing to answer a question it does not, by definition, claim to answer.

This is simply not true. None of us are in a vacuum; everything relates to everything else, no matter how minutely.

For one thing, have you ever noticed that the more remote the time period, the more dogmatic a science becomes? I'm referring to the newer celestial cosmologies about universes as colliding sheets. Someone is really straining! That BB bother is getting to them!

All men have a 'weltanschaung' so that no one can say they have perfect vision.

"by the way, one must be careful of words. In Britain, for example, presupposition is sometimes a difficult word. a presupposition is something you do not know you have. But that is not the way I use the word. I use the presupposition as a base and we can choose it."
Schaeffer, HITAHINS, p65.

Either way, the British sense is valuable here: people can be entirely unaware of theirs.

Your presupposition is that there are sciences that are not about any other realm; but in reality they are.

Although you claim to be familiar with Schaeffer, I have yet to see where you grasped the 'split world of reality' 'the upper story leap' etc. Which is most of his passion about basic views. It is what neo-orthodoxy is about, mostly in theology.

 

[EarlyActs]

(Emphasis mine.)

That claim follows from metaphysical naturalism, but not Christian theism. Since you are not an atheist, I am confused by you making that claim.



This amounts to a category error. You are criticizing a field for failing to answer a question it does not, by definition, claim to answer.

Science is methodologically empirical—it presupposes a spacetime continuum. It depends on observation, measurement, experimentation, and repeatability. Those activities presuppose temporality (change, succession, duration) and spatial extension (distance, location, relation). Those activities are unintelligible in the absence of a spatiotemporal framework. A "nothing" prior to spacetime is therefore not an object of empirical investigation in any ordinary sense. To fault science for not explaining that is to demand that it operate outside the very conditions that make it possible, never mind intelligible.

Evolution cannot explain the origin of life because it presupposes life; it explains what happens once life already exists. In the same way, empirical science cannot explain the coming-into-being of spacetime itself, because it presupposes a spatiotemporal framework in order to function at all. Criticizing science on that basis is like criticizing arithmetic for not explaining why numbers exist.



I agree with you and them: An event entails a cause. When it comes to the Big Bang, what caused it?

Science, as methodologically empirical, is categorically incapable of answering that. That task belongs to metaphysics and theology, not science.

Science can't explain why something rather than nothing exists. Arithmetic can't explain why numbers exist. Chemistry cannot explain why atoms exist. Evolution can't explain why life exists. Neuroscience cannot explain why consciousness exists. History cannot explain why time exists. Linguistics cannot explain why meaning exists.

Every discipline operates within boundary conditions it cannot itself ground. Confusing a field's explanatory domain with ultimate explanation is a common, recurrent philosophical error—one that is entirely avoidable.

A "nothing" prior to spacetime is therefore not an object of empirical investigation in any ordinary sense.

So then, because we have a propositional record/narrative with a secure custody that says there was a moment when physical reality started by an agent outside of that physical reality, we do not have the limitation you have mentioned. Instead, we have a connection to that agent, who can communicate in the human range of reference, about things prior to that point. And we also have humans like Rogan and Meyer, though very different in training, can agree that an 'infinitely' small amount of mass was used to produce the result we now have, ie, a miracle. The above narrative with the secure custody calls this event 'the spreading out.'

 

[EarlyActs]

(Emphasis mine.)

That claim follows from metaphysical naturalism, but not Christian theism. Since you are not an atheist, I am confused by you making that claim.



This amounts to a category error. You are criticizing a field for failing to answer a question it does not, by definition, claim to answer.

Science is methodologically empirical—it presupposes a spacetime continuum. It depends on observation, measurement, experimentation, and repeatability. Those activities presuppose temporality (change, succession, duration) and spatial extension (distance, location, relation). Those activities are unintelligible in the absence of a spatiotemporal framework. A "nothing" prior to spacetime is therefore not an object of empirical investigation in any ordinary sense. To fault science for not explaining that is to demand that it operate outside the very conditions that make it possible, never mind intelligible.

Evolution cannot explain the origin of life because it presupposes life; it explains what happens once life already exists. In the same way, empirical science cannot explain the coming-into-being of spacetime itself, because it presupposes a spatiotemporal framework in order to function at all. Criticizing science on that basis is like criticizing arithmetic for not explaining why numbers exist.



I agree with you and them: An event entails a cause. When it comes to the Big Bang, what caused it?

Science, as methodologically empirical, is categorically incapable of answering that. That task belongs to metaphysics and theology, not science.

Science can't explain why something rather than nothing exists. Arithmetic can't explain why numbers exist. Chemistry cannot explain why atoms exist. Evolution can't explain why life exists. Neuroscience cannot explain why consciousness exists. History cannot explain why time exists. Linguistics cannot explain why meaning exists.

Every discipline operates within boundary conditions it cannot itself ground. Confusing a field's explanatory domain with ultimate explanation is a common, recurrent philosophical error—one that is entirely avoidable.

Criticizing science on that basis is like criticizing arithmetic for not explaining why numbers exist.

Yes, I would criticize any arithmetic that could not explain why numbers exist. You are seriously fractured in your thinking. I believe you said you knew what Lewis stated in "Religion and Science" analogy about the coins that regularly accumulate in the office drawer. Even though a 'psychiatrist' or 'detective' has an explanation, they know what coins are and what counting is, and what accumulation is. Science is full of bookkeeping. Always has been. There's no other way to do it. A bookkeeper who has to report that have the coins are missing has to: know what possible explanations are, know the plausibility of them, know the exact impacts of them (how many), etc. He has to become familiar with 'possibles' and 'plausibles' and 'impacts.' And yet he can still excel at working formulas and calculations, without specializing in explanations.

"Numbers" existence must be explained, and refusing to do so is slop.

The universe is far, far more coherent than what you are suggesting. Otherwise the text of Gen 1 has things like two creations and has fish created before there are oceans for them. (It does not, but if things are as divided as you are, it might as well, and some 'believers' even say 'it says so and it's God's word and I believe it.')

 

[EarlyActs]

(Emphasis mine.)

That claim follows from metaphysical naturalism, but not Christian theism. Since you are not an atheist, I am confused by you making that claim.



This amounts to a category error. You are criticizing a field for failing to answer a question it does not, by definition, claim to answer.

Science is methodologically empirical—it presupposes a spacetime continuum. It depends on observation, measurement, experimentation, and repeatability. Those activities presuppose temporality (change, succession, duration) and spatial extension (distance, location, relation). Those activities are unintelligible in the absence of a spatiotemporal framework. A "nothing" prior to spacetime is therefore not an object of empirical investigation in any ordinary sense. To fault science for not explaining that is to demand that it operate outside the very conditions that make it possible, never mind intelligible.

Evolution cannot explain the origin of life because it presupposes life; it explains what happens once life already exists. In the same way, empirical science cannot explain the coming-into-being of spacetime itself, because it presupposes a spatiotemporal framework in order to function at all. Criticizing science on that basis is like criticizing arithmetic for not explaining why numbers exist.



I agree with you and them: An event entails a cause. When it comes to the Big Bang, what caused it?

Science, as methodologically empirical, is categorically incapable of answering that. That task belongs to metaphysics and theology, not science.

Science can't explain why something rather than nothing exists. Arithmetic can't explain why numbers exist. Chemistry cannot explain why atoms exist. Evolution can't explain why life exists. Neuroscience cannot explain why consciousness exists. History cannot explain why time exists. Linguistics cannot explain why meaning exists.

Every discipline operates within boundary conditions it cannot itself ground. Confusing a field's explanatory domain with ultimate explanation is a common, recurrent philosophical error—one that is entirely avoidable.

When it comes to the Big Bang, what caused it?

Science, as methodologically empirical, is categorically incapable of answering that. That task belongs to metaphysics and theology, not science.

No, it is much closer to explaining than you allow. Its cause would be capable to make the 'infinitely small' mass that started it, which is miraculous, and could spread it out. Those are at least two features of what happened. It so happens that we have a narrative in normal human propositional communication that has a tight custody from its first moment of existence today. It shows agreement to those traces. The tasks are not separate, and most of modern science endeavored to work on these things in coherence. The Huxleys of the mid 1800s were among the first people of influence to 'create' a completely fractured world, in the West.

Science by definition is simply knowledge. It is not a set of certain knowledges with an agenda. Linguistics and literature of, and historiography about Genesis are entirely capable of being classed as a science.

Your view was once described by Schaeffer as being "10,000 feet of concrete thick, charged with electricity," so that seemingly separate questions could never be considered in a unified view. I neither see that as legit nor accept it, holding to the YLCW view.

 

[John Bauer]

It is no longer about claiming that evo-ism is false but rather it has been demonstrated—ESPECIALLY biblically.

Not here in this discussion. So far, all you have done is (a) dismiss evolution as false and (b) assume the truth of young-earth creationism and its flood geology. That is a question-begging move. Rule 4.4 is now in effect. Your move, sir. You must either concede the point or demonstrate that you haven’t dismissed evolution as false but rather proved it false. (If you go the latter route, provide quotes and links to what you said and where.)

The Cambrian fossils are just one point (of many) that has been made.

And I refuted your three core claims on that point (here), which you dismissed with the aforementioned question-begging move (here): “The fossils in the Cambrian appear without any successive lineages leading up to what is seen fossilized in the flood-deposited sediment that became rocks labeled falsely as Precambrian” (emphasis added). The fallacy allegation must now be resolved (in the manner indicated above, as stated in the rules).

Additionally, my refutation included evidence of the very ancestry you said doesn’t exist, a point you ignored despite quoting it.

Science has shown evolutionism doesn't work. Over the last little while you refuse to see that truth.

Where did you demonstrate that truth, which you claim I refused to see? Quotes and links, please.

The bible disagrees. Creation science disagrees.

This is compiling the question-begging fallacy, not resolving it.

Of course not. It destroys your narrative.

Yes, if humans lived 30 million years ago, it certainly would destroy the evolutionary narrative. But humans did not live that long ago. So, the theory remains unrefuted (still). As I said (here), “Thirty million years ago there were no humans, no hominins, not even hominoids (apes).”

Have you ever seen the Delk Track?

Yes, I have—but back then it was referenced as “the Paluxy River footprints” (Whitcomb and Morris 1961; Morris 1974).

Are you aware that this claim has been so fully refuted that even Answers in Genesis has renounced it? “Over the past several years,” Ken Ham wrote (2010), “some so-called evidence for creation has been shown not to be reliable. Some of these are supposed human and dinosaur footprints found together at the Paluxy River in Texas,” among other things.

If humans didn’t exist 30 million years ago, they certainly didn’t exist 110–113 million years ago.

This site shows you are wrong.

No, it does not. It is a curated exhibit of all the claims of ancient or prehistoric “dinosaurian” depictions—including the alleged Ta Prohm stegosaur, amazingly. I would encourage anyone to read the article @CrowCross shared and, if any of the claims seem believable, post it here and I would be happy to interact with that specific claim.

In a fortuitous and relevant twist, their featured book about dinosaurs, Chronicles of Dinosauria, is sitting right there on my library shelf. Like I said, “My library is full of young-earth creationist books. I am very familiar with these claims; they are called pratts for a reason” (link).

Interestingly, as we saw above, here too Answers in Genesis cautions against using the carving at Ta Prohm as credible evidence for human–dinosaur interaction. See: Joshua Cedar, “Is the Cambodian Stegosaur-like Carving Another Argument Creationists Should Not Use?” Answers Research Journal 10 (2017): 39–43 [PDF].

In this link I provided you with two sites to check out.

I am not here to dispute entire web sites. If you found a specific claim at either of those sources that you feel is decisive and compelling, share it and I would be happy to interact with that specific claim.

That's nice to know. Based upon what?

What’s nice to know? What’s based on what? Please write fuller, more intelligible sentences.

 

[John Bauer]

[Re: “suddenly appear”]

I’m referring to the expression “the Cambrian explosion.” As I recall, it included several things (e.g., bees, spiders) that are exactly as found today.

If you’re referring to the early Cambrian radiation, then “suddenly” means after 30 million years.

In which case your claim is false. The theory of evolution is untroubled by the idea of new, morphologically diverse species appearing “suddenly” if that means tens of millions of years. Cladistics routinely posits such histories.

Note: There were no bees or spiders in the Cambrian period. Those appeared much later (from Devonian–Carboniferous onward).

Oh, so there is suddenly no trace of evolution in 150MY if they say so? How can you stop a force that is said to be definitive of nature? Isn't the rule of thumb that if there is an example of it not occurring then we can't say it is absolute?

There has never been a 150-million-year span with “no trace of evolution.” Bull sharks today look a lot like Hybodus reticulatus from 150 million years ago but that doesn’t imply evolutionary inactivity. After all, Carcharhinus leucas (bull sharks) are a different species from H. reticulatus; in fact, they belong to entirely different shark lineages. In other words, evolution was still happening. There are tens of thousands of species of fish, many of which resemble one another morphologically. Does that mean they are the same species? Of course not. Species resembling each other doesn’t indicate an absence of evolution.

You claimed that later species would not resemble an earlier form (here) but failed to justify that claim. The theory of evolution predicts that many species could resemble earlier forms in similar, stable ecological niches, and C. leucas and H. reticulatus are an example of that. Your reference to bees and spiders is another example: Bees today resemble those from 120 million years ago, but they are not the same species enduring for hundreds of millions of years; they are different species from different lineages that resemble earlier ones.

To think of evolution as an unstoppable reshaping engine that must produce constant visible morphological change is an inaccurate caricature. That is not what evolutionary theory predicts. Under stable ecological conditions, evolutionary theory explicitly predicts long periods of morphological stability—a phenomenon known as stasis (ecological stability predicts morphological stability).