Glenn Wrote:
> I worry that the current widely held conservative interpretation of
>Scripture places the Bible in a similar situation, because you can't explain
>where the evidence of a world wide flood is, must require Christians to
>ignore the massive amount of evidence for evolution, ignore the activities of
>fossil man, ignore the fact that the paleontology has transitional fossil
>forms, ignore genetic data, and ignore the fact that only about 8 mutations
>are needed to create a new species (see Nature August 31, 1995, p. 762-765).
Glenn --
Whoa.
You say we can't *explain*
1) where the evidence of a world wide flood is
and that we must require (oh really?) Christians to *ignore*
2) the massive amount of evidence for evolution
3) the activities of fossil man
4) the fact that the paleontology has transitional fossil forms
5) genetic data
6) the fact that only about 8 mutations are needed to create a
new species
I could write a book myself on this stuff! But I don't need to
because, it's ALREADY BEEN WRITTEN! Glenn -- why don't
you come clean and at least admit that there is some merit to
the propositions which have been put forward by others who do
not agree with you?
1) The evidence for a worldwide flood IS there, you just need to
acknowledge that you have chosen to interpret it differently. Once
more Glenn -- no one -- not even you -- are REQUIRED to provide
an explanation about something which we can only imagine.
If you can support the imagined scenarios that are required to
for evolutionary arguments, why then is it so difficult for you
to accept imagined notions (which are no less verifiable) re-
garding a global flood? Why is it that you maintain our kids are
going to have problems with one type of imagination but not the
other? The only thing I can come up with is prejudice for one
view over the other. It most certainly isn't because one view
(ie, evolution) has so much more evidence going for it (see my
comments which follow).
Let's also not forget that the amount of imagination and brainpower
that has been directed towards explaining events from an evolu-
tionary perspective HAS been massive compared to the effort
expended in an investigation of a worldwide flood. Who knows
what a few NSF grants might help to uncover! Ah, but alas, I
doubt they would fund anything so ridiculous.
2) Really? The massive amount of evidence for evolution is only
*massive* if you buy into all sorts of assumptions. Plenty of educated
scientists readily admit that the evidence is neither *evidence* or
*massive*. Why do you continue in your failure to acknowledge this
by making such statements?
I could cite evidence for every major group -- but I'll just refer everyone to
the work of Barbara Stahl (Vertebrate History, Problems in Evolution,
1974, 1985) and make a few comments from others. Her work bears
out admirably the comment made by Russell:
*Missing links* have for the most part remained missing. Even in
the Mammals, whose geological history is comparatively well doc-
umented, serious gaps in the record occur just at the time [grin] when
the primary differentiation of the Orders is taking place.
-- E. Russell, The Diversity of Animals, 130 (1962).
*Over ten thousand fossil species of insects have been identified, over
thirty thousand species of spiders, and similar numbers for many sea-
living creatures. Yet so far the evidence for step-by-step changes leading
to major evolutionary transitions looks extremely thin. The supposed
transition from wingless to winged insects still has to be found, as has
the transition between the two main types of winged insects, the paleoptera
(mayflies, dragonflies) and the neoptera (ordinary flies, beetles, ants,
bees)*
-- Hoyle, The Intelligent Universe, A New
View of Creation & Evolution, 43, (1983)
*There are still deep divergences of opinion about the nature
of evolutionary processes, while it is the experience of of many
that increased acquaintance with the literature brings more
rather than less uncertainty, together with a conviction that
however much may already have been said there is even
more still to be learned. Moreover, much of this literature has
something of the alluring but elusive quality of a mirage, in
which the scene, at first apparently so sharply etched,
gradually dissolves as it is more closely approached until
it loses much of its earlier certainty of outline.*
(Ronald Good, FEATURES OF EVOLUTION IN THE
FLOWERING PLANTS, Dover, 1974 page 1)
(The reading in this first chapter, by the way, gets even better...)
*Through use and abuse of hidden postulates, of bold, often ill-
founded extrapolations, a pseudoscience has been created. It
is taking root at the very heart of biology and is leading astray
many biochemists and biologists, who sincerely believe that
the accuracy of fundamental concepts has been demonstrated,
which is not the case.* (P. Grasse, The Evolution of Living
Organisms, 6 (trans. 1977).
Indeed.
Explanations for the evolutionary development of hair in mammals,
feathers in birds, ectoskeletons, compound eyes, segmentation of
arthropods and vertebrates, and many many scores of other
features in life forms have yet to be sufficiently and compelling put
forth. There is no real evo. *evidence* for these and other features,
only speculation. HARDLY massive evidence. Also unexplained
are the reasons for alleged millions of years of stasis for so many
animals -- like gars and coelecanths among fish, bats among
mammals, wings on dragonflies, ginko trees, the opossum, the
platypus, the lungfish, etc. etc., while other creatures are
alleged to have undergone extensive evolution during this same
period.
So Glenn, I have more corroborative papers stating this same stuff
over and over again from the most renown masters of any of field
of science you'd like to pick.
So -- let's dispense once and for all with your silly argument that we
have this *mountain of evidence*. We clearly DO have some
evidence, but the only thing we have a mountain of is imagination.
Even if you
continue to disagree with that, I can make a most persuasive case
that we at least need to step back and say we simply cannot explain
MOST of the evolutionary activity to which you refer. This is all
from people who know their stuff far better than you or I ever will.
Ok? 'nuff said? (Say Uncle now or I WILL press this issue until
I make your so-called *mountain of evidence* look like the molehill
it really is... ). There IS no MOUNTAIN Glenn -- only in your
dreams!
This notion that the *scientific evidence* you proclaim is somehow
beyond question troubles me. Broad and Wade have noted that *the
human mind has a well-known capacity for retaining political or
religious beliefs well beyond the point at which reason suggests
they should be modified or abandoned. The claim of science is
that it differs fundamentally from other belief systems in that it
rests demonstrably upon reason alone. But the claim must be
modified in light of what historians have to say about scientists'
resistance to scientific ideas and their penchant for seeing the
world through the prism of their own theories*
They go on to note that *rhetoric, propaganda, appeal to authority,
and all the usual arts of human persuasion are also influential in
winning acceptance for a scientific theory* (Broad and Wade
in Betrayers of the Truth, Simon & Schuster, 140 (1982).
There is an emotional commitment among scientists which, in
my view, disqualifies them to render the final word in what they
bring to the table. Too many of them see (as all humans do)
what they want to see. As Phil said in his book Darwin on Trial,
*Descriptions of fossils from people who yearn to cradle their
ancestors in their hands ought to be scrutinized as carefully as
a letter of recommendation from a job applicant's mother* (p. 81)
and *only an audit performed by persons not committed in
advance to the hypothesis under investigation can tell us whether
the evidence has any value as confirmation* (p. 83)
Incredibly, though there is a significant amount of commentary
which calls evolutionary proposals into question, they seem to
get swept under the rug or discounted as minor abberations to
an otherwise perfectly acceptable body of evidence.
Sorry Glenn, that's not the way it really is. You can't read the
stuff I've read and come away with that notion. I've read
THOUSANDS of books and articles on most aspects of
evolutionary theory. I see how the idea is promoted.
Speculation is king, and evolution is the picture all the
pieces are being made to bend to, even if and when they
don't fit. I'm quite capable of pointing this out, and a
good number of people see what I see. Your suggestion
that we all make everything bend to an evolutionary
tune is not required, as stated from the mouths of leading
evolutionists. So please, spare us from your pronouncements
that those of us who don't adopt your perspective are warping
our kids. For many of us, it's clearly the other way around.
3) The activities of fossil man. Well -- looks like I need to do some
more homework here, but I'll throw this one out to the group. Russel
Wallace, one of the founding fathers of evolution, stated that *Natural
selection could only have endowed savage man with a brain a few degrees
superior to that of an ape, whereas he actually possesses one very little
inferior to that of a philosopher" (Natural Selection and Tropical Nature,
London: MacMillan, 1895, pg. 202). Basically, what this means is,
we still have to find something to fill that BIG gap between the alleged
proto-humans and those humans who are closer to being a philosopher
than they are to being an ape. Here we are fully 100 years after
Wallace uttered these words...and we're no closer.
The evolution of man has also not been established. We have Apes
and we have men (See Solly Zuckerman's IVORY TOWER). And
then we have the theories advanced by those who are locked into a
race to find the most important missing link for humans. Though
many have urged caution, it goes in one ear and out the other for
those who are already convinced that we are really only in a search
to confirm what we already know.
Talk about dangerous minds.
One more time, Mr. Phil Johnson: *The fossils provide much more
discouragement than support for Darwinism when they are examined
objectively, but objective examination has rarely been the object of
Darwinist paleontology. The Darwinist approach has consistently
been to find some supporting fossil evidence, claim it as proof for
*evolution,* and then ignore the difficulties.* (p. 84)
Amen.
4) As for transitional forms and paleontology. Again, just start with
Barbara Stahl. You can't read her book and come away with any
sense that there is this *mountain of evidence* Glenn refers to.
Not even.
We can go on forever from there....
*...one cannot use the paleontological record with certainty to establish
genealogical relationships....* (Oldroyd, Charles Darwin's Theory of
Evolution: A review of our Present Understanding, 1 Biology and
Philosophy 133, 154 (1986)).
*The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as
the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn
our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches;
the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of
fossils* -- SJ Gould, Evolution's Erratic Pace, Natural History,
May 1977, p. 13.
*The known fossil record fails to document a single example of
phyletic evolution accomplishing a major morphologic transition
and hence offers no evidence that the gradualistic model can be
valid* -- S. Stanley, Macroevolution, 39 (1979)
*Fossils may tell us many things, but one thing they can never
disclose is whether they were the ancestors of anything else*
(Colin Patterson, Evolution, 133 (1978)).
Hey Glenn -- if you want more, I have more, right here in my
office. I can write this stuff down all day long. Do I need to?
I don't think so, but if you insist...
The so called *evidence* of evolution from paleontology is
not even close to the mountain Glenn alleges. Let's get this
one put to bed as well.
I need to stop now. But believe me, I could produce countless
examples refuting your claims for point number 5 as well.
I would need to dig a bit deeper for point number 6. Anyone
else care to chime in?
regards,
Kevin
========================
Kevin Wirth
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