Captivity?

Like I said, I never heard a Creationist's view of something like this, so I'm glad I have now. It still doesn't change my mind, because even if something would come along to disprove evolution in an unbiased way (which it hasn't), the simple fact remains that no one can prove Creation either...

You're right; there is no way to prove beyond a doubt that there is a creator. It truly does boil down to belief and seeing the miracle of life, and I have to say, a truly complex and unbelievably magnificent working thing life is. But saying life comes from strictly evolution also has to go on faith because there is no hard, tangible proof of that either. So, it is up to each of us to choose what we believe. And that is just another of the magnificent facets of life, our ability to consciously choose.

Ain't life GRAND!!

Originally Posted by TrpnBils

I could ask you the same thing about why you don't believe in evolution... but I won't, because I'm not asking you to believe in it. If there's no physical proof of either argument, then neither of us should have to believe the other point of view...

But there is physical proof for creationist theory. I have consistently backed up my arguments with documented facts, not supposition. You have yet to provide a single referenced fact that validates any part of evolution. The biblical flood is contained in the geological record. The cities of early man are known and documented. History is history; it has been researched, it has been proven, it has been documented. The historical record contains zero, zilch, nada evidence that supports evolutionist theory. You are faced with the same dilemma that has plagued evolutionists since Darwin came forward: "Because I think it's possible" just isn't enough to pass the smell test. If you intend to persuade, you must have data that supports you.

Originally Posted by TrpnBils

Edit: and the source should matter because math is math, science is science, but it doesn't mean a damn thing if it's not all presented in an unbiased way.

Can you refute anything that I have presented in this thread? Do you have the data sets that disspell a single sentence? Just because ya don't like it, doesn't make my case go away.

Again I submit to you that creation theory is revalidated at every birth.

Is the creationist theory valid without explaination of the creator?

I don't see how one can be accepted without the other.

Again, notice, I am not advocating evolution. I am looking for an explaination of a creator.

P.S.

The historical record contains zero, zilch, nada evidence that supports evolutionist theory.

Written human history only involves the time we've inhabited the earth.

I'm sorry but we've only been on this planet for a minute amount of the time is has been in existence. (I have no proof of that by the way!)

But, where do the fossil specimens of creatures unknown to man at anytime in "documented history" fit in?

Originally Posted by CAV

But there is physical proof for creationist theory. I have consistently backed up my arguments with documented facts, not supposition.

Where? The only physical proof I've seen you provide was the stuff about carbon and radiometric dating, but that doesn't prove Creation. I don't have physical data to back up my claims, and I freely admit that, but I don't feel that you have any physical data either. Nobody can prove evolution, and nobody can prove Creation. I'm not talking about creation with a small "c"...the kind of creation that is seen every time something gives birth. A new life is created, and that's irrefutable. I'm talking about Creation with a big "C". Creation of life itself in the very beginning with (apparently) 6000 years of unchanging species without the help of evolution. It's already been said - belief in Creation requires faith, and belief in evolution requires faith.

Edit: Also, you mentioned the Biblical flood and how it's preserved in the geologic record. I believe that, and find it quite interesting. In fact, last I heard, somebody thought maybe they found the remains of the ark itself...very cool. I'd like to see that happen. My question is this: A few posts back, you showed the inaccuracies of radiometric dating. Given these flaws, how can you prove that the flood preserved in the geologic record is the right age to correspond with the Biblical flood?

Originally Posted by CAV

Just because ya don't like it, doesn't make my case go away.

I'm not trying to make your case go away, just as I'm sure you're not asking me to give up my beliefs based on what you're telling me. Life would be boring if we all agreed on everything...

Originally Posted by gardenmum

You're right; there is no way to prove beyond a doubt that there is a creator. It truly does boil down to belief and seeing the miracle of life, and I have to say, a truly complex and unbelievably magnificent working thing life is. But saying life comes from strictly evolution also has to go on faith because there is no hard, tangible proof of that either. So, it is up to each of us to choose what we believe. And that is just another of the magnificent facets of life, our ability to consciously choose.

Ain't life GRAND!!

Right on

Originally Posted by TrpnBils

Where? The only physical proof I've seen you provide was the stuff about carbon and radiometric dating, but that doesn't prove Creation. I don't have physical data to back up my claims, and I freely admit that, but I don't feel that you have any physical data either.

Explaining the origin of life is a big problem for evolution theory. It states that life resulted from non-life, matter resulted from nothing, and humans resulted from animals, each of these is an impossibility of science and the natural world. Which theory is supported better by the data? Creation overcomes the immense problem of creating life from dead chemicals by any natural process, and the clearly defined fossil record.

The overpowering problem for evolutionists is the absence of transitional forms in the fossil record. I am referring to transitional forms of life. There are no such organisms found today or in the past. If evolution had occurred, the fossil record would show continuum of change. Common sense would dictate the fossils should easily show change as species were evolving. But guess what, no continuum! Fossils indicate clearly defined gaps, with no transitional forms. This is consistent with a Creation theory.
1) The rocks show highly complex creatures like trilobites, worms, and jellyfish, none of which have transition precursors.
2) Insects are fully developed without ancestors; prehistoric cockroaches are just like the cockroaches of today.
3) Transitional vertebrates are absent even though the transition supposedly took millions of years.
4) Mammals simultaneously appear in the fossil record. (No transition)
5) Monkeys, apes and man appear fully formed in the fossil record.

Evolution theory requires transitional forms to retain validity. Since Darwin's time there has been a hundred-fold increase in fossils found. There are fewer transitional forms of life than there are minor divisions.

How much more physical evidence do you want???

It states that life resulted from non-life, matter resulted from nothin

And in creationism, it appears from where?

Aww man, I just can't keep out of this one.

Anyway, if evolution was true, how the heck did hummingbirds evolve? There are absolutely no possible intermediary stages where any part of their design, from their metabolism, to their wings and skeletal structure, could exist without the sum of their current parts. They also could not exist if certain types of plants did not have particular shapes of flowers for them to get food from. True, within hummingbirds there are variations in color and bill shape, but there are no "pseudo hummingbirds" in the world, nor is there any evidence there ever was. Hummingbirds are carefully designed creatures, made to fit into a carefully designed niche.

Also, if birds are evolved dinosaurs, why do the bird-like velociraptor biped groups have lizard hips, whereas the stumpy elephant-like stegosaurs and brachiosaurs are the ones with bird hips? Did the entire hip structure of this entire group of bird-like dinosaurs randomly evolve to be bird-like? Why? There is no evidence of it ever happening.

And who's to say that some of these hominid fossils we find aren't actually human beings? There are cro-magnons alive today, I've met them and they are very nice people. I consider them to be just as human as anybody officially classified as homo sapiens. Same thing with neanderthols. Fossil evidence shows that they lived among and bred with modern humans and cro-magnons. Fits the species description huh? Humans come in such a huge variety of shapes, sizes, and colors. Just look at the hottentot tribe in Africa vs. the vikings. Polar opposites. If they had been fossils evolutionists would point to them and say "look! two species evolved from the same common ancestor!" However they may have adapted, both groups are still humand and are very capable of interbreeding.

Locally I used to be involved in Wolf Haven, where they had one of the only packs of Red Wolves in the country. There was a huge debate raging about whether or not red wolves were a real species, or just hybrids between grey wolves and coyotes. Well, genetic testing has shown that red wolves are the original race, and that grey wolves and coyotes are actually descended from them. Some evolutionists cheered, saying it was proof of evolution at work.... However, they also found that red wolves and grey wolves regularly interbred, and that red wolves and coyotes regularly interbred. Because of cultural differences, coyotes and grey wolves rarely interbred, but the red wolf coyote hybrids interbred with grey wolves, and the grey and red wolf hybrids bred with coyotes. The researchers who did the study suggested that they all be reclassified as one species.


I'm a biology major, and I believe in creationism. While there isn't a lot of evidence for creationism specifically, there is a lot out there for "intelligent design". If anyone needs real scientific proof geologically about the age of the Earth there is a fantastic book out there called "Creation's Tiny Mystery". It is about the radioactive halo's present in all of the oldest precambrian granite the Earth's foundation rock is composed of. I highly reccommend it.

Also, if anyone wants references to articles about what I am talking about I will happily give them to you.
Cheers!

Originally Posted by CAV

Explaining the origin of life is a big problem for evolution theory. It states that life resulted from non-life, matter resulted from nothing, and humans resulted from animals, each of these is an impossibility of science and the natural world. Which theory is supported better by the data? Creation overcomes the immense problem of creating life from dead chemicals by any natural process, and the clearly defined fossil record.

Evolution does not state the life came from non-life. People who don't believe in evolution state that to try to make it seem like proof. Evolution deals with changes in life over time, which is something that nobody can deny happens. Things change. Creation does not overcome the "immense problem of creating life from dead chemicals." Where did life come from as far as the Creationists are concerned? It just popped up from a different source, right?

Originally Posted by CAV

The overpowering problem for evolutionists is the absence of transitional forms in the fossil record. I am referring to transitional forms of life. There are no such organisms found today or in the past. If evolution had occurred, the fossil record would show continuum of change.

Your whole argument here is dependent on how you classify these "transitional forms." What I may call a transitional form, you may call a completely different species or vice-versa. And I think that the very idea of transitional forms is a loaded topic in itself. Every time I hear somebody mention this (not just in this discussion, but anywhere over the years), it almost sounds like they're expecting some kind of freakish non-species to be found and the lack of it is proof that evolution doesn't exist. For example, if I were to say that I believe humans evolved from worms, what would an acceptable transitional species be? Would you be looking for something in the fossil record with the body of a worm that had human legs?

Originally Posted by CAV

Common sense would dictate the fossils should easily show change as species were evolving. But guess what, no continuum! Fossils indicate clearly defined gaps, with no transitional forms. This is consistent with a Creation theory

That's good that you agree fossils should show evolution, because they do...but it all depends on what you consider a transitional species.

Originally Posted by CAV

1) The rocks show highly complex creatures like trilobites, worms, and jellyfish, none of which have transition precursors.
2) Insects are fully developed without ancestors; prehistoric cockroaches are just like the cockroaches of today.
3) Transitional vertebrates are absent even though the transition supposedly took millions of years.
4) Mammals simultaneously appear in the fossil record. (No transition)
5) Monkeys, apes and man appear fully formed in the fossil record.

1. According to Creation, jellyfish and worms have been around since the beginning of time, correct? Find me a fossil of a jellyfish. If they exist, then I doubt there are many because soft tissue doesn't fossilize well. If you can't find a fossil of one, I'm not going to tell you that they didn't exist before I saw my first live on at the beach just because you can't find evidence that they existed years ago. The big problem with using fossils to prove stuff like this is that hardly ANYBODY is out there looking for them (to prove either side). We're still finding new species in the fossil record every year, so who knows how much we still have to find.

2. If the body plan works to begin with, why change it? Not everything has to evolve into something new.

3. Again, it depends on how you define a transitional species. And I said before about punctuated equilibrium - a relatively short time of rapid changes followed by an extended period of little change. These transitional species could have easily been part of punctuated equilibrium and very few examples of it exist in the fossil record to begin with. An incredibly small percentage of thing fossilize to begin with, so it's not like every living thing that has ever walked this earth has fossilized and is waiting to be discovered.

4. Your reptile-to-mammal transitions as seen in the fossil record.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comd...ermediates_ex2

5. If you look at the fossils of early humanoids (even as far back as the early primates), you'll see that they don't show up "fully formed." Nobody has suggested that one day Man showed up looking exactly as we do today.

........................

Let me make one thing clear here. No self-respecting scientist would ever suggest that evolution disproves the existance of a Creator in the very beginning. I mentioned Dr. Stanley Miller's experiments in an earlier post, and some people may say that if his experiments were accurate, then it would suggest that life came from "dead chemicals." But where did those chemicals and the ground that they sat on come from? Somebody had to create that, didn't they? Nobody is out to kill religion. And on that note, I've noticed that when I search for stuff like this online, there are a LOT more religious websites trying to invalidate the theory of evolution than there are websites defending evolution. Is this because there is an overwhelming amount of evidence for Creation and not much for evolution? No. It has to do with the fact that religion has been around for a whole lot longer than anybody has even been discussing evolution to begin with. There are roots to religion, so people will be more likely to defend anything that they (falsely) think is trying to question their faith. There are a lot of evolutionary biologists that are also very religious and believe in Creation. It doesn't have to be one or the other.

Also, CAV, I don't know if you saw my edit in my last post. It was a question about the Flood comment you made before. When I tried to submit my reply, my computer crashed and I had to retype that. I rewrote it again but forgot to include that. By the time I realized it, I saw you were already in here typing your reply up, so I'm not sure if you saw that or not.

Originally Posted by Charlie

Do you think that captivity has had an effect on cornsnake?

Yes. We select for different genetic combinations than the wild environment does.

What are anyones thoughts on evolution and how it is effected by captivity? Will corns in captivity evolve or does the captivity inhibit it?

Evolution is a function of two things:

1- Errors/changes in the genetic code result in offspring carrying different genomes than their parents. These changes can be as small as a point mutation (the change of only a single base pair) up to as large as the duplication/deletion/reorganization of an entire chromosome.

2- because of limited resources/space, there is competition. Not all members of the population reproduce, not all reproduce in equal numbers. The consequence of this has been summed up as "survival of the fittest." It's also known as "natural selection" but in captivity it may be better summed up as "human selection."

Some of the changes that happen will be selected for because they are advantageous to the individuals who possess them. As a result, they will be propagated in greater numbers. Things that are disadvantageous will be selected against, and will reduce in frequency or be entirely removed from the gene pool.

Given that captive cornsnakes experience the two above things, they will evolve over time. Given enough time, if they are kept from interbreeding with the wild population, they can most definitely become genetically incompatible with the wild population.

Say you take male A and female A, and create identical genetic clones of them. Call this second pair "population B." Put pop A and B in identical but separate environments so that they cannot interbreed. Different changes will enter each population's gene pool. Over enough time, enough differences will be propagated that the two populations will become "incompatible" with each other, and also incompatible with their common ancestor. They can both share a common ancestor, yet be different species.

I would say that most of the change so far in the captive gene pool has been a result of selection amongst already-existing genes, which would more accurately fit the definition of "adaptation." However, some things which have spontaneously appeared in the captive gene pool have been propagated. If sunkissed occured in Kathy Love's captive pool, or lavender spontaneously appeared in Rich Z's captive pool, then these would be examples of the process of evolution happening within the captive gene pool.

Where is the concrete proof of this? Where are any of the "missing links" to prove that one species changed into another through evolution? What do scientist have to PROVE irrefutably that we came from apes? So, you are saying that all of the thousands of creatures that live now and that had not been alive, well, let's say during the Jurasic age, they evolved from what??? Where is the proof of the lines that take all these diverse forms back to its beginning?

I do not need to personally count to a trillion, or have known anyone who has counted to a trillion, in order to know that the number is real. It is a simple consequence of the way counting works. Likewise, the fact that life will evolve over time is a simple consequence of the above two facts.

Where is the concrete proof of this? Where are any of the "missing links" to prove that one species changed into another through evolution?

Not to be insulting, but this is like saying "if gravity is real then howcome the sun, the moon, and clouds and rainbows don't all fall to the ground?" You will never get a satisfactory answer to this question because it doesn't make sense in the context of reality.